Some people's kids...

The idea for this post began about 1:05 this AM. It began with me waking up in the middle of the night to go #1 ( a not unusual occurrence). The trick, of course, is getting back to sleep. First of all, my getting up means Scrappy wakes up and notices a black cat wandering near the edge of our mini-woods out back. So he has to spend some time going rrrrrr...rrrrrr...rrrrrrr. Then comes that lovely bodily law that says that #1 + get comfortable= #2. (TMI, I know, but it goes with the story.) And of course, this leads to Scrappy actually barking at the intruder while I'm otherwise occupied and can't tell him to STFU. Return to bed, shut Scrappy up, get comfortable again. Seconds later Scrappy climbs all over me trying to decide on which side of me to climb under the covers at. And since he knows the cat is still out there, let's climb out the bottom and look out the windows and rrrrr... a few more times before repeating the process and going back to sleep. Now comes Cassie the dwarf hamster (henceforth referred to as "the mouse"). I changed her cage a few days ago, and for the first time in 14 months as resident mouse, she's decided to actually use her outside wheel as a wheel instead of a nest, which means periodic bouts of clattaclattaclatta-squeak squeak- clatttaclattaclatta.

And all this actually got me thinking about how she's probably one of the two or three longest-lived mouses I've had, and I've had mouses since about 15 years ago. So let me put this whole thing into perspective pictorially.

Welcome to the crow's nest, AKA my bedroom. The outer woodburning a gift from the multi-talented Laurie; the inner circle my design to replace the original clock face that assumed room temperature.

Here we see my hanging sports memorabilia, including the world famous KCA's 2010 World Championship shirt. Among the items on the wall is another Laurie creation, a cross with my favorite Bible verse on it, I Samuel 7:12- 12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us."

The cross was from the house I grew up in. It hung for years over dad's chair and has suffered from the collateral damage of pillowfight wars in my young and wild days. You can see the framed copy of the Journal-Gazette's headline of Nixon's win in 1968, flanked with grade-school era pictures of my kids, KC and Shenan.

Here's that view out the bedroom window, AKA "Scrappy's TV". Deer and fox, bunny and coon, cat and dog, cop and kids have passed through this vista.

Okay, now let's look in on Cassie. I last showed her off when we got her in January 2010. She looked like this then.

So let's see how she's grown. First, her house.

A spacious two-room with a loft (usually used for bathroom) and easy (for a mouse) access to a semi-detached wheel; which, as I've said, was previously used for a nest).
From inside, that's her looking from her little blue house to her upstairs tube entrance.







Her and Scrappy's relationship is along the lines of "don't ask, don't tell".

When she's stubborn, I often coax her into her food bowl and give her a lift out. She doesn't nip at all, but prefers- when she's willing- to be picked up once she's climbed out. Not so much on being grabbed out of her sanctum.


Okay, that concludes our tour of the crow's nest, starring the elegant Miss Cassie.

BTW, I found it curious as I cleaned the post up, that the six and seven "r" rrrr's at the beginning of the story passed the spell-checker, but he boned the 5 "r" rrrr later on. Go figure.