The Secret to Hedgehog Longevity

I didn’t mention this in my last post, but on Wednesday evening before the luau at the Boathouse, I went to an Early Music event on campus. The theme for the Early Music Festival this year is the music of Don Quixote, so the food at the event was Spanish (e.g., tapas, flan), and the music was Spanish madrigals sung by a quartet. I sat alone at a table but was soon joined by two women I had never met before, and we had a good conversation. Both of them had recently moved to Madison, one to be near family and the other because she researched where she wanted to move after retirement. She said Boulder and Albuquerque were among her other choices, but she also chose Madison due to family proximity.

Last night I met a previous coworker for coffee, then Travalon and I went to the bar in Festival Foods for their Founders tap takeover. This is part of Craft Beer Week, of course, and so we asked for a stamp for the passport. It took some hunting, but they found it. The bartender was very friendly, and he mentioned that he knew someone who has owned ten hedgehogs. It does seem like the people I know who are into hedgehogs go through them at an alarming rate, while I mostly just coexisted with the one I had inherited, and she lived for many years. Seriously, someone told me you are supposed to weigh your hedgehog every day to make sure it isn’t losing weight, but Sylvia always seemed fat enough to me, and I’m sure she appreciated that I only handled her a couple of times a month. Also, I let her wander around the condo while these people always keep their hedgehogs in cages. It would seem that the secret to hedgehog longevity is to mostly ignore the creature and let it wander around freely. After all, if you were a hedgehog, wouldn’t you prefer that to being poked at and prodded daily and then being stuck back into a cage?

Famous Hat