A visit with Critter

We had a visitor come and stay with us for a short while. He's a cute little thing that has been making the rounds all over the blogosphere. He's been as far away as Korea and even made the rounds at the SCBWI LA Conference. His name is Critter and this is him being a little shy.

Critter is the creation of the talented artist Ian Sands and he came to visit the Oh residency courtesy of the lovely Christy Evers. She is sending him all over the real world to visit children's writers. At the end of his travels, Christy is going to auction Critter off and donate the proceeds to charity.

Critter came to visit at a whirlwind time for us. As much as we talked about going down to the monuments and seeing the Washington scene, we could never find the time to do it. Instead, Critter went to school with us. Here he is at George Mason University with Angus and Youngest.

The girls enjoyed showing Critter around the campus. They wanted to take him to class with me but I refused. I didn't know who would be more disruptive, the girls or Critter. He's a sassy little thing. He was egging the girls on, telling them that constant begging and whining would be the best way to get me to buy them a new puppy. And I'm pretty sure he put hot sauce in my diet coke. It was either Critter or Angus...

Fortunately for Critter, he made a new friend. This is Zombie Buddy. He was spending some time at the Oh residence waiting to be sent over to his new master, Zombie Mike.

They became the best of friends and many tears were shed when I had to part the two new best friends and send them off in different directions. Critter to Canada and Zombie Buddy to California. It was just as well as the two were being quite disruptive, talking into the wee hours of the night, eating junk food, watching loud reality shows, and playing lots of practical jokes. One of the jokers put garlic powder on my chapstick. Very not funny...

It was a short but fun trip with Critter and we at the Oh household wish him well on the last leg of his journey. We hope he raises a lot of money for St. Jude's hospital and finally ends up in a warm and caring home all his own.