This was my crawfish when I was a kid.

This was my crawfish when I was a kid.  He would come out because he needed hugs.  Clearly.

hitting hard times :(

So I've done the unthinkable: re-homed a few of my pets. The last ferret I took in has gone to stay with my step-sister. He seems happier there. He lived alone before he came to me and I don't think living with Static and Stella was his cup of tea. So now he has free run of the house quite often and it seems to be working out for everyone. Honey and Milkshake now live with a dear friend. I just never got as attached to them as I did Hairy and Minuit. I think it was too soon... I was trying to help Minuit out by getting her a housemate, but then she died leaving the new rat alone so I ended up buying a newer rat to keep the new rat company. If I'd known Minuit was gonna die anyway I wouldn't have bought the first one to begin with. So that was just a thing I did that didn't work out as I'd hoped...

Anyway, I also sent my gliders to live elsewhere. There was some weirdness going on with them that I could just no longer deal with. A rat, a mouse, the last hermit crab, and the hamster have died. The last time I tried to post a memorial PhotoBucket was being a dick and I never came back to it. I guess I have some catching up to do.

I still have more of a houseful than I need, but I have a hard time parting ways with my kids. Speaking of fur kids something is wrong with Scooter and I hope, Hope, HOPE it works itself out SOON because I certainly do not have the money to take him to the vet. He's had diarrhea and been vomiting for like a week and I've done everything I know of to fix him. I haven't switched foods on him, I've given him dewormer (just in case), I've made sure there's nothing un-foody around that he could be getting into. I just don't know what else could be going on. I treated them all for fleas with CHEMICALS! - which I'm normally opposed to doing, but nothing else is working. The fleas are MONSTEROUS this year. 😟 I wonder if that could have jacked him up.

Speaking of diarrhea - Scooter's just been going where ever he goes. For the most part he's done pretty well considering that there's no one home to let him out mid-day anymore, but now that he's sick all bets are off. And he likes to do his business in the big room where the floor is concrete or cement or whatever. Which you know - is porous. It's like trying to mop up wet poo from a sidewalk or something - it just doesn't work. So my house smells like sickly shit right now and it pretty much grosses me out. I actually feel a little nauseated because of it. But I have not found a way to get it completely up - most of what I do seems to just... rub it in. Mayhaps that's something I can work on in a bit. Suggestions?

Death takes two around here.

This morning when I was feeding all my babies breakfast I found one of our hermit crabs dead. I also noticed Sam (one of our gerbils) acting a little weird. He looked normal; he just wasn't acting right. Well, gerbils have lots of little weird mannerisms and stuff, so I didn't think much of it. Alas, when I came home today with an upstairs in tow to make their little gerbil apartment into two stories, Mr. Sam was dead.

I'm not sure what happened, but there was blood smeared on the glass in several places. Oh no... He was buried under the wheel this morning and I picked it up off him. What if he was hiding?? What if he knew the other gerbils were up to something and was hiding out?? ... ... Fuck... I feel sick. Well, here's Mr. Sam's little memorial. I will miss you, pretty boy.

[Edit, 02/06/2007]: When I wrote this last night, I was pretty upset. For what it's worth I'm not blaming my other gerbils... those guys had been living together for months without problems so I don't think they hurt him. But they do chew corpses, which makes things look bad when all is said and done. Anyway, I guess that's it. Just wanted to clarify things a little now that I'm more calm.

grumblecakes

So I'm just sitting here typing away and listening to Scooter rip up paper in my bedroom floor. I have a bag of paper I'm just gonna recycle anyway and so when he's in here with me and bored he shreds it all up for me (in quite a ferocious manner). He does his job well - he makes it a point to tear it into teeny tiny little pieces. 😂 ... He's such a good boy. On his break time he stops to chew the tags on his collar. Just stop for a moment and imagine how stupid that looks. Truly - he makes it look more dumber. Not to mention he seems to be able to chase his tail indefinitely. That thing is always following him. *shrugs* Go figure.

