Aerial Nests

MY ROBOS ARE SLEEPING UP IN THE AIR! Yes! These shaggy-furred burrowing tubby trotters have been cajoled into sleeping up high by my taping their beloved toilet tubes 10 ft high (in robo-feet) along the back of their new, far deeper mirrored enclosure. (Their old tank got left behind at my old house. Had to be. Simply couldn't muster the NRG to carry it off with me...) Their old "dump bin" (an upended, taped-on tube full to the brim, rain-vat style, with seeds) is now so very familiar that they paw up to it, clamber aboard and into their aerial trottery of tubular nests where they sleep quite entertainingly. Particularly amusing are those times when, bleary eyed and half awake they forget about the gap between said tubes and come plopping furrily to the ground where they glance about with astonishment before coolly acting "yeah man, I meant to do that," and wearily go for a trot on the wheel for a minute or two before hauling themselves back up to their maze of off-the-ground nesteries...

ITCHY REMAINS IN GREAT HEALTH, thank God. Her worryingly red wee-wee, which I only noted to start with as she lifted up her bum to do it (not the usual robo-style of peeing at all) ... this implies she was scent marking. Now I have about three proposed explications.

1. she did a wee and, being on heat, squeeeeeezed herself, expelling pheromonal blood at the same time... (that's my suspicion)

2. she had a passing kidney infection that put blood in the urine. These are meant to be not uncommon in tiny hammies

Mother Hubbard said that being so tiny and her holes so close together, maybe the pheromonal blood of being on "heat" and the ordinary wee-wee DO get mixed up in a way they'd not do in humans... I don't know. She appears to be in the most robust of health... no other signs or symptoms of kidney damage of any kind (certainly no blood spatters anywhere to be found...) No symptoms of any illness. In fact her only behaviour appears to be that of being "on heat"... today I stroked her back and ... ~ hey presto! ~ up she stuck her bum in the air yet again! A sure sign of being on heat!... and yes!! It was four days later, and roborovskis, like other hammies, are said, once they meet maturity, to come "on" every FOUR DAYS... that's a LOT of opportunities for robo-kids!

Half of me would like to attain a stud robo for her. I would love to breed little babbies, not merely for the novelty, but to be able to hand-train that robo-panicking my present pets are (fair enough less likely to do nowadays as I've succeeded in calming them) still apt to indulge in. It would be lovely to have ultra-tame robbies and with this species the only way of achieving such is to patiently handtame from just-weaned age...

ANYWAY... what other news has there been?

YESTERDAY I FAILED A BREATHALYZER in spectacular fashion and so wasn't allowed my methadone script until this morning. "You are three times over the drink-drive limit," my worker stonily informed me. All I'd done was sit down the local pub with Mother Hubbard, her friend Rebsie, her partner Dodger and a rainbow of alcopops: one bright orange (Reef passion-orange: well yummie!); one ice blue (WKD mixed fruit: pretty pleasant) plus two or three cans of White Ace 7.5% cyder (my ordinary poison). I turned up at the drugs agency feeling (so I believed) sober as an Old Baily judge. Just remind me not to go into the legal profession!

My reading was only "0.75" by the way... I've no idea what this means, but a little internet research confirmed that the American drink-drive limit is 0.08... which would put me nearly TEN TIMES over! Surely not! I might smell like a skunk, but most certainly was not drunk as one yesterday afternoon!!

One slight shimmy forward: I'm proposing to "address" my depression, as part of the process of "addressing" my drug problem. My worker agrees I should go back to my doctor to request another prescription of the antidepressant Mirtazapine ("Zispin")... it gives a pleasantly mild (but strong enough to gently float you under) sedating effect when taken at night and has the charming side-effect of inducing the most spectacularly bizarre and compelling dreams. Man, it is worth taking merely for that!!

I'm lucky with antidepressants as, far from just "taking the edge off things", in me when they DO work (and by all means not all do) they have the effect of totally reversing the situation to the extent that I have at times felt not merely "antidepressed" within a couple of weeks of pillpopping (at the prescribed dose, I hasten to add)... but sometimes have been on top of the world! This poo-poos the theory that my depression is ALL just because I'm a dead-end junkie and gives some credence to the idea that depression is partly, at least, chemically caused.

My own theory on depression is that it's a mixture of one's own psychology, plus the brain's biology; plus, in my case, the sequalae of years of drug-taking.

Every time I've ended up in rehab, detox or treatment the MINUTE my opioid-level's been shifted significantly down I feel a psychological rug pulled out from under me. Both times I was in specialized opiate addiction inpatient treatment I spent inordinate lengths of time in counselling rooms weeping and wailing... and much of the rest being bombarded with impulses to suicide and self-harm... smash this glass; press into the pulse... there's a window; jump through it... stair-rails; tie dressing-gown cord round neck and jump off... plug-holes ~ electricity! ~ kcccchhhht!/frazzle/aargh!!

One former drugs worker told me this "suicide thinking" could just be the junkie mind's childish way (my wording) of petulantly declaring "I can't have my drugs? Then I want to die!" I think there may be some truth in that.

Suicidal "ideation" is just that: ideation, thoughts. So don't worry about me for having admitted to them. I'm still here, aren't I!

Have a lovely weekend everybody. I've got to go before this computer times me out. Take care!!