Archive for "Babies"
Posted on November 1, 2005 by Ching under Babies.
I just spent the last two hours buying sugar glider toys online — $150 dollars worth! We are super excited about our new pets. The sugar gliders themselves didn’t cost as much as we anticipated because Sara let us have both Ginger and Star for $250 instead of $175 each as they were priced originally. She said she decreased the price because Ginger and Star are older than when sugar gliders are typically sold. The original buyers fell through, that is why they were for sale for so long. We were going to wait until the next joeys are ready but were worried that there may not be two this time and Brian and I wanted a sugar glider for each of us. Ginger and Star are adorable, though, so we are very happy to have them.
Our damage so far is about $500 (sugar gliders, cage, toys and cage accessories) and we haven’t even started buying food yet! Pets can be so expensive! It’s less expensive than raising kids, though.
Anyway, Brian is really digging the whole sugar gliders thing. He even cleaned the spare bedroom that we’ve been using as a dump site for miscellaneous junk. It used to be that you could barely even walk in there. He cleaned it yesterday and now there’s plenty of space of the sugar gliders’ cage (when it arrives), his art desk and the old bean bag chair. The cat boxes are still in there, though. I will take a picture for you when the we get the cage set up.
We are totally looking forward to having our new babies. We’re already planning their diet. We’ve even created it a special feeding dome for them.
We found out from Sara that sugar gliders are notorious food flingers so the cage and adjacent walls end up getting coated with food bits. Apparently, BML (the special food mix that we’re feeding our babies along with the mandatory fruits and veggies; the BML is necessary so they get all the essential vitamins and minerals they need to stay healthy) dries like glue and is pretty tough to scrape off.
So Brian and I came up with the idea of a feeding dome. The idea went through several incarnations. It went from a plastic igloo thing, to a waffle box thing that we were going to put over the food dish (so that if they start flinging food it’ll just go on the walls of the box thing), to finally an upside down Tupperware thing with a hole on the side of it for the sugar gliders to crawl through. I’ll take a picture of it for you guys next time. It’s one of our old Tupperware containers (well, it’s not really Tupperware brand; it’s one of those generic cheap ones that you get at Wal-Mart but you know what I mean) that we don’t use anymore. Brian got his Dremel tool and drilled a hole on the side of it. The plan is to use it upside down. The food will be on the lid and it will be placed upside down inside the cage. The idea is to get the sugar gliders to crawl in and eat inside the container. The dome shaped bottom (which is now the top) will keep the food from getting flung all over the room.
Brilliant, isn’t it? Brian and I are actually pretty creative about jerry-rigging things. It sounds perfect in theory but we’ll find out if it actually works after our first feeding which will be in a couple of weeks. I’m so excited, I’m counting the hours!
Posted on October 9, 2005 by Ching under Babies.
His name is Jesus, pronounced hay-zeus. We named him that because he’s a stray cat. Brian had been sneaking him cat food for over a month now. Since winter is just around the corner, Brian felt bad and so he begged and pleaded with me to let Jesus into the house. I finally relented so now we have three cats again.
Posted on September 3, 2005 by Ching under Babies, Sex.
Posted on October 10, 2004 by Ching under Babies.
It has been an eventful week. Some events rather sad, some exciting – so I’ve been on emotional rollercoaster – but, of course, that’s pretty normal for me if you consider that I’m kind of manic-depressive anyway.
Last weekend we noticed that Hobbie had lost a lot of weight and she was far less energetic than she has been in the past. She’s never really been energetic (she takes after Brian so she’s actually kind of lazy and just mainly lays around the house) but she was looking very, very sick. Brian decided that he would take her to the vet on Wednesday. He told me this could be it for Hobbie, but I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think anything of it.
Hobbie was put to sleep that day. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. And I couldn’t comfort Brian because we were really busy at work. He was totally devastated. Hobbie had been with him even before we got together. It had always been the two of them. He was so upset that on the messages that he left my cellphone voicemail and work voicemail he was crying. I felt horrible that I couldn’t be there to console him and make him feel better.
I was sad too because Hobbie was the cat who turned my attitude around about cats. I used to hate cats. With a passion. But then, when I moved in with Brian, Hobbie was already a permanent fixture so I couldn’t really say “It’s her or me.” Hobbie was the best. Whenever I would be sad or depressed, she would be there to snuggle with me, paw me, rub her head against me etc. I wish that I could’ve been there more for her as she had been for me. With two other cats around the house though, sometimes your attention is diverted to the more assertive and active cats.