So yesterday when I got up I realized that one of the hermit crabs was missing. One of the large ones. Me and Nick searched and searched for him before we had to go to work, but could not find him. We looked for him later that afternoon, too, to no avail. This morning when I got up to make my rounds taking care of all my sweet-sweets I decided to glance over the floor just in case. Well, there he sat. Guess where. You'll never guess. He was under the Christmas tree of all places. I guess it's about time someone around here besides Shadow gets into the Christmas spirit. 😁

Well, this blog is pretty pointless I guess. I'm only writing to relieve some stress, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty stressed out. I'm broke-ass which is no good considering Christmas is upon us. Not that I really ever go out of my way to do anything other than get Shadow presents from me, (and Santa, of course), but I'm just saying. I do have money put back for two pretty important things and I'd be doing good if I could (in good conscious) let myself use it, but I can't. 😕 I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be in this situation if work would stop shutting down for a week at a time, but hey, on the flip side I really enjoy my time off.

On top of that we DESPERATELY need a fence around our yard. That wouldn't really be a problem if my income tax money wasn't already spent, but unfortunately it is. But about the fence... did I mention we need one BAD? There are some un-used railroad tracks behind my house which are being converted into a walking trail (as if enough people don't walk down them already). Anyway, when people walk down these tracks they usually just walk all through my yard as a shortcut to wherever they happen to be going (whether we're outside or not). It sucks. I don't like the idea of letting Shadow out to play with strangers helping themselves to my yard... that just doesn't seem safe.

Also, I need to let Scooty out to play sometimes... he just has so much energy, but we live so close to the road that I don't feel safe letting him off his leash out there. AND... people are just helping themselves to my yard work and pecans... that's just not cool. I know it's obvious someone lives here. ... I got an estimate on a fence today... the guy told me $5000.00. I'm going to see if I can get a lower estimate from somewhere else, but I dunno how all this works, really. Either way I don't have that kind of money now nor do I see it happening in the near future. Maybe I should just ask Santa to bring me a fence. I've been good this year. 😟

Anyhoo, yeah, so there's more stressing me out. I found this thing that I really, REALLY want to do, but I don't know if I can. I want to go back to school... but I'm afraid the program I want to get into won't accept me. I have no idea when I'll find out, either. I've considered going into this on and off for years and have just now got the balls to go for it. I really hope I don't fall flat on my face. I would be so sad and not for my face. 😕 Oh, and did I mention we have no heat in the car? Yay for shit because it happens.

Well, I suppose that is all for this time. Until later...

(^_^)

Jumping right in... not this past weekend, but the one before it we got a bearded dragon and a guinea pig. The bearded dragon came from one of my dad's friends who could no longer take care of it.  Dad's a carpenter and offered to build him a nice cage if I took him in. And the guinea pig... well, I just wanted it. BAD. 😁

The bearded dragon is not even a foot long so it's not full-grown yet, though it's not still a baby. It hasn't been handled much so it hisses and flares up when you get too close to it. It will tolerate being hand fed vegetables so we could probably get it used to us touching it if we wanted to, but mostly I prefer to just look at it. It's very pretty, I think. 😊 It's got a yellow tint on it's face and I've never seen another like that. Shadow calls it Neo and that's ok with me.

The guinea pig, however, is my baby and I named him Niq (pronounced "neek"). I chose that because shortly after I got him home I noticed something weird about his foot. At first I thought he had a broken toe because it was just hanging there, but upon closer inspection he has an extra toe - which makes him uNIQue. (Yes, I'm a dork; I don't care - I thought it was cute.) 😂 Anyway, I love my little creature... when I hold him he makes little noises, and he licks me, and he's just so sweet! 😍 He's still a baby for sure. He's not much bigger than the ones from the fresh litter we saw at GJ's.

Ok, well in case you haven't been keeping up here's all the pets we have now:

4 hermit crabs (1 died)
1 scorpion
1 cobalt tarantula
1 parakeet (Lily)
1 puppy (Scooter)
1 guinea pig (Niq)
1 bearded dragon (Neo)
2 veiled chameleons (Tiny Alice & Little Clyde)
2 sugar gliders (Yorda & Ico)
2 gerbils (Toad & Testiclees)
2 hedgehogs (PigPig & Octavious... but we're only babysitting Octavious)

So yeah... we have a house full. I might get Shadow a guinea pig (I read they do better in pairs), but that won't be a big deal since it can just live with mine. And we'll probably stop buying creatures after that. I dunno... a short-tailed opossum is on our wish list, but we're not in a hurry to get one. *shrugs*

Anyhoo... when I get back home this afternoon I'll add some pics of our newest additions to this blog. Then I'll put up a bulletin so that those of you who care won't have to keep checking back. Ok, laters!

