Rat Creature's Journal

it's probably projection on my part...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:00:51 GMT

...but I think my rat Kieran is self-medicating his diarrhea with saw dust. I mean, I've just seen him systematically eat the absorbent wood pulp pellets from their rodent toilets. Normally he may gnaw a little on them (rats gnaw on everything), but he doesn't eat them like this. Unfortunately he liked wood pulp pellets better than mashed potato with medicine, which says more about his dislike for the meds than his enthusiasm for wood pulp though.

I did give him the morning dose, because he didn't seem to have worsened over night, though I am now waiting for the vet office to call me back. (When I called forty-five minutes ago the vet couldn't come to the phone and the assistant didn't want to give medical advice, but I really hope they'll call back soon. If I had this much room in my schedule today, I'd just have dropped by their office with Kieran. I mean, I realize this is extra service and Monday mornings are busy but still. These are the rare moments I regret not having a cell phone. ETA: Finally got the call and the advice from the vet was to stop the antibiotic early instead of giving the last doses, and I'm going to bring him in tomorrow afternoon.)

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/520142.html. | comments

eww

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:54:32 GMT

Poor Kieran now has developed diarrhea in reaction to the antibiotic. At least I hope it's Kieran, and not Rusty getting sick for mysterious reasons -- I have not actually watched either rat expel the liquid and semi-liquid poo that was smeared all over the cage. I looked whether either rat's behind was grossly soiled to be sure, but *they* were both clean. So I spent a good while this evening cleaning up the mess.

I think tomorrow I'll switch to mixing the antibiotic in mashed potatoes, both in case it's the significant amount of pudding exacerbating the digestive problems (it's not anything I have given before and too much fruit and also wet food is sometimes a problem, but the stuff has to get inside the rat somehow) and because he's even less thrilled with the pudding now than at the beginning. Maybe he's getting suspicious as to the causes for his digestive problems -- I mean, you don't think that rats would connect dots like that, after all it took a while to set in, but who knows. At least he wasn't lethargic or anything like that (I once had a rat really deteriorate on an antibiotic) and I have seen him drink a good amount, so I'm not that worried about him. Though if the mess continues to be this bad overnight I'll probably give my vet a call whether I should continue it, even if he doesn't seem worse in a way that I'd bring him in to the vet.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/519727.html. | comments

random curiosity

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:08:25 GMT

When I had some dental work not too long ago (still awaiting the bill for my copayment for the new crown :( ), I noticed once again that my dentist does not use "dental dams". In fact despite having had fillings (both amalgam back in the day and composite fillings once they became available), root canals, and surgery for root tip resections with two dentists and two different dental surgeons (granted not a large sample), I've never experienced anyone using a dental dam for anything.

In fact though I have seen pictures of them online, I can't quite imagine them how they would work in practice. I read that they are supposed to keep the work area clean and dry, especially for the composite fillings, but my dentist does that with cotton wads and suction, and I've never had a composite filling fall out or anything like that, and while once or twice I've had a fixed tooth rot again, many of my composite fillings are by now lasting longer than the "average" lifetime they are said to have, so I don't think my dentist's work is particularly shoddy (though I do sometimes wonder about his approach to hygiene, because while he does wear gloves for drilling and such, he doesn't always for just checking, even though his hand is in my mouth then too).

Anyway, I have been wondering how common the use of dental dams in dental work really is, hence this poll.

View poll: dental dams?

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/519543.html. | comments

note to self:

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:00:02 GMT

For my next rats (hopefully still a while off *knocks on wood*) I need to remember to get them used to sitting on my lap for eating non-portable treats early on. After this morning's dose I suspect a part of Kieran's resistance is that he doesn't particularly care for sitting still on my lap and eating there. He's used to either carry treats to safety to eat them away from other greedy rats, or getting wet treats in their cage, because I'm not that fond of rats spreading scrambled eggs or such over my carpet. So he's not only against the taste of laced pudding, he doesn't think my lap is a good place to eat anything.

