clo_again

I just got Barnabas out of his cage and tried to take some pictures of him, reasoning that I have relatively few pictures of him compared to the hundreds of thousands that I've taken of Casper.

I soon remembered why it's much easier to take pictures of a mostly-stationary cat than it is of a mostly-moving-at-the-speed-of-light dwarf hamster. So instead, ( have some pictures of Casper ) (that I wish I'd taken with a proper camera instead of my appallingly crap camera phone because they would've been so pretty to print out in good quality).


And so he doesn't feel left out, ( have a two-year old picture of Barnabas which is still one of the only good pictures I have of him ). Considering he's about a hundred and two in hamster years, he doesn't seem to have slowed down at all. Except he can only climb the stairs once these days and if you put him back to the bottom one he keeps trying and falling off because obviously his paws are tired. I cheat and put my hand under him to lift him up so he can pretend he can still climb them twice. You're only as old as you feel.

I should probably go to bed because I have one more day of The Boss to endure before I get a weekend. Hm. I feel guilty for not NaNoing today but I also want to watch the Black Books outtakes since we finally found the DVD today. Decisions, decisions.

edit: Casper was just mrowling outside my door to be let out, so I went downstairs and waited for him (it's too cold and wet for him to like being outside all night). While he was in the flower border doing his business, a black cat with a white bib came along the wall and stopped to lurk ominously. He knew I was watching though because he kept looking at the window; Casper seemed oblivious to everything but then he jumped up on the side wall and deliberately blanked the black cat while he looked around so I think he knew a. exactly where the black cat was and b. that I was waiting as back-up. My cat is brave when he knows there's a human there to come running to his rescue. It's kind of sweet, in a pathetic way.

Casper then came inside and I went out to say hello to the black cat because he hadn't attacked Casper and therefore got a pass card. I don't know him well enough to have a name for him before now (I thought I'd call him Tux to go with the crazy white cat Bats who steals Casper's food from the kitchen, Mistoffeles who seems to have vanished, the other all-black cat and Bundy the tabby. And that's not counting the tortiseshell a few houses up who won't say hi to me or the ginger who is very friendly, but I think lives quite a distance away because he's hardly ever here. Secret Lives of Cats in my back yard, I kid you not). I've definitely met this one before though; I remember his purr because it sounds like a squeaky door. A loud squeaky door. It's so, so cute.

It's oddly nice to go to sleep having had a polite exchange with a strange cat. As if I've improved his night by petting him instead of chasing him off and my night is therefore also improved. Mmmmm.

We saw Stardust and it was awesome. Admittedly, the Gay Sky Pirate thing took me a little by surprise (was that in the book? It's been a while but I'm sure I would've remembered there being Gay Sky Pirates. It's the sort of thing that sticks) but then there was pretty Charlie Cox and some of the most pretty CG work I've seen in a while and yes, I will be going again when it gets released properly over here in two weeks. Because *Gay Sky Pirates*. And because um. Did I mention Charlie Cox was *pretty* with the long hair? Ahem.

Got a free copy of the book too. So that'll be me owning two copies then. Heh.

In other news of my life: Barnabas is sulkily sleeping under his wheel because I just shifted the heaps of sawdust he'd flung everywhere flat again. Found a newt in the garden earlier; think it's living somewhere around our barrel of fish. My room is such a disaster zone, it's not actually possible to see the floor right now.

...Nope. That's it. See why I'm not posting much lately? Though there will be Top Gear Squee and Robin Hood Squee and Ewan McGregor On Jonathan Ross Squee over the next few days. Prepare yourselves.

Also, I now know what it feels like to be in car going 70mph down the motorway... with the door open. Yeah. Mull on that while I go sleep. ;)

M&S was meant to send me an email giving me all the details about this tour&interview thing I'm doing tonight but they haven't, I suspect because the woman didn't spell it right. Having a last name that everyone always tries to put an 'i' in sucks. Only when calling them to check, all I get is a recorded message. Just like when I called them on Tuesday to set the thing up in the first place. Just answer the phone. Cripes. Also, cannot find the Bonhams ad and am starting to get really annoyed, because the one job I want to apply for and my mother manages to lose the paper. She manages to keep all the boring, dull, tedious, mind-numbing job ads but no, if I want to do it then it's clearly not important.

This is deflected bitterness because I find M&S one of the most depressing shops on the planet (seriously, just walk into any M&S and feel the creeping depression) and resent going to an interview for them. Especially one that involves a tour of the offices and chats with senior staff. It's like, really. I do have other jobs I actually want to be spending my time applying for.

The father also just called and demanded that I work out how to copy DVDs for him. Now. Instantly. And then gave me no sympathy when I dropped a video on my toe trying to find the DVDs one-handed in his chaos of an office. That said, he offered me a fiver per DVD which is even worth the trouble of trying to get my wonky DVD burner to work.


...Because this entry is nothing but my whining about my life, have ( a tiny hamster in a box to make up for it )

So. You know how I've wanted rats for months? Planned names. Cage sizes. Toys. Colours. Everything.

I now own a Roborovski dwarf hamster. Named Barnabas. Yeah. Which is an utterly stupid decision when I wanted a pet I could handle, a pet that liked to be handled and I knew this and I still called my mother (who I wasn't even speaking to after an argument earlier today) and said "Where are you? I need a lift because I'm buying a hamster."

So. This whole decision came about very quickly and on a crazy whim, because after the fight with the woman I walked up to Pets at Home and contemplated the wall of rodents for a while. A long while. I was starting to twitch every time a member of staff walked past, waiting for them to kick me out. And there were rats there, beautiful black and white Dumbo rats which I would've bought there and then if I could've found a cage the right size but I've been looking for months and I'm concluding that really, one does not exist. Not that's big enough for two rats but just small enough to fit in the space I have. I'm bitter over this (because I have plenty of space dammit!) and will be bitter until I have my own place and room enough for pet rats but there just- there aren't enough rats cages out there to find the right size. There aren't.

There were two cute gerbils there which sorely tempted me but again, I couldn't see the right sort of cage on hand and the info said they could live up to four years, which is 1-2 years longer than I was really looking for. This is after I've just read that Roborovskis can live up to 3 1/2 years. Which, when the info leaflet said two, is something of a surprise. Yeah. But.

But. There was one of these, sleeping in a tiny huddle and I'd never seen anything so wonderful in my entire life. It was like a tiny, tiny baby barn owl in colour and like a golf ball with legs in size and was totally, totally wonderful. I've never really seen the appeal of dwarf hamsters before but this one was the most adorable thing in the entire pet store. The staff said he was used to being on his own (he was the only one in the cage) but he'd need to be handled more because of it. Fine by me. I left, thinking maybe I'd go back tomorrow and get him if he was still there, got ten minutes toward the bus stop still thinking about it and idly mused that such a tiny pet should have a big name to make him feel bigger and he looked like a mini barn owl, so Barnabas would be adorable.

Which was when I realised that I'd already decided. Half an hour later I was walking back out the pet store with a cage, sawdust, hamster food and a tiny, tiny hamster in a box. Which is currently in his cage to serve as a house because I foolishly forgot to buy one on top of everything else.

Today has confirmed, if nothing else, that I am completely and totally batshit. I'll try to get a picture later on when he wakes up. God. I just bought a frickin' hamster after swearing that I wouldn't. And my mother's barely spoken to me since because she thinks I'm batshit too and doesn't like the hamster enough for the cute to balance out her self-righteous parental fury right now.

But I love him. He's wonderful.