Ch-ch-changes! ... Melissa gave me crabs.

Yeah, a few things happened this past weekend that I haven't posted about. First of all we got six new pets. Yes, 6; in the same weekend, even. (It's not as crazy as it sounds... I'll explain in a moment). The other change is my mood... and I think it has a lot to do with one pet in particular. Another change would be in my perspective; also because of this one li'l fella. So now to explain what I'm talking about...

A friend of mine from way back in the day wrote me and asked if I wanted some hermit crabs... Nick and Shadow had both been hinting that they wanted some hermit crabs for a while now so I was like, "What the hell. Yeah." I had some hermit crabs back in the day and they were pretty cool. So my friend Missy gave me two hermit crabs on Saturday.

Later that day Brooke from Critters (the bestest store ever, btw), called me up. She said that a lady (Janie) had a puppy in the store that she wanted to give away to a good home - Janie's husband had found him under a bus at work earlier that week and they couldn't keep him. Brooke told me that the little guy was pretty much housebroken and really sweet and that she would like for us to come and look at him. So we did.

On the way to the store, though, we were discussing how we didn't really want a dog inside the house and how we didn't want one outside since we don't have a fence yet (our house is pretty close to the road)... so it didn't really seem like the best idea to go looking at a puppy just yet. But, we figured what was the harm?

So we got to Critters, I met Janie, and she was holding the sweetest-looking little ball of fur. She said that they had been calling him Scooter and that he was really no trouble - he's mostly trained and doesn't get into anything. He was a pretty laid-back kind of guy it seemed. Do I even have to say it? I wanted him. So I asked Nick what he thought and he said he liked him, too. He was all, "I guess he could stay inside until we get a fence" and I agreed. I was so relieved - I was worried that one of us would want him and that the other wouldn't. That would've sucked.

Well anyway we didn't take him home Saturday... we wanted to think it over and make sure that we could accommodate him. I got Janie's number and told her I'd call. Before I go any further Shadow has been begging, (pitifully, I might add) for a puppy. He's wanted one that could stay in the house and be his friend. We were pretty much opposed to that since we didn't want one in the house. We'd discussed getting a big dog that would keep people out of the yard once we had a fence, so this was kind of sudden and really unexpected. But the more I thought about it the more I kept thinking that that little sweetie was perfect for Shadow. Come to find out Brooke had the same feeling - that's why she called! Her calling, btw, made me feel really nice. I liked that she was looking out for us and I felt really happy knowing that she must really believe we take good care of our pets. That made my day.

... So I call Janie on Sunday and ask her to meet me back at Critters with Scooter. We took Shadow because we had planned to each pick out another hermit crab to go in the tank with the other ones... but we didn't tell him that he might get a puppy, too. I just wanted to let him meet Scooter and see what he thought first. He seemed to like him so I explained that he needed someone to take care of him and if he promised to do it then we could take him home and let him stay in the house (at least for now). He looked SOOO happy. He just started grinning from ear to ear. So then I let Shadow pick out some of the things we needed for him.

Anyhoo, so far things are going well. Shadow loves Scooter and it's really nice for him to have someone to play with. Scooter has really turned out to be well-mannered and not much trouble at all. Now that he's made himself at home he tries to chew a lot of things, but usually a stern "No!" is enough to make him stop. (Hey, I think that's pretty good considering he's probably teething). He's only peed in the floor twice and I blame myself for those two times. I just needed to get in the swing of taking him out to do that. He doesn't bark (unless he passes by a mirror) or cry so he's not a bother to have around.

Other than that we don't really know too much about him. We don't know what breed he is or his age, exactly. Brooke guessed that he was about 8 weeks old and that maybe he has some basset hound or something like that in him because he is long-ish and has short legs. He also looks like he may have some chow in him because he has purple on his tongue and poofy-looking fur (it's really super-soft, though). Also his face reminded Brooke of a german Shepard... so in essence we don't know anything for sure. All we do know is that he's part of the family now. Don't worry, though... I'll put up a picture soon and you all can try to help me figure him out.

... In summation:

3 crabs (one each for me, Nick, and Shadow)
+2 crabs (from Missy)
+1 Scooter
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6 pets this past weekend and a lot of happy for Blu. 😁

Until next time...