The Final Voyage of Blackbeard.

Last friday I came home to find my pet hamster collapsed in the entrance to his favorite tunnel. He was an old hamster. He was balding, and what fur wasn't gone was turning from black to gray. He didn't run on his wheel anymore. He hardly ate. I knew he would be dying soon, so it wasn't a huge shock, but it was still sad. I lifted him from the cage and discovered that he was still alive, but barely. So I wrapped him in a wash cloth and stroked his head until he passed, and then I sat down and cried.

I have had other hamsters over the years, and their lifespans have always been heartbreakingly short. Blackbeard lived the longest, at nearly 4 years old. They were a sort of symbol for me, of a freedom finally gained.

When I was a child, I always wanted a rodent of some sort. A hamster or a mouse. My mother has never cared for them, and never let me have one, which I accepted. I figured I'd get one when I was old enough to make my own choices.

When I was 21 I became involved with a man who was verbally, emotionally, and borderline physically abusive. He told me that if I ever did get such a pet, he would kill it. I believed him. He'd quite calmly threatened to kill me before, and while I wasn't certain that he'd actually kill me, I was quite certain that he was crazy enough to kill a pet I loved. I stayed with him for a year, and finally tore myself free when I grew up enough to realize that I didn't have to take the abuse, and that such things were not normal, and that I certainly deserved better than him. Leaving him was a huge relief. Every outburst he'd had was more violent than the last, and I have no doubt that if I had stayed, he would have become full blown physically abusive towards me.

One of the first things I did after leaving him was buy myself a hamster. My sister took me to the pet store, and I bought myself a russian dwarf hamster. I named him Rasputin. It turned out to be accurate, since he was quite possibly the most evil little creature in the world. He was mean. He bit me every chance he got. He attacked anything I put into his cage until he'd collapse into an exhausted, panting heap in his wheel. He peed in his food dish. I had to handle him with gloves because he'd bite me as hard as he could.

Still, I loved him for all of his meanness. It was a way of moving beyond that hellish year..a sign of freedom. I could have a pet without fearing someone would kill it. I could do the things I wanted. I could be myself. Rasputin lived for three years. The only time I touched him bare handed was when I wrapped him up after he had died.

I also had Attila, who lived for just a few months after I adopted him. I think there must have been something wrong with him from the start. He never seemed to gain much weight or grow, but was active to the point of seeming manic.

Now that Blackbeard is gone as well, I am without a hamster for the first time in over five years. It's odd not hearing him in his cage. Sometimes when I'm alone in the house I think I hear the rattle of the wheel or the rustle of bedding. But it's just my imagination, or the house settling, or maybe the wind outside. I buried him in the back yard under an oak tree, with a pile of pink creek rock on top of his grave to keep the foxes from digging him up.

I may get another one eventually..I don't know. Whether I do or don't, I will always be grateful for how those furry little bright-eyed creatures played a part in the healing process. Rasputin, Attila, and Blackbeard all helped me move beyond the abuse, and the emotional issues I had afterwards. I am with someone now who treats me far better. Life became good again. I am no longer the same scared person that I was. Pets can be many things, regardless of their shape or size..companions, helpers, supporters, and friends.

I thank them for all of those things.

Snakes On A Shelf

Tuesday evening I came home and spent most of the night working on the computer. At around 9:30, I heard a crash from somewhere behind me. I turned around just in time to see several books and a large black snake falling down behind the bed.

Wait a minute..snake??

It seems that our sudden hot weather has sent the snakes in search of cool, dark enviroments to hide out in. Our air conditioned bedroom provided too great a temptation for the scaly home invader to resist. I located the snake (behind the headboard) and got my future father-in-law to help me catch it.

15 minutes later, the snake was relocated to the woods behind our house. That was the end of it..or so I thought.

At 12:41 in the morning, my fiance and I were both soundly asleep when the sound of falling books jerked us both awake. My fiance turned on the light to reveal the same snake on the same bookshelf. It had knocked all but two of my books off the shelf and was preparing to make a final descent onto the bed. My side of the bed, I might add, and Mr. Snake was hanging a mere foot away from my chest.

