~turtlesoup15

*It won't let me change my mood. I'm not irritated.

I spent the last week in San Antonio, Texas visiting my high school best friend. We hadn't seen each other since 2003 but kept in touch. The first couple days were pretty fun but then she woke up with a bad cold and I spent the majority of the week watching T.V. and listening to her complain. Unfortunately we really aren't the friends we were in high school. I think we've just grown into very different people. We were both raised by a Korean mother and white American father. She is actually half black, half Korean. Her mother remarried. In high school we had a very similar culture, but since she joined the Air Force in 2004 she has hung out with all black people. Which seriously I have no problem with.

The issue was that some of her behaviors came off as inappropriate or disrespectful. For example almost every sentence she said to me ended with "bitch" or "whore". I'm not accustomed to being called those names...at all. She did it occassionally in high school but it was rare enough that it was kinda funny. Not funny when it's constant. And her common response to about everything I said was "You're stupid." It just got really old really fast. I realize this sort of interaction is acceptable with her current friends but I definitely wasn't pleased by it.

Our value systems are entirely different. We got our nails done on the last day I was there. I went because she wanted to and actually it was my first manicure. I really didn't enjoy it and I've already messed up the nail polish a lot because I use my hands a lot. She probably spent around $75. She gave me a lecture afterwards saying I need to pamper myself more so I can feel good about myself. My response was that doing things like that doesn't make me feel good inside...it feels like a waste of money. And what does make me feel good is things like going to the park with my husband. Her response, "Oh, romantic crap!" in a really harsh tone.

She was extremely negative about just about everything and it was a real downer. She was so down on my marriage. When I tried to talk to my husband on the phone she kept yelling, "Oh God!" and grunting. She expects me to listen to her talking about sleeping with men she doesn't love but is offended by something as natural as a wife loving her husband and expressing that? She complained about how many times we said "I love you" in one phone conversation. We were missing each other a lot and said it maybe 3-4 times. I guess misery loves company because she really couldn't be happy for me. It was just a really dissapointing week. I thought she'd have grown up more and we'd still connect. But like I said the first two days were good. She was still behaving rudely but she was in a better mood when she wasn't sick and it took a little while for those things to really get on my nerves.

I can't even tell you how thrilled I was to get home. A week away from my husband and hammies was too long! He had to deal with some drama due to escapes and he had to work all week with no days off. So he was pretty tired. He hadn't gotten around to cleaning the caves on Saturday like I instructed him too though and as a result Nala made her first escape in search of a new cleaner environment. Instead she found the vacuum cleaner hose which led her to the filter bucket where she was trapped for we're not sure how long. My husband saw her jumping up and down in there and the poor little girl had been breathing that dust so she drank water for a full 5 min. when she went home.

They were all really happy when I got home. They were all awake and hyper for about 6 hours. I cleaned all their homes and Nala and Kiba both jumped into their running balls, clearly ready to have things washed up. So everyone was happy again yesterday! I don't think I'll be leaving home without my husband for a long time. I missed him really bad and having all that negativity around me...I really missed his positivity.

Vixi is gonna drive me CRAZY! I love her to death because she's so cute, curious, and funny. But she keeps managing to escape despite my modifications! In my last journal I talked about her first escape to Nala's playpen. A couple weeks ago she escaped to the playpen AGAIN! I came home from work and I was about to do the dishes when I heard a noise from Nala's playpen. I figured she was doing that cute little butt-drag thing she does to get my attention, but I turned to see Vixi chasing her in circles! I got them separated and lectured Vixi...which was actually really cute cuz she stood with her hands folded and her ears back looking at me like she knew she'd messed up. But less than a week later she ran right out the front door when I tried to give her a treat. I caught her pretty quick though and she peed on my hand.

ANYWAY! This morning I woke up and walked into the living room to see Vixi sitting next to Nala's playpen enjoying a peanut. I sat in front of her and talked to her a little while I called for my husband...he's so much better at catching them than I am. Once I reached toward her she ran for it and omg she is fast. It took a little under 10 min. to catch her I think. Nick got her and when he grabbed her she screamed and it was terrible. He didn't hurt her, she was just panicking. So I spent the beginning of my morning helping catch her and then trying to modify her box even more. She has a box connected to her cage so she can have a running ball. She's so good at climbing.

In other news...politics are driving me crazy. I'm not happy with either presidential candidate at all. There's not even a republican up there. And I'm annoyed at one of my coworkers who won't shutup about how great Obama is. He's an Iranian refugee and he thinks Obama should be president because he's young, attractive, and going to change America. I'm sorry but those are LAME reasons to vote for someone...the guy hasn't given any solid examples of how he's going to change America in a positive way...and I happen to love my country and don't think it needs a make-over...dammit. Actually the thing that pisses me off the most about this coworker is that he starts these political arguments with me and then he won't let me talk and since he usually has nothing supportive of his opinions to say, he just laughs hysterically over my voice. VERY rude and disrespectful. And once when I brought up the Iranian president's threats against Israel his whole argument towards me was "Why do you care?" and again wouldn't let me talk. UGH! Done ranting now. Sorry.

So...my parents came to stay for the weekend. Blah! It would be fine if they weren't so eager to insult and give constant unwanted advise. But anyway! My husband and I weren't the only ones irked by the uninvited guests. Vixi was especially uncomfortable. When these intruders were sleeping in her room that was too much and my little girl escaped.

In the morning I asked if she and Nala had been noisy. My dad said it was like Vixi wasn't there. Alarms went off in my mind because if it was like hyper lil Vixi wasn't there...then chances are, she was not there. I checked and yep...she was out. This was her first escape that didn't involve a mistake by me. The most recent was that I absentmindedly left the door open on her cage. hehe....

