Going through stuff, or at least thinking about it

I have almost 1600 unread emails. Part of the problem is that I don't subscribe to the digest form of anything, so nearly all of them come from the various listservs I subscribe to. Almost half of them come from PERSNAME-L. It's a great listserv for finding about about possible incorrect name heading forms in bibliographic records and, I think, the occasional name authority record correction/change. However, I almost never have the time to go through the emails, and, even when I do, it's stuff I tend not to be able to do in great big chunks (as in "physically can't do in great big chunks"). PERSNAME-L is followed by MARCEDIT-L (the listserv for MARCEdit, great MARC editing software), another great resource. Mostly, I read MARCEDIT-L for catalog maintenance ideas, although I've gotten an amazing amount of help just by emailing the listserv any questions I have.

While working on cleaning out my emails, I finally decided to delete some emails that mentioned taking care of Bear after his surgery. It's weird, boring little emails can make me sad - before those, it was photos of Bear and Yuki I found on my cell phone (which have no plans to ever delete). My cell phone is like a graveyard of pets - I found photos of Cinnamon (my family's dog, who died days after I came to Stephenville) and Felix (one of my family's cats, who also died after I came to Stephenville).

Waiting and watching

The vet wasn't able to say for sure what's causing Bear's lower body weakness (his hind legs don't have as much range of movement and control, and his tail is mostly limp). Apparently, he might have hurt his back. He might also have degenerative osteoarthritis. That second one scares me, since it means he's only going to get worse. (I love Rat Health Guide, by the way - it's been very helpful over the years.)

The vet has put him on steroids, and today was his third day getting them. So far, I'm not sure if he's improved, but the vet said it might take as long as a week to see results. I'm also a bit worried about his tumor, which seems to have gotten a bit larger. I had originally planned to take him in for surgery if it looked like the tumor was going to start growing, but with his other problems now I'm not so sure. I'm hoping the universe will be nice to Bear and just leave him alone for a while.

I'm working on creating a single-story cage for him. It's basically just a plastic storage container with some aluminum screen material on top - I doubt he's athletic enough anymore to make it out of the container, even if I chose not to give it a cover, but I figure it's better safe than sorry. I'll probably put him in the new cage tonight, so I can see how he deals with it before work on Sunday.

Bear go rawr

One of the drawbacks of having a pet rat is that they don't have very good eyesight. I got Bear all excited over a piece of apple, opened his cage to give it to him, and forgot to be careful about where I stick my fingers - so now I'm a little bit wounded. Thankfully, it's in a easy place to bandage and he wasn't trying to do damage, so the bite wasn't very deep and I only bled a little. But ouch.

Pet store!

After getting my teeth scraped and polished by the dentist, I went to Granbury to get some car stuff done - probably unnecessary, but it also works as an excuse for getting out of Stephenville. My vet told me that she got her family's rat at a pet store in Granbury, so I decided to try finding it. It's got tons of supplies and accessories, even the cardboard tubes that are the perfect size for Bear to curl up in. The place does, indeed, have rats, but they're intended to be feeder rats - they're sorted into cages marked "small," "medium," and "large." They're probably never handled, and they're not necessarily very healthy. Still, the "small" rats might be young enough to become sweet pets. I loved looking at them - their feet were almost as big as their heads!

No, I'm not considering getting more rats anytime in the near future, I'm just looking into my options. I figure that, when Bear's gone, I'll be petless for a while. Short rat lifespans are so tough to deal with. After my last pair of rats, I swore I'd never get any more, and a few years later I ended up with Bear and Yuki when the pet store my mom shops at had an accidental rat litter. I'd prefer to get my next rats the same way, or from a breeder, but that might not be possible. Well, you never know.

It's Colorado in Texas!

I'm absolutely amazed at all the snow outside right now - and I'm pathetically glad I don't have to be outside in it anymore today. Anyone who likes snow has obviously not had to be out in it much. Unfortunately, taking my comp time today didn't exempt me from going out on the road. I drove as much today as I usually do in a month.

I took Bear to the vet today, sort of hoping that all he had was an abscess. The vet took some fluid, looked at it, and decided it was probably a tumor. With a tumor, the only options are surgery to remove it, or letting it continue to grow. Even a benign tumor can eventually interfere with internal organs and movement. Since they'd had good success with doing surgery on older rats in the past (my fear was that Bear would be considered too old for surgery to be safe), I decided to go for it.

It's going to be a rough next 10 days. Bear had not one, but two lumps removed - a tiny one on his thigh and a larger one on his shoulder. He can't reach the sutures on his shoulder, but he already managed to completely chew out the ones on his thigh. Now he has staples there, as well as an E-collar to keep him from messing with them. I'm hoping that overfilling his food bowl will allow him to eat with the collar on, because I don't relish the idea of having to take the collar off and put it back on several times a day. He'll probably have to live in his small carrying cage for the next 10 days, until the stitches can be removed, because I don't like the idea of him going up and down the ramps in his cage while he's got the collar on. I'm crossing my fingers that everything heals up ok, without any infection.

I'm exhausted and hoping that it snows and snows until the library is declared closed tomorrow. All that driving in this weather, while simultaneously worrying about Bear, wasn't very restful. Also, when I went to WalMart to pick up some stuff for Bear, I locked myself out of my car and had to walk home and back again to get my spare car key (I've already thanked my dad for advising me to keep a spare house key in my wallet). I was not, unfortunately, very well dressed for the weather, so I think I'm going to drink some Throat Tea and hope I stay healthy.

