October In The Chair

I've finally begun taken the steps to find Howard a new home.

This phone number has been in my cellphone's directory for quite some time now, but I've been ignoring its existence out of sheer indecision. I copied it down the night I took him to the vet because he's stopped eating and lost a lot of weight; since then, it's remained uncalled.

The notice the woman had posted on the announcements board said that she takes in "unwanted ferrets". It bothers me to call her about this because he's not an unwanted ferret. I just can't take care of him anylonger without severely impacting my health. My allergies have become so bad that I can't even play with him or give him any kind of attention other than talking to him through the bars. But, he's not unwanted.

Beyond my feelings on what feels like a shirking of responsibility (to me, at any rate), I also just don't want to give him up. I love the creature terribly, as I love all my animals. Giving him to a new home feels wrong to me.

But, I've wembled over this decision for long enough. It's not fair to him. He needs a home where he'll be loved on and have cagemates (he's never been quite the same since Edgar died).

I can't give him that. Not any longer.

I spoke briefly to the woman. She wanted to know what the problem was, his age, his demeanor, what he eats, if he's up to date with his shots, etc. I filled her in on all of that. She told me that she has to check with her partner because they currently have four ferrets, one of whom can't be caged with the other three, and that she would get back to me. In the event that they decide to not take him, she says that one of her co-workers had a pair of ferrets, but recently lost one, and that she may be interested in taking him.

I'm just not happy about this situation, but hands are firmly tied. hoom.

This has probably been one of the crappest days weeks I've had in a long, long time.

( work blather )

All I wanted to do today is come home and get some ferret nose kisses, but as I was leaving work, the realization of Edgar's death finally fell around me. I knew it had happened, after all, I found his body. But, I hadn't really had any time to actually process it.

( Ferret and rat blather )

Depression is seeping in from every angle. The one year anniversary of my mother's death just passed, which feels very weird to me. I'm still not used to it and I suspect I never will be. My car is currently sick beyond belief, though hopefully that will be straightened out soon. The holidays are creeping up, which is never a good time for me. And money is unbelievably tight, which it always is.

( Money blather )

( Hoarding blather )

If you've read this entire entry, I'll be mighty surprised. For those of you who decided to skip to the end, you didn't really miss anything. Just a lot of me working some stuff out in my head that needed to come out.

Twenty dollars away from paying off Major Tom's very expensive rattie tumour surgery and I discovered that one of the ferrets, Edgar, has what looks to be a prolapsed rectum.

If it wasn't so late at night, I would scream.

At any rate, it doesn't seem to be effecting him badly. I let him and Howard out for a run while I cleaned their cage and he acted his normal, cracked-out self. I wouldn't even have noticed it, except that he rolled over onto his back to present his stomach for scratches. However, he will be going to the vet tomorrow morning, which means more money being siphoned out of my bank account and more missed hours from work.

Since he's not a young weasel, this could mean very bad things that I don't wish to think about at the moment.

* worked on Saturday for almost ten hours, much to my complete amazement and disgust.

* got into a verbal altercation with a co-worker during that almost ten hours, because she is ghetto-fucking-tastic and side-swiped me with "Do you have a problem?!" in the middle of a conversation about how to order dinner. No, really. A conversation about how when one is ordering dinner with your office mates, one must write their order down. Not just to avoid mistakes, but because it is entirely possible that the unlucky person calling the food order in does not possess a photographic memory.

* WALKED AWAY from said verbal altercation because I am in Human Resources and it wouldn't be seemly for the HR department to get into trouble for fighting with employees. (How's that for getting a handle on my temper? What I really wanted to do was plant my foot squarely in her fucking ass. However, I do not brawl in the workplace. My family may be trashy, but we're not quite THAT trashy. Although I did later tell my boss that Miss Thing is really lucky that I have manners.)

* talked to Miss Janette on the phone for three and a half hours. Big love.

* received a box mix for making BAT SHAPED BROWNIES from Miss Jennie.

* ordered a goddamn new sacred heart Zippo, since mine still doesn't appear to be appearing any time soon.

* played "Kill the vacumn! Kill the vacumn! Bad! Bad!" with Howard Phillip (one of the ferrets).

* yawned. A lot.

* fell in love with the Horrorpops.

Well, he's home at any rate. And I've completely disassembled his cage for a very thorough cleaning which left me gasping, wheezing, and coughing for two hours due to my allergies.

The doctor showed me the x-rays and barium studies, which proved to be inconclusive. There were no obstruction present in the intestines or anywhere else. And he believes that ECE is still not the underlying factor of all of this. After speaking on the phone this afternoon with the woman that I bought Edgar (and the new ferret, HP) from, I'm leaning further towards believing that as well.

