About 7:30 pm, or closer to 5:30 as the number of daylight hours gets smaller, Peanut is ready for Warm Toasties. This means he snuggles into your right hand, you cover him with his blanky, he grinds his beak for awhile, and then he falls asleep. We do this every night, ideally for at least two hours. One Saturday evening in winter, we started early, and stayed up to watch Saturday Night Live, so Peanut got about six hours of warm toasties, but that's unusual.

While my right hand is suitable for warm toasties, if Bruce is available, then his is the preferred hand. Peanut will practically leap into Bruce's hand when it's offered, which is very fun to watch. The size must be a better fit: Bruce actually holds Peanut (gently, of course), and Peanut snuggles in. Sometimes Bruce will turn his hand over, but Peanut doesn't seem to mind being upside-down.

What can you do while your right hand is filled with a small, green bird? Many things:

• Watch TV — isn't this what most Americans do every night? Movies also count.
  
• Read — well-used hardcover books from the library work best, although if you're willing to break the binding on a paperback, you can read those, as well. Magazines work just fine.
  
• Surf the web — I am right-handed, so it's taken some practice to use the mouse with my left hand, but it was worth the work. Typing is slow, but also possible.
  
• Kill people — while playing The Sims, of course. Killing people is one of my favorite games to play. There are other one-handed computer games that also work, but frankly, when there are people to be killed, why do anything else?