I can't believe it's been so long since I posted in this - but then again I have a long history of losing interest in my own blogs. I still use LJ on a daily basis, reading my friends list and, of course, for fandom.

Can you believe there is still Remus/Sirius stuff out there? I can barely handle it, it makes me want to bawl my eyes out, but in a good way. Mm. Seriously, what a depressing goddamned universe, but I can't resist those amazing, tragic boys.

I almost never get new fandoms, I just stick with the old tried and true OTPs and read the same freaking stories over and over again. Stability and comfort in a hectic, overwhelming life, I guess.

Pointless post it seems - maybe that's why I stopped posting, ha.

I was just watching Farm Sanctuary's "wrap-up" slideshow, when I was like, "Hey, I named that piglet!" I named her, fed her, weighed her, kept late-night watch over her (and her siblings). It makes me feel both joy and sorrow to see these animals that I knew...I have such amazing memories from the Sanctuary, but I also miss being there so much that it hurts.



Chi Chi - I jokingly named her "Chi Chi" on the day she was born, because I thought that she looked like a naked chihuahua puppy.

Goodwin - I took care of this little goatling often. He was the tiniest and youngest of the pygmy goats. Very vocal.

Saoirse - one of my first jobs at the sanctuary was caring for a group of peeps (chicks), which included two with special needs - Bunsen (named after my rat Bunsen) and Saoirse. Bunsen had a bum leg and Saoirse was smaller than the rest so she was chosen to be Bunsen's companion. We were never able to put Bunsen and Saoirse back in with the others because the other peeps got gigantic compared to them, and so they were very attached to each other. When we tried doing the intros, the big peeps were picking on Bunsen and Saoirse put herself in the middle trying to protect her buddy.

Clarabell - one of the sweetest of sweet goats, this girl would often climb into my lap for snuggles.

Elliott just died. Oh my god I feel so bad.

Apparently cats are on Remy's list of creatures that are to be killed on sight. He adores people, is completely indifferent to dogs, but absolutely hates other rats - and I just discovered tonight that he also hates my foster kitten. Seriously, he was just tearing around my apartment in hot pursuit of the poor kitten. And she isn't a tiny kitten, either - Remy weighs over a pound but the kitten has to weigh at least three times as much. Rats can be ferocious! I just don't understand why he laid eyes upon her and immediately decided that she needed to die...

I actually kind of thought I was going to die this morning. I left my dad's house around 7am. It had just started to snow but it was light and I figured that by the time I got to the interstate and off the backroads that things would be fine. I was on 80 for maybe five minutes when I fish-tailed. I didn't panic, though, so I just kind of spun and slid and drifted off the road. I ended up facing in the completely wrong direction! Luckily there were so few people on the road and everyone was going so slowly that I wasn't in danger of having another car smack into me. It wasn't just me, though, there were people sliding off the road everywhere I looked, some even stranded on the margins of the road. I got back on just fine and went even more slowly. It was me, the four rats and my foster kitten Thumper in the car and really for a moment I thought I had killed us all.

Speaking of Thumper - I am totally in love. She had only been here for about six hours when I had already picked out a new name for her (Mariska [ma-rish-ka]). I am just fostering her for Thanksgiving break, which means I have to bring her back to school tomorrow morning, but oh god I want to keep her. I think I am going to put in an application for her. She's solid gray, about five months old, talkative, has a penchant for cuddling and she is a feisty, crazy little thing. She starts purring pretty much as soon as you touch her. The only bad thing is how she keeps me up all night. It's not so bad when she just wants to cuddle me and purr, even when she wants to cuddle on my face or drape herself over my neck, but when she starts licking my face, poking her paws into my eyes and mouth, pouncing on my feet and running laps up and down my body...I tried putting her in the bathroom the first night she was here, but then she just cried and cried.

The thing is, if I adopt her, I'll need to get another kitten of the same age. That way they can play with each other all night instead of clambering all over me!

Elliot and Tobin


And little baby Pip

( More pics )

Remy is so cute, he doesn't know how to drink liquid unless it is in a sipper bottle, so if I give him something to drink he tries to pick it up with his little rattie hands.

Stolen from ravensgurl211. Go to http://quotationspage.com/random.php3 and browse the random quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe.

