Rest in Peace Sweet Tommy

We lost our little gerbil Tommy this morning. He passed away peacefully in his playground. Tommy was not a young gerbil he has been with me for about 18 months and was older when he came to me. Tommy was never a big one to have people touch him, but with the arrival of his new babies Tommy became a new gerbil. He was more outgoing and active and just thrilled to have is boys, Eli and Elijah.

Both boys were able to say goodbye to their daddy before he was buried in Buddha's Garden. I will certainly miss him. He was a lot of fun to have around.

Rest in Peace little Tom Tom

Life in the Sanctuary

We have had a lot of changes in the Sanctuary since our last update in June. The sanctuary has seen several tragic events over the summer. By far the saddest was the loss of Parker and Laki. Both were unexpected deaths and they are both still missed greatly.

Parker passed way October 4th after a brief illness. The grief that filled the house was unexplainable, even the ghosts grieved Parker's passing. It has been almost 4 weeks now and Guine and Sasha are still not acting their normal self. It just seems some of the fun has left the remaining hamsters. I had the hardest time even holding Guine because she was Parker's twin in all ways except personality. Guine is slowing coming around and getting out of her cage. Sasha just wants to stay in or run on the table. She does not really want to be in her ball anymore. So I respect her desires and let her be.

Laki passed away from during what we are referring to as the Epidemic. We took in several dwarf hamsters at the same time. We knew that many of them were in-breed, which means that as litters came about they were not separated properly and continued to mate and have more babies. Most of the hamsters were separated immediately upon arrival at the sanctuary due to fighting and personality issues. Many of the hamsters were successfully adopted out. However, the few that were left quickly started showing signs of illness. With hamsters and all small critters once the symptoms start appearing you have to act quickly in order to save them and in some case we found that no matter how quickly you act and no matter what care you give some die anyway. During the epidemic we lost Emma, Sophia, Ava and Laki. At this point we still did not know what we were dealing with. The next to show signs of illness was Lucy and Raja. Both started out the same way the only difference was Lucy developed sores and Raja started losing his hair. It was determined that a parasite had in fact caused the previous death and the illness of Lucy and Raja. However, it did not affect the Syrians, gerbils or mice; only the dwarfs. Lucy and Raja both survived their illness and show no last effects except that Raja now has a bald spot. No matter how nasty and bitchy Laki was he I loved that little guy so much. Raja has taken Laki's spot as our hamster with the nasty personality. Just like Laki, Raja does not want to be touched, messed with or even looked at. He does not attack you like Laki did but he will bite you if you touch him to often. So I just talk to him and try not to piss him off.

The newest additions to the group are 4 rats Rissa, Lisa, Millie & Billie. Rissa is a naked rat (seriously her fur is so sparse she looks naked), the others are sisters we adopted from the city shelter. They belong to Josh and will go with him and Dorian when he returns to Wyoming.

Finally after a year and a half I got Tommy 2 baby boys. Tommy is a new gerbil all together since becoming a daddy. Tommy adopted Eli and Elijah and is so much more outgoing. He is very protective of his boys and takes such good care of them. Once the boys arrived we had to create a safe place for them all to play. We quickly discovered that the fenced in yard that Tommy had was not appropriate for the babies. Being youngsters they quickly found a way out. We solved the problem by getting a large guinea pig cage and attaching it to their existing cage. They now had a fenced yard that they could not get out of. Our task now is finding ways to keep them entertained. Eli and Elijah came to us by a very unconventional way. I purchased them from a local pet store. I do not usually advocate buying animals but I have been looking for infant gerbils since Tommy arrived. It is very difficult to know the age of gerbils when they are at the pet store, but this store just happen to have a breeding pair. Unfortunately they removed Eli and Elijah from mom at 3 weeks old and they should have stayed with her until at least 7 or 8 weeks. But, they did well adjusting to us. I kept them separated from Tommy until they were 4 1/2 weeks old and I knew they were healthy. One odd thing about male gerbils is that they help raise the babies and they will accept baby gerbils without any problems at all. Unlike the females. Once I introduced Eli and Elijah to Tommy there was no turning back. He is a wonderful daddy to his two baby boys. He nurtures them, protects them and grooms them. He has taught them to climb up into their nest, he goes out ahead of them to check their play area before they get to go out. They have a very large and safe playground that Elijah has figured out how to squeeze out. So we had to fix that problem but other than that they are a great family with a very loving daddy.

I am going home for Thanksgiving for the first time in 10 years and while there I am picking up a new hamster. This is a young white teddy bear that I have named Lucian. I figure I usually pick Hindu names for my babies but since this is a southern hamster he got a Cajun name. I am hoping he will help fill the spot of male hamster and things will return to whatever is normal.

I am will post new pictures of everyone soon. If you have facebook add me as a friend and you can see pictures.

Time To Start Anew

I know I said that I would no longer be writing the blog and I have not written anything in 3 months. There were reasons for taking the time off. First off, there were people who were using my blog as a way to get to me. These are not people who have my best interest in mind. So the best thing I knew to do was stop writing for awhile until they fell away. Once they were gone I decided that I could once again go back to writing my blog. I enjoy writing my blog and I enjoy getting feed back from my friends and family on what I should do and what I should not do. It is also the easiest way to keep my family and friends updated on what is going on with me when I do not have time to tell everyone individually.

