Sweet Dee

This weekend was good and bad for me. I'm going to start with the bad in hopes of ending this on a high note. I have a tendency to blog only when things are really shitty and I'm trying to focus on the good things this year instead of the bad. Call it a New Year's resolution if you want. I just want to spend my time feeling positive about things instead of negative.

Sunday morning I woke up and went in my room to check on my hamster, Sweet Dee aka Deemous, as I do every morning. Usually I walk in the room, tap on her cage a little to see where she had buried herself the night before. She'll poke her nose out, sniff at the bars near my fingers, scratch and try to bite me, and I'll give her a treat for her efforts. It's a fun little game we play. Or used to play. This Sunday I walked in and tapped on her cage. When she didn't emerge right away, I became concerned that she had escaped ala a year ago. So I opened the cage and started digging around for her. I found her in the corner curled up and not moving. And cold. And stiff.

Yeah my hamster died. Which sucks. When we got her we read that they don't live very long, but I wasn't ready for this. I had just taken her out in her ball to let her run around on Wednesday and she seemed fine. Not old and feeble and about to kick it. So I don't know what happend between Saturday night when I said good night and Sunday morning. I have this overwhelming feeling of guilt that it was something that I neglected to do. It was too cold in her room, or there was something wrong with her food. I guess she had been more stationary of late, not using her wheel as much. I feel more guilty about the fact that I don't think I paid as much attention to her as I should have. I used to spend a lot of time with her when I was in school. Many nights when I was up late working she was my only source of company. I'd be painting or drafting and say something about how stupid everything was and how tired I was or how much I wish I jsut had a normal job (little did I know!!) and she's stop running for a little and poke her head out at me as if to say "Stop whining and get to work. I have to run on this damn wheel all night long as my only source of entertainment and the cats bug me whenever they get a chance and you don't me complaining. Now go get me a carrot."

But after I graduated and got my so called "normal job" I stopped spending so much time with her. I started avoiding my room because it just reminded me of the fact that I have no direction when it comes to my life and that once I felt sure about where I was going and what I was doing and that I just felt like I was floating without purpose. and by proxy I guess I was avoiding her too. Our interaction became limited to "good morning" and "good night" and the occasional cage cleaning.

I realize that to some people she was just a hamster. But to me she was a pet and I'll miss her.
Sleep well Sweet Dee.

I'll talk about the good in another blog. This one is hers.