I have been thinking about how to explain the events of the past few days. It was crazy, silly and a bit Hollywood. So the only way I know to explain how my hamsters ended up on a movie set here in Albuquerque is to start at the beginning.
It started last week on Wednesday, I got a call from a number with a “661” area code and since I did not recognize it I ignored the phone call. Carrie with Gentle Jungle in California left a message asking me about adopting a hamster. I called her back and told her I did not have any hamsters available for adoption but I think there was someone on craigslist selling one. At this point in the conversation I had no idea what this was about or why she wanted a hamster. Carrie started to explain that they needed 2 hamsters that were beige and white that would be used together in a movie. So I did the speech about hamsters not being able to be together that if they are they will fight yada yada yada. Well, she was a bit upset to learn this and asked a million questions about how to get hamsters to work together. She may know everything there is too know about working with Lions, Tigers, Bears, oh my. But she knew nothing about working with a hamster. She told me that she would have Tamara call me since she was in New Mexico and would be the one in charge of the animals in the movie.
A few minutes later I got a call from Tamara of Gentle Jungle and she was in fact here in Albuquerque working on the movie Men Who Stare At Goats. We discussed the difficulties of working with hamsters, the fact that they are nocturnal and not easy to train. She mentioned that they could not find any hamsters that the director liked and wanted to know if they could “borrow” Parker and Guinevere and Lance and Pandora just in case he liked them. I have to say I was nervous and bit uneasy about loaning my animals for a Hollywood movie. The most I would do was agree to meet them at my house and let them see the girls. So Tamara came over and we spent some time talking about my hamsters, their personalities, and temperaments. After she agreed to sign her life away if ANYTHING happened to my furry babies I agreed to let her use them. So we loaded up 4 cages and almost 1 dog, Kali was not happy to see her subjects leave without her. It was a lonely night without my hammies to keep me company, but it was also the night of the office Christmas dinner so I was gone until 10 pm. So there was not a lot of time to miss them.
Friday, came and I talked to Tamara off and on all day checking on the girls and making sure they were okay. She assured me that they were fine. My co workers spent the day making fun of me and my “movie star” hamsters. Who were living the life of royalty on a movie set. Finally at 9pm I told her I would come and get them since I was exhausted and had a long weekend ahead of me. They were filming in a neighborhood outside of downtown. So I drove over and was given permission to be on “set,” it was very exciting. All the cameras and people running around, yelling “Rolling” and “Cut” it was just like you see on TV only in real life. I could not get the girls right away because they were inside the house out of the cold. So I hung around and talked to people working on the movie, we talked about the dynamics of making the movie in the middle of a neighborhood and so on. They wanted to know all about rescuing hamsters and how one gets into the business. I thought it was funny them asking me “How do you get into the business of hamster rescue?” when they were in the most difficult business to get into in the world. Everyone was very nice and interesting. I was confused by the man in the kilt. I was not sure if that was part of the movie or if he was a real Scotsman and just liked wearing a kilt. I did wonder about his "little person "because it was freaking freezing out there. But I was polite and did not ask.
I did have to meet with the Animal Humane representative, whenever animals are used in a movie someone from Animal Humane has to be there. So she got all my information and we discussed the legalities of using animals in movies. She also informed me that I would be going home with possibly 4 new more hamsters than I came with. Apparently they had bought 4 more hamsters from Petco (2 shorthaired hamsters and 2 Russian Black hamsters). There is a law that when animals are purchased for a movie they can not be taken home by anyone on the set. They have to be turned over to an adoption group or rescue then the person can adopt them that way. Lucky for me the 2 short haired hamsters were purchased privately by Tamara and belonged to her but the Black Russian’s came home with me.
As we loaded up 4 cages and 2 boxes full of hamsters I was happy to see my girls and one boy come out to say hi. As I greeted each one by name they popped their furry heads out of their hideaways to see what mommy was doing. Of course the Hollywood people immediately thought I had them trained to know their names. I explained that it was not their names they recognized but my voice and this was their usual dinner time. So I hated to disappoint them but they were only looking for their nightly snack and nothing more. Gentle Jungle did make a nice donation to Haven for Hamsters and I got to meet some nice people. Unfortunately the one gentleman who wanted to adopt the Black Russian’s changed his mind after I explained that they would each need a cage and what all that entailed. But as I always say the more the merrier and Kali is thrilled with two new minions to do her evil bidding.