A while ago...

...Diana Davis took down her blog. Many people took her out of their links. Some did not. Today I accidentally followed the link from Missy's site, realizing my error as I depressed the mouse, and expecting an error message from a broken link.

Not so much. Someone new has moved in. It's funny when that happens.

For those of you not on the District...

...but who knew Tabor and Julie from BBC, this came down from Dr. Wilson this morning:

"Tabor McComiskey's wife Julie was involved in an auto accident yesterday - Saturday - that left her hospitalized and their young son Taylen lost his life. I do not know further details except that they were involved in a youth activity at the church and a truck collided with their car near the church...

Please remember them in your prayers just now. You may contact Tabor at peoples_tabe@hotmail.com..."

I wish I had a camera...

...because these babies are as cute as anything! All their eyes are open now, and they're eating solid foods and drinking from the water bottle. I seperated them from the mother yesterday, and she doesn't seem to care a bit --- I think she's glad to be done with them; in fact, by all accounts I kept them with her for too long. Let me tell you a bit about them (though please note that while I am calling them all "he", I have no idea of their gender):

MARCO - he's a very dark grey (almost black) and the largest of them all. He's nearly twice the size of the smallest one. He looks like a little black bear - he's Paul's favourite.
POLO - he is grey, black and white, with very handsome markings. He and Marco are the most active and adventurous of the bunch.
STUMPY - he is brown, black and white, and has a stump. He's VERY cute.
BLINK - Blink has red eyes, and was the first to open his eyes, hence the name. He is a blondy-brownish-orangy solid colour. He bites, but I think it's because he's yet to distinguish between hands and food.
THE TONY'S - Tony, Tony, and Baby Tony are all the same colour (essentially, blond). The first two Tony's are too difficult to tell apart, but Baby Tony is a tiny bit smaller and has red eyes (while the other two have black eyes). I think Baby Tony is my favourite, because he likes to lay on his side in my hand in the fetal position with all four paws holding a piece of food, so he looks like he's drinking from a bottle.

I put the father in with the babies today, and he FREAKED OUT, terrified. Stupid Shamgar.

So I put the babies into a pink plastic bin with no top; it's just a little smaller than a regular cage. Our cat Emma loves to reach in and paw at them, sometimes putting both her front feet in. She also likes to sit on the love seat above them and just watch. Other Kitty doesn't seem to care about them at all.

I kind of want to keep some of them because of how well socialized I imagine they will be --- I'd like to get rid of Shamgar and keep a breeding pair (though that would be incest, and incest is wrong). However, since Shamgar and Ollie make such cute babies together, I will just breed them every once in awhile and enjoy socializing wonderful pets for OTHER pet owners.

I do worry about Stumpy, though. I've been asking around the church trying to find someone with a heart big enough to take on a "special needs" hamster. He really does get around just fine with his little stump, and it makes him CUTER.

And that's my story.

Dear Alison...

I am DRIVING to Sarah's wedding with Tina and maybe Sasha.

Did you know that Calista Flockhart is in a new show??

The end.

Your roommate.

Bring Many Names

This poem/hymn was shown to me by someone many years ago, putting in words and images things I had sought so long to grasp. I recently thought of it again, and so I'm posting it here so I won't lose it again.

----------------------

Bring many names, beautiful and good
Celebrate, in parable and story
Holiness in glory
Living, loving God
Hail and hosanna --- Bring many names

Strong mother God, working night and day
Planning all the wonders of creation
Setting each equation
Genius at play
Hail and hosanna --- Bring many names

Warm father God, hugging every child
Feeling all the strains of human living
Caring and forgiving
till we're reconciled
Hail and hosanna --- Bring many names

Old, aching God, grey with endless care
Calmly piercing evil's new disguises
Glad of good surprises
Wiser than despair
Hail and hosanna --- Bring many names

Young, growing God, eager, on the move
Saying no to falsehood and unkindness
Crying out for justice
Giving all you have
Hail and hosanna --- Bring many names

Great, living God, never fully known
Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing
Closer yet than breathing
Everlasting home
Hail and hosanna --- Bring many names

(Brian Wren)

The miracle of life

We have found a "home" for the babies --- the pet store on the west side where we bought our first cat. The guy actually suggested we keep breeding our adults, and they'll pay us a few bucks per animal. I don't care a bit about the money, but the idea of being able to do all this again is a fun prospect. A friend of mine came to see them yesterday and when she saw how cute they were, she asked if I could breed them so there would be babies over Christmas break and she could take them home to "raise" them for a few weeks.