Anyway, I was freaking out and starting to get really emotional about her missing and my mom was laughing and kept saying "These things happen," which made me wonder if she'd had a hand in Vixi's escape since she generally has no desire to leave her home at all. For example, when I put her in her running ball she just bashes into her cage trying to find a way back in.
My mom kept commenting that we didn't need so many too...and that they make our apartment look bad. She's a particularly meddlesome person, but I have no proof. I don't have my little girls so they can be pretty pieces of furniture. I really love 'em! :/

Anyway, we had to go to church so I left the door of her house open should she try to find a way back in. When we got home she still wasn't in her house so I was really disappointed. I went in my bedroom to check more in there and my mom reported that yep, she wasn't in her cage and that she couldn't see "the other one" either. I said Nala was in there, just in her cave. I went to look anyway just for good measure. I saw her little curled up body down in her cave where it belonged. Then...DUN DUN DUN!

I felt another freakin' pair of eyes on me! And there was another hamster standing inside the cave watching me! Yep...it was VIXI! Crazy... I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. She had climbed the fence into Nala's backyard to check things out. I took off the top of the cave because I didn't 100% believe my eyes. This woke Nala up, who was in a bit of a daze and very confused by the site of her sister. Then they kinda just avoided each other for a bit before approaching each other. They sniffed each other a little and I actually wondered if they were reconciling.

Then they both rose up on their hind legs sizing each other up and Nala opened her mouth in a very threatening way, and it was on. I slapped 'em apart and lowered Vixi's running ball. She was pretty eager to jump in to safety. Then I put Vixi back in her cage where she sat glaring and then took a very long nap. Nala seems completely unphased by the event. She's just happy to be alive. Vixi was pissy for a few hours but she seems fine now.

It was just crazy. I can't believe Vixi escaped to break into a different hammie cage. hehehe. We're just glad that she didn't break into Kiba's cage where she would have been murdered instantly and that Nala is such a deep sleeper. Once I petted her for a full 30 seconds before she woke up. Anyway, I'm glad all my hammie girls are okay!

THE END!

Wow, I haven't submitted a journal in almost a year. Haha.

I'm happy to announce that my husband and I now have THREE HAPPY hamsters. We started with just Kiba, who we love so much...that it's a little crazy cuz she's so small. After about 5 months of living alone we thought Kiba was getting bored with life...sleeping all but maybe about 2-3 hours a day (it seemed) and just getting up for food, water, and exercise. Then back to sleep. So we thought we'd get her a friend.

Enter Nala. Kiba had murder on the mind pretty quick. She was really nervous at first and noticeably made the decision that she needed to kill Nala immediately. So pretty quickly we decided these two were not going to be together. Nala did have a cage mate at the store though...so I went back to get her the next day.

Enter Vixi. We assumed Nala and Vixi recognized each other when I put them both in their brand new cage. They looked at each other a moment but didn't approach each other. It didn't seem they were snubbing each other, just more interested in exploring the new home. They were fine together until Vixi started getting really territorial about the running wheels. She would run in one, jump out, and run in the other...back and forth. If Nala tried to use one she'd tackle her.

We weren't overly concerned because it seemed like sibling rivalry and determining who would be dominant...but then Vixi got more aggressive and the hissing started. We recognized it immediately because Kiba had done the same thing to our sweet little Nala. It was sad to watch because Nala is so nice and non-confrontational with a "can't we all get along" attitude. The other two big personalities saw it as weakness I suppose.

Anyway, so they had to be separated. Nala lives in the playpen now. She has her own Nala Cave modeled after Kiba's beloved cave that pretty much convinced her to move out of her house. Since the separation Nala has been very active and clearly at ease. It's nice to see her thriving and feeling secure for the first time in our home. Vixi was down for a couple of days. My husband thought she was just sad about not being able to go into the playpen anymore, but I honestly think that she got a kick out of bullying Nala, and not being able to do that anymore made her kind of lonely and bored. I read about a study today done on rats that had to do with male rats considering a chance to be aggressive towards another rat a reward because of the raised dopamine levels or something. Just reconfirms my suspicions.

Anyway, I don't claim to be a hamster expert by any means, but I consider robos to be very logical and level-headed creatures. So in response to Vixi's sadness, I came up with a theory on helping her buck up and get over her loss. I told my husband that if I were to leave him (yeah right ) if everything had my scent on it, it would be much harder to forget me and move on. Maybe Vixi could start to get over things faster too if I purged everything in the house of Nala...so I immediately cleaned her home. When she went back in she inspected everything and started running in her wheel. We saw a change immediately. Her eyes were wider and she was being more active. So we're pretty sure we finally got our insanely moody little girls all to a place where they can just be content.

And another fun little thing we did with 'em was put them all in their clear plastic balls and let them run around the kitchen floor together. They seemed completely fine to see and be near each other with the protection of their plastic bubbles and on neutral ground. Nala loves her plastic ball and was zooming around playing bumper balls. The other two were just trying to avoid getting hit.

Yes, I'm the crazy hamster lady now. I find my little girls extremely amusing. And there's not a whole lot else going on...I mean...I live in Nebraska. There's as much out here to do as it sounds like. Luckily I have my awesome husband who is also foreign to these deadened lands...to keep me sane!

So I think I'm in that phase where everything seems a little too copacetic...so I feel the need to invent problems. Terrible, I know. I'm engaged to the most amazing person I've ever encountered, the money situation is stable, I get to do the things I love (writing and teaching), and I'm going to move into a nice newly refurbished apartment with my fiance in a couple weeks. Everything is going well. Even the concerns I still do have don't bug me much. So yeah...I'm extremely happy. Naturally, this new experience is creeping me out...so I've been combatting it without even realizing it. Anyway, I'm gonna try harder to let myself enjoy this.