We decided to get some Russian dwarf hamsters, since that’s one of the types we haven’t had before. But we decided this a couple weeks before Christmas, and we were planning to spend Christmas in Wigan with husband’s family. So we didn’t want to get hamsters and then leave them in our house with hamster-sitters right away.

We went to Wigan and it was really nice. We both got titled estates in the highlands for Christmas, and I got some books and fluffy blankets and stuff. I got to spend time with my nieces and nephew. One of the days we were there we went out to the market and it was nice and I had a lovely time until I started having agoraphobic panic attacks in the grocery store from the crowds.

The other thing that happened at some time when we were out is that my hypermobility started acting up and my pelvis got all dislocated. I was in quite a bit of pain for about a week.

We got home and my pelvis was feeling better and we planned to go out on the 3rd of January to get hamsters. Then there was another hurricane-level wind storm on that day so we waited until Saturday.

The store was crowded and we had to stand around for a long time in the shop waiting for someone who could box up the 2 hamsters that they had and sign all the requisite forms. We ended up with two male Russian dwarf hamsters. We named them Leonard and Sheldon.

Leonard is brown and very curious. If we pick up their little hiding house, he is likely to climb out and straight up your arm. And then poop on your shoulder.

Sheldon is silvery-gray and very shy. He hasn’t been aggressive at all, but he is shy and more likely to hide in a pile of bedding.

I hope to post pictures of them soon, if not here then definitely on my Tumblr.

The night after we went out to get the hamsters, my pelvis fell apart again. I didn’t sleep the whole night because of the pain. So the hypermobility/Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is apparently becoming less of an occasional inconvenience and more of a full-blown disability.

So, to sum up: new hamsters, painful disability.

There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, I just don’t feel very witty or entertaining lately. I feel like anything I write here is going to be a disappointment after spending so long not writing here. And then it compounds the longer I fail to write.

I’m going to be flat-out honest about another reason I’m not posting here. Back in 2008 I left my job with the NHS under not very good circumstances. I had said some things about my job here that offended people. I also said things here that were in no way related to my job — in some cases written as much as 4 or 5 years before I even worked for the NHS — that was used against me in a complaint from my (now former) co-workers. So I am understandably wary about being honest on the internet. But enough time has passed now that I can be honest and mention that when I left that job, the boss basically threatened me and said that if I ever wrote anything negative about anyone working at the NHS again, she’d make sure I never got hired by anyone ever again.

So what has happened here lately? I got hired by a non-profit organization back in January, for a 6 month contract working in clinical trials. I worked those 6 months, and now I’m unemployed again, though I am working a few days this week at my old office as a consultant, to help them with a bit of a backlog.

During my time working there, we lost two of our guinea pigs. Elvis died from unknown causes. He lost weight and then eventually died. After he died, Fudge was distraught. He stopped eating and wasted away, dying about a month after Elvis. Apparently, Fudge didn’t know that it was time to eat if Elvis wasn’t there squeaking about it.

We are down to two pets. Spike is getting old. He’s nearly 6 years old, which is pretty ancient for a guinea pig. He never squeaks at dinner time. He hardly squeaks at all, so it’s been very quiet here. He’s developed an impacted anal gland, so husband has the unenviable job of cleaning out a smelly guinea pig ass every so often.

We still have our hamster Luna. She’s a terrible hamster. She bites and tries to escape and seems to be furious most of the time. I’ve never seen so much hate packed into such a tiny fluffy package. We can’t take her out and play with her because she has a taste for flesh. She doesn’t just bite because she is trying to figure out what your finger is. She bites because she knows it is your finger, and she hates you. We can’t even put her in a rolly ball thing because she can escape from them. Before we had Luna, I didn’t know that hamsters could hiss and growl.

At the moment, I’ve been working on writing more. Not here, obviously. But I’ve been working on a few fiction and non-fiction books that I’d like to write. So I’ve been writing about 1000 words a day, you just don’t get to read it. So far, we’ve been okay financially because I knew my last job was temporary, so I saved up a lot.

