In · Life's · Pages...

Well, the nation is in an uproar about Miss California and her 'anti gay' answer to a politically charged question. Here is my viewpoint:

I admire her. I truly do. Because even though the 'politically correct' answer would have been appropriately ambiguous, she stayed true to herself and to her beliefs. Not everyone believes that marriage should be open to all sexual orientations. That's fine. Not everyone believes in God either. It's just the way the ball rolls. However, what makes me SICK are people that will sit there and spout whatever they think will make them popular at that moment. It's very possible that if she had answered ambiguously, she would be Miss USA now. It's possible that it wouldn't have changed a damned thing. However, because she got up in front of America and stuck to her guns about what her faith dictates and what she believes in, I applaud her.

The end.

So a couple weeks ago, we had Extreme Home Makeover: Rat Edition. With the new additions to the fuzzy family, the old cage just wasn't cutting it. We got a Super Pet ferret cage, with three shelves in it, a twisty ramp, normal ramp and tube. It's HUGE, compared to the other cages and we put the three older girls in it. Yesterday, while cleaning the small girls' cage, I tossed them in with the big girls and said 'Have fun'.

They love it. All of them.

There's been a bit of bickering back and forth, but nothing major. At one point, all 6 of the little buggers were in the hammock, dozing all over each other. Max doesn't know what to make of the cage next door now. (First it was girls next door... then the hairless ones moved in and it was NAKED girls next door).

Max himself is in a rabbit cage, and loves it. He has plenty of room to bound around in, and he's within a nose-touch of the girls, so he's not completely isolated. We're hoping to have some cagemates for him come May.

Current rat count: 7

Rosemary - Beige hooded, no stripe. Black eyes. Dumbo ears.
Thyme - Beige hooded, with stripe, white blaze separating the hood. Bi-coloured eyes, one red and one black. Dumbo ears.

Those two are collectively known as 'the twins' and are the first ones we got, along with their sister. RIP, Sage.

Then we have the Bleach girls...

Inoue - White hairless. Actually, she looks more 'peach'. She's not albino, her eyes are black. Dumbo ears.
Rukia - Black hairless. She's got fuzz on her face and legs. Standard ears.
Isane - Grey mottled. She's blue/grey splotched over most of her back, with white going down over her belly and legs. Standard ears.
Retsu - Black hooded, semi-stripe. Small blaze on forehead. Dumbo ears.

Then there's Max. Max is an albino with standard ears. We got him while we were on the Bleach naming kick, and Envy was like "He's white, we should name him Hitsugaya." I replied with "Okay, his name is Hitsugaya Toshiro. Max, for short."

She almost spit soda.

I HAVE pictures... I just can't find my damned card reader at the moment. *Sigh* I'll be posting when I'm able to.

If you don't mind HUGE pics (completely not resized), go here: http://darkhuntress.com/saishi/pics/animals/

There are no pics there of Retsu, Isane or Max, as we didn't have them yet.

Today, however, was the funniest time I've ever had watching my rats. Their cages got cleaned, and the rats got to spend some time outside in the holding cage (they loved it!) and when I put the girls back in, I fed them. Now, to describe the cage, in addition to the description above... the food dish and water bottles are on the ground floor of the cage. There is a tube leading to the first shelf, then a spiral ramp leading to the second, with a normal ramp leading to the third. On the third shelf is a small wooden house for them to hide in, and access to the hammock hanging from the ceiling.

I feed the rats. I watch Rukia start moving food. She grabs a piece, takes it to the back of the ground floor of the cage and hides it in the bedding behind the tube. Then goes back to get another piece. She cleans out the food dish, doing this.

Retsu discovers the hidden food pile. You can almost see the expression of "AWESOME!!!" on her face as she grabs a piece, hauls ass up to the top shelf, and hides it in the house. Then comes back down, grabs another piece, and races back up.

Rosemary sees this, and the game of 'Oh no you didn't...' starts. Rosemary takes food from the house, runs it back down and puts it in the food dish.

Rukia sees her nice clean, empty food dish with *GASP* food in it, and must fix this issue. Back the food goes to the tube-hidey-hole.

Where Retsu takes it from and hides it on the top shelf...

Where Rosemary grabs it from. Only she's not QUITE as fast as the younger rats, so she recruits her twin. Now you have Rosemary and Thyme moving food from the top shelf, down to the food dish where Rukia grabs it and takes it for Retsu to steal.

This grand relay race continued for nearly an hour before all four parties involved passed out in the hammock.

Isane and Inoue were on the second shelf, watching the chaos and placing bets.

We're pretty sure Max was just enjoying the view.

(X-posted from IJ)

Well, we have new additions to the family. Three, to be exact. For several years previously, I owned rats. Lashanna and Llythande were our babies, and I really missed them after Lashanna passed away some years later. I had gotten a pair of rats about three years ago, but I have never before met a pair of such nasty-tempered little rodents in my life. It was under general consensus that I had been sold feeders instead of pet rats. They were quickly given a new home elsewhere.