The vet said that she had kidney failure and she might’ve suffered a stroke. So the cause of death could be chalked up to old age. Brian says the average age for cats is only 8 and, with Hobbie being at least 12 years old, she was really pushing it. I’ve heard of other cats living longer though. I think she died of lack of attention. And I’m partly responsible for killing her.
That’s the sad part of the week. I’ll refrain from sharing the rest of the week because I feel that Hobbie deserves a moment of silence. This blog entry is for her.
Posted on February 28, 2004 by Ching under Babies, Life.
My match-making career is so over. It ended before it even started. Sigh. Oh well.
In case you are wondering what I am talking about, allow me to explain. I had sent Dr. Vanderburgh an email (yes, frankly, I just could not summon the courage to ask him in person and still manage a straight face; and besides, I have to high-tail it to work right after that class so I don’t really have time) asking him his marital status. He is not married but has a girlfriend. That figures! All the good ones are taken and only the crappy ones are left. Sorry, Misty!
He is such a nice guy that he was so gracious in his reply. I imagined him laughing in the same way that he does in class when he says something about Aristotle or Tycho Brahe or some other famous dead guy that he thinks is so amusing. And then thinking to himself, “OMG! She did not just ask me that. And I was about to give her an A on her paper too.” Of course, those crude words would never come out of his mouth (or his keyboard). But I’m pretty sure that’s what he was thinking. I don’t know how I am ever going to show my face in class on Monday. I hope he doesn’t know that I am Cherrie Brubaker since we don’t have a seating chart and he hardly ever calls on anyone in class. That way at least I can take comfort in my anonymity. Then again, I think there’s a great chance that he knows that I was the one who sent him that stupid email because it’s a pretty small class. Too bad it’s too late to drop the class.
Just kidding.
I would never consider dropping a class over this. I’m too cheap. LOL! I was so close to dropping when Kelley dropped, though. But then I decided since I would only get 40% of the class tuition back I would just tough it out and take whatever grade I could manage. I was pretty worried about the paper. I mean, I hate writing research papers! But then after I finished writing it, I was actually pretty pleased with myself. I mean, it was just overwhelming at first. Once I got started though, it wasn’t too bad.
Then Dr. V offered to critique our drafts and that was really helpful. He was pretty generous about his assessment so I was like, “This class isn’t going to be too bad.” Brian thinks that I shouldn’t have doubted myself because he knew that I would do well. He says I am always successful in all of my classes. You’d think that he says these things because he is my husband and he is inclined to fill my head with truck loads of bs but he’s actually right. So far in all of the exams I have taken thus far I not only aced the exams, I got the highest score in all but one class — Managerial Accounting. I missed three questions which were worth three points each so that dropped me down to a 91%. It’s still an A, so I have no complaints. So far it looks like it’s going to be a very good semester. Straight As, here I come! Call me a nerd, but I think that’s pretty exciting! (I am so silly!)
Anyway, I have some pictures to share with you all. When I woke up on Friday, I got a bug up my butt and decided to do a little photo shoot with the kitties. In case you haven’t met them: Hobbie is the tabby, Felix is the black one (yes, I’m very predictable) and Oscar is the gray one.
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In case you are wondering about the wire shelves.. We were forced to put some of my clothes in the wire shelves because we ran out of room in our main closet (the walk-in closet in our bedroom). I couldn’t use the closet in the office because that’s where we store all of our winter coats and jackets. The closet in the cat’s room is where we store Brian’s summer clothes (mine are in boxes still, although I’ve bought some new warm weather clothes that are now taking up room in the main closet). Anyway, Oscar has converted one of the shelves as his very own home. He actually was using the other shelf before (the one to the right). That’s the reason why I put that white plastic bin in there. I wanted to deter him from getting up and using my clothes as his bed. Of course, our ingenious cat found another shelf to get into. Brian thinks that it is adorable. I guess I find it cute too, but it drives me nuts. Better Oscar than any of the other two, I suppose. At least Oscar is fully de-clawed and won’t really scratch anything. The things you have to put up with when you have pets! Who needs children?
