2001-10-24 - 11:13 p.m.

Hard Times for the Hamsters

Things have not been going that well for the hamsters living here.

First and foremost, poor Snowy died last night. He was rather old, so it's hardly a surprise. His health seemed to be extremely variable. One minute he'd be up and running around in circles, and the next minute he'd look like he was at death's door. Poor old Snowy.

And that bad news is on top of the ghastly trick Mother Nature pulled on poor Sweet Mo.

In addition, I've been having trouble breeding hamsters. For the first time in a very long time, it looked like I was going to have two litters of baby hamsters in the house at once. Pooka was pregnant by Partly Cloudy (or so I thought) and Ince was allegedly pregnant by Smallfry. Well, Ince's babies were due three days ago and Pooka's babies were due yesterday. No dice in either case.

This is especially disappointing because if I can't get more babies out of Partly Cloudy (who is admittedly rather old) or Ince, that means that the strain of gray hamsters I have will die out again. What makes this even more annoying is that the pair of gray hamsters I bought a year and a half ago (Partly Cloudy and Linda) cost me about $140. That's damn expensive for a hamster, but the hammies themselves were only $10 each, but it cost them $120 to air-ship them from the breeder in California.

So, I am going to try again in both cases. Wish me luck.

And as if that weren't enough, there is a hamster-related irritation affecting the two legged inhabitants of the Hamster Palace as well.

Currently we are dealing with a plague of tiny flies that seem to delight at flying around in our peripheral vision, wrecking our concentration. They seem to be easy to kill, but there are an awful lot of them.

How is this hamster related? Well, it's my theory that they came in with the hamster food. I've seen it happen before. Fifteen years ago I had to have my apartment fumigated because of an inundation of dirty little moths that came in with the hamster food. I think these flies are a similar infestation. Hopefully I won't have to fumigate. I'd have to pack the hamsters in my car and take them somewhere while I do it, and it's starting to get a little cold for adventures like that.

Well, hopefully in a couple weeks I'll be able to report two new litters of baby hamsters, and no more flies.