Today I pushed him to eat part of the laced pudding on my lap after I put his salve on, and then when he became too fidgety I put the rest in the cage with him while I salved Rusty's feet. (Obviously I can't have the antibiotic pudding in the cage with both, because even though Kieran being stronger means he usually doesn't share well what he truly wants for eating, Rusty would manage to snatch and eat some, especially with Kieran not that keen on the antibiotic pudding.) Anyway, inside the familiar cage he licked up the rest with fewer stops, so I might try giving it to him in the cage, at least in part for future doses too. Unfortunately Kieran does try to scoop and hide wet, mushy treats, or drags the dish around, so just offering everything inside the cage carries its own hazards.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/519222.html. | comments

pet medication saga continued, or how Kieran really hates the taste of his antibiotic

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:49:07 GMT

For Kieran's evening dose I tried soy chocolate pudding (which I specifically bought this afternoon as non-dairy thing to mix the meds in), figuring it might mask the sickly sweet taste better than mashed potatoes. Unlike for some other pets such as dogs and cats, chocolate is not toxic to rats, their theobromine metabolism is similar to humans so relative to their weight they can eat about as much chocolate as a human to theirs. And my current ones like the taste of chocolate (not every rat does -- I've had some that just didn't eat it as a treat), though of course normally I don't feed it them, not even as a treat. Their usual treats are things like small plain rice waffle pieces or organic spelt cheerios. Anyway, when I tried offering the unadultered food as a tease to see whether it might be popular (just a mouthful, obviously you don't want a full, choosy rat if you mix in substances -- I always give stuff before refilling the food bowl too) it was A+++: both shoved and scrambled to get a lick in and tried to pull the spoon with the bit of pudding out of my hand.

So I was really hopeful.

Then I mixed a teaspoon with his meds and offered it to Kieran alone. The pudding slipped down dramatically on the popularity scale. Initially he seemed hopeful, but a few initially greedy licks in he noticed and stopped. I had locked him in with the little dish in the transport box again, to prevent Rusty from getting at it, but he soon abandoned the pudding, and focused his attention on probing the transport box. I then took him out, because this was heading in the direction of him just stepping into the food during the escape attempts and smearing it all over eventually, and tried prompting him to eat the stuff directly on my lap.

So I shoved the dish under his nose, he licked at it a little, as if hoping that it might have gone back to just chocolate pudding, noticed that nope, not what he hoped, and then stopped again. Then when I prompted again, he licked again, but much less enthusiastically, and once again stopped. Unfortunately even a small teaspoon takes quite a lot of rat licks to be eaten, which ordinarily you don't notice, because with appealing food they can lick very fast. At this point he was clearly frustrated that I was keeping him on my lap, but at least it was more of a peaceful, evasive resistance, not violent struggle.

Eventually I managed to get him to to mostly lick the dish clear (over 95%) so eventually the evening dose got into him. But honestly it's just wrong having to press a rat so much to eat a small amount of chocolate pudding. And I'll have to do this another twelve times minimum, and this is the optimistic scenario that he won't become completely obstinate. OTOH maybe he'll eventually get used to the taste once he realizes that I'm not trying to slip him rat poison.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/519059.html. | comments

why do rats have to be so uncooperative?

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:50:28 GMT

Unfortunately Kieran's bumblefoot sores have been getting worse again, despite me putting on the wound salve twice a day. So today it was back to the vet with him. Also a checkup for Rusty's sores, which are still healing, or at least not getting worse. So the vet put Kieran on the antibiotic that had some positive effect on Rusty's feet and infected lymph node when those were worse.

And I didn't think it would be that bad, because that antibiotic is flavored for animals to take, sickly sweet with some fake vanilla notes, and Rusty actually licked that stuff from the syringe with only a little prompting. But Kieran took one taste, was disgusted and completely non-compliant. Getting it into his mouth by force was totally impossible. He wriggled, kicked, squeaked, scratched at me while struggling, forcefully turned his head away from the syringe, and was close to snapping at me in the end. So that was a total failure. I'm not that surprised, because he already dislikes the less invasive wound salve application. Even if I had gotten the syringe into his mouth, the dose is 1.2ml for his weight, and that is more than a rat mouth holds, so unlike with the ~0.2ml Baytril doses I wouldn't be able to squeeze it in quickly in a fast motion.

I finally mixed the antibiotic in a little teaspoon of yogurt then, and he tried feeding it then, but turned away suspiciously after just a nibble. The suspicious little bastard makes his ancestors that evaded poison attempts proud. It took me adding copious amounts of sugar and looking him up with it for a while in their transport box to get him to eat all of it. (Though of course part of the reason for the box was so that Rusty wouldn't be able to get at it -- I ssuspect he'd have rather liked it.) And I have to do this twice a day for at least a week. Argh.

