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[caged_liberty]

I had my home visit from a lady from the Cat Protection league yesterday. I tidied the flat like I've never tidied it before. Upheaval of moving tables just where I wanted them to be, going through all boxes and drawers of bits and pieces to streamline things. The problem with such a small flat is always clutter. Clutter, which I'm guilty for often

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I am thinking of myself I suppose because I only really have one room for myself & Simone. I feel OK about it because she is finally adjusting thanks to my very rigorous affection & longsuffering attentiveness. But for a long time she cried the whole time I was gone every time I left & so on. I do know breeders will often keep a couple dozen cats in an area as small as this room is.

I liked my mice. My parents really were always the greatest menace to them. I mean, it's irresponsibility on the part of people. I would leave & they would do some harebrained thing with my mice. I had them in my room & they were having the exterminator come so they put the glass aquarium in the service porch with our wiener dog muffin. Unfortunately, setting it on top of the washing machine, they didn't want the glass to scratch the paint so they put a towel underneath it which idiotically was hanging within muffin's reach. Guess who pulled it down & broke my aquarium trying to get at my mice?

Eventually the aquarium was replaced by a clear plexiglasss one which my dad & I made together. I had such cool stuff for them - little platforms & a wheel. But the coolest thing was these 2by4 scraps we had. I took one of these drill bits



& drilled mouse size swiss cheese holes all through these old 2x4 scraps. Some of the time I accidentally drilled too close to the edge of the wood & it would create a cutaway, antfarm effect. I'd set the wood sideways, or on end with the cutaway part against the clear side of the cage & could watch them sleeping in there or doing their mousy business, sleeping on each other & so on. Really the big issues I had socially were introducing different mice to the colony. The exotic breeds were the hardest to handle. The white mice were all well adjusted, but as mentioned, the beautiful rita was a baby eater, & salvador picked on zorg until zorg got bigger than him, then poor salvador would be getting his little balls bitten all the time. That was the only period I really had much trouble with them though.

As mentioned, my parents were the menace. I changed the wodshavings on a regular basis, but eventually, after a litter, the colony was banished to the garage. And my mom left the side garage door open to "air out" and a neigborhood cat ate every one of my bite size mice, for which my mom barely even apologized. That's actually why I got the 2nd generation of mice who were interesting breeds. Rita escaped - i had to seperate her from the boys so she wouldn't eat any more litters & if there is any kind of a starter hole, however small, a mouse can chew it to escape size. I don't remember Zorg or Slvador's fate, to be honest. I may have given them to a friend or something. it's weird that I can't remember. But I do remmeber whose fault it was any time anything wnet wrong with them. I rememeber thinking "I am a 12 year old kid. Why am I the only one who can see that putting a towel hanging down into the dogs face, and leaving the side garage door open so any neighborhood animal will be attracted to the garage by the squeaking wheel, & mousy movements, is a really, really stupid, & potentially fatal idea? It's wonder I am still alive with logic like yours."