I had thought HP to be an asymptomatic carrier of the virus, but Penny says none of her other ferrets appear to be sick. She kept HP's littermate, so it's fairly safe to assume that if HP carried the virus then someone else would be getting sick right now.

The doctor suggested that it might have been stress, which I can kind of see. I brought HP home not that long ago and the introductions between the two of them went fairly swift before I housed them in the same cage. They weren't blood fighting, so I figured there would be no problem. Because they were both in the same cage, it took me a little while to realise that Edgar wasn't eating and due to this, HP was eating ALL of the food from both of the bowls (the little glutton). He's such a pig.

Edgar has been hydrated and fed intravenously, he's been given antibiotics (with a bottle of it for me to take home). The vet informed me that he'd begun eating on his own, regular crunchy food, and that his bowels seemed to be working just fine now. He also managed to charm the pants off of everyone he came into contact with at the vet's office. They all told me how much of a little gentleman he is, how very sweet and lovable. He bounded out of the tech's arms when he saw me, wriggling until he was free and licking my face and neck. At least he's not mad at me.

And to make up for his little overnight adventure to the vet's office, I took him to the pet store and bought him a new bed, as well as some interlocking mats to line the wire floor of his cage (the carpet the Engineer and I installed so painstakingly a few weeks back has been removed) and some new toys. He rode in the little kid seat of the shopping cart I pushed, attracting the attention of everyone who passed by.

So now I have the enjoyment of feeding him pink stuff twice a day until the bottle is empty. I can hardly wait for this, despite the vet tech's promises that he readily drinks it from the dropper.

Also this evening, I played a round of "You're going to learn to not bite me when we play" with HP. Which involved me breaking out the bottle of Bitter Apple that had been used when I taught Edgar the same thing. However, and this is a big however, the taste of the Bitter Apple does not seem to dissuade the little fucker in any manner. So, either the stuff has gone off and doesn't work anymore, or HP likes the taste of it. It must have lost its potency, because I've tasted that shit myself and it is in no way something I would ever care to repeat.

One of my ex-roommates and I decided one night that we wanted to know what it tasted like, just to see what the animals which came into contact with it were experiencing. We each put a small drop on our index fingers and then licked it off.

I can't even put into words the vile explosion that settled around my poor taste buds after that. And the goddamn stuff takes a LONG time to go away. I had my head stuck in the sink, with my mouth over the faucet for about fifteen minutes and I could still taste it.

Never fucking again.

HP is either a masochistic freak or it just doesn't taste bad anymore, because of how old the bottle is. And I'm not willing to test it on myself to figure it out, either.

Something is wrong with Edgar, one of my ferrets.

He hasn't been eating very much, if at all. He's lethargic, has a bit of weight loss (but it isn't terribly bad just yet). Earlier in the week, I noticed green stools in the cage and when I cleaned the cage out the other day, some of it was mucousy. I wasn't sure, at the time, which ferret it was coming from. But as HP has shown absolutely no signs of illness and Edgar is, I'm going to assume that it wasn't HP's.

From everything that I've been reading, it appears to be ECE. However, a lot of the symptoms he's exhibiting resemble how he acted a while back when he ate the head off one of his toys and it lodged in his intestine.

I can get him to drink a little water, some of it from a dish and some of it from my finger. But, it's not enough to satisfy me. Especially since his skin isn't snapping back the way it should be. That's dehydration.

I also can't get him to eat anything. I tried the graham cracker treats that I give to the rats, which he loves. Nothing. I tried one of the chicken flavoured cat treats, nothing. I tried moistening his regular food to get it all soft and stinky, nothing. The only thing I've gotten him to ingest his his Nutrical (vitamins in a gel form) and that even has to be forced by scruffing him and rubbing it on his teeth so he'll lick it off.

Just a couple of minutes ago, I had The Engineer tear out the bit of carpet I had installed in the cage. Both ferrets had been ripping at it tremendously and I wanted it gone in case that was the problem, if he had eaten some of it.

He and HP have been in the same cage for about a week, but he just hasn't been the same. At first, I thought he was just sulking because he's used to being the singular ferret of the household. One of the things we always said when watching them interact was I've got a friend now and I don't want him.

I put HP back into the smaller cage, earlier this evening, in the hopes that maybe this is all just stress induced and their introductions would have to move slower. But, I really don't believe that to be the problem.

Tomorrow, I'm going to buy some Gerber baby food (which was recommended to force feed him with) and see if my vet is open. Despite the fact that I don't really have the money for anything major, maybe I can borrow it from my father or see if the vet's office will let me pay on a payment plan or something.

*edit*
Some things I forget the first time I wrote this.

