Horatio

Dear EmilyE, You may not stop in, but we all wish you a most wonderful birthday! Time has passed and life has taken us down different roads, so we hope that this birthday and all birthdays to come, you are having a wonderful life. Of course, no one gets away from the traditional song... HAPPY HAMMIE BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY HAMMIE BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY HAMMIE BIRTHDAY DEAR EMILYE, HAPPY HAMMIE BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!! Please make a wish, blow out all the candles and start your birthday party. Happy Hammy Birthday... Horatio

The dreaded bath... let us know who won!

Hopefully if I can work it right, all summer! So... I have been waiting to hear about your pyrotechnic adventures on the fourth of July. Anything interesting?

And now he has the best home of all!!! A rescue home is always so fantastic for a pet. I am really happy he is in your home! I know he feels lots and lots of love.

Curry is good. It does not have to be hot, but it has a wonderful flavour. It is the water and how they cook things that got me. Cleanliness is not one of the top ten priorities. Air conditioning is so over-rated... No, I need the air conditioning not so much for the heat, but to remove the moisture. I can work when it is warmer, but do not like the humidity at one hundred percent. Having to do your job with a poorly working air conditioning unit is really tough. At least in your car, you can open the windows and get some air flow.

Back home again. I must say that sleeping in my own bed feels really, really good!!! Mumbai was a disaster. Monsoon weather... rain, rain and lots more rain. The trip over was one I prefer not to repeat and the flight home was only slightly better. The hotel food was interesting. I had crackers that were made from lentils, and they were as thin as onion skin paper and absolutely delightful! A tasty treat. Lots of veggies in all different forms. Eating only traditional Indian food, I had great meals. No tourist attractions as the rain was too much. Maybe next time.

Glad you all named him. Noodles, sounds like a sort of silly name. I like Pippin. Great name. Sometimes people are so cruel and when they get tired of a pet, they just drop it off somewhere rather than taking them to a shelter or pet store that searches for new homes. If I were king, you would serve jail time for abuse of animals.

I love your thinking!!!! You just made my day! I have to remember your statement.

If I did not know better, I would think it was monsoon weather in India. All it has done since I arrived is rain and rain and rain. Day and night. Not just sprinkles, but good big raindrops that the plants love!

Congratulations on your new dog! Is he a rescue or did you all name him Pippin? As for training him to go outside... at the pet store they have this stuff that smells like doggie urine or such. Humans cannot smell it. You place some of this, spray or drops, where you would like your dog to go outside, and when he smells it, he usually will go in that spot. This stuff helps train the dogs pretty rapidly.

Last night, I finally got settled into my room. A long, hot wonderful shower, then off to bed. Except... I really could not sleep. So this morning, I was able to drag myself down to the restaurant and had five cups of coffee. Well, as I finally woke up, I realized that I had left my room in my running clothes, with dress shoes on. I felt really stupid. Good thing there were very few people in the restaurant and no one was really looking at my fashion statement. I need to focus and am totally unable. This really stinks. Worse than writer's block.

Sounds like a good title for a book... are you in the writing mood?

At the moment, I am sitting in Newark airport waiting for the flight from Newark to Brussels. This should take over seven hours, then on to Mumbai. The second leg is about ten hours. I am already tired.

Absolutely!!!! Thank you for the good wishes. It should be fun and I hope to see the sights.

I have almost all my travel plans in place for a journey to India on the 29th. It is one very long flight! It was a quick decision whether to go the first or second week of July, so late last night, I decided on the first week. Well, flights are very booked, so I moved my travel date forward instead of back. This should be an exciting and fun time. Thank goodness for digital cameras, I can take a zillion pictures!

I sure wish Hoops would come back and finish this story.

Ohhhhhh yesssssss!!!!!!!

Those are really fantastic images!!! Thank you so much! Their home is terrific! It would be great if I had one similar for my hammie's, just with a divider to keep them separated. Is this house the same house you used for your rats? Now, I definitely want a pair! I just have to move to Germany! I was trying to take some pictures of my hammies, and the coolpix is a terrific camera, but every time I put it in the cage, the both hamsters run up to the lens to examine what is in their cage. I searched around here to see if your jirds were available in the USA and I was unable to find anything but the gerbils. As you had mentioned, the gerbils are over bred. The same goes for dogs and cats. What is really distressing is that people are mixing breeds and then trying to get them certified as a new breed, when they used to be called mutts or mixed breeds. I can't wait until someone decides to mix a great dane with a basset hound. Perhaps they will try and certify it as a basset dane... a big, long dog with these short little squatty legs. Horrid thought.

I was unaware of the difference in jirds. Thank you for explaining this to me. It is always great to learn from you!!! Now if and when I move to Germany I want a pair of your type jirds.

I do remember you talking about the jirds, but you never posted any pictures. Please, post pictures. If I ever move to Germany, I would like to be the first person on your list as a buyer for a pair. Jirds are gerbils in the USA. Mostly you find only the brown/tan coloured ones. The grey/black/white colouring is very rare. I know you told us, and I cannot remember, what was the colouring of yours? Fish are also wonderful. Isn't it amazing how relaxing it is to watch fish swim around in their tank? My problem is that I want the fish to have a much bigger space than i can afford. I would need to hire a company just to take care of the tank. As for my email, you have my other email and that is still good. I just did not want to have my personal email on Facebook, as some people allow Facebook access to their email accounts. Very, very bad idea. I will be back later. On my way to the gym. Need to get into shape before winter sets in again.

Hmmmm... how did I do that? Too much coffee.

I would like to see the results of laying face up with your heads hanging upside down off the couch. That would definitely send some mixed signals!!!

No humidity to speak of, just some rain. Which might be construed as a wet form of humidity. I love Alaska!

o.o did a spam bot get ahold of your account, Horatio? No, I change my password regularly. I just thought if there was a problem with the boards, then people could reach me until the boards were fixed.

Usually the bedding and food do not go bad. Here is my question... where did you store it? Before you get another hamster you need to wash out your old cage with some warm water and a little bleach. Sasha was healthy, so you are not worried about diseases, but this is just in case she had any health problems that you did not know about. After you clean out the cage, then you need to air dry it for a couple days so that the bleach smell is completely gone. I am happy to hear that you are thinking about another hamster! You can always rescue a hamster. Some of these hamstersso are much harder to work with at first, but when you win them over, they are very happy to have a new lease on life. I had a couple one eyes... and they were the absolute sweetest hamsters, that were rejected by everyone. They both were adopted from the pet store. It took them a little bit longer to trust, not only did they have poor eyesight, they only had one eye to see out of. They were really terrific hamsters. Biters are also adoptable and very easy to train not to bite. Hamsters bite out of fear. Usually, no one wants to take the time to help a biting hamster, the pet stores usually turn them into snake dinner. Some of the pet stores, when showing hamsters to people, just reach into the cage, pull off the house, and grab a hamster. If the hamster is scared, it will bite. So, then the hamster is tossed into a cage in the back as one that needs to be adopted or served as dinner. These hamsters also turn into great pets. They just take a little bit of work to get them to trust you. It is not that long and usually it pays off. Hiero has bitten. So, I realized that she needed training of a different kind, so that she knew what was expected. For example, you cannot reach into her cage and grab her. You need to wake her up, and then get her moving on her own. Once this happens, she is okay to pick up. I believe her eyesight is probably the worst of any hamster I have had. She knows her name and if I call her, she will get up and come out of her house. Also, for many hamsters, whispering really gets their attention. Hamsters have excellent hearing and if you whisper to them, you can get their attention very quickly. Anyway, let me know where you stored your food and bedding and I will let you know.