I am the Alpha Rat!

On 1st June we were all quite upset when PiXie decided to breathe her last in the arms of the little human. But we did not have long to mourn because only a few days later one of the little mouse snacks (they call him Freddy) suddenly got very quiet and then died. Freddy had been the top mouse-snack (the Alpha), so was the chief defender of the tiny tribe. Perhaps with PiXie his arch-nemesis departed he saw no reason to cling to life. There was a swift shift of power in the mouse-snack cage - Vaughny started to look much healthier and started to dominate Monty. This was rather a surprise since Monty had always been 2nd mouse-snack, and we'd always assumed Vaughny's apparent indifferent health was caused by the fight in his youth with Emily, a fight from which he still bears the scars..

Meanwhile, back in my house, Sidney had not reacted at all well to the parting of his lover, PiXie. He started to get angrier and angrier. While we could still sleep nose to nose, whenever he was awake he was chasing me, or stomping round the house and trying to take chunks out of the humans. This last is really silly - humans cannot jump out of the way as fast as we can, and since they are not very strong, they bleed and whine pitifully if you bite them.

One day I heard the humans say "we have to have his balls". Although I was surpsied how lonely I got while Sid was being given so much special attention now it is great - I am the Alpha rat! There's no stopping me! Sidney does what I say! I groom him lots and he does not bite me. My fur is growing back and, so are the humans' fingers.

Bruxing Barack - leader of the free ratworld!

Rat and Mouse

A while ago Pixie taught me to use the computer. I have written a few emails since then, but this is my very first blog post. Hello world! Sidney and I have settled in well at the rat house. Recently Pixie has been feeling unwell. Actually we are quite worried about her - she is looking quite old now - I can't believe she was ever that tiny pixel of a rat that started blogging at such a young age.

Sid is a humourless sort of a guy and he gets cross if everything isn't just so, but I do like to tease him. He then chases me round rather a lot, but since he isn't very agile I leap out of his way and then sit on the top of something giggling at him. When he isn't being cross with things, Sid likes to sleep...on his head. Very old school, our Sid...

On the other hand, I like to try new things. From a young age I have enjoyed taking tea. I like to drink from mugs, and also chew the tea leaves from the tea strainer. The little human says she wants to upgrade her computer soon (to one of these), so I have been aiming my mug spillages in the direction of the air vents on the computer. Yesterday I got an extra tickle for toppling a tall glass of sticky juice. If the keyboard hadn't been protected with a plastic cover it would have been toast. Afterwards I found a new mousey friend to curl up with. do you think she likes me?

Obama v McCain

There is hot competition in the rathouse. Barack and Sid are both eating as hard as they can. In the first week Barack gained a whopping 55g, but since then Sid has maintained his lead, even pulling away slightly at the last weigh-in yesterday.

The boys seem to think this is all very important, but I can't see why. I am still more than 100g bigger than either of them - which makes them just pretenders to the throne.

I am used to boys being pretty lazy things that doss around reading the paper and licking their torpedos all day, so I have been quite surprised by Barack. He is a fun guy! He is very quick to learn mischief and is already running rings round the silly humans. For example, he has mastered jumps of 2-3 feet. I wonder if I might be able to teach him how to do use the computer. Well, we'll see.

goings on in the rathouse

I haven't blogged for a while, because I have been so upset. In January, Mummy (Emily) died. Don't know why. She just got weak over a month or so. I was very worried when she was ill but since then I have just felt down and not had the energy to write.

Yesterday it all changed and suddenly life has got very interesting again. I found, camped out in a cage in the living room, these two... They say their names are Barack Hussein Obama and John Sidney McCain. But those are stupid names and far too long for such tiny ratlets, so I have decided to call them "Bruxing Barack" and "Sidney". They are real wimps and easy to beat up. I just knock 'em over and they lie on their backs squealing. They both tell me they will soon be president of the United States of America, but really I find that hard to believe when me, a little Pixel of a girl rat, can knock 'em down with one paw and a slash of my tail.

Happy Year of the RAT!

We enjoyed an excellent Christmas this year. I was hoping that on Christmas morning each of us would find a nicely fattened mouse snack, tied up with string at the end of our hammock, but no, our stockings contained exactly one macadamia nut each! The big human's Mum saved the day, however. She is most generous and showered us with delicious presents. Here is a video of me opening the best present, with carols playing in the background. On Christmas Day afternoon we enjoyed a feast of duck bones, which were also very tasty. Meantime the mouse-snacks still fatten in their cage (now 100g each!). I think they even got a couple of the gifts. You know, they are primitive beings, and enthusiatically chew wooden blocks and run in wheels and the like. Don't they realise that the wheel doesn't actually go anywhere?! Dim little mouse-snacks.