09-26-05 @ 9:37 am EDT

Chickened out of posting this yesterday. Sorry I'm so avoidant lately. -_-

I'm so tired. I spent all night alternating between reading and dozing off. -_- Yesterday (Saturday) Ma and I went to Petoskey again since she had the day off for once and wanted to pick up some Fimo for...something (Wal-Mart doesn't carry it anymore and she can't find her old stash)...and some really big snaps and such...and I thought it would be a nice chance to pick up a baby rat, so we ended up making a day of it again. When we passed through Alanson there was a veritable BIKER GANG occupying the entire town (Alanson is a blink-and-you-missed-it town, notable only for its nice hillside gardens, and the fact that the head of the Michigan Militia lives(-ed) there)--one minute we're driving along, next thing we're SURROUNDED by leather-clad bikers...and I'm not meaning like five or ten...there must've been at least fifty or sixty, if not more. All parked along the roads and getting gas and everything. A buttload of bikers! O_O Ma had to stop to get a lottery ticket for some undefinable reason and asked the gas station attendant what was up; turns out these scary bikers were doing some kind of rally or something for kids. Aww!! I like it when big scary-looking people do cute things like that. ^_^ Reminds me of the Toys For Tots commercial where the little kid goes up to the stiff at-attention Marine and asks him if he's Santa Claus, and attempts to give him his Christmas list. The Marine just stands there, and stands there, and stands there, then finally, his hand JUST BARELY turns forward, and he offers his palm. The kid gasps and presses the list into his hand and the Marine closes his hand around it, never once changing his expression or doing anything other than that. The kid runs off with a huge smile, whispering, "I KNEW he was Santa Claus!" ^_^

Anyway, we got to Petoskey and Ma of course had to visit Indian Hills again (she keeps them in business); she said I could pick out a book I like, and she'd get it for my birthday, since "I have no idea what the hell you want." *LOL* (Apparently she forgot that she bought me the 512mb camera card for my birthday, back before I dunked the Canon in Black Lake. :/ ) I looked at the CDs and was surprised to see that now a lot of the names looked familiar, since all of my browsing in the New Age category at Amazon; lots of R. Carlos Nakai. I didn't see the one CD I was interested in though; something like "Fourth World Concerto" or "Two Worlds Concerto" featuring Nakai, I couldn't remember the exact title. Oh well. I don't care for what I've heard of Nakai at Amazon because it's just flute music, and it all sounds alike to me after a while. That one CD had at least a few tracks on it though that featured an orchestra and it sounded nice but I'll have to hold off on it for now.

I went looking at the books and STILL couldn't find Honour Earth Mother (the book I keep looking for), and wasn't going to get anything, though I finally dug out a copy of The Indian Tribes Of The Upper Mississippi Valley & Region Of The Great Lakes by Blair, so decided on that; it's fortunate that the price was printed on the back because if it isn't, Indian Hills tends to charge an arm and a leg for things. (As they did my last time there with the "Shaman" book.) I've seen this book referenced a lot in the rest of my reading so it should be nice to check it out; it looks to be translated accounts of early contact-period interactions with the Indians by missionaries and such. They had other books like Schoolcraft's Ojibwa Lodge Stories and Ojibwe Waasa Inaabidaa, but they aren't as high on my wish list, so I could do without them. They also had a book on the Huron which I was curious about but it'll have to wait for a future time. Sometime I'd like to look into nice books about the Iroquoian tribes (Six Nations) and the Huron/Wyandotte, though I have absolutely no clue which books would be nice and informative; all my experience has been in digging up Ojibwa/Great Lakes books. (I'll tell you now, if you ever need a good recommendation for a book on THAT subject, here I am!) I'm guessing my best start would just be with the public-domain texts I've found so far at Canadiana.org. Antiquated, but perhaps useful. I wish I knew a bit more of their mythology and customs since I plan for them to show up in EFMI. (I'm leery of posting it on the RTMI folder/final chapter because of the extortiony sound of it. But I don't think I'm ever going to get to post EFMI publicly at this rate, seeing as "RTMI:139"'s been up for weeks and not one of the readers has been interested in answering the questions or even offering so much as a general comment on the story finally being done. :( It may be pissy of me, but I don't WANT to post the next story if that's the lack of interest there is now. Those questions are very little to ask in exchange for offering that thing for free. At least based on how much everybody said they enjoyed it, unless they were exaggerating and it wasn't that good at all. I just got ANOTHER person reading a chapter and vowing to "come back as soon as possible" to read more...whatEVER, goodbye. -_- )

