Tag Archives: hamsters

what the ckatten did, also starring Whee Kelly Doll and Hurricane Cobie McFluffybutt

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My morning routine goes pretty much like this: Wake up. Go, OUCH. Whimper. Flex shoulder until the pain subsides enough to sit up. Run, with my thighs pressed together to the bathroom, praying as I step over each dog. (It’s a small bedroom.) Pee for an hour, flexing shoulder some more. Eventually finish peeing. Let Artemis the ckatten out of Zor’s room. Let animals outside. Empty dishwasher. Make (instant) coffee. Give Oliver two drops of milk. Let animals inside. Make sure a kitchen chair is out so Oliver, who is about 13 and no longer a graceful leaper, can get to his milk bowl, which is on the kitchen table so dogs don’t harrass him (or steal his milk). Fill dishwasher with dishes that have accumulated while I slept. Take first round of pills. Insert sublinguals between upper lip and gums. Go to The Keep (office). Feed Tyrion Hammister and make sure his water bottle hasn’t either (a) leaked, or (b) stopped dispensing, or (c) stopped dispensing because all the contents have leaked out. Sit down. Give Artemis the Ckatten special Keep food in her special Keep bowl. Give Cobie and Kelly special Keep treats so Cobie’s jealous ass doesn’t eat the Ckatten. When the throng dissipates, drink cold coffee that tastes like half-dissolved sublingual vitamins.

Ah, but I LOVE cold coffee. I love everything cold these days, and I have no idea why. Since it doesn’t affect anyone but me, who cares? Cold instant generic coffee. I’m having some now. SLURP.

Anyway, today when I arrived at The Keep, Tyrion was awake, so I decided to bite the bullet (and possibly get myself bitten in the process) and clean the little varmint’s cage. Which I accomplished with surprisingly little Hammister screeching–he still hates being picked up, but he doesn’t usually mind being stroked–and no biting.

Mom often speaks of my special needs menagerie. She wonders aloud how I manage to reliably select such neurotic pets. I wonder silently if I make them that way. But I digress.

So today the morning routine was interrupted by the opportunity to clean the ham-cage. I had to usher out Artemis the Ckatten, Cobie, and Kelly, in case of an escape during the transfer process. I still wear a glove for that, because when Tyrion bites, he bites hard, and I figure the less he hurts me the less likely I am to accidentally drop him. He didn’t bite this time, but I didn’t know that was going to happen, right?

So the Big Three were disgruntled by the time I let them in for Keep treats, but yummy noms soon had them back to their usual selves. I gave the Ckatten her usual, I dunno, a quarter handful? A big pinch? Served on the Mac desk in one of the tiny stainless petfood dishes I bought for an art project, the same dishes I use for Oliver’s two drops of milk. And gave Cobie and Kelly kibble one at a time until the Ckatten was done.

But ah, another deviation from the routine–the Ckatten suddenly decided she wanted dog kibble. Except she doesn’t like this kind. And Cobie really really doesn’t want her to have his treats. But I gave her one anyway, just to prove to her she doesn’t like it, because otherwise she’ll be ripping my calendar off the wall, and my homework out of the printer, and the other fun things she does to vent her spleen when she is hissed off at me.

And she tapped it with her paw and knocked it on the floor, where Kelly snarfed it up before you could say “snarf.”

So to keep it even, I gave Cobie one.

Then the Ckatten reached out and ever so gently patted me. So I gave her another one. She knocked it on the floor. Kelly snarfed. I gave Cobie one. Ckatten patted me. I gave her another one…

So apparently the Ckatten didn’t want a dog kibble. She wanted to hand out dog kibble. Maybe she grasps that she who controls the kibble gets to lead the pack.

Maybe I should be worried.

nothing much interesting

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That’s what’s going on here, nothing much interesting…a whole lot of nothing much interesting, which is why I haven’t blogged for a while.

I can’t recall if I said before, but I’ll risk repeating myself. I’m taking four courses in school this quarter, Digital Illustration I, Typography I, Drawing II, and Organizational Behavior. That last one is about human relations and is eating my brain. The first one is eating my life. Drawing is interesting, but I’m so slow! I wonder if I’d be faster if I were younger.