The plan is to move to the US sometime next year. Here’s the problem: I’m used to having a lot of paid vacation time, and basically unlimited sick leave, and free healthcare and a pretty good retirement plan. I’ve gotten spoiled living in Europe. I’ve gotten used to being treated like a human being, which is not really encouraged by American corporations. So I’ve looked around at jobs in America that have benefits comparable to those in Europe. So far the only job I’ve found is in Congress. So I might have to run for office when I go back to the US, because politicians are the only people in America who get the same benefits as average people in Europe.

I’ll back up for a minute. A few days ago Maureen Johnson posted on Twitter that she was going to give away a handful of amazon gift cards to people who were having financial problems this Christmas season. I wrote and told her the bare bones of my situation, and I was randomly selected to get one of the cards! Hooray! It was awesome. So I went straight to amazon and bought very late birthday presents for my brother and his family, since I hadn’t been able to afford birthday presents for them on their actual birthdays.

When I was done with that I had about $12 of the gift card left. Then later on, one of the Project For Awesome videos I watched was about Child’s Play, which I had never heard of. For this charity, you can buy toys and games from amazon to be sent to children’s hospitals all over the world.

Let’s back up again to my last blog post about Amber. I couldn’t afford to send flowers for her funeral. It’s hard to come to grips with a death like that when there’s nothing you can give or do (since I’m on the other side of the world). That’s where Maureen Johnson’s remaining $12 came in. I used that remaining money to buy a DVD (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) to be sent to the children’s hospital closest to where Amber lived. So now I feel like I’ve done something for Amber.

In the midst of all this charity giving and stuff, I was randomly attacked by a troll on YouTube. Trolls are a plague on the earth and I will do whatever I can to eliminate them.

So I came up with an awesome idea to reduce world-suck in two ways. I call it “Adopt-A-Troll.” You see, I encountered this YouTube troll who had an angry vendetta against, of all things, guinea pigs. He spends his time posting rude comments about feeding guinea pigs to snakes on YouTube all day long. So here’s the plan: I posted on his YouTube profile page and told him that I’m concerned about his destructive and trollish behavior. In order to help him stop behaving in socially unacceptable ways, I will monitor his comments, and every time he makes a trollish comment, I will donate £1 to a guinea pig shelter.

So from now on, if this particular user abuses any more random strangers, he knows that his behavior is working against his own goals of eliminating guinea pigs (for whatever reason that is). I think that this could work more broadly among Nerdfighters and regular people. Each person can adopt a troll to follow, and donate to charities that that particular troll would hate everytime they act like a troll. If you adopt a right-wing troll, donate to the ACLU. For an atheist, donate to the Salvation Army. And so on. Most trolls are angry about something, and you can always find a charity against whatever they’re angry about. Instead of arguing with trolls, we just tell them that we are doing things for a certain charity that they would hate in their name.

Anyway, I’ve got to go find a guinea pig shelter to donate £20 to. Thanks internet troll!

Secondly, we have a random video of Fudge. He was being cute and licking my finger. He loves licking things. His favorite things to lick are fingers, arms, and the walls of his cage.

Finally, we have some video footage that I caught last night just before I went to bed. It is the new and very nervous and fearful hamster Luna. She hated the regular camera, but completely ignored my video camera, so you can see what she looks like a bit better here.

She’s really very cute when she’s not trying to escape or attack.

Things I’m less happy about:

1. I still have no money.
2. I didn’t get a book review posted today. I’m lame.
3. Spike pig is starting to show his age. He’s five years old, which is heading towards elderly for a guinea pig. *sadface*

Overall, there are still quite a lot of reasons for me to be happy today.

[edit] One more reason to be happy: Charlieissocoollike is doing this right now! That’s so awesome! I’m so completely jealous happy for him and excited to see his contributions![/edit]