Then belatedly I remembered that because I thought he'd take it without too much fuss, I hadn't asked whether this is one of the antibiotics that you shouldn't mix with dairy for it to work best (like Baytril is), so I will have to phone the vet office this afternoon to ask about that. I hope not because cream and yogurt are fairly good for mixing.

Medicating pets sucks.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/518682.html. | comments

horrible homonyms everywhere

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:21:44 GMT

I just read a headline on a mainstream news website that misspelled "in principle" as "in principal". Aauuugh. News outlets really have cut every last copy editor to save cost, haven't they? This is one of my pet peeve homonyms. I hate it in fanfic, an it's not any better to have to see it on news sites. I mean, assuming the headline wasn't supposed to tell me that they agreed while sitting in a principal they eviscerated.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/518639.html. | comments

baffling things on Tumblr

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:47:06 GMT

Like how you see a pretty but uncredited artwork on Tumblr (which if you're interested is by Tsuneo Sanda), with the poster saying that they don't know who did the artwork, and among the many comments some who say they tried reverse image search but didn't find any proper source just Tumblr and Pinterest reposts (which is true), when in fact with a bit of effort you can mostly make out the name in the text part of the signature in the corner. It was a little blurry, even in the largest version of the image that I could find uncredited on Pinterest (only credited there with an image URL, I suspect probably from Facebook image hosting originally, based on URL shape, but at least that Pinterest source picture was larger than all Tumblr repost files, so it must have spread from there), but a simple google *text* search for what I could recognize of the sig together with "art", gave me the artist as first result, even though I guessed one letter wrong due to the blurriness at first, but the symbol part of the sig was clearly matching.

Admittedly it took me a few minutes, what with first looking for the largest file version to make out the signature better and then googling what I could read, but it wasn't that much effort, so I don't get why the original poster and other rebloggers who seemed to have been interested in who the artist was as well, didn't manage to look closely at the name on the picture. It's not like I'm particularly eagle eyed. I messaged the poster on Tumblr with the artist name, so maybe they'll add proper credit.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/518329.html. | comments

good news!

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:12:14 GMT

The vet said that Rusty's wound looks well, and that as it looks now he won't need an OP after all, so whatever gnawing he did yesterday didn't do too much damage despite the copious bleeding. And the second antibiotic did its job against the infection, so now I don't need to give him oral meds.

As an experiment the vet actually tried to tape a little bandage around his leg to see whether that might stop him from worrying the wound as it heals (and presumably itches), though we were both a bit dubious about the chances for this working. She said if it stays on for a while it might help, if he pulls it off, I should just go back to putting salve on the wound as before. The next check is on Friday. I'm really relieved that he didn't need the operation to clean up the wound, and just hope it will now just heal, and maybe his feet finally as well. *crosses fingers*

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/515425.html. | comments

rat health woes

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 09:23:12 GMT

Rusty's bumblefoot sores haven't been healing well, instead infection spread to a lymph node in his right leg which became swollen. So he was put on antibiotics on top of the wound salve stuff, but the first one didn't work. Then he was put on the second one (unfortunately that has to be given twice a day instead of just once) last Tuesday, but Wednesday night the infected lymph node broke open and he bled like crazy over night. Thursday morning there were large blood stains all over his sleeping places (soaked up into all the soft cloth and paper towels I now have in the cage to help with these pressure sores). I phoned my vet, whether I need to come in for the wound, but was told I could just go on with the antibiotic and salve, and gently cleaning the now open wound, as long as it stopped bleeding, which it had seemed to do, and wait for the next scheduled appointment the coming Tuesday.

And Rusty seemed okay, considering, but late yesterday morning he must have disturbed the wound again, because he was bleeding a lot again, even though it had looked okay the early morning. So I brought him to the vet yesterday afternoon after all, just to be on the safe side. She thoroughly cleaned the wound of all the crusty blood and such (he hated that, I think the disinfectant hurt a bit), and said that it didn't look too bad (like, it's not badly infected with pus or putrid or any of the truly gross things you can see with wounds gone bad), and that while the amount of blood loss obviously wasn't good, it was not dangerous (I had brought a pile of bloody paper towels to show the amount instead of just trying to describe blood stain diameters). However now that it was open it could be seen that there was quite a bit of granulation tissue that had formed inside, and that it might be necessary to operate and remove the extraneous bits for the wound to heal properly.

