RIP Max/Marshmallow.

max in his younger days.

"I sure hope she's pregnant."

An odd thing for George to be saying when he walked into the bedroom at about 1 a.m.

"Who? Huh?"

"The hamster--I hope she's pregnant."

"Why?"

"'Cause he's dead. Dead dead dead."

That's how I came to learn that our elderhamster Max, AKA Marshmallow, loving husband to Cupcake and the longest living hamster in show business, had been Promoted to Glory as they are known say in The Salvation Army.

It was bound to happen. He had far surpassed the average hamster lifespan of 2-3 years, survived innumerable stupid hamster tricks and a lengthy marriage to his first wife, Coco, who ate their 13 babies back in 2005 after I mistakenly separated mom from babies. He was also the sweetest hamster we've ever had, and father of all hamsters we've ever had, except for his two wives.

I think of Coco, who died last year on Halloween, and the birth of their first litter of babies, spitting like popcorn from the hamster wheel. I think back on when I tried to figure out what to tell Jenna and opted for the truth.

She heard us talking tonight and already knows about Max. She's glad it's not the cat. A story for another day.

Recently we could tell that Max was aging fast, and that's when George came up with the idea to get him a new mate in Cupcake. We did a trial run with them in the same cage a month ago, but no babies. We put them back together a couple of weeks ago, so we're really hoping for some offspring to remember Max by.

Babies or not, Max you were a gentleman among hamsters. I'll miss you.


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More on Women

So we got this young hamster girl from the pet store to breed with Marshmallow, who is the best fricking, longest living, cutest hamster in Georgia (exhibit A to your right) if not the continental U.S. He is friendly, kind, doesn't bite, potties in ONE spot only, and basically lives a sweet and quiet life with good genes and teeth.

Can you ask for much more than that in a specimen of any species? I think not.

That is why we decided--or I should say George decided--that Marshmallow's lineage must be preserved in a new generation. So he and jenna bought Cupcake and brought her home. She is very sweet. When we put them together in one cage, they got along famously.

REALLY famously.

Wooohooo type famously.

So imagine our surprise two days ago when we found Marshmallow cowering on his back in a corner with Cupcake swiping away at him.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME YOU NEEDY BASTARD!" she screamed.

"OH CUPCAKE--WHAT? WHAT DID I DO?"

He continued to offer her his underbelly as if to say: I know you could kill me, and I love you for it, but if it's all the same to you, I wish you wouldn't.

Clearly she's hormonal.

Another couple of incidents like this followed until we got the picture: Time to separate them--the blessed event must be getting close.

What I'm saying is, if you listen, women will tell you what they want.

And even if you DON'T listen, women will show you what they want.

And if you don't listen and don't take heed, then they will swipe at you and you will be laying face up begging for them to just not hurt you and maybe to get a cage of their own if that would be at all possible.

Then when they move next door, you go back into your plastic dome house and lay around, just like you used to before they ever showed up.

And that's kind of how it works.

Hamsters are a window on the world.

---

OMG They are So in Love

Well, she moved into his house today. It is that simple. He had his house--it was his house and he loved it. She moved into his cage and started to eat his house (who had the idea of making an edible hamster house I do not know). Next, they fell in love and were doing the hamster dance all night, and now she has taken up residence in the house she once considered dinner.

All seems well.

I thought, what a joke to make a house out of food. A bizarre hamster fairy tale. Here is your house: it is made out of your favorite food. If you eat it, you are homeless. As if your life in a cage was not bad enough.

But things are looking up for old Marshmallow. He has a housemate and a wife. Sure her butt sticks out the doorway, but what an you do. At least she has stopped eating his house. I don't think anyone can ask for much more than that.

...

So far so good on the hamster front, what about ants

There's something peaceful and even funny about watching little animals -- their superfast miniature relationship building techniques not so different from ours. We still have an ant farm from Christmas that we haven't ordered ants for.

George and Jenna thought maybe we could collect ants from the yard, but the instructions tell a lot about different types of ants and how they behave and how getting the wrong kind of ant will either overpopulate the farm, or sometimes you get the very aggressive ants and then even the good ants you do want end up all fighting and killing each other and then you have no ants in the ant farm. Reminds me in some ways of the blogworld, and I'm not even sure how. But for $5 I guess it's worth ordering the right kind of ants that come with a queen so it's like a litte ant ecosystem in a box.

Fear is hard. I'm there too often. But things like hamsters and ants and writing about hamsters and ants seem to help. I suppose it's time to order some ants.

Going to not worry about writing for a while. Will be here as I can. Resting otherwise.

...

she ran calling wildfire

Five days post-op, six laps around the driveway today, plus plenty of steps. I was glad to get outside--the last two days have been Code Orange days in our area. Not terrorist threats, but smoke.

The smoke from the southeastern wildfires has been hanging over us for two days and folks with heath issues have been advised to stay inside. I went out to the mailbox and back yesterday, and it smelled like a worldwide backyard bonfire. The haze was pretty thick. But it lifted today enough to bring us down to yellow, so I had my driveway parade. It hurt some but wasn't too bad.

Pain is interesting. Or something like that. Mind you, what I'm going through is a drop in the bucket compared to others with chronic issues. At the hospital the nurses told me I was super for getting up and walking an hour after I got into my room. I made a point to walk a lot since walking is the best way to not get blood clots and helps fewer adhesions form. They kept pointing to the pain scale faces, and I think I hovered around 3 the whole time. They seemed pretty amazed I wasn't in more pain. I say, if you haven't woken up in the OR pre-pain-meds after a six-hour myomectomy, you don't know after-surgery pain. They are right about the laparoscopy--the pain is much less. I am so thankful for that. And good pain meds don't hurt. ;-)

All in all, so far so good. 5 days down. And counting.

Thank you one and all for your good wishes, emails, comments, and prayers. Some of you will believe me, some not, but whether you do or don't isn't the point. Before they took me into the OR, I actually heard and felt them. Straight up. We matter to each other and it matters when we get real. Real isn't always pretty. Can't sanitize it. Can't forget it. The Good Lord knows.

I am grateful to you more than I can say.

Now, it's back to the hamster action.

I just went down and had a look. Old Marshmallow hasn't been so active in a long while. He was even chewing on his wooden house. He hasn't chewed in forever. He was also chasing Cupcake around the cage. In a good way. They are both drinking from the water bottles like fish. Or something.

Hey, they have each other. They seem happy.

....