He also has a scabby bump on his left front paw.
I just moved his cage around a little bit. Adjusted the bed he sleeps in so it's closer to the wall of the cage, moved the water bottle to right next to that, and screwed his food dish in so it sits right near the bed, too. I also put 20 pieces of moistened food in the dish, so in the morning I can count them and see if any were eaten.

Also, he just pooped as I was writing this. Not in the litter box, which is a rarity for him. And it was all mucousy and sick looking. Not bright green, however.

For the first time in the entire duration of my and The Engineer's relationship, we made it to a First Friday in Philadelphia. Despite the fact that I wasn't much thrilled with going and despite the fact that I stupidly wore my five inch platforms for an evening of travelling by feet in an area of the city that does not believe in modern cement sidewalks; they're all cobblestones. And hilly as fuck. Sheesh.

Miss Robin joined us and we threw ourselves into an evening of our usual obnoxiousness.

Will you calm down? They're not going to run out of art!
Asslicker. Cocksocket, five dollars. Asslicker. Cocksocket, five dollars.
I am no longer having this conversation with you.

After stopping at Olde City pizza and being served by the world's most surly waitress, we trudged our way back to South Street to the TLA for the stellastarr* show. It was like old school night, up in that piece. I saw a number of people I haven't seen in ages, which is the norm whenever I show my face in the city (which is rarely). I even had the displeasure of spotting my very first roommate, known as Fuck-You-Todd, and smirking at him from across the bar.

Before the show, I ran into Commander Jurin and gave him a birthday present I had scared up for him, a stuffed bat which squeaks shrilly when you press its stomach. Though I suppose I would also squeak shrilly if you squeezed the fuck out of me, it was a good present and he seemed happy with it. Great! Now we've got a new mascot!

Standing in the bar, I run into Big Sam. Who I haven't seen in about three years or so? He lifted me from the floor in a giant bar hug, exclaiming over how good it was to see me and then introduced me to two girls who were standing there with them. One of them, Jill, said she had heard a lot about me. This drew a raised eyebrow and a step away, as whenever I hear something like that it usually means that someone has been talking a lot of shit on me. However, Jill is friends with Muridae (on my friends list) and she had told her about me. I told Jill the story of how Muridae and I originally started talking online, which started out with, "I know you! I've been in your house!" hee! I also ran into Miss Beth, which was unexpected and most pleasing.

A group of us lined ourselves across the front of the stage, in an effort to heckle the Commander as his mother and a few other relatives had come to town for the show. The crowd was semi-decent, though far too many of those bizarre neo-mods that seem to be following this band around. It did give us the chance, however, for Robin and I play to play "PunchMod", which is enormously fun.

The band was great, despite the fact that standing so close to the stage kind of warped the sound quality for me. The following band, the Raveonettes or whatever the fuck they're called, left me dry. I am wholly unimpressed with them, their sound, and even the way they look. Big fucking yawn, so we left a quarter of the way into their set and made our way to Zipperhead's with BlueMoonBaby.

The next day brought a road trip to my father's neighbourhood for me to pick up my new baby ferret, Howard Phillip (you can call him HP) and to pick up my smaller ferret cage from my dad's house. However, this wound up with me setting off my father's burglar alarm and the police showing up. oops.

Later that evening was Mister Kyle's (the same Kyle who directed the zombie movie we were in) party in the town I grew up in. Food was consumed, strange Asian drinks were drunk (one of mine had a marble in it and a warning list the size of your fucking arm, not to mention the instructions on how to open the goddamn bottle), and I hid on the deck as to avoid conversation with people I don't really know. Which didn't work all that well, as I was forced to make small talk a few times with absolute strangers, something that I despise doing. Not too bad, though it could have been better for me to not be such an unsocial fuck.

Today was my lecture on Lucifer for the MWC, which went sort of okay. I suppose if I wasn't forced to read by candlelight because we had our meeting outside and it got dark quicker then I thought it would, then it would have been better. I'd also like to note that I am an absolutely ASSY public speaker, regardless of whether or not I can see the words clearly. Anyone who says any different is seriously deluded, I'm just no damn good at it.

A long weekend, but an okay one. I'm currently sniffling like a fool because I had the ferrets out a little while ago, rough housing with them, and it made my allergies get all pissy with me. I think I may go take a long bath and read "Memoirs of a Swordswallower" before it gets too late.

Photos of the rats' condo housing would have been forthcoming, but I discovered that I never re-downloaded my digital camera software after the bad crash a few months back. Yes, I have my stinky little webcam. But, I can't take good photos with it from this distance. So, that is going to have to wait.

