Jack Kerouac, as Sal Paradise once said: "I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." And I think that's a rather apt description of my blog over the years, and perhaps the most perfect description of me in general that I've ever read. So that's what this blog is, a collection of the falling stars that are beckoning me at any time.

28 July 2005

take your pet to blog day

this is Moshe, he's maybe 3 months old

and the fellow on top is Cobra Commander, Cobie for short, and Moshe again.


So by and large one thing I've noticed about all the crafty bloggers I regularly read is that they are a group of cat fanciers. There are a few dog people out there, but generally they oen a cat too. Well me, I'm a rat owner. I think I kind of like that I have to always defend the honour of my little guys from everyone who is gorssed out by rat ownership becasue rats have naked tails. In fact the number one reason that people don't like rats seems to be naked tails. It's prejudice! Rats are highly intelligent, have a memory longer than 3 seconds, learn from each other, social, and loving, not to mention cute. (now mice are crappy pets, I owned a few mice once and they smell, they're too small to hang with and they chew their way out of anything that's not glass.) But rats are like very small cats that like you more but have naked tails. Pet store rats are kind of hit and miss on the love (my current ones are pet store rats because there aren't any reliable breeders that I know of in my current location) but if you get ones who are bred not to be feeders for reptiles and who were touched at a very early age they arn't skittish around people at all. I'm actually really allergic to rats, but I love them so much that i still keep owning them, just in smaller numbers. At one point before it was detirmined that they were what was setting off my asthma so badly, I had 13 of them at once, this was mainly because between my roommate and I we were such suckers for saving them from being eaten by snakes that every time we'd go into the store to get food the girl who worked there would bring out a couple of terribly sute ones and talk about how they were going to be feeders so we'd rescue them. When you have so many it's really fun and amazing to see how varied and completely different their personalities are from each other, in fact they have like a little rat soap opera going on every day becuase one doesn't get on with another and then they start taking sides in the disagreement. Or how they come up with little tricks they know will get you to give them more attention than their brothers (all my rats have been boys) I had one who had a respiratory problem and whenever he knew you were listening his breathing would sound like he was about to die of tuberculousis, but oddly if you'd just got home or he didn't know you were around and could hear he sounded just fine, because he knew you'd be worried about him and come over and talk to him or pet him and try to see what was up and of course petting just cured those lungs right up. They are hams, but clever hams. The only downside to rat ownership is that their lifespans are very short only a couple of years and if you spoil them alot and keep them well fed (which is hard not to do, becuase well they are just too cute not to spoil) it shortens their life span more. They are also prone to caners and respiratory problems and it's hard to find a vet who really knows their stuff when it comes to rodents. So I've gone through a lot more tears than if I just got a dog.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

COOOBBBRRRRRAAAAAA!!!!

Excuse me.

Thank you not only for 1. Having rodents as pets (They have gotten the short end of stick in nature) and 2. Naming one of them Cobra Commander.

You are awesometastic.