Bye bye Sid

On Monday 14th June 2010, Sidney at last popped his clogs aged around 2 years 7 months - the longest lived rat we have known.

Sid had a lot of character. He preferred things to either other rats or people, enjoying solving the puzzles we put in his cage. All the advice says not to keep rats on their own, but Sid seemed to much prefer it that way, and remained remarkably bouncy and lithe until the last 2 months of his life.

Unlike Barack, Sid was unappreciative of human ways, and he never learned to type, which is why this blog has not been touched since Barack died in the summer last year.

rat stars

The little human purchased a new (secondhand) camera and has been snappy us silly, and we have been posing when it suits us. Sidney is the easier to shoot because his white fur does not require such a long shutter speed, but he tries to make up for it by running around a great deal. Here are some samples:

miniones

I have been meaning to blog for some time, especially when some rat with the same name as me became president of the United States of America. What a coincidence! Here I am leader of the free rat world, and there he, president of a big country! Not as big as the free rat world of course, but still quite impressive. I wish him luck. It's not always easy being a big important leader. Several times a day I have to jump up and down on Sidney to teach him who's boss. And then there is all the power groooming....

Anyway, the reason I have to post is that all the mouse snacks have passed away - and me and Sid never even got a nibble! They had got pretty quiet. They used to come out and sit and watch movies on the little human's knee. Monty was starting to look a bit ill, with sores on his feet and cloudy eyes, while Vaughny remianed quite chipper. But one morning a couple of weeks ago there was Vaughny dead in the cage! Then two days ago Monty was having difficulty breathing and last night he was found dead in the cage too. Oh dear! I do hope the little human doesn't get "empty cage syndrome". Last thing we need is more mouse snacks that we aren't allowed to eat!

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.