Anyway...we headed into town and ate at the Flatiron Deli again in the park, only this time I took pictures of the nice trees and such; we were surprised to find out that we were eating right behind Shalimar's, this really expensive ritzy world...um...boutique or something?--that we visited a few times when I was in college. I might be spelling it wrong, if it's "Shalamar's," but I think it's the other way. There was this lone seagull that kept prowling around the picnic tables the entire time, but at least there weren't any strange birds popping out from under the table like rabbits from a magician's hat, like last time. O_o Then Ma had to check out Ben Franklin's (she'd already checked out Joanne's (sic?) on the way into town) and the scrapbooking shop; we then headed for the pet store. When we passed the front we were met with the most piteous sounds; there was this pathetic-looking African Grey parrot in a cage, its feathers all falling out and its neck all bare, clinging to the bars with its beak and letting out these truly heartrending caws for attention. It sounded just as sad as a cat or dog mewing or whimpering--I didn't know a parrot could make such sounds. I thought it was sick and quarantined and felt so sorry for it because it would follow along the inside of its cage, cawing sadly, just like it wanted somebody to buy it. Poor ugly thing. -_- I think later on though the guy running the counter said it was just a juvenile, and wasn't sick at all (I'm not positive though, since its tail looked bright red and raw, but I know nothing about birds :/ ), so hopefully somebody'll buy the poor thing sometime. They also have a huge blue and a huge red macaw in there and I walked kind of close to the red one without knowing it...it kind of swayed toward me and reminded me to back off, so I did. Cripes, how people can keep those things as pets, I have no idea. o_o It had a CHAIN dangling from its perch and it started chewing on it as soon as we passed. Birds that chew on chains...lovely. o_o

They had two big tanks with two guinea pigs each; so cute, but guinea pigs...well, I'm kind of ambivalent toward them. On the one hand they're SO damn cute and I just want to pet them and scratch them and scoop them right up. But on the other hand they have BIG teeth and are kind of...unpredictable...my limited experience with guinea pigs in elementary school was that some are super friendly, and some are just downright nasty, and you really can't tell which is which. o_o So I kind of reached down toward them, then drew my hand back, and made noises at them instead. They had another tank with two shiny black scorpions in it. "Hey Ma, they've got scorpions! Want a scorpion??" ^_^ The pet that keeps on giving. There was a tank with about five black gerbils and they were...forming this...gerbil pyramid... O_o ...just piling on top of each other and sleeping that way. Weird. (If there's anything rattier looking than a rat, it's a black gerbil. Gerbils are NOT good starter pets. I had one all of once; it was nice, but DON'T want to do it again. It's like owning a miniature kangaroo. That bites.) They also had the requisite lizards just sitting like statues, and adult hamsters, and two lovebirds (among others) who were busily preening each other; Ma was enraptured by those, and as they cleaned I started muttering a dialogue they'd be holding, like I tend to do with animals (am I the only one who does this?):

"You're FILTHY! How do you let yourself get so DIRTY? What do I have to put up with?"

"Knock it off!! Not in front of the PEOPLE!"

"Am I going to have to clean your beak FOR you?"

"Stop it! They're going to figure out that we're both guys!!"

As my luck would have it, they had no more rats. -_- *sigh* They did have baby dwarf hamsters, though, so I decided on one of those. There was one visible in the tank, a gray like the ones I've had before (Meatball and Tidbit), but I saw movement in the other corner. The guy running the counter came back and opened the cage and started poking around in the shavings until two tired little faces peeped out. "There's a black eyes, and two red eyes," he said; the buried hamsters were pale brown, with red eyes like albinos. I've never seen dwarf hamsters in any color other than gray. And I thought pale brown rodents with red eyes were simply something I'd made up for the Trench Rats. :/ "No, wait," the guy said, and poked at the shavings a bit more; a third tiny face appeared. "Three red eyes," he corrected himself. ^_^

"What one do you want?" Ma said. Agh, I had no clue! Aside from the gray they all looked alike. o_o And unlike with the rats, none of them called my name. Damn hamsters! All I could do was pick the one that popped into view the soonest. I was going to go for the gray since it was sitting in the corner alone, but I thought a brown one would be different, and there were THREE of those, identical, to pick from. _-_

One--I think it was the last one--ambled toward the gray and they started fighting or something; the gray was nibbling on the brown's head and making annoyed noises. o_o "Hi there!" I cooed, and carefully put my hand in the cage. The little brown hamster looked up at me and started waddling closer. "Do you want to come out? Wanna come home with me?" It waddled around my hand, sniffing. "Want me to grab you up and scare the crap out of you?"