However, I can describe the living quarters:

It's a big cage, one of those three story ferret models. My lady of the pink eyes, the dearly departed Midnight, had lived in it at one time. There's the bottom steel floor, which I have full of CareFree bedding, with a wheel and a tarp like hammock that no one seems to like. A grating ramp that leads up to the second floor, a carpeted ledge where all the food goes. Then another grating ramp to the third floor, another ledge where I have a small bed and one of those hay balls or whatever they are inside the bed. It's clamped to the outer wall of the cage because all three rats try to push it off the ledge. That just will not do.

Last week, I had gone out to buy them a new bed because their old one (once again, a hand me down from the ferret, was falling apart and full of holes. I bought one of those huge hanging numbers, with an ugly print because that's all they had. It's vaguely cube shaped, with a hole on either end. Fleece on the inside bottom. I hung this in the big empty area in between the second and third floors.

Leading up to the hanging bed are two wooden ledges screwed into the wire walls of the cage. I can't remember the brand name of them, but they are fucking keen. About the length of my hand, with rounded edges, plain and unfinished wood. I've got them staggered so the two smaller rats can also access them without having to make big and possibly impossible jumps.

Big, impossible jumps?
Silly fucking me. I should have known better about the jumping skills of rats.
On Tuesday, I was sitting in our big overstuffed chair with Speck on my right shoulder. I've been attempting to bond with the two younger rats like I already had with Aardie. We're sitting there for a short amount of time, he's inspecting the shiny things stuck through my ear. That's when one of the cats (Baby) jumped up on the arm of the chair, on the same side as Speck.

Speck ran across my shoulders and LEAPT from my left side. And when I say leapt, I mean fucking Olympic athlete long jump shit. He cleared about four feet away from me, into the wooden cradle of stuffed animals that belong to my mother. I had a split second of "OMFGOMFGOMFG" before I saw his tail disappear.

The next twenty minutes were spent ushering the cats into my mom's room, moving the couch out from the wall, taking apart the baseboard heater, and attempting to coax Speck out from his hiding place.

In retrospect, it was funny as hell. But, my heart pounding crazily in my chest and all I could think about was the possibility of not finding him.

Sweet Jesus.

So now, the only rat who gets sit in the chair time is Aardie because he is relatively calm and stays put. Not only that, but if he attempted to run away I don't think he'd fit inside the baseboard heater because of the size of his ass (which is rather large, the spoiled brat).

It's going to take more time then I previously thought to acclimate the two babies into the out of the cage world. They still get it, in bits and pieces. But, only from a standing position.

Other rat hijinks include Aleister's discovery of the wheel.

The wheel is old and is left over from my first rat, Nicodemus, who has been dead for quite some time. Many years, even. I had put it in the cage when I first housed Aardie in there by himself, but he largely ignored it. Some rats are runners and others, like my rather rotund hairless, are not.

Aleister apparently is a runner, much to my delight.
I love to watch rats run in a wheel, especially because of the look of intense concentration they get while doing so. So, when Aleister took to running I was immensely happy.

I had, however, forgotten about how the wheel needs to be regularly oiled because it has a bad squeak. Wednesday night I went to bed early (for me) because I had to be up at six am to take my mother in for her port surgery (she's now on tap, hee!). I was having trouble sleeping anyway because I'm not used to being inactive at that hour, but when I heard the shrill "eeeek eeek eeeek" of the wheel, it became even worse.

At first I thought I'd be able to perservere. My room is down the hall, my door was half way shut, my fan was on. Nope. eeek eeeek eeeek.

At two am, I couldn't take it anymore and I groggily roused myself. Walked to the bathroom, grabbed a cotton swab, went to the kitchen, got the canola oil. Oiled the fucking wheel into submission.

Only on my walk back to my room did I realise that my brother was sitting at the computer, esconced in downloading smut, and completely ignoring the eeek eeeek eeek coming from the rat cage.

Jerk ass.

----

I've never had this many rats at once before. Hell, I never had multiple rats at ALL. So, it's interesting to observe the formulation of personalities and their pecking order. Aardie, being the oldest and the *cough* largest, is the bully of the bunch. He holds the other two down and forces grooming. He pushes them out of the way at the water bottle. He sits on them. Aleister, the albino, is fairly laid back. But, he's also the most inquisitive. He pokes his head into anything with a hole big enough (and sometimes not even big enough). He's also sneaky and steals food from Aardie when he's not paying attention. Speck is the smallest and the most nervous. He stays in the hanging bed most of the time and jumps at the smallest strange sound.

I've started enforcing the idea among the three of them that I am the alpha and will brook no disagreement from their number. Periodically during play, I will suddenly hold one of them down for a few seconds. Aardie I've even taken to flipping onto his back, since he's the one who most thinks he's the boss. They seem to be taking to this idea, just as long as I continually assert my dominance.

Time to check on the washing machines again, I still haven't been able to do my laundry.