Hamsters
And so we celebrate the purchase of a new camera with a photo of Hazelnut, the Worst Pet on Earth*. I’m back baby!
*pees on bed, pees on floor, pees on couch, sleeps 22.5 hours a day, bites, hates the food we give her. Bitch.
I’m very sad to report that dear sweet Winnie has taken The Long Walk. Losing a hamster may not feel comparable to losing a dog or a family member but, in my opinion, it’s as bad as losing your camera on vacation or getting your car dinged in a parking lot and some people act like that’s the end of the world.
Anyway there’s not much more to say. We miss her.
My boyfriend took this photo with his cell phone. WHERE ARE OUR HOVERBOARDS, FUTURE!?
postscript: Given that Winnie was adopted into a family with an english basement apartment, she’s not accustomed to bright sunlight. She’s been in a permanent state of agitation for the last four months but at least she’s no longer confused about the time of day/night.
Also treadmills are the worst.
This pretty much mirrors the experience of running in my gym, where the treadmills are stacked on top of each other.
Tagged under: obnoxious running talk, still talking about running, hamsters, still talking about hamsters
Blech it’s Friday, I’ve been working too hard at work, running too much that I think I might be injured, it’s freezing cold and I got a terrible night’s sleep last night. Terrible week, AMIRITE?! Let’s just skip right ahead to 6pm already.
The heat is destroying my psychological state. It’s completely depressing me, the way people get in winter when they don’t get enough sunlight and vitamin D. More accurately, this excessive, never ending heat makes me anxious. Like getting-the-fits anxious, as in they turned off my water for maintenance the other night around 10pm and it set off a panic attack. WTF were we going to do? I had visions of total anarchy: water going on the black market for $100 a bottle, temperatures soaring up to 120 where people get cooked alive if they go outside, zombie-like mobs trying to pry open the bars of my well-barricaded and cool apartment, not that it mattered since I forgot to fill up my Brita before the water went out and NOW WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE. I didn’t even have enough wine to last another two days.
What’s worse, I haven’t felt like exercising, which means I’m not getting my regular shots of endorphin. Once I’m in the house after work I’m in for the night, spending my evenings reading and watching Netflix instant streaming and taking photos of my hamster. The only thing that lures me outside is the great produce that’s coming into season at the farmers markets. So since I always end up with more produce than a person who lives alone would ever need, Winnie always benefits and the camera gets a workout too. Although I was afraid to upload all the photos to my computer since it might make my computer heat up and lead to a butterfly effect of a 110° temperature spike.
Once I pronounced the hamster pregnant we waited in anticipation for her to get bigger as confirmation that we could take her back to the store for a less pregnant pet. And as time went on evidence quickly mounted that I have no idea what I’m talking about. So hamster gestation is 16 days and I’ve now owned her for 14 days. While she remains fat, she doesn’t have the extremely large belly girth that’s characteristic of truly pregnant hamsters. I suppose there’s still a chance but my guess is it’s pretty slim, unlike the hamster. (Let’s not even entertain the idea that a rare hamster pregnancy phenomenon occurred, one I won’t describe in detail here but which one resource described with the phrase “absorbed back into the bloodstream.”)
In addition to being a fatty, she’s incredibly skittish and, unfortunately, kinda mean as a result. She does bite somewhat, hasn’t drawn blood although she did hiss at my dad over the weekend. Basically she thinks we’re all either birds of prey or snakes. And now that she’s grown up it’s problematic since she can jump out of anything except her cage so I have no safe way for her to get used to me holding her without risking escape. Which has already happened. Fat bitch.
Well at least she’s still adorable to look at. Either way, with creatures of small brain weight it’s only a matter of time before you break their spirit and they succumb to a fate of Elmyra-like hugging.
So I suppose it’s time I stop calling her “Baby” or “Hammy” and starting calling her by her real name, Dame Winifred Artemis Jolie-Pitt, or Winnie for short, named for both the Pooh and the character from The Wonder Years which is STILL not available on DVD for shame. And Artemis because
me: I think she’s pregnant
boy: Really?
me: What’s the name of someone who’s a whore?
boy: Artemis!
Okay so I never announced the new hamster’s name, mostly because very strong evidence is stacking up against her that she might be better suited for an episode of 6 Weeks and Pregnant (With Octoplets!).
The Boy is pushing real hard for me to take her back to the store, citing an incident with our friend whose own baby hamster gave birth two weeks after bringing it home. What followed was the most gruesome series of events that they traumatized our friend from ever replacing said baby hamster and he swore off the critters entirely.
But mostly I think he knows that as soon as those little poptarts come out that I’ll claim them as mine and set up 8 more hamster cages and name them all after Disney Afternoon characters. Admittedly, I might already be trying to sneak her some hardboiled egg (supposed to be good for young hamster mothers) and obsessively tracking her weight to gauge the potential birthday.
But the real problem is that we’re going on vacation at the end of May, meaning we’ll be gone a a solid chunk of the crucial newborn phase and I’d need someone to come stay at my apartment to care for them. Well, actually the real problem is that I’m completely smitten with her and don’t want to give her back, certainly not to the godawful pet store where the one girl helping us didn’t even know what a parakeet is. So I’m waiting, hoping she’s just a fatty, and seeing how this all plays out. I suspect not that well.
(And I’m secretly calling her the name I gave her when no one is listening.)
The traditional period of hamster mourning has passed so this evening I went out and got a new baby hamster. I asked friends for some good hamster names and here is the honest to God list I was given from a variety of individuals:
- Kraken
- Algermemnon
- Gaius Auratus
- Fuzzymandias
- Emergency Rations
- Captain
- Mayor Ben
- Peggy
- Bubbles
- Ms. Precious Perfect
- Puddin’ Tain
- Nibbler
- The Mangler
- Pickle
- Manuel
- Dr. Florence Hazeltine
- Booboo
- Hanz
- Miss Featherbottom
- Kit
- Baloo
- Ursula
- Kuma
Please. Help me come up with something better than this. (It’s a female but I’m not opposed to giving her a male name).
Challenging cooking projects. Bad vacation snaps. Incoherent ramblings. Cute animal photos. Come and crush a cup of wine.
