More mortality

Well, it's happened, as we all knew it would... King is dead. I got a teary call from Grayson yesterday when he got home from school, informing me of his passing. I felt terrible, sitting there, listening to my boy sob on the phone for loss of a three-inch fiddler crab, but I was thinking "the creepy little bastard seemed fine this morning, he did it on purpose!"

Seriously, we managed a couple of weeks, and the thing was burrowing happily in the sand and eating god-knows-what just yesterday morning. Seven hours later: kaput. Damn. damn. damn.

I comforted G as best I could over the phone, and then called my parents, who were going to come over in half an hour anyway to take G shopping for Christmas gifts for me and his dad, and asked them to come early to take his mind off of it.

It's been a good year for death, let me tell you. Three chickens, one lizard (I presume he's dead, he's gone, at any rate), a handful of fish, and two fiddler crabs. No more exotic pets! Clearly we can't handle the responsibility!

Of course, it's not like we didn't see it coming. I'm sure there were those who, like Gray, winced when I said we had taken on the crabs.... people who had already talleyed up our batting average and knew the creatures didn't have a chance. I don't know why I keep trying.

On a related subject.... not death, but pets.... Roxy is losing her hair. She's itchy, and she's getting bald patches all over. She is beginning to look slightly leprous, or mangy, or something. I feel sorry for her, because it's miserable to be itchy. But I don't know what else to do. I feed her eggs on her breakfast, vegetable oil on her dinner, I have been giving her weekly baths in Head and Shoulders, and she gets pills at night to help me sleep, because she often sleeps on the bed, and the incessant scratching is like having one of the coin-operated massage beds, but not in a good way. Imagine a massage bed in a really cheap motel, that makes a lot of noise, and causes the headboard to thump against the wall. And sometimes farts.

This morning, at 5:30 a.m., she came into my room, put her face right up against my face and started whining until I got up and let her out. I dozed on the sofa until she came back in, 15 minutes later, then I went back to bed. But the whining didn't stop. She stood there, with her face in mine, WHINING this awful high-pitched whine, non-stop, for a full hour. I could gain a few moments' respite by letting her put her feet up on the bed and tuck her head down against my shoulder while I petted her head and ears. But the moment I stopped moving my hands, the ultra-sonic whine recommenced.

I got up twice to try to let her out, but it wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want water, either. In fact, I have no idea what she wanted except maybe to drive me nuts. This on the morning after I worked until 10:30 at a museum event and didn't get to bed until midnight. Finally, at 6:40, she climbed up on the bed, curled up and lay down at my feet. My alarm went off five minutes later.

If I'm grouchy today, you can blame it on Roxy.