February 2014 – Not Content to Crawl

Hello New Rattie & RIP Nougat

Posted onFebruary 24, 2014

Yesterday we bought a baby rat (not yet named) from Petco to keep Hershey company and today I found my hamster, Nougat, dead. They weren’t housed together, so I don’t think there’s any correlation between the new rat joining our home and Nougat dying, but it’s certainly odd because it has been exactly a year since I got Nougat and he wasn’t showing any signs of illness. He was perfectly normal yesterday, but when I checked his cage this evening to give him food I noticed the food I had put there yesterday hadn’t been touched, so I had a bad feeling. Checking his igloo I found him curled up like he died in his sleep. How is it that my mean hamster, Oreo, lived over two years and Nougat only lived a year? RIP Nougat.

Here’s one of the last photos I took of him. It’s not good because I was messing with my new 50 mm lens. The photo below that is of Bella’s buddy, Mimi, who my sister-in-law was dog-sitting and brought over this weekend when we had dinner together.

And here are photos of the new unnamed rat. He moves his head side to side a little strangely, so I suspect he has vision problems. I’m not really sure. He’s separated from Hershey to let him acclimate and for us to make sure he doesn’t have any illnesses he could pass to Hershey.

My Valentine

Posted onFebruary 17, 2014February 17, 2014

Joe managed to surprise me this year by putting together a fun scavenger hunt to find my gifts. He also tricked me a bit since one of the earlier gifts I found was not the necklace I had been dropping hints about weeks before. Luckily, my last gift (the Karma necklace) was! I had a big goofy grin on my face reading his clues (which were personalized, in prose form, and referenced The Cure more than once). My husband is the best. I truly won the lottery of love when I met him.

Chicago Auto Show

Posted onFebruary 10, 2014February 17, 2014

I can’t tell you the last time I was at McCormick Place other than it was before they expanded it making it the largest convention center in North America. Groupon had a deal on half-price admission to the Chicago Auto Show, so we decided to check it out today just so we could do something different as this winter has been the suckiest ever thanks to all the snow and crazy cold temps.

The show was pretty interesting. We got there at 10 am just as they opened and after checking out the Ford vehicles, we ended up riding in a Toyota Tundra on a test track. We were both impressed with how roomy the extended cab is in that truck; it’s got more legroom than any car we’ve even been in. Plus it handles like a champ going up and down steep hills.

After that we ended up going on a Jeep Wrangler so we could each get a reusable canvas bag Jeep was giving out as they are quite nice (we also got bags from Ford and State Farm Insurance). We took a break for a quick snack we had brought from home (I like that they allow outside food/drinks) before checking out the rest of the cars. Overall we spent about three hours at the show which was plenty because it just kept getting more and more crowded.

My only complaint is their ridiculous bag-checking practice because it’s a waste of time. I had a small book bag and just opened one section that the security guard quickly glanced at. I could have had any number of weapons in a different section, plus there weren’t any metal detectors. It just seems silly to even bother checking bags if you’re not going to do a thorough job of it. What a joke.

Chicago Auto Show photos on Flickr