The mystery of "Himmmm"

Well, I survived Thanksgiving. The rat photos all went up on my Instagram, where I would recommend you follow if you want to see more small fuzzy animals. I don't really post photos of me too much, but I do occasionally show you all my handsome collection of vermin. The new cage set is a hit, including a new design of under-shelf toob that gives Les Fromages great joy and keeps them from tearing the shelf cover off, which they normally do. 

Mickie spent the rest of the weekend scaring the hell out of me. He didn't really want to come out for Ratsgibing dinner, hence why you did not get the usual sweet sweet Toon Bros mukbang video. The next day he was clearly in a lot of pain -- didn't want food, didn't want water, breathing hard, nose all red and crusty with porphyrin-snot. I couldn't find any wounds or any spots that made him jump, so I don't have any idea what he did. It might have been a soft tissue injury that didn't hurt unless he moved a certain way; Mickie is a magical combination of dim, arrogant, and inattentive that leads him to doze off on the edge of their shelf and then roll over in his sleep. Or, as he didn't want to groom me when I pet him like he normally does, he might have jammed an incisor or otherwise hurt something inside his mouth. 

In any case, I did the only thing you can do when that happens: Give him a load of painkillers and some valerian-laced frosting, so he could nap until it all kicked in. Even if I could figure out what he'd hurt, you can't really splint or bandage a rat. They just chew it off. Some people have had some success building them a tiny Cone of Shame post-surgery, but that's actually pretty difficult. They're not built like cats and dogs, with a neck significantly smaller than their head -- a rat can squash their entire body through any hole they can jam their skull through, so it's a tricky to get the thing tight enough to stay on without hurting the rat. Plus they have the cat thing going, where either you would have to be omnipresent and omnipotent or the rat would have to be heavily sedated to keep them from climbing things, and there's a good chance the cone would get caught.

Fortunately, a bolus of Tylenol and a good night's sleep did him a lot of good. I still have no idea what was wrong, but it's mostly not wrong now, which is pretty common for injuries. Rats heal up fast. He seems a little awkward when he climbs around, especially in the back end, but I can't tell if he's favoring a leg or if he's just a clumsy middle-aged little (big, squishy) fucker. He got woken up for ibuprofen/Tylenol q6h the first day, q8h-ish the second, and now he's getting ibuprofen morning and night for a bit just in case. It's not uncommon for big rats to develop weakness/stiffness/arthritis in their hind end when they get older; just like humans, the more weight you put on a joint over a long period of time, the more it wears down. This is about the age Tseng started needing NSAIDs bid, and he got another solid six months or so with excellent QoL, so assuming Mickie doesn't break his neck falling off some shit he'll be around for his second Ratmas.

Aside from that, I'm my usual level of disintegrating. A lot of what keeps me functioning is having a regular schedule. This time of year, a lot of classes and work/volunteer shifts get canceled, either for travel or because the people involved are getting ready for special annual events. The events all cost money, so I don't get to go unless I'm involved as tech or talent. I try to make sure I have one day completely off every week, but not too much more than that, because if I have too much time to sit around and contemplate my navel I start losing my mind. Things being closed mean there's a block of days at the end of the year when I have no outside workspaces, and that plus the weather mean I'm pretty much stuck in my apartment.

I love the rats, but they're not very good conversationalists, yannow?

I try to have plans set up, but being sad and adrift makes me tired, and being tired makes it harder to pretend I'm not sad and adrift. I do pick up some extra bits of work, but my regular work closes for the holidays, and things I do for the holidays don't pay out until afterwards, so money gets tighter than usual. It's a lot of wandering around, seeing nice things that I would love to have and having to ask myself, "Do I really need that to survive?" The answer is always no, and I know that, but it's really tedious to have that conversation with myself over and over again.

The thing that actually bothers me the most is gifts. I don't necessarily miss getting a lot of stuff. I don't need all that much, and if I do need something I eventually figure out how to buy it for myself. Having people hand me stuff that signifies they thought about me, at least a little, when I wasn't right there in front of them, I kind of miss. I don't care if it's a candy cane with pipe cleaner antlers and a pair of googly eyes stuck on it. That means they remembered I eat candy! The cost is not the point. But what I really miss is having the resources to give things to people. I am frighteningly good at putting together gift baskets that are appropriate to both the recipient and the occasion. I find it fun. It's a pleasing kind of puzzle-solving: Given everything I know about this person, and a budget to stick to, what collection of items would be most appreciated and look prettiest in a bag or basket? If I get it right, somebody's happy. None of them are expensive -- I don't think any one basket has ever topped $30 -- and I get most of the detail doo-dads at the Dollar Tree, but it's a lot of my entertainment over the holiday season, and I don't get to do it anymore, and that makes me extra sad.

[Gifts in general can be fraught for me. I always got big ticket items from my parents growing up. And frankly after I passed the age where my taste in toys was easily predicted from the contents of that year's Montgomery Ward catalog, the only reason I got anything I could use is because I wrote down the exact item I wanted, including model number and specifications, and handed it to my mother. After the invention of Amazon, she got emailed a link every year. I always picked a piece of consumer electronics between $100-200, and holding my mother down to that amount of money was an epic struggle that deserves an essay of its own. People paying enough attention to give me something I would actually want, without me having to point and ook at it first, is something I didn't get until I was old enough to handle my own gift exchanges with friends.]

Most of my holiday spirits get channeled into the rats. I can give them a used teabag for Christmas and they'll be delighted, which is good, because that's about my budget. Basically everything that makes them happy in life, and everything I need to decorate their cage, is available at the local Dollar Tree. Their holiday tchotchkes this year have a red buffalo check theme, which conveniently matches both a blanket I have and some fabric I have leftover from Ratmas past, so I'm running with it. I dug around in my sewing stash and got their holiday hammocks done over the weekend, plus a second stuffed tree, so I'm ahead of the game.