One thing I found when I stop writing the blog was that I would see something or hear something and think "I will have to write about that" the other I thing I realized was that I get a lot of ideas for articles from my blog. Not that I am a great writer for writing for me is a form of therapy. Once in awhile I will find a magazine, e-zine or newsletter that I can contribute to based on a post I made on the blog. One of these days this blog will hopefully be paying my bills or at least the hamster's bill.

So I hope that I have all of your support in the relaunching of my blog.

My Google Adventures

I started my day off today by writing, it is what I seem to do a lot of lately. But I am writing a specific article for a local pet magazine. For the life of me I could not find their website address and I knew that I have had something published in the past with this magazine and that if you googled my name it would come up.

I was a bit surprised at what comes up when you google the name "Cindy Cribbs", there seems to be about 4 of us in the country that are linked through the search. I felt kind of funny because one of my fellow Cindy's is the Coordinator for Advertising at the University of Minnesota, one is an artist who has the website cindycribbs.com and the email cindycribbs@gmail.com so if you ever sent an email to cindycribbs instead of cynthiacribbs she got it and not me. There is an elementary school principle and a few other professionals. Then there are my hits. Let's review them shall we and see just how odd I am really am.

The first hit you get is my facebook account and this is really me. There is another Cindy Cribbs on facebook but she uses the name Cindy and I use Cynthia. The next hit is for Haven for Hamsters, then Twitter, then my letter to the pet magazine that I was originally looking for, apparently I have an amazon.com wish list, however, when you click it there is nothing listed. One of the shockers was discovering a post I made into my blog called "Question I have been asked about the funeral business". Connectingdirectors.com posted my article on their website. Who knew? I can say I was happy to see that my blog is still making the rounds in the world outside of my family & friends. If you keep going you will see references to me on the witchvox.com website which is a Pagan website called Witches Voice. I am on there a lot and it pops up every know and again. There are a lot of links to various ghost hunts and investigations as well as the International Ghost Hunters Society conference that I hosted a few years in a row.

My personal favorite and I have no idea how this got onto the Internet but I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. This is not mine exactly since I already know what mine is going to say and be like. And trust me it is not something polite and common like Rest in Peace.

Baby Rocco

It is with great pleasure and excitement that I post the birth announcement of my great nephew Rocco Randazzo. His mom and dad are Jill and Joe Randazzo, my sisters-in-law's oldest daughter. Baby Rocco was born on June 20th weighing in at 8 pounds 9 ounces. I personally think he is an amazingly beautiful and perfect baby. Below are pictures of Rocco on his birthday and with his Great Grandparents.

Moving Tribute

Wow, I have to say the Memorial Service for Michael Jackson was definitely moving. I was surprised since I basically attend a funeral every week. But, this was different. No matter what you thought of him the memorial was moving.

For me I watched it on my computer at work (this is when having two screens comes in handy). The guys that came into my office all made some comment on it. But, we all know that back in the 80s when Thriller came out we were all listening and dancing to that album. I know I was. The music he made after the Thriller album was just as good, although I did not care for some of his songs.

I can say that Michael Jackson was someone I never understood and I always felt a bit sorry for. To this day I believe in my heart he never touched a child. I did not watch the news reports about his trials and what he was accused of doing because I knew he did not do it. I felt for him having to give up pretty much 40 years of his life. He was tossed into a profession at the age of 10 when most of us were playing in the street with our friends. He did not have an easy life growing up and when he had the money and means to give back he did.

There are people in this country (a senator even) who will never be convinced that he was innocent. Our country is based on innocent until proven guilty. Unless you are a Michael Jackson then you have to spend the rest of your life trying to prove your innocence even though the court said you were innocent.

For those of us who remember listening to his music, watching him dance and loving everything he did this is our Elvis. When Elvis died my mother cried all day, no one thought anything wrong with that. No one thought it was odd that the media covered it so much or that women flocked to Graceland to be close to where he died. But with Michael Jackson because of his past people are questioning the hype behind his death.

I am happy that they gave us a public memorial so that his fans and everyone else could hear first hand what he did with his life and the money he made. The selfless time he devoted to those sick with HIV and AIDS, sick children, veterans and how he supported 39 various international charities, he holds a Guinness Book of World Record for Most Charities Supported. It is estimated he has given up to $500 MILLION to charities in his lifetime.

Maybe now people can enjoy him for what he was and not what they wanted or thought he should be. I know I will miss the music he could have made and brought into my life. For now I will continue to enjoy the music he left and I will never be ashamed to say I love the music and videos of Michael Jackson. Especially Thriller, what a great video.

The Most Important Part of the Visit

I almost forgot the most important part of my parents visit. After they all left for home, Joshua and I decided we needed some therapy. So we did what I do when I need therapy I go shopping. I felt that after all the stress I deserved to feed my addiction for bowls. So we hit Central to go antique shopping. There was one store in particular I wanted to go since it is always closed when I go down there.

We stopped in and I found several wonderful vintage Pyrex bowls but I was not ready to settle for one in particular just yet. Almost to the end of my tour of this huge store I found a little booth with vintage purses. Bowls and purses in the same place, I truly found Mecca. I discovered an amazing 1950 black lizard skin purse that almost made me cry it was so perfect.

I can't tell you how excited I am with my new purse. I love all things 50's, from the furniture, to the clothes, shoes, cars and most definitely purses. I find the clothes, shoes and purses from the 50's to be very girly and I love love love them.

So my gift to myself for surviving my vacation was a 1950 purse in mint condition. I do love giving myself presents.