This is my stepcat:

While Matt is away, Ivan stays with me.

In the past, Ivan’s stay has produced some weird behaviour.

It must have been the hamsters.

Hamsters, in their domesticated environment, use tissue for their bedding. Each hamster had her style; Anişoara had a thing for for tissue curtains on her house, Crenguţă for a neatly lined nest, Valentina merely had a free-for-all disaster area going*.

After a couple of weeks with me, Ivan returned home. Then Matt discovered this:

As you can see, Ivan lined his own cat bed with paper towels. Just like the hamsters.

But the hamsterification of the cat is not over.

Ivan discovered the hamster treat bucket.

Whenever I go to the pet store, I always throw in a few hamster extras for the little ones. I’ve accumulated a bucket’s worth of little packets of “hamster ravioli” and “hamster yoghurt drops” and the like. I left the bucket out by the hamster cage and Ivan explored.

He took out one bag, chewed it open, took out one hamster treat, licked it and was horrified. He tried another one from the same bag. He spat it out. Then he picked up another bag, chewed it open and same reaction. You could almost see the despair on his face: “What the hell are these hamsters eating?”

During the night he opened one more bag and spat out the one nibblet.

At least Lucian had no problem with the regurgitated treats.

*Even Sylvia from Small Animal Rescue commented that she was one messy hamster.

Anisoara is on her deathbed.

Yesterday she began hemorrhaging far more blood than I thought was possible for a little hamster to hemorrhage.

Poor little cute ball of fluff! She perked up a bit in the vet’s office; Dr. Siegert warned me that it was the adrenaline and, furthermore, she was wasting valuable reserves of energy.

Her diet, in these trying times, is celery and cucumber. Since she can’t drink anymore, these will replace her water intake. Plus she refuses spinach (I was kinda hoping for Popeye forearms).

The possibilities were, for her lack of appetite and extreme lethargy – she was a superactive hamster prior to this: change in diet (she lost 30 grams or 20% of her bodyweight); heat stroke; old age and the Aspergillis fungus. Cheryl the Red (the Cheryl formerly known as Non-Arizona Cheryl) nodded knowingly to the last one. The Aspergillis fungus is the bane of caged pet owners everywhere.

But Dr. Siegert took one look at Anisoara and let the Aspergillis fungus off the hook. It’s either bladder stones or a tumour. The latter seems to be the case. Anisoara developed a strange bump on her right hind leg.

If it is bladder stones, Anisoara can elect to have them surgically removed. If it is cancer, Dr. Siegert said we’ll just have to make her last days comfortable.

The only way to know for sure is to take an X-ray (here’s a picture of Anisoara’s animal hospital radiograph room). Her X-ray is scheduled for 10 AM.

Little Anisoara, may your bladder stones wither to dust and may your foot tumour pop out like an oil-boiled kernel!

One of AniÅŸoara’s friends on Friendster, the Siberian Sticky Hamster, passed away. Despite the loss of Sticky, AniÅŸoara’s hamster coalition still outnumbers my set of friends.

I just looked and I got a comment from the wonderful Mental Office Girl Who Cooks. She suggested I re-fashion the story of Zeus and the Titans to star hamsters. Beth also liked my idea of sea-faring hamsters, adrift in the Atlantic in walnut boats, amidst all those Irish witches in their eggshells. Hmm, wait! They will be pirate hamsters! Too bad I lost all the notes I took during my elementary school pirate infatuation. Oh rats, I guess I have to make another trip to the library.

All this talk of hamsters, now let me tell you what AniÅŸoara did last night. (Or, “The Exciting Friday Nights of a Young Lady and Her Perilous Hamster.”)

Again, I decided that AniÅŸoara should taste unbridled freedom, unencumbered by the hamster ball. So I let her have free reign of the hamster-proof bathroom while I again completed my nightly toilette.

Again she wanted to clamber up my legs. This time, my pyjama pant legs proved more conducive to hamster-climbing. But she tickled my ankles. So badly were my ankles tickled, I nearly fell over. At one point, she got as far as mid-shin, lost her grip, flipped over backwards, and screamed a hamster squeak before she hit the bathroom floor cushion. Most hamster scholars claim that hamsters are silent creatures. AniÅŸoara is the delightful exception.

When I leaned down to pick her up, she ran up my arm and onto my back. Hamster massages tickle too! Plus, a hamster walking on one’s back feels the same as a tarantula walking on one’s arm.

This morning, AniÅŸoara was curled in her nest of newspaper and tissue like a little maggot.

In the latest dream, AniÅŸoara got all wet. A huge patch of her fur fell off. She lay dying.

When I woke up, I went to her cage. She was wide awake. Her seed-encrusted banana dinner lay nearby. Her coat was intact.

I hate nightmares.

When writing about AniÅŸoara’s health conditions, I realized that I cannot spell hemorraghing. There, even now I messed it up.

Few words get the better of me. But hemorrhaging is a nasty cutthroat hiding in the shadows outside of vocabulary’s tavern.

I memorize hemorrhaging by writing it out over a few times:

“Dengue fever, much like Ebola, makes mice and men alike to go a-hemorrhaging.”

“I nearly wasted away as a result of nasal hemorrhaging.”

“Doctor, can’t you stop that bobcat from hemorrhaging all over the fine china?”

Each sentence confuses me more. From whence two Rs? Was that H always so awfully mobile?

This is a job for mnemonics.

Like Mrs. Vandertramp for French learners, mnemonics helped me memorize the Mohs Scale.

Talc + gypsum + calcite + fluorite + apatite + orthoclase + quartz + topaz + corundum + diamond = Those girls can flirt and other queer things can do.

Or:

Talc + gypsum + calcite + fluorite + apatite + orthoclase + quartz + topaz + corundum + diamond = Tall gyroscopes can fly apart, orbiting quickly to complete disintegration.

Hemorrhaging thus becomes:

Hirsute

Elephants

Might

Often

Resemble

Radishes,

Having

Aped

Gorillas

In

Nocturnal

Gourds

Other suggestions welcome.

AniÅŸoara’s modesty (and teeth) prevented a thorough examination of further signs of hemorrhaging. Yet it seems like the problem is less severe than on Sunday night.

AniÅŸoara bled again last night. This time the hemorrhaging was very severe.

It could be one of many possibilities. She might have diarrhea or she might be constipated, like last time. Maybe she fell. But she had been in her cage for two days. If the holy spirit impregnated her, well, she’s pregnant. But the Messiah probably can’t lead the virtuous into heaven in hamster form. Plus, those boy hamsters got kind of scared when I had them fingerprinted for the background check.

The only other possibility is that she is having a period. It is very rare, but some female hamsters menstruate once or (even more rarely) twice during their lifetimes. Either that or it’s hamster cervical cancer.

When I woke up she seemed to be ok. No more blood.

One day, Pitt Bull Jen formally asked me for my hamster’s hand in Friendsterhood.

“I’ve heard so much about your hamster, I feel like I know her already,” said Jen.

So I divulged AniÅŸoara’s email address. The next day (it took me months to get my Friendsters to answer that fast) AniÅŸoara not only had Jen as a Friendster. Midi the Pitt Bull also sneaked in as a new Friendster.

Mind you, I have warned AniÅŸoara of the drawbacks facing a gerbil-sized hamster hanging out with such a tough crowd.

She is at that stage in the hamster lifecycle where she simply won’t listen to experience. I suppose she just has to make all the mistakes I made at that age.