Reasons for Sibling Homicide

I'm going to kill my sister.

OK, you probably need a bit more information. For a few days now, pretty much since the commercials started, she's been bugging me to go see "Vampires Suck". She wore me down and I agreed to go see it. I had to go to the library yesterday, so I invited her to go afterwards.
I just...I don't know where to begin. It's a bit hard to make fun of the Twilight movies because they are ridiculous all on their own, so I really can't blame the parody too much. But seriously, did this movie really need to exist? I could have happily lived out the rest of my life without having experienced it. Again, the same goes for the whole Twilight thing.
And people were actually laughing all the way throughout! It was not funny, none of it! Halfway through I was seriously considering how I could manage to hit myself unconscious so the time would pass quickly.
I will give my sister credit in that she also did not laugh once. As soon as the credits began she and I made a bee line for the door, regardless of the little clips in between the names. That, at least, calmed my urge to throttle her for making me sit through that.
The one thing about the movie that was moderately amusing was how the main actress did a perfect imitation of Kirsten (or however the hell you spell her name) Stewart's psychotic mannerisms.

Please, I urge you, do not, I repeat DO NOT see this movie.

Feeding Frenzy Friday Part 20

Maat is driving me up the walls. I am really concerned.
My sister brought 2 live pinkies on Wednesday, one for Tybalt and one for her. Tybalt ate his of course, she did not. So I had an extra baby mouse on my hands. I decided to keep it for a few days, to keep trying with Maat. So, I took care of it for two days and nights. For me this really sucked.
Do you understand how cute a baby mouse is? I had to give it milk with Pedialyte every four hours and I had to keep him warm, but I also had to keep myself detached, because he was destined to be eaten.
I tried again today and again Maat did not want it so I decided to give it to Tybalt since he is the only one who eats live pinkies. It was horrible.

Damascus ate fine as did Talulah. Coral was really moody today and she did not want her mouse. Maybe she's pissed I put her on a diet.

I baked some cookies today. They are double chocolate chunk, yummy.

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
8 ounces chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 F.
Melt chocolate with butter. Add sugar, eggs, vanilla extract.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa. Add to chocolate mixture.
Place in prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes.

Moria

Something quite amusing happened a couple of days ago. I came down in the morning and sat at the computer to check my email. I started noticing that my rottweiler, Chaos (and there's never been a more appropriate name in the history of dog ownership) was trying very hard to get my attention. He tends to do this often though, for any reason whatsoever, like a little child wanting to show you something interesting. So, I tried to ignore him. He really kept insisting, though.
Finally, I followed him to see what the hell was so important. Well, our basset hound, Dublin had one of the tortoises in his mouth.
This tortoise is one of my mom's favorites. Her name is Moria and she is a box turtle. Way too cute for mere words.
Well, anyway, she has a habit of crawling out of her cage. She lifts the grate covering it and just walks out. She did just that and Dublin decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
The poor reptile was scared out of her mind but otherwise uninjured. I guess that teaches me to pay more attention to Chaos's warnings.
Moria now has some heavy clay items weighing the top of her cage down.

Talking Dogs and Sulking Snakes

Maat continues to refuse food. I am getting close to a code red. I'm going to try again with a live pinkie on Wednesday, but if she doesn't take it I might have to give her fluids. She's just so damn little.

My snake room/library had a bit of a makeover this past weekend. The desk has been moved around, and so has Damascus's tank. Barbossa, although the change did not apply to him in any way, is throwing a little bit of a hissy fit. He does not like where the desk is and he lets me know it by somehow managing to move his basket so that it is facing the wall. Now, he is curled up in there, refusing to even glance at the rest of the room.
Well, I might be exaggerating a bit, but he really is annoyed.

I finished reading "The Dogs of Babel" by Carolyn Parkhurst. I was pretty sad that I finished it so quickly because it is a truly gorgeous book. When I picked it up I wasn't sure if it was really my thing, a man that tries to teach his dog to talk so she can tell him what happened the day his wife fell from a tree. A bit too sci-fi for me, or so I thought. Actually, the book is written in a very careful way, toeing the line of the believable in very artfully. I'm very glad I picked it up, and I want to read more stuff by Ms. Parkhurst