The snake was removed once more. My fiance spread around moth balls, which are apparently supposed to keep them away. We still have no idea how the snake managed to get into our bedroom. There must be a gap or a hole somewhere. I'm betting it's where a hole was drilled for the satellite dish cables.

I made myself a snake talisman yesterday night, out of copper and snakeskin jasper. I'm going to hang it on the wall by the shelf the snake seems to like so much.

Twisting and Turning

I've been experimenting with wire these days. There is something soothing about working it. Twisting and bending it into shape, Hammering it flat, adding texture, then puzzling the pieces together.

I've been on a Goddess kick. I love the shape of them. Making them is both frustrating and satisfying. I have destroyed my fingernails, several pieces of skin, and have bruised my thumbs. It's important to make sure that one's thumb isn't under the path of the hammer.

This one was my first:



And then I made one for a hair stick:



Experimented in sterling:



Spirals and stones:



I decided to take a break from goddesses and try something different:



But couldn't resist going back for a tiny one in Iolite and sterling:



I have more wire coming in tomorrow. I've blown through 50 feet of copper in just a few days. Those little things take a whole lot of wire. I have a few that I haven't assembled yet. I have a tin with little bodies and arms in it, waiting for me to take the time. I have eventual plans for a dragon, and some fairies. I also need to make necklace chains for the other ones.

She Sells Sea Shells

Today while wandering the grounds of a local historic home, I caught a brief whiff of something dead. I started to walk away, but my curiosity (and too many hours of watching Forensic Files) kicked in and I simply had to go investigate. The stench was coming from an old basement foundation that's filled with waist-high plants. Visions of dead bodies skittered through my brain as I parted the weeds and peered into the dirt at the bottom of the foundation.

The dead thing did not show itself (puffs of bloody robin feathers gave me an inkling of what creature the smell was caused by), but as I was leaving the foundation I noticed something sparkling by my foot. Further investigation revealed that it was a shell fossil, still embedded in a chip of rock. Quite a nice shell fossil, in fact.

I decided that the proper thing to do would be to go to the Admin office of the home and offer the fossil to them, since I had found it on their grounds. In the admin office they gave me weird looks, talked amongst themselves, and then told me I could keep it. I'm happy because obviously I wanted the fossil, but figured it would be best to let them decide what to do with it. I don't mind being the weird rock lady. That's what I am, after all.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Thursday night I went to bed early. I had odd dreams all night..pink tentacled aliens with tabby cat faces took over my place of employment and put us all on trial for crimes against the universe. Note to self: No more cheese before bed.

I hate not being able to sleep well at night. Especially on weeknights, when I know the alarm clock will be going off as soon as I finally manage to sleep for a solid hour. Just as I was finally starting to drift off, I was rudely awakened by the entire bed shaking. In my fuzzy-minded state, I thought it was my fiance, having convulsions and causing the bed to shake. Then I realized that it wasn't just the bed..it was the entire house that was shaking. Glasses clinked in the cabinets. Books started to shimmy towards the edges of the shelves. I could hear the goat bleating outside in panic.

I slapped my hand down on my fiance's arm and he leapt out of bed, trying to drag me out with him. The room was swaying, shaking, floor creaking, bed inching across the floor.

Then, it was suddenly over. Everything went silent. We stared at each other, wide eyed, trying to figure out what in the hell had just happened. It was 5:47 in the morning. We're close enough to a military base for our windows to sometimes rattle when they're firing weapons or flying jets overhead, but this went far beyond that. It slowly dawned on me that it must have been an earthquake. Not exactly something we're used to, here.

The morning news confirmed that it had indeed been a minor quake. No damage was done to our house, but a building downtown lost some of its facade, a road was damaged, and some statues and a fountain got knocked over. No one was hurt. No major damage done.

I think I'd rather dream about aliens, though.