So now I'm still supposed to come in Tuesday when the second antibiotic had a week, and then Rusty will probably be operated on to remove that tissue. She said there was a chance that it might not be necessary if the wound starts to close and heal properly until then (rather than just dried blood crusting it up for a while), but she didn't seem to think that likely with the way that plug of granulation tissue was in the wound.

I still kind of hope that maybe he won't need the operation, because of course anesthesia is always a risk, especially with little animals, and he has been loosing weight with the ongoing infection in his feet and earlier the myco, and all the antibiotics he's had to take, and now he's been bleeding from that wound on top of everything. So an operation would be a lot of extra stress on his already taxed system. And of course operations make wounds larger, if cleaner, and afterwards he still might bother it, and impede the healing of the clean one. And of course he still has the bumblefoot sores that started all this too.

Poor Rusty.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/514415.html. | comments

bits of blue sky!

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:02:12 GMT

I had almost forgotten that skies come in colors other than gray, dark gray and oppressively dark gray. I can even see the sun!

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/513771.html. | comments

fanart, a cracky doodle for Beth H

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 19:45:38 GMT

So apparently there is a trope in Clint/Coulson Avengers fandom to turn them into corgies? At least the notes to bethbethbeth's Third Time's...the Charm? say so -- I think I've only seen one other myself.

Anyway, I read that snippet and somehow ended up doodling the scene with Natasha trying to not see Corgi!Clint and Corgi!Coulson humping each other. IDEK.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/512807.html. | comments

meta on the AO3

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:19:27 GMT

There are honestly people who are still surprised/disappointed that the OTW decided on the meta on AO3 issue without broader input/discussion first? (In the comments on the announcement post.) Seriously? Even though the OTW board in the past has said explicitly that the org never builds policy in public because "policies are difficult enough to draft and revise even in private with a small team of participants".

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/512086.html. | comments

linking to a discussion

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:59:32 GMT

mashimero is brainstorming about what it would take to make a fanfic&fanart/media challenge truly collaborative and is looking for ideas/experiences/opinions from a wider circle.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/511902.html. | comments

things fandom is missing

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:17:20 GMT

As I'm still pondering whether or not to sign up for the upcoming xmenreversebang, that made me once again been wonder why there isn't some place/infrastructure besides (Reverse) Big Bangs to facilitate collaborations. Fests are good insofar that the moderators usually try hard to get everyone paired up, but there is the whole issue of the schedules and deadlines. Why aren't there non-fest places for authors and artists to pitch some project idea to find another fan who would be interested in working together?

Like, it kind of compares to getting a prompt filled somehow, which you can attempt by signing up to a fest or by throwing it out in a kinkmeme, hoping to find someone interested from a random but larger pool. Of course most don't get filled in kinkmemes (mine never have been so far), but the chance is still better than just putting out your idea in your own journal.

I guess the obstacles are the potential social awkwardness (you might have to reject offers of collaboration, because you dislike someone's writing/art/podfic/whatever style or even their proficiency), and also that the likelihood of matching (or even the general interest in collaborations outside of close friends) might not be high enough to make such a forum worthwhile.

OTOH fandoms these days don't have central places anymore, so there isn't even anywhere where you could put up your notice individually for many others to see, like a central (or at least large) general discussion list or a noticeboard.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/510623.html. | comments

computers are weird sometimes

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:40:47 GMT

A few weeks back I thought my laptop had died because it wouldn't turn on, but shut down again after I pressed the On-button. And then after a while for no reason I could discern after several tries, when I was ready to bring it in for service, it worked again after all.

I think I now know what happened, because just now I accidentally selected "suspend" rather than "shut down" from the log off menu, and unlike the automatic suspend that happens after a certain time to save power, and out which I can rouse my laptop like it is supposed to (by pressing the then blinking on button for slightly longer), it wouldn't come out this suspend. And when I turned it off completely and then on, it went into the same half-inert state, where you can't turn it on anymore, but it just makes some noise, blinks a little, and then powers off again. However knowing that it was a suspend gone horribly wrong, after turning it off via the on-button, I disconnected it from the power completely and took out the battery too for good measure (though I didn't do that last time) on the theory that being completely without power ought to stop any "suspending", and then put the battery back in, and afterwards it turned on normally.