I held them yesterday (and today) -- you're not supposed to, but the mother hasn't rejected them; she didn't even seem to mind all that much. One of them is a little bit of a runt (though not nearly as bad as poor Gimpy was), but they are all looking big and healthy. Except for one small problem, which concerns me --- one of the black babies has a deformed foot --- it's kind of a stump with no real "hand", so it's shorter than the others and he "walks" (they don't quite WALK yet because they can't see and are unsteady on their feet) funny. I imagine the store might not take him, but he's as cute as anything.

SO, who would like a "special needs" hamster? We shall call him "Stumpy". What better way to teach your children (or your spouse) some responsibility than to start them with an easy to care for animal that needs just a little special attention?

And, no, I will not MAIL any of them to you. So stop asking.

Gimpy, we hardly knew ye

Today poor Gimpy got a burial at sea. The other eight babies didn't even seem to notice they were laying on a bed of death. Oh, the humanity.

Eight hamsters in need of good homes!

And then there were nine

So one of the babies looked kind of dead, but since you can't touch them for several weeks we couldn't exactly dig through the pile to find out. But a few nights ago we did a head count, and it was NINE babies instead of 10. I rooted around in the surrounding bedding and found no carcass, which means he or she has become a yummy meal for mommy Ollie. Gross.

I fear there will soon be only 8 - one of them is gimpy (it has a gash out of it's leg) and underdeveloped. I took him or her out of the cage last night and put him/her with Ollie, hoping she'd just sit and let him/her get some food, since I imagine he/she has been buried out of food's reach a good many times since he/she is so much weaker than his/her brother's and sisters. No such luck. Ollie just kept picking up the baby and trying to move him/her around.

The pet store said we should seperate them SOON so Ollie won't start eating them. The internet says wait two weeks. Paul says we should just leave them together, because that will solve our problems.

So, really, who wants a free hamster or two?

Other Kitty and the 12 Judges

So, we have a new cat. Well, an old cat --- she's about 4, or so the vet thinks, though she's about half the size of our dear Emma, who is one. So, a perpetual kitten, which is what most people only dream of. She's a stray that's been hanging around our building for several months, apparently a purebred of the "Ragdoll" breed. She's very cute, with Siamese markings. She still has her claws, but she doesn't use them to harm us or our stuff. She's gained some weight, but she was skin and bones. She's still dirty in some areas, and will probably need to have her belly shaved, but she's endured a few baths like a trooper. She sleeps on the bed with us, and has from day 1 (we are now at approximately day 15). We don't know if we'll keep her, but we're having fun fattening her up. Emma even seems to like her, at least as a potential play thing.

So that brought our family up to four, having acquired a second hamster (named Shamgar after the 2nd judge --- our first hamster is named Ollie for Othniel)during a day of boredom. Did you know that you're not supposed to keep hamsters together because they fight and sometimes kill and eat each other? We didn't have that experience exactly. The boys sometimes played together very well, with the occassional squabble, though we kept them in seperate cages just in case. We only allowed them to be alone together once... and afterwards, Ollie was acting kind of strange. We wondered if Shamgar hadn't played a rather inappropriate "game" with poor Ollie, but he recovered after a few minutes and we didn't think much more about it.

Until yesterday, when Paul went to remove Ollie from the cage and saw a sea of wiggly pink beneath "him"... whom we now know to be a HER. 10 babies + 2 parents, = the 12 judges.

You might call the babies half-breeds, as one parent was a teddy bear, and the other a regular hamster. I prefer to call them "double-breeded". Right now, we can all just call them "pink". I was grossed out at first until I saw one of them yawn, which was pretty cute. They are TINY and their eyes were still closed the last I saw any of them. We had to move the nest out of Ollie's loft because babies kept tumbling out of the plastic tube, and then Ollie had to come down and stuff them in her mouth to carry them back up... only to have them tumble down again. They're loftless and settled on the "main floor" now, and Ollie has been sleeping on top of them all day, so I don't know how many are still alive or how many she's eaten.

The real question is, DOES ANYONE WANT A HAMSTER?