That was basically what I had to do, carefully scoop it out with both hands since dwarf hamsters are...well...very active... >_< ...and as soon as I did the guy put it in this cardboard container as if it were carry-out food!! :O I guess it was necessary, but, still. "Now I need food and bedding," I announced, and he quickly picked those out (I'd already gotten a big carrier, a bottle, and a food bowl at Wal-Mart the night before), and tallied them up at the counter while the African Grey mewed pathetically. >_< That bird was so SAD! We went out to the car now and I could not bear the thought of keeping that poor thing in that carry-out container!--he'd just plopped it in the paper bag with the bedding and food and everything! The carrier was in the front seat so I put it in there along with the cardboard box so it could hide in it if it wanted, then we left. The entire way home the hamster scuffled and clawed and scuffled in the carrier. o_o

We got home and I promptly told the cat, "I got something for you!" Agh, if only I hadn't told him that. -_-; I filled the carrier with shavings and got it all set up, planning to keep the hamster in there for at least the night, but the way that Coz kept clambering up on top of it made me very nervous, and the hamster was doing nothing but running around, so I figured it'd be best to clean out Katchoo's old tank and use that. The hamster was biting me a lot :( so I worried that I'd made a bad choice, but I think I'd just flustered and scared it too much because after letting it sit for a while all it did when I put my hand in the container was jump in my palm and try to climb out. Poor thing. Dad and I scrubbed out the tank, which has been sitting over near the front porch for...wow...ever since Katchoo died, with bags of bird feed sitting in it, including a "squirrel-proof" one with chili powder in it, and I do not think a hamster would appreciate that! Well, at least we didn't find any MORE rodents occupying the tank. o_o; Filled it up with more shavings, stuck in the food and water bottle and half a paper towel tube I'd given it, and some paper towel shreddings since they like those to make beds. I had not bought it any sort of wheel or toy and I regret that now because this hamster does nothing but alternate between sleeping, and hopping up and down frantically all throughout the cage in an attempt to escape. It must be terribly bored. :( I had hoped that the bigger tank would improve its temper somewhat, but I'd forgotten how active dwarfs are, and it really needs a wheel or a toy of some sort. I thought it would curl up in the tube and fall asleep but it just goes into its corner and buries itself in the paper towel. Oh well. At least it isn't hostile anymore. I've taken it out a few times when it starts hopping around (though not each time, else I'd have it out forever!! >_< ) and let it crawl around on me, but I ALSO forgot how...REALLY active these things are!! >_< Dwarf hamsters are also very focused and have one-track minds. They will keep GOING and GOING and GOING in the same damn direction forEVER if you let them. They do NOT stand still and let you hold them like rats or regular hamsters--that's the ONE thing I can't stand about them. You do not hold a dwarf hamster. You basically make yourself into a human treadmill just to keep them from getting away!

So here I was sitting on the floor with this tiny hamster crawling over one hand and over the other and over one hand and over the other and then up my arm and up my arm and up my arm because once they get fixed on a certain direction, you simply cannot deter them, they will KEEP going in that direction, over and over and over. And of course the Muffinbutt was on call the entire time, watching. (I wonder if he remembers Katchoo? Katchoo seemed sad when Pepper died--and Coz seemed sad when Katchoo died. Interesting.) One can handle a dwarf for only so long before threatening to go mad and so I had to keep putting it back. AGH, this thing needs a wheel!! I really hope Ma can find one at Wal-Mart; very stupid of me not to think of getting some sort of toy. Then again, I really thought I'd be returning with a rat, and from what little experience I had with Katchoo, they do not sell rat-size wheels anywhere around here!

It's more interested in climbing atop the tube and hopping from it than in crawling in it. :/ I wonder if it will ever do backflips like the dwarfs on TV. I've always wanted a hamster that does backflips, but Meatball and Tidbit never did. I don't recall either of them being as spastic as this one, though.

Well, anyway, now it's sleeping, which is good, and Coz seems to have lost some interest in it now that he's realizing you can't pick it up and toss it across the room for him to fetch. I have no clue whether it's male or female; it's virtually impossible to tell, with dwarf hamsters. :/ I keep calling it a "he" and a "guy" so I guess it's a male until I should find out otherwise. I don't have a name. I'm thinking maybe Acorn though, because it's brown and round and about the size of one. ^_^ (To quote Dad as soon as I brought it in the house and he finally saw it: "Could you find one any SMALLER??")

And now the tank is sitting down to the left of the computer, because Ma moved the dining room table out a while back and now there's this big empty space in the room and nothing to put in it. I'm a bit leery because I'm not even sure if I was ready to take on the responsibility of another pet, even if it's like the size of a meatball, because I'm always having dreams that I forget about my pet hamsters for weeks. >_< I just hope we can find him a wheel so his head doesn't explode or anything. And that's what happened yesterday, so that's why I'm so tired and why there's a rodent on the floor.

Tar...