Feeding Frenzy Friday Part 7

I just finished feeding the babies. CocoRosie did not eat, yet again, so I am reaching a critical worry level, but what can I do? Keep trying and hope for the best, I guess. Talulah ate hers with gusto and Damascus ate three pinkies. Even though Tybalt is not done shedding, he seemed interested in the food today, so I defrosted a mouse for him. He didn't eat it, so I gave it to Damascus. I gave his first mouse and he had a weird grip on it, but he wouldn't let it go so he could reposition it. I tried giving him another one, so that he would open his mouth and let the other one go, but he ended up taking the second one at the same time as the first one. He had two pinkies in his mouth at the same time and he proceeded to eat them both without problems. What a glutton.
Topkapi has bright blue eyes so there's no mouse for her today and also none for Coral, who is also shedding. Barbossa will eat his tomorrow, so I get to take him out walking a bit this afternoon. It looks really gloomy outside, hopefully it won't rain so I can take him to walk around the pool.

I haven't mentioned Vincent in a little while. He is doing beautifully. He seems really comfortable and happy with his cage and with us. He eats like a fiend and he is already quite chubby. Rats have extremely fast metabolisms so fat is good. He sleeps the whole day, but at night he goes absolutely nuts. He crawls and climbs all over his cage, he plays with his stuffed toy (a Scooby Doo plush animal) and he eats, and eats, and eats...
Vincent really is a sweet animal, he has not bitten any of us, which is good because the size of his teeth is quite frightening. He's becoming a vital member of our household.

Slithering Lightning

Before I left for my acting class this morning I decided to take Coral out. I only take her out during the day because she is diurnal, so she does go to sleep at night. Well, she also sleeps during the day, but that's just because she's lazy. She had her whole body against one of the sliding glass doors, and I had to really maneuver to get her out of the way so I could slide it open. She was not too happy with that. I mean, it was a bit early, so I did disturb her beauty sleep. But being the thoughtless human I am, I took her out anyway. Seriously, this snake is on some type of drug. Trying to hold on to her is like trying to hold on to a lightning bolt. She squirms, bounces, slithers, whatever she can do to get out of my hands. I'm really not that bad! It's actually pretty silly of her, because if I do happen to let go, she'll go crashing to the floor. Surely my company is better than a flat skull.

I only have one more week of acting class. I've really enjoyed it and I am a bit disappointed there won't be another one until next spring. I am planning on registering for an acting workshop though, so that should fill the void until I'm able to take that class. Today the people who had not done their monologues got up there and reviewed them. Some of them are really bad memories. Even the teacher commented that our class is one that's had the most terrible experiences. I guess we are a bunch of really screwed up kids.



This is Vincent. Isn't he just adorable! He has learned to drink water from a bowl, which is a great relief on all of us. He eats pretty much anything you put in front of him. That includes grapes, granola bars, pop tarts, cranberries, rice, ham, cheese, cereal, strawberries, yeah pretty much anything. Now that we have a healthy rat we see the difference between his behavior and poor little Gustav's. He was obviously quite sick.

Wincing Snake

I was able to take Barbossa walking around my room today. He was disappointed that we didn't go outside but it was a little too chilly for him. It has been really warm for the past few days, so the change of weather today took me by surprise.
Barbossa is looking gorgeous, with his fabulous new scales and he seems quite proud of them. New scales do not equal new courage, he is still a little coward. While I was sitting with him on the floor, I was working on my monologue (which is due tomorrow, by the way) and I kept picking up the notebook to check on my memorization skills, and every time I moved he would wince. As if I took a broom to him on a usual basis. Come on Barbossa, I have never and will never purposely hurt you!

Yesterday my mom and I discovered that Vincent, our new rat, doesn't drink water. He is so used to the dropper that he had in the pet store, that he doesn't know how to drink from a bowl. I was flabbergasted. He looks at the water, touches the water, but he doesn't drink it! So, for the past day and a half, I have been giving him water from a syringe. I am his own personal dropper. It's amazing the way that their mind works, because he kept licking one of the bowls that have a metal edge. He thought that, since the droppers are usually made with a metal top, this particular piece of metal would also give him water. Poor thing.

I said I was going to bake today, but I actually baked yesterday. I made chocolate croissants and hazelnut-orange croissants. It was very easy. I copped out and bought frozen puff pastry (give me a break, last week was a long one) which I defrosted and stretched out. I cut into rectangles, then triangles and put a piece of chocolate in the widest part of each triangle. I rolled them up, brushed them with egg yolk, and baked them for about 20 minutes in 375 F. oven.
For the other version I just substituted the chocolate with a 140 g. bag of hazelnuts (I put them in the blender and hit the pulse button) and half a cup of orange marmalade. Mix this all up, and place a dollop in each triangle.
Most of the croissants are gone, so there are no pictures, but they looked fancy and tasted great.

To Mulch or not to Mulch

Yesterday I fed all my babies. The only one that refused food, after behaving as if he were starving, was Tybalt. He is very sensitive to the light/dark schedule and this past week I've not been as attentive to that as usual. I had to leave pretty early every day for rehearsal and performances, and I would come home late at night. I thought that it hadn't been that bad, that I had adjusted the lights so they wouldn't feel the change, but I guess I was wrong. Picky, picky animals!
This coming week is normal, so there shouldn't be any more complaints from the snake department.
I fed Barbossa yesterday, and he ate two live mice. He missed the first one and struck a pile of mulch... which he proceeded to constrict. Picture me, standing with the feeding tongs in one hand, the PetCo box with one mouse left inside in the other, the cage open, Barbossa trying to kill mulch and meanwhile a mouse running around the snake without a care in the world. It was quite a picture. He finally realized that he was strangling wood and he at least had the decency to look sheepish at his mistake. He swallowed his pride and struck the mouse. He ate the two of them without further problems.

Coral was super funny yesterday also. I opened the cage, ready to get her out and feed her. She was inside her little hiding place, which looks like a hollow rock formation, and she refused to get out. She was way to comfy it seems. So I took out the whole rock, with her still inside, and I offered her the mouse. She took it, and ate it while curled up. Tell me that is not lazy! When she was done, I just lifted the whole thing and placed it back inside her cage, shook my head in disbelief and closed the glass door. They come up with something different every day.

My mom came yesterday with the box of mice and a new rat. His name is Vincent and he is also ridiculously cute. This one is not an albino, he is dark brown and white, with black eyes. This means that he has better vision than Gustav did. My mom says that he was the only one left in his cage, and she felt so bad about leaving him alone that he had to get him. There's no problem here, I'm always willing to take more pets in (although I think I've had my fill of dogs for a while).
I haven' baked anything for a few days, I haven't been able to do much for a few days, so maybe tomorrow I'll cook something and post the recipes and the pictures. I'll also see if I can get a picture of Vincent.