I hope everybody stays safe!

(Oops, just remembered that I have to finish up an LOL blog post for tomorrow. I've got one almost finished, but I hate it. Maybe I'll finish it up and schedule it to be published anyway. --Update: I wrote an entirely different, holiday-themed blog post, but I haven't yet trashed my original post.)

Drinking coffee, marveling at the adorableness

Aww. Bear has gotten to the point in his life where he's calm enough and trusting enough that, when he sees me stick my hand into his cage, instead of getting nervous and/or excited, he stretches out and closes his eyes (!), hoping for a good neck rub. So adorable. And I am so wrapped around his little pink fingers.

Anyway, if I can bring myself to write something coherent about it, I plan on writing a post about the newest book on cataloging that I've finished, or at least a post about a few of my favorite articles. I'm up much earlier than I'd like today, so I can hopefully manage to get laundry done - maybe that'll translate into more time later today for blogging? Unless I go to the movies - I haven't decided on that one yet, since the only movie I'd at all want to go see that I haven't seen yet seems more than a little iffy. When even a movie's premise seems awful, the movie itself probably isn't much better, but I might enjoy it anyway because I like the actress who plays the main character. Hmm... (The movie in question, by the way, is Leap Year. Read the premise and try to tell me it doesn't sound bad. Your nose may grow.)

Big Kitty is gone

I'm writing this post, wondering if Big Kitty will prove me wrong. "Big Kitty" was the not-quite-a-name I gave the cat I mentioned in this post. When I came back from the conference, Big Kitty wasn't there. I put some cat food outside, figuring he might have gone off somewhere to mooch off of someone else, and the food was still there in the morning. The food was still there when I finished grocery shopping and when I went to bed. It was gone by this morning, but I figure Narrow Kitty (my not-quite-a-name for the skittish stray cat that occasionally tried to steal food from Big Kitty) was responsible for that.

So, it's been two days, and I still haven't seen Big Kitty. I suppose I should be happy about that, since I'll no longer have to worry about him when it's cold and/or rainy outside, but it makes me feel kind of teary-eyed. He'd gotten in the habit of escorting me to and from the laundry room and mailbox area. Now it feels weird going without him. I miss him, and I hope that the reason he's gone is because someone took him in and finally gave him a home.

I really should move somewhere that will let me at least have a cat, but the idea of moving is too exhausting. Rats are nice, but there's something to be said for a pet that lives longer and can join you when you're doing something in another room. I also miss sleeping with a pet curled up at my side. If I fall asleep while my rats are out, I risk having one of them test me as a possible food source, chew holes into my clothing, and try to push me off of the bed (usually Bear does this - he hates it when I fall asleep and stop paying attention to him).

Sick brat (er, rat...)

Yesterday was day 2 of giving my rattie boy Bear medicine on my own. As usual, hardly any of it got inside him, or even on him. I'll just have to hope that he's getting enough to help him feel better.

Yesterday morning, Bear had me all worried, because he didn't eat when I fed him and his brother. He wouldn't lick me either (sometimes he reminds me of a little dog, he likes licking my hands so much). He didn't look listless, and he didn't look any worse when I came home that day, but he still barely ate and there was so little water missing from the water bottle that I'm guessing Bear didn't really drink from it that day.

I fed them again before I went to bed (I divide feeding time up, because when they were younger they'd overeat if I gave it all at once). Only a few minutes after I turned out the light, I heard somebody munching away. It was Bear, the little brat. I think he was just sulking about being given the medicine, because he ate like usual this morning.

What a relief, but argh. Pets can make you crazy sometimes.

My rat boys!

I've had these photos of my boys on my camera for months now and have finally gotten around to posting them. I love these little guys so much! This first photo is of Bear, chowing down on one of the old apples Kris gave me to give to them.


In this next photo, Yuki's getting involved. Bear is greedily trying to protect the apple with his entire body.


This last photo is a cute close-up of one of the boys. Unfortunately, I can't remember which one this is, and I can only tell them apart if I can see either their tails (the easiest way, since Bear's tail is almost all dark brown) or their backs (harder, but the splotch of color down Yuki's back is choppier than Bear's). Still, it's cute, and one of the few close-ups I've been able to get - usually, when I try for one, the boys get curious and run up to the camera before I can finish taking the picture.

Yuki in 3 varieties for DSL

I was working on what I think might be the last of my DSL activities, messing around with Picnik. I used the photo of my rat Yuki that I posted earlier in this blog (see the original photo here). I loved playing around with the various effects, but I couldn't decide which effect looked best, so I did several. Here are the three varieties of Yuki:

This one's the "action shot." He's Super Yuki, going after the last crumbs of food as quickly as he can.


This is the awesome one, that makes Yuki look kind of cool.

This is the sweet nostalgic shot. It's too bad this isn't a picture of him sleeping or something - that would be cuter.

Introducing one of my boys

I talk about them a lot, but I don't actually have any pictures of them in my office - all I've got are pictures of my girls (plus the girls' father, who one coworker mistook for a guinea pig). Although I've taken several pictures of my boys, most of them aren't that good. Plus, I'm lazy about putting them on my computer. This picture is one of the few that I've gotten around to taking off my camera. It shows Yuki, licking the last molecules of an egg sandwich off a plate. Unfortunately for poor Yuki, Bear is much faster and greedier and got all the good bits.