Weird Week

It's been a weird week. I haven't been feeling my best, which is why I haven't written as often as I do. My babies have been great, doing their usual stuff, it's just me who's been a bit off.
I fed them yesterday. Well, I fed some of them. I tried again with Maat and still she won't eat. She seemed interested for a few seconds then changed her mind about eating. I tried and tried but she wanted nothing to do with the pinkie. I ended up giving her some Pedialyte drops instead. At least I know she is getting some nutrients.
Topkapi ate, as did Damascus. You know, I always read that ball pythons are picky eaters, but I've not had a single problem with either one of them. I really recommend them as a first snake.
Talulah ate. She was very funny yesterday. I grabbed her and positioned her to take the pinkie. She struck, let go, and then struck multiple times, as if she were a venemous snake. She then proceeded to constrict the dead pinkie. She's never done that before. I guess she was feeling frisky.
Tybalt was still shedding so I didn't feed him.
By the way, I did end up buying the humidifier, so I will be using it the next time the snaked are shedding. Since I have them all on the same feeding schedule, they usually shed at the same time, which is good.
I did not feed Coral, because, although I hesitate to publicly announce this, she is looking too chubby. I've had to put her on a diet, so I'll be feeding her every other week instead of every week.

I finished the last Dark Tower book in the Stephen King series. I was devastated by the ending. Don't worry, I'll not give anything away, but really it was astounding. A lot of people complain about the way it ends, but, although I was surprised by it, I think it was really the best ending possible. If you haven't read the series, I highly urge you to do so.

The Spa

I just finished a VIP spa treatment for Barbossa. He is shedding, and he looks like a mess. Something's going on in the snake room/library because the air conditioning seems to be sucking all the moisture from the air quicker than it used to. I even have a window slightly open to let in some of this perfect Miami humidity, and still my babies are having trouble shedding. I spray them pretty much every hour but it doesn't seem to be working. I might have to resort to drastic measures: put all the tanks in the garage (I don't even want to ponder the outrage Topkapi would feel), or I could get a humidifier. One of those portable ones. I used to have one, that I took with me when I was auditioning for music programs. I went up to North Carolina, it was freezing, and the hotel room's heating would have dried my voice out completely if not for the humidifier.
The problem of using that is that not all my snakes shed at the same time, so I would be increasing the humidity needlessly for some of them, therefore putting them at risk of getting respiratory infections. There is no easy solution. Aaaaah!

Well, anyway, let me explain what the spa treatment consisted of. First I soaked Barbossa in the bathtub for a few minutes. Probably five, because he did not want anything to do with the water and he was getting very scared. Then I placed him on the bathroom floor and turned the shower on at full blast at the hottest it would go. This, of course, creates steam. My mom and dad used to do this for me when I was little because I suffered from pretty severe asthma attacks. My dad would sit with me in the sauna that was the bathroom and made me breathe in deeply. If you suffer from any breathing problems, I recommend it, it really helps (if you can add some eucalyptus leaves to the water, even better). I still use it today when I get sick and feel on the verge of breathing trouble.
So today, I did this for my little shy boy. He seemed to like it.
I sat with him for half an hour, I read while he walked around. Then I put lots of baby oil on him and misted his cage to the soaking point. He seemed to be having less trouble right now getting rid of the leftover old skin, but I'll see. I might have to repeat the whole procedure.

Super-Hero Arachnid

I went to see "Salt" on Saturday. It was surprisingly good. I expected the same type of movie that Angelina Jolie always does, so I was pleasantly surprised at the story line's twist and turns.
Her acting was fine, not Oscar worthy, but then I wasn't really expecting that either.
The only negative comment, and I know I'm being a bit of a nitpicker, is a lack of research when it comes to spiders. Let me explain.
Jolie's husband in the movie is an arachnid specialist and he keeps some specimens in their apartment. Early in the film, Salt goes to pick up some things and she stashes one of the spiders in a container to take with her. It's obviously a venomous spider, but she picks it up with her bare hands without any type of precaution. OK, that's problem number one. The next one is that she puts this poor spider in her backpack. She then proceeds to scale the walls of her apartment window in freezing weather, to run like a maniac through the streets, to jump off a bridge onto a passing truck, to propel herself from that truck onto many other vehicles, etc. You get what I'm saying: she did a lot of risky, very physical stuff. She then went to a hotel, took out the spider that looked perfectly fine and drained it of it's venom. That's where I have a problem. The spider could not have survived all of that. They are quite fragile, and the poor arachnid's exoskeleton could never have sustained the blows that Jolie's backpack received. She would not even have survived the cold (that's why you always see pet spiders in tanks with heat lamps).Even in the container that she was placed in, which looked like a simple plastic jar, it's impossible. There, that's my issue. Other than that really trivial problem, the movie was fun, go watch it.