Rock On

Friday afternoon the weather happened to be on the verge of beautiful. The sun was shining but the wind was so strong that it felt like it could carry me away.

Since we'd had so much rain that week I decided to go rock hunting. Every time I think I've picked our yard clean, it will rain and expose more geodes, crinoids, and other fossils. This time I decided to dig around the pond, which is a place I have always avoided in the past. The pond is very large and deep, and the ground around it is soft and crumbly. When you can't swim, you tend to avoid any bodies of water larger than a bath. But I learned how to swim (or at least flail around and keep myself afloat) last summer, so the pond isn't much of a danger to me anymore.

The pond is set deeply into uneven ground, so it has banks that actually stretch up to 10 feet overhead around one side. That was the side I decided to poke around in. I climbed down the slope, clinging to exposed roots and slabs of stone until I was down by the water. The red bank rose overhead, streaked with veins of heavy gray clay. Already I could see fist-sized geodes stuck in the dirt.

I spent a good 20 minutes prying stones out and dropping them in a pile by my feet. By that point the wind had whipped my hair out of the ponytail I'd had it in, and my hands were far too muddy to do anything about it. My rain boots probably weighed ten pounds each from all the mud and clay that clung to them. But I had quite a haul..geodes and a slab of white stone that contained several shell fossils. I was getting ready to move on when I spotted a massive geode buried halfway up the bank. It was nearly the size of a watermelon. I couldn't pass that up.

Dirty, windblown, and weighed down with rocks and mud, I made my way to the fence and started dumping geodes over. A bucket would have been nice, but we have two horses and you can't enter that field with a bucket unless it contains feed. They will grab the bucket away from you if you dare go in there with an empty one.

A few days later, I went ahead and cracked open the big geode. This is what it contained:



It's very similar to the last large one I found, which my fiance had cut open for me with a diamond bladed saw.



This is the stone with fossilized shells in it. It's about the size of a small paving stone:







And the handful of Crinoids I also picked up:





All in all, a good day for rocks. I haven't cracked open the other geodes I found, yet. Some of them found other homes..I've been mailing off boxes of them to friends in other states. I think the postman must hate me by now.

Another Bullet Dodged

When I was 13 years old, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember the day she told me what it was, and what they would have to do to make her better. It was a summer day, hot and bright, and she was sitting in a lawn chair while I sat in the grass. I remember the light glaring off of my father's white t-shirt, blinding as he turned and walked away.

13 years later, the doctor found spots on the upper lobe of her right lung. So we all waited, fearful, as she underwent tests and scans and more appointments, and I spent my nights feeling restless and trapped, my mind going in circles. What if, what if..what if this is the last year? The last mother's day? Christmas? What will we do, with her gone? I reverted back to that 13 year old girl, sitting in the long grass, stomach twisting as my thoughts chased each other round and round. Mom put up her strong front, saying that whatever happened, she would deal with it as she had dealt with years of illness, and cancer, and other health problems that by now would have sent most people to their beds.

My fiance was my support system. When my sister called to make sure I was OK, I shuffled her off the phone quickly so she wouldn't hear my voice break, and then I sat down and cried. The doctor thought it was probably cancer, but was confident that he could remove it. But still, what if...

This past Monday, my sister took our mother to her final appointment, the one where they'd finally give her the results. I sat at work and tried to think of other things, of anything else, anything at all. I answered phones and replied to e-mails and moved like a robot through the day, watching the clock constantly, wondering if they'd told her yet.

At 2:45, my mother called me, voice joyful, my sister laughing in the back ground. No cancer. The spots had disappeared. The doctor talked of infections in her lungs that had probably caused the spots, and then had gone away when she had been on antibiotics for an infection in her finger. She still has other problems with her lungs caused by her autoimmune illness, but nothing so bad as cancer.

We can all breathe, now. Another bullet dodged. My mind can finally rest and my stomach can unclench. Mom can stop making arrangements in her head, planning what would happen at the end. Finally, this year is looking up.