This isn't much fun to write. Scooter died on Sept. 6th. Briefly, when I came home from work on the previous Friday, he was clearly not doing well.; he was listless and just moping in his little house, and was barely eating. The vet confirmed that there was something blocking his intestines, and spent all weekend nursing him. And called me a couple times a day to check in, so I do want to give props to the vet for being completely wonderful. Anyway, when nothing had changed by Sunday, I kind of figured that was it for the poor little guy. I suspect that he'd finally eaten one too many bits of plastic. I mean, it could have been something natural, too; from what I've read they're prone to that kind of blockage, but eating a lot of inorganic matter can't have helped. So there's not much to say except, that sucked.

I will probably get another chinchilla. I mean, I've invested all this money in cool toys and stuff. Plus, the place I live now is a lot easier to keep safe for the gnawing beastie. Sigh. The vet was pretty sure that there's a local chin rescue group, so I'm going to track them down and see if I can adopt one in a couple of months. If/when I do, I'll keep y'all informed here.

I did want to talk about one cute thing we started doing over the summer. Basicallly, once I got the house sorted out, I could let him run around in the office. It's not a huge room, but it is bigger than his cage, and there wasn't anything dangerous for him to nibble on in there. (The desk has metal legs, and the computer cord is wrapped in a corrugated protector that he never showed interest in gnawing.) So I could wheel the cage over to the office door, open it up, and then get on the computer while he ran around. And then when it got warm, I got this bright idea. I had the window open, and there's a small chair in the corner near it. So I put the wooden block/house on its side by the chair, to make a step. After a while Scooter climbed up on the block, and sniffed at the chair. Eventually he became satisfied that the chair was solid, and hopped up into it. And then he saw the window. I'd made sure the screen was secure already, and the window ledge is wide enough to make a nice perch for him. Sure enough, he wandered out into the window and had a fine time smelling some actual outdoor air. I was curious if he'd be frightened by the giant outdoors full of birds and squirrels and people, but I don't think he really comprehended what the heck all the stuff was. It was mostly neat to watch him get more confident about climbing up into the window. At first, he'd very tentatively hop onto the chair, and nervously work his way into the window. But after a few times, he was making these dramatic running leaps where he'd just sort of bounce off the block and into the chair. To the point that he was knocking the block over on his way, and I'd have to set it back up for him.

I wish I'd been able to take a picture of him sitting in the window, but it was always in the evening and the camera in my Palm isn't very good in low light. I am really glad I took some pictures of him for the site, since if it weren't for that I wouldn't have any.

RIP, Scooter.

Scooter might be reading the site. I dunno. But I'd just updated the About page to mention that he only sleeps in the little hammock when I'm not looking, and suddenly he's staying there even when I do look. He's still twitchy about it, though. Basically, sometimes I'll come home, and he'll be in it, but he sits up because of the noise I make coming in. And usually he jumps out and starts frisking about, or retreats to his "cave" or something. But more and more often he's staying there, although he'll sit up and watch me.

Which means, I, in turn, get more quiet, because I want him to stay there. Because, I don't know, I'm curious. So this past week I've been coming home, seeing that he's in the hammock, and being very quiet as a result. I don't turn on the lights in the room where the cage is, and I just go about my business quietly. It seems to be working, since he's been staying up there for longer periods before clambering out. And today I wandered out, saw he was in there, and tried very hard not to stare at him. Basically, I sat on the couch, watched Bruce Willis on Inside the Actors Studio, and tried not to move around too much.

Luckily, I'm very, very good at lying on the couch and not moving. I can do it for hours!

I'm a giant sloth.

Anyway, so I did that, and Scooter stayed in the hammock. Every once in a while I'd poke my head up to look at him. And then he would immediately poke his head up to stare back at me. I swear, I just want to see him all curled up in the hammock, because I think he'd be adorable. Is that so wrong? But he won't let me. It is an odd thing to be fixated on, granted, but I want to know if he's curled up like a cat on his side, or if he's just sitting in it, or what. I'm curious, okay? From the glimpses I caught, I think it's more that he's on his side, but I'm still not sure. But since we're making progress, I retain hope that someday he'll stay asleep there and let me look at him. It's just so frustrating because he's so attuned to the slightest movement. I mean, I can't possibly be making much noise when all I'm doing is sitting up a little bit on the couch so as to peek into the cage. But he hears it, and gets ready to run when I move the tiniest bit. Stupid paranoid prey.

This had been insanely trivial. Sorry.

In an effort to be more helpful, I'll plug another groovy Chinworld product. I was pretty keen on the hay cubes, because they were were so tidy and everything. But after more experience, I've gone off them. A good percentage of each bag is so compacted that it's hard to break up, and they also tend to be dried out and don't look very yummy when I put them in the bowl. If I didn't have another option, I'd probably stick with them anyway, but as fate would have it, I do have another option. The recently-introduced compressed bales are much better. The bags have zip-locks, so the hay stays fresh -- I've bought loose hay at the pet shop, and they have the zip-lock thing too, but the problem is that the bags are so over-stuffed that, once they're open, I have to pull out a lot of the hay before I can even close the bag again. I put it in a tupperware bowl, but the bag doesn't reseal as well as you'd like, and basically, it's better than no bag, but not very good. With this stuff, the bag isn't so overstuffed, and one bag lasts a long time. I'd tell you how long, but I always forget to keep track. I'll try to remember with the next order, but this last time I ordered two bags... um, a while ago. I'm thinking that a single bag lasted more than a month, and probably more like six weeks. I'm a week or two into the second bag now, and when I open it, the hay still smells yummy. (What? Hay smells good. It really does.) Plus, as the blurb at Chinworld mentions, the bag's protect the hay from sunlight -- with hay from the pet store, I often get the impression that it's been sitting in direct sunlight for a while, because the hay will be dried out and pale. This stuff smells like it's just been cut, and it's still green. Yummy! I guess it's a little expensive -- $4, plus S&H, but I have a hard time getting outraged over something that'll keep Scooter fed for what is literally pennies a day.

So that's my endorsement for the, um, year. I'm gonna try to be a little better about updates now that the site is more-or-less sorted out. No, really.