More Creature Comforts

While giggling quietly to Just a Minute on the BBC Radio Four website, I find myself feeling somewhat guilty for raving about the rodent pets, and completely ignoring the existence of the underwater kinds which also share my living space, though less noisily.

Zee is a goldfish. More specifically, a shubunkin. He seems to have an uncanny knack of surviving where no other fish can, given the considerable number of tank-mates he has had and lost. He (is it a he? who knows?) swims contentedly (I presume? who knows?) around his hexagonal tank amid plants (fake and real), and the air pump vibrates so noisily that he seems to survive on minimal oxygen, as the noise annoys me too much to have it on too often, or for too long.

Interaction with, and entertainment from goldfish is fairly untypical, though he recognises me when it is feeding time. He rather exists in his own hexagonal idyll, providing me with welcome relaxation when I watch him, for which I am grateful.

The other underwater creatures in this house are the intolerably dull sea monkeys. I was stunned to find multitudes of websites and message boards full of people marvelling about these bizarre life forms. Ok, so their ability to be born when they come into contact with water, after being freeze dried, is momentarily impressive, but from then on you are obliged to feed what are essentially little bugs swimming and shagging in a tub of water.

Some people rave about these things, give each a name, and there was even an article published in USA Today in which the author bemoans the death of three of hers (how did she notice?). I could name mine I suppose, if I could tell the difference between them, but they are so very, very dull that they rarely get called anything other than "boring" or "weird".

And yes, they have sex. And when they do it, they really go for it, sometimes shagging for over 24 hours. I did not know this until they started doing it, and I wondered for several days whether two pairs of them were somehow stuck together. Internet research (which led me to discover this incomprehensible adoration of sea monkeys by so many people) told me that they were indeed mating, and this can go on for some time. No baby boring things seem to have appeared yet though.

I know, you're thinking I'm an appalling pet owner, but seriously, they are too, too dull to merit any other kind of written treatment. I look after them well. I figure that inherent boring-ness was not enough to condemn them to certain death by starvation, so I follow the contradictory and confusing instructions on keeping them healthy, and will do for as long as they are swimming and shagging in the plastic tub.

Creatures

Pierrot, aka Nepenthe is bumbling around. Clara and Heidi are quiet for the first time in about 15 hours. Pierrot doesn't know what has hit this house since those two arrived. There seems to be such a huge difference between the two variations of the same species.

Pierrot is gorgeous - grey and white with huge heroin chic eyes. He's enormous (or is that just in comparison to the others?) and really his wheel is too small for him. Maybe that's why he's not on it much. Or is it just that he's lazy... I secretly hope it's the latter, since the energy of the other two puts me to shame.

"The other two", Heidi and Clara were supposed to be able to live happily together. Both female, and from the same litter, and as they're Russian dwarfs they are much more sociable than Syrians. But yeah, after about 3 days of Clara trying to rip Heidi's face off, I had to separate them.

Heidi got the better cage, due to her victimisation, though there are not and never have been any signs of her being traumatised by her previous treatment by her sister.

Clara got the smaller cage, but with a wheel, which she runs on incessantly. I read somewhere that when they're running on their wheel they really and truly believe they are running miles and miles and miles. I don't know whether that's nice or really, really sad.

Heidi's cage has three levels, with big springs and ladders going from floor to floor. She is essentially an acrobat and mostly hangs from one of the levels, spinning herself round and round and round. She eschews the ladders and either traverses from floor to floor via the springs, or more commonly, by climbing up the side of the cage and squeezing between the edge of the cage and the edge of the floor above.

People think hamsters are pets for kids, but for me they are cute, they are friendly (intermittently anyway), they are certainly entertaining, and they are, in a weird way, nice company.

If you agree with me on that point, I like you already.

If you think I'm sad, then you're reading the wrong blog, mate.

4.38am on a Sunday morning, listening to Classic Gold on my funky new DAB radio. IMing my girlfriend, smoking rollies, and creating my very own blog.

Have been downloading lots of random and free programmes tonight. Some useful (HTML editor for instance), some funky (a cool Lemon Jelly screensaver), and some downright daft (a programme which measures how far your mouse travels... as I type, it's gone 2897 inches, some 20 something % of the way up the Eiffel Tower).

About me? Mad, in debt, radical, angry, pacifist, warrior, flower-power chick...

Yeah I know, that says nothing and everything. Well that's me - nothing, and everything :)