Rats of Life.

Last weekend we spent a lot of time outdoors. The weather was beautiful, the beer cold, and we had a lot of work to do on Gianna's sandbox. Gianna likes to run around with her shoes off in the back yard, so I'm just a teensy bit glad we no longer have an 80-pound beast making thrice daily fecal deposits back there. We really had a great dog, don't get me wrong. Even though both Joe and I regretted her passing (the dog, Shanna, was a 14-year old yellow Lab), I think we breathed a guilty sigh of relief. I don't think either of us are dog people. Or perhaps put more honestly: I think both Joe and I tend to be lazy people. We'd squabble over who did or should pooper scoop more, over how much dog hair was in the house, who's got to take her to the vet, etc. Anyway, since Joe is allergic to cats, that really leaves just one or two options when Gianna inevitably begs for some sort of pet: fish or rodents.

I kind of think of my life as a series of pet rats, at least up until fairly recently (2004) when the last one traveled across the rainbow bridge, and I was gone too often to take care of a new pet. I still remember all of their names: Sal (1986), Asia Azalia (1989), Margaret Thatcher (1989), Mirage (1992), Raven and Hazel (1993), Zoe (1996), Sadie and Isabella (1997), Reepicheep (1997), Corleone (1999), Chloe (1999), Ramone and Rafael (2000), Maynard (2001), Harry and Ron (2002). When Harry finally died in 2004, I threw in the towel for awhile on the whole rat thing. Joe claims they smell, and plus I was moving and/or gone much of the time. So throughout much of my life (around 20 years), there was at least one rat in the backdrop witnessing it all. I wistfully think of my rats: of them all, I miss Sal, Asia, Reepicheep, and Hazel the most. Some of them died naturally, of very advanced age (2 1/2-3 for a rat), others met with a grim end. Asia, who liked to amble around the basement in my mom's house, leapt up into the toilet and could not get out. I found her drowned body when I came home from swim practice. I called her name, but she did not come. Alarmed, I searched everywhere. I sobbed for days after that.

I think of my rats as representing 3 periods of my life: the high school rats, college rats, and Sacramento rats. I have rats buried in 3 states of the union. All of my exes have been forced to dig a grave for some rat or another. (They've also all had to see The Cure in concert as well). Reepicheep was a total sweetheart. Her mom was actually Sadie. When I bought her along with her sibling Isabella, she was pregnant, although I wasn't aware of this at the time. I was living in a complete hovel at the time. I had just gotten back from England, and had blown both semesters worth of loan $ in one semester. I also owed my mom some money. I moved in to this basement apartment with Vinnie. It had one grimy window high above the kitchen sink. If I stood on my tip-toes, I could see out of it. There was no heat, so we had to run these electric heaters all the time to keep up with the Wyoming winter. The rent was $225 per month. Chris (who would be my future boyfriend) set up a tent in the living room and paid us $75 per month, so rent was actually only $150, or about one week's wages at the swimming pool where I worked. The toilet in the bathroom was on this weird pedestal, so you had to go up a step to sit on it. From the bathroom, there was this door that let into this creepy earthen cave. We stored some crap in there, but I tried to stay away from it. Anyway, one day I heard little squeaking sounds, and there was Sadie with her litter of 13 pups. One was stillborn, so I buried it outside our crappy window. I played with those rats constantly, but they grew fast and I knew we didn't need anymore babies. Once they were old enough, I gave 11 to a pet store that promised not to sell them for snake food. I kept Reepicheep, the only one with a stripe down her back. Because I'd been there since her infancy, she was utterly at home on my shoulder, in my hood, wherever. When we finally moved out of the hell hole and into decent accomodations, she would always surprise guests by ambling around the corner and into view. They would say, "My god, there's a rat!" Usually I put her in her cage when visitors were around, though. I didn't want any wayward drunks to sit on her or something. Sadie was never the same after the pups; she never tamed well and kept trying to escape. That's a story for the next post, though.