Jon Stewart's recent attack of CNBC's Jim Cramer

Newest news of the Nibble

Niblet is doing well two days after his surgery. The cage confinement didn't last too long, however; I got home yesterday and found his greens (and the strawberry) untouched and some massive disapproval in evidence on Nib's face. I was worried--when a bunny won't eat, you know the end is near.

So I let him out and he back-feet-flipped me off and hid under the couch. I ended up moving his greens and stuff near the couch and he ate them right away. He even finally ate the pain-med-suffused strawberry, but not until sometime after 1 a.m. I still haven't seen him drinking anything, however, and that worries me.

This morning he was lively and did his usual morning ablutions (litty, nibble on hay, litty, nidge my head to wake me up, litty, litty, disapproving looks, litty). I chased him for some 20 minutes before finally giving up on dosing him directly; I squirted the pain med and antibiotics into some pellets, left him a big pile of greens, and said "All this better be gone when I get home from work!"

No response from under the couch.
I'll give him one thing: he's stubborn like his mama.

Last night, a friend came over and we went for a walk in the cold night air. We cruised through downtown Bellefonte (like New York, only ... NOT) and found some pretty scary window-shopping:

Great Horned Great Eyed Great Nightmare Owl?

There were also some really creepy dolls, but it was too dark to capture their images. That, or the camera simply couldn't capture their spectral presences.

Once again, Niblet and I thank you so much for all your good wishes, and I'll keep you posted. At this point, I'm hoping that when we go to get his stitches removed on Thursday, Dr. Scholz will say that the infection hasn't worsened (no more pus has developed). She mentioned something about a draining mechanism to keep it all at bay, but honestly--I was a little in shock while she was talking about the future, so I'm not sure what the future holds. All I know is that we're taking it one day at time, one dosing at a time, and we're hoping for the best. I'm just not ready to lose my little love. (Will I ever be ready?)
Going birding tomorrow morning, I think--I've been obsessively thumbing through my Eastern birds guide trying to figure out the best places to get these birds before I leave for the West. I'm wondering whether a trip to Cape May is possible, so that I can get some more terns and gulls and stuff. Maybe another mad-dash day trip, but without the getting lost parts? Laura, what do you think?

Meanwhile, I'll just have to content myself with local birding. And if it kills me, I'm gonna see an American woodcock, dangit, not just hear it!

Keep Hope Alive

Are we seeing a glimmer of hope as this week comes to and end?

Investors could get used to this whole “optimism” thing.

For a third day, stock markets climbed higher on Thursday as Wall Street seized on some less-than-dire glimmers from the banking system, retail sales, the auto industry and the General Electric Company. In the last hour of trading, financial markets were about 3 percent higher after rising steadily all day.

Financial companies and major banks led the way, but traders said they were cheered by the breadth of the upward move. Every sector was higher, from technology companies to car companies to retailers.

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was 239.66 points or 3.4 percent higher, at 7,170.06 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 4 percent or 29.38 points, to 750.74. The Nasdaq was 3.97 percent or 54.46 points higher, at 1,426.10.

And General Motors says it won't need additional cash in March.

General Motors, which has borrowed $13.4 billion from the federal government since December to keep itself out of bankruptcy, said on Thursday that it had withdrawn a request for an additional $2 billion that it thought was needed to stay alive through the end of this month.

G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, issued a statement saying that it had told President Obama’s auto industry task force, which is reviewing the restructuring plan that the company submitted last month, that its March financing request “would not be needed at this time” because it is making more progress than expected in reducing costs.

The statement did not specify whether G.M. still expected to need the full $30 billion that it had requested.

“This development reflects the acceleration of G.M.’s companywide cost reduction efforts as well as proactive deferrals of spending previously anticipated in January and February,” the statement said. “G.M. will remain in regular contact with the presidential task force on the auto industry on the status of G.M.’s restructuring actions, its liquidity position, timing of future funding requests, and other relevant topics of mutual concern.”

Let's hope this is a trend of things to come.