But I still love 'em.

I now have three new lil babies. They're juvenile rats, not full grown. It was originally supposed to be two, but they were the only three in the cage and when we brought out the first two, the third kinda looked at me like "Dude. Not cool." So we have three.

They're all beige, one is solid with a white belly. One is a hooded rat with a stripe down her back, and the other is just hooded.

Their names are Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Thyme is a nifty one too... she has two different coloured eyes. One is black, the other pink. We're not sure if she's blind in that eye yet or not, but if she is, it doesn't seem to bother her. I've taken a couple pics this morning, but they're still settling so they're all over the cage. Thyme, especially is hard to snap a pic of.

But I will have images soon. :)

DANA!!

Call me ASAP. I'm home in the evenings. I need to find out if you've gotten any info about the hotels and such for the wedding. Also, Kelson will be with us, he's coming in mid-May. So if you need a kiddo in there anywhere, lemme know. :)

((Crossposted from InsaneJournal))

Happy New Year!

Hopefully, it's a bit smoother this go-around. Last year was just 'meh'.

I was sick enough during the spring that I burned all of my PTO before summer even hit. THAT sucked. Kelson got to spend two weeks with us at the beginning of summer, which was fecking AWESOME, and I just wished he could have stayed longer. However, I just couldn't get the time off work. Birthday was 'meh'. I can pretty much take it or leave it every year now.

What happened to my 20's? I miss them.

Autumn brought a bit more stress, with my kid being terrorized by his teacher during the hours he was at school. This was brought to a head, actually, in January when the bitch finally crossed one last line and had to deal with Hurricane Sasha in response. (GO SASHA! You rock my sox.)

Sasha is Kelson's stepmom, for those who don't know, and she's wonderful.

(Edit) My father died in September... which I didn't find out about for almost two weeks, and then dealt with the aftermath of that for almost a month total. The upnote to that was that it got me back in touch with my uncle whom I hadn't had a relationship with since I was 8, and I got to meeet his wonderful wife and stepdaughter. It's also given me the knowledge that I have a cousin in Erie that dresses up like Jack Sparrow (AND LOOKS THE PART PERFECTLY!).

Late autumn and winter brought about the normal blues that generally hit me during that time of year. Normally, I'm an anti-social wreck, but this year Kelson came home for Yule for the first time in a couple years. It was great! I didn't put up the tree til he got there, and he had fun decorating it. There weren't as many presents as I would have liked, but I enjoyed seeing his eyes light up with everything he DID get from us.

On the work front, last year was a good one. I made it off the phones in March and then made permanent E-share (where I wanted to be) in December. Even though I'd been a 'permanent fill-in' since May.

This year brings new possibilities. I may be moved to a different department here at work, which is just now in the planning stage. I can't say too much of it, but if I get it, I can pretty much work from wherever I want and I will get paid to write and draw.

I'm SO hoping for this.

Fanchild will be coming to visit again this summer, so I need to save up for that. Tax refund was about enough to put half a tank of gas in my car. *Snort*

All in all, this year looks to be shaping up to be much better for me. Here's hoping!

Welcome, the Year of the Rat!

Looks like I'm back off to IJ as well. Where Envy goes, I follow, generally. I'll still be checking back here periodically, just because I like keeping tabs on everyone.

But I will likely only be posting here to give information to my WoW guild.

*Sigh*

Do you know what it is like to be treated like a punching bag for over a week straight, with no end in sight? I mean really. I do technical support. I fix computers and connection issues.

I am not a developer, nor am I an engineer. I have no access to our mail servers, and BELIEVE ME, Mr. Fed Up Customer, if I could wave my magic techie wand and make them work again, I WOULD.

Just so I wouldn't have to have 300+ of YOU in my chat, bitching at me like I'm the one that took a piss on the server to begin with and deprived you of your Email Vittles for a fecking week.

I didn't break it. An update to the servers did.

I can't fix it. I don't have the knowledge or the access.

And when I give a time frame for fixing, it's because that's what I was told. Can I guarantee that it'll be up then? No. Because I'm kept JUST as much of a mushroom as you are. I know what I'm told. Beyond that, I have no goddamned clue what's going on any more than you do.

All I can do is sit here on the front lines, taking flak from every single user who is pissed off, fed up, and screaming blue murder about the email being down. IT'S NOT EVEN DOWN!! The POP servers are, which means you have to go to webmail for the time being. Let go of the Outlook Leash for a few minutes, and you'd realise that it's working. For the love of fuck, at least TRY to work with me here, okay?

Am I really pissed at our customers? No, not really. They have every right to be pissed off. I'm pissed off at Synacor for the mouthfuls of smoke they keep blowing up our asses about this. They're not the ones dealing directly with the customers, and they have NO fucking clue what we're going through down here.

Morale is in the gutter. People are quitting left and right, regardless of whether they have another job lined up or not.

And I don't foresee it getting any better until this shit works.

I didn't hate my job until now.