Yesterday I was in the Mac Lab working on the Godzilla Galapagos Guava project. There was a second year class in progress, so I had my earbuds in, but I heard the instructor say, “You all grew up with computers.” He’s about–guessing–ten years younger than I am. I tried to shoot daggers at him with my eyes, but apparently the eyedagger quiver was empty, or else just old and too decrepit to fire. Well that, or he just couldn’t see me all the way in the back row.

Dude. I grew up with three black and white tv channels full of snow, and a bakelite wall phone with a three foot cord. Nary a computer in sight. In fact, they put computers in my high school the year I went to JVS, and they were installing the computers at the JVS as I graduated. And honestly, having come to my smallish quantity of geekery late in life, I don’t consider missing out on those dinosaurs to be all that much of a loss.

Ok, so swamped with school work, and taxi work. I’m going to try to send (my youngest) Zor to driver’s ed next summer, so she can occasionally free me up by transporting herself places. Next year the school goes from quarters to semesters, and I’ll have to take five classes instead of four, so I anticipate everything that’s overwhelming this year to be even more so next.

Next up, hamsters. I had originally kept one hamster, Dmitri. When he died of old age, I let myself be talked into getting two, because dwarf hamsters are allegedly so social. And thus I ended up with ten. Two of the babies didn’t survive, but six did, bringing the total to eight. After much angst, I rehomed four, and kept four. The parents Zandy (male) and Lita (female), and two babies, Algernon and Rocky (both female.) Algernon and Lita co-habitated in the nursery bin, and Rocky and Zandy had their own cages. But Algernon had developed a habit of chasing Lita around the cage, which was bizarre in my opinion, because Zandy got his own cage because Lita was beating him up. (Rocky got her own cage because one of her siblings gave her a bloody nose.) Anyhow, on Saturday I ordered two more Dmitri-style cages from Amazon. And on Wednesday I found Lita dead under the bedding of her cage.

I have no idea why; there were no signs of injury.

On that day there was also an outbreak of excruciating personal drama I don’t feel right sharing (which might tell you something right there, since you may have realized I am the Empress of TMI.) And I received a rejection letter.

I know we’re not supposed to blog about those, but I mention it because, unlike other rejections I have received, this one stung, and I’m not sure why. No one rejection has ever hurt my feelings before. This was a form letter; it even said in the body of the letter, “This is a form letter.” There was nothing hurtful about the phrasing. I’m not sure if the sting came from the fact that this was an agent I particularly hoped to land, or from all the other events of the day, or because it was a camel straw, but it knocked me for an emotional loop. I found myself relieved to bury myself in my drawing class project.

…

So this blog entry has been open on my laptop for three days, and I have no idea how to close it. I finished my drawing project and my exam, but missed the quiz by forgetting what day I was supposed to take it. The new cages arrived, and the rodents are installed therein. There was another minor disaster (by which I mean a loss of time) when two of the new water bottles leaked and both new cages had to be changed again the day after the new residents moved into them. I have two extra cages now, and the inner voice that whispers, “HOARDER!” can just shut up, because I didn’t need cages until I needed cages.

These are the sweetest, mellowest hamsters in the history of hamsters. They are like powder puffs with faces. Pygmy tribbles.

So. My thoughts are distracted and fragmented, and I still haven’t figured out how to end this. I’ll just say, til next time, later, taters.

Yum. Taters.

With a side of commas…

thankful thursday

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I am pooped. I was up half the night playing with the mp3 player Mr Moth bought cheap from a fellow at work. I finally have an mp3 player that can handle audio books.

I’m fairly certain Lita had babies last night. I can’t see them, because she built her nest high, but yesterday she was enormous and today she’s her skinny li’l self. Furthermore, I hear squeaking. Wee tiny squeaking.

I’m changing Zanny’s name to Zandy, which is what I wanted to name her/him in the first place, but Zor insisted that was a boy’s name. Since for Lita to have babies, Zanny has to be a boy…yeah. Zandy. I separated them over a week ago after Lita bit Zanny Zandy and made her him bleed. Haha, I guess I know why now.

A plus on another topic, it’s cool enough to wear long pants today. Which is good, considering that’s what’s clean!

Oh, and it’s my mommy’s birthday. She’s 71. She’s still teaching me things, and there’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thankful for her.