So I assume that last time when I thought I had shut it off I also accidentally landed on the "suspend" which is apparently buggy in some way. (I have to look into whether I can customize that stupid option out of the menu to avoid clicking it accidentally.) It's reassuring that knowing this, it seems much less likely that some hardware part is going in a glitchy way, and that maybe I don't have to be so anxious about the laptop after all.

I still have been much better about backing up since then, and keep doing that.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/509826.html. | comments

in memory of Oskar

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:03:56 GMT

Oskar
7.1.2012 - 4.2.2013

I found Oskar dead in the cage this morning when I wanted to bring him to his wound check appointment. He hadn't been dead long then, still slightly warmer than room temperature and no rigor mortis yet. So I guess his attempts to rejoin the others last night hadn't been a sign of him becoming more active again and healing, but were a desperate last ditch effort for contact on his part.

I still brought him to the vet, to see whether she might be able to tell me what went wrong, but without sending him to a pathologist for an autopsy she could only tell me that the wound itself wasn't infected and that his kidneys felt enlarged. Her best guess was that he either sustained some invisible, internal injury from the fight and eventually died from that, or that antibiotic-resistant bacteria entered through the wound, and caused systemic infection right away rather than wound infection. I decided against an autopsy, which would have cost at least €60, because it's not like knowing for sure would do any good to him now.

This group of brothers just has the worst luck. First Silas, and now Oskar.

Oskar wasn't a cuddly rat, but still friendly, and unlike some of his brothers he never got into the bad habit of pinching me to get my attention or to get me to move a limb or a foot on the bed. He looked really funny when he ran somtimes, because for some reason he kept holding his tail in a curled partial loop when running, rather than carrying it in a straight line trailing behind. It wasn't broken and he could hold it straight with no problem, he just didn't. Unfortunately I have no photo showing that.

It turns out I don't even have many photos of any kind of him, because I haven't taken so many of my rats the last year than previously, and none from the last half year at all. So these are all photos of him as a young rat.

I'm actually not sure whether this is Oskar or Kieran, because they both had the same solid color, only Oskar had a tiny white stripe on his belly, and as baby Kieran wasn't larger than Oskar yet.

Oskar with Kieran. They really liked each other most of the time, the tragic fight from Thursday notwithstanding

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/509261.html. | comments

kind of heartbreaking

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:41:34 GMT

Oskar seems to be getting desperate to get back to his brothers. He's taken to running onto me when I open his module's door, and then tries to get somehow down, presumably to find a way into the module below, where the others are, who I blocked from him. You have to keep in mind that Oskar does not like climbing onto me. Usually he won't even come onto my arm when I bribe him with food. I feel really sorry for him. It doesn't help that he still looks rough, and that his appetite hasn't really come back either, and yet he musters this spurt of activity to try to find a way through. And then I have to put him back, while he wants to escape. It makes me feel like an extra cruel jailer. :(

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/509029.html. | comments

Oskar's still hanging in there

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 07:56:26 GMT

The good news is that there is still no wound infection as far as I can see and no further pulled staples, so it looks like there won't be any emergency weekend visits needed after all. The bad news is that he still seems to feel really crappy. Basically the whole day yesterday he just huddled in his sleeping space and he didn't eat his regular food, and I haven't seen him drinking either, however he did eat the quarter of a boiled egg I offered him, a fairly big piece of rice waffle, and ate the cucumber I offered for something watery when I didn't see him drink. He peed a fair amount too judging by all the wet bedding I removed yesterday and this morning (and going by the stains it's the normal light colored pee too -- I bet you are just thrilled be updated on my rat pee monitoring, heh), so I'm not that worried about dehydration yet. Still, he could be better. Sigh.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/508633.html. | comments

I am so ill equipped for these decisisions

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 08:23:40 GMT

So the good news is that Oskar did not pull any further staples over night, so the wound doesn't gape open further than on the maybe five millimeters it was yesterday evening, and there is no pus either, but now I'm left wondering whether that is enough of a wound disturbance that it qualifies for an emergency situation that is supposed to make me come back in before Monday.