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

The question is not what you look at but what you see.
Thoreau

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not.
Kurt Cobain (1967 - 1994)

You must do the things you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)

And one that I didn't get from this meme, but happen to have just lying around, and that I think is perfect:

I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

This little guy was born yesterday morning.



( more piggle )


He is being bottlefed every two hours. He weighs just 2.4 pounds. I think we are all afraid to name him, since we aren't sure he will survive. He is ridiculously cute and absolutely perfect.


His mom is one of the Iowa flood survivors. Unfortunately, all of his siblings died either before birth or just after being born, and his mother has rejected him. Now, his mother survived a flood, has pneumonia, had surgery, is emaciated and nobody even realized she was pregnant (due to her poor body condition) so it's not really surprising that the litter failed to survive. As for the rejection, we suspect that due to her life as a brood sow she has been conditioned to ignore her litters. In case anyone doesn't know, breeding sows are kept in gestation crates which are so small they don't even allow the pig to turn around. The crate keeps her separate from her piglets, allowing them to nurse but preventing any other interaction between mother and babies. The babies are forcibly weaned at just ten days, have their tails cut off without anasthetic, and then are taken away to be raised for slaughter. The piglets are killed at just six months of age. The mother is immediately re-inseminated to begin the process anew. Pork production

Thanks to everyone that has left their condolences, either here or on Facebook.

The last pics of Marlowe, I took them last week while he was snuggling and playing in this towel.





( A sweet little life )

I miss my baby.

Dearest Beckett,

Today, November 5, it has been one year since you died. It took months for me to stop crying for you, and even longer to lose that hollow aching pain in my chest. Ben and I couldn't stand to bury you, to give your body back to the earth, and so your ashes are kept in an urn that will always be with one of us. When you died it hurt so badly that I felt as if I never wanted to see another rat again. Of course, I had Marlowe and Cassidy, so that wasn't an option - but never before had I felt that way at the loss of a rat - your passing really took something away from me. Away from the world, really, because how could the world not be worse off without you, when you had so much to give?

From the first day we brought you home, a scrawny, buggy baby with ridiculous ears, we knew that you were special. You never knew fear - it simply never occurred to you that someone might not love you, because you loved everyone. You approached all you encountered with such sweetness, innocence, benevolence - it was amazing the way you radiated love. At times you were such a mama's boy, such as when you'd come flying across the room, screaming, being terrorized by Kinsey, to scramble up my body and lodge yourself at the nape of my neck - you knew that I would always protect you. You loved your daddy, too, though, and I sometimes felt a little jealous at the way you two would cuddle, how you would run up to him and try to climb the leg of his jeans...but I knew you loved me, too.



Ben can barely stand to talk about you, even now. If I try, he gets so quiet and I know he is hurting. It's not that he doesn't want to remember you, it's just that it's still too painful. I dream about you regularly, that you've come back from the dead. I think that Ben believes you are in Heaven. I don't believe there is an afterlife, but if there is some paradise beyond death, you surely deserve to be there.

We probably should have let go by now, but it has never hurt so much before. I love each of my rats, past and present, with all my heart - but you! You tore my heart from my chest and made off with it, and I don't think I'll ever fully have it back. But that's okay, because I don't want to forget you.

If love alone could keep a heart beating, then you would have lived forever because you were loved so very much.

You are still loved so much.

We miss you, puddin'.

Most Puppy Love stuff makes me cry because it's all so heartbreakingly tragic, but this particular one made me laugh out loud.


credit: Unbreakable: Sirius Black & Remus Lupin

Seriously I crack up every time I watch it.

Come on, you think it's funny, too.

I know I've posted an unusual amount in the last twelve hours or so but this post is warranted because my rats are cute. My life is falling apart and I'm bawling my eyes out in Jacquie's office (and she's not even a counselor anymore) but my rats, or at least Marlowe, comfort me. I still miss Beckett like a bleeding hole in my heart, though.

( new Marlowe photos )

I need to work on getting pictures of Cassidy, but sometimes he acts like he is afraid of the camera, and the other times he is in consant (and largely destructive) motion.

This is a piece by Stephen J Gould that has brought me comfort when losing my little ones to their old age.

( Our Allotted Lifetimes )