The vet was very clear that I ought to come if there was any visible infection at all, but the instruction about the level of wound disturbance were less clear cut. Aargh. Well, maybe I'll phone ahead and ask. Since today they are open two hours, I could phone at the start of the opening hours and still be there within the second hour, if they do say that I ought to come in. *dithers*

ETA: It seems they don't cover the phone during the emergency opening hours. I decided to not bring him in today. To redo that bit of the stitches they'd have to anesthetize him again, and create fresh wound boundaries again (same as the problem yesterday, when they had to make the wound larger and fresh for healing with stitches to work), and I doubt they'd do that for this small opening in the wound, when it is still mostly closed. And Oskar doesn't seem to have disturbed the wound worse over night or now aside from that initial staple he loosened, and there is no sign of infection so far.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/508280.html. | comments

battle wounds, the sequel

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:14:32 GMT

So, I decided to bring Oskar to the vet, and a good thing it was too, because apparently the wound didn't just slice the skin open, but nicked the muscle layer underneath, so it needed stitches in two layers. And to fix the damage underneath the vet had to open the skin a bit further, so now poor Oskar has a gash that's twice as long on his belly, closed with a row of scary, Frankensteinian-looking staples, and some stitches underneath. Also it's covered in silver, to hopefully prevent infection. And of course he got an antibiotic shot and pain medication, and I got some of both to give him orally. I'm supposed to come back Monday, but watch him closely for infection and come in during their emergency weekend hours if I see any pus. Of course pets always have to do this before weekends, because otherwise the inconvenience and stress would be slightly less inconvenient and stressful. Argh.

Also I was instructed to keep him separate from the others for a while so they couldn't mess with the wound, and for now just have to hope that he doesn't do damage to himself. The vet said that if he gnaws on it himself and tries to pull the staples, they could try a small collar, but they don't work very well on rats (I presume because they don't have much of a neck, and are good at squeezing out of things.)

At least I could just put a divider between the modules of my cage, so keeping them separate is logistically easy, though both Rusty and Kieran were annoyed with me when I just evicted them from the favored spot in the top module. And Oskar was quite befuddled that he couldn't take the usual way down.

Cross your fingers for Oskar, so that he won't gnaw on his wound and that there won't be an infection?

And of course I'm now €82,77 poorer again for the exam, stitching, anesthesia, and meds, and who knows what all the follow up from this one will come to in the end.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/507710.html. | comments

omg, poor Oskar

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:49:49 GMT

Kieran is a vicious, little savage. He just scuffled with Oskar in their cage (brief but intense), and when I checked Oskar over after he had fled, I noticed that Kieran nearly gored him. Okay, that's overstating it slightly, but he has a long (almost 2 cm I'd guess) wound on his belly. Thankfully it seems shallow, but still! I put a little of the antibiotic wound salve on it, that I still have for Kieran's and Rusty's bleeding bumblefoot sores, in the hope that it'll help and prevent infection. I still remember Linus who died from a lower belly abscess spreading.

I'm pondering whether I ought to bring Oskar to the vet tomorrow. On the one hand, they probably wouldn't put in stitches or anything (because it's in a place where he can pull them out), otoh they could check the wound and give an antibiotic. Maybe I should decide on how the wound looks tomorrow and how Oskar himself seems, or phone them and ask whether they think I should come in. *waffle* And just when I thought I had a reprieve from frequent vet visits until the next foot check up in two and a half weeks. I mean, Oskar only was at the vet two days ago for the check up on his skin. (That went well, the nail clipping and injection a week earlier had stopped the scratching enough that all that healed, and he didn't need the blood test.) One thing after another.

Maybe I should consider plastic goldfish for my next pets. Decorative yet no drama.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/507416.html. | comments

an Akata Witch question

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:17:15 GMT

I'm reading Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, and I know some others in my circle have read it, so maybe you can help with this. I'm not sure whether this is a mistake that wasn't caught in editing, or whether I misunderstand the timeline but in chapter eight Sunny says to Orlu "But you and I have been going to the same school since we were about five." (on page 141 in my edition), but earlier we were told that Sunny only moved to Nigeria from the US when she was nine. I don't get it.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/506899.html. | comments

Tumblr, why do you change your interface all the time?

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 22:47:20 GMT

Is it just me, or did the posting interface get even more baffling? Admittedly on the list of their idiosyncratic interface choices this change doesn't rank very high, but why do they have to rearrange things all the time? I'm not one of those people who like to move their furniture around weekly.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/505887.html. | comments

WTF?

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:29:53 GMT

I can't believe they're selling chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies already. They really need to invent some sweets geared towards carnival or something, so that there is at least some buffer between the Christmas items deco and the Easter stuff in supermarkets.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/505519.html. | comments