What's with the pet rats?

When I was about 13, I was "the rat girl" in my biology class.  I took care of the classroom rats, feeding, watering, etc.  On my own, I decided to do an imprinting study on baby rats after seeing an article about duck imprinting in my dad's Scientific American magazine.  I took home two baby rats before their eyes opened and hand fed them formula-dipped bread.  I don't think they ever thought I was their mom, but they were friendlier to the students than some of the other rats.

In retrospect, I realize now that my biology teacher, Mr. Holzer, kept the rats mostly to feed his pet owl and boa constrictor, also housed in the classroom.   I was blissfully unaware.

In college I thought I needed undergraduate research to get into medical school.  With my rat experience, I ended up in Sue Carter's psych research group.  Her focus of study was Microtus Ochragaster, the prairie vole, one of only a few known monogamous mammals on the planet, evidently due to a single gene.  My job was mostly to watch time lapse VHS video of prairie voles mating (which they did for 24-hours at a stretch, and to record the time it took for them to mate, or groom, or sleep, etc.  That's a whole 'nuther story.

I spent a summer break changing cages on the rodent floor of the U of Illinois research labs, and handled mice, rats, chinchillas, hamsters, two sloths and a bunch of turtles and frogs.

Young Smough, circa late 2013

I knew I wanted to get an MD/PhD, as I was inspired by one of the U of I ophthalmologists at the time, J. Terry Ernest (who ended up as my chairman twenty years later at U of Chicago), but didn't know what to specialize in ( especially after being told by the biochem chairman that I should not go into biochemistry - yet another story).  But with the whole rat and vole history, I ended up in Benita Katzenellenbogen's lab looking at breast cancer in rats.  

In all of my rodent jobs, I could never bring myself to sacrifice any of the animals.  I just couldn't. The prairie voles were sometimes quickly and mercifully decapitated when they were due to be sacrificed, but I physically couldn't do it.  I'd try and my hand would just be paralyzed or something.  The best I could do was put them down with carbon dioxide.  Gah.  Horrible.   I ended up working in Benita's lab on cancer cells in dishes;  I couldn't bear to work with the rats or any other critters.  

Boo, about 10 weeks old.  This breed of domesticated rats is known as "Dumbo" rats. They are called that because of their lower-set, forward-facing, "Dumbo"-like ears.  (Compare with baby Smough, above.)

And look, I'm not some sort of animal rights warrior and I'm not a vegetarian.  And right now animal testing is the best we have for a lot of research for humans, and I'm very happy that nowadays research animals are expensive to buy and maintain and they must be housed in the most humane environment possible.  But I understand that right a lot of the benefits of human society require animal sacrifice.  Eventually I hope we'll be doing all research with AIs and eating meat grown in labs.  

Regardless, I figure I owe not only much of my career to rats, but also my life, if you take into account the life-saving drugs I've taken that have all been animal tested.  The least I can do is give some of them long happy lives.

Boo and Salad, six months old, Dec 2016

A few years ago I took over the care of a bunch of rats my son had gotten as pets.  They were rescued rats from a feeder breeder (who kept the rats in DRAWERS until they were big enough to sell to snake owners - heartbreaking!), and feeder rats are universally horribly sick and short lived. I spent literally thousands of dollars in medical care for those rats, and near the end of their little lives I was giving them daily nebulizer treatments for their lungs.  Crazy.  I dearly loved those rats, each had their own personality (I should write about those ratties) and I felt I'd at least saved them from a horrible existence in a drawer and then in a snake.  I was closest with a rat my son had named Executioner Smough (after an NPC in Dark Souls); he was incredibly clever and affectionate.  Sigh...  I miss that little guy.  When the last of those eight rescue rats died, I decided I had to have new rats, but this time I'd get some pure bred rats.  Just for my own mental and financial health.  

I adopted Boo and Salad in the late summer of 2016.  They are completely adorable and I would have loved to have gotten more than two (when one of a pair dies the other gets very depressed. One of my rescued rats, Ornstein, died three days after his best friend Beep died.  He just stopped eating.)  But the bred rats, especially the "Dumbo" rats like Boo and Salad, are in high demand.  Mostly because they are so freaking cute and bred not to have the genetic problems that plague feeder rats.  Look at that little face on Boo!

They really are wonderful pets.  You can litter-train them, teach them tricks, and they are more affectionate than most cats.  As with all pets, they each have their own personalities.    

...anyway, that's why I have pet rats.  

 Today's Norwegian Phrase: rotter
  Pronounced: (lrot-TEH).
   (Translation: rats)
 Exercise: Use "rotter" in a sentence:
 Example: "Jeg elsker søte små rotter!"
   (I love cute little rats!)

A breadbox, a can opener and a power screwdriver.

Every now and then I come across something that I think makes my life significantly better.  My parents were art majors down at U of I and despite being talented, were poor as church mice when I was growing up.  My mom made all our clothes and the money I made in summer jobs all went to the family.  (I paid for my education with scholarships, teaching and student loans).  So it was always hard to convince my parents we needed something non-essential.  The irony is that my grandmother passed away when I was eight, and my mother took all of the money she inherited to put a down-payment on a little house in Northbrook, a very affluent suburb.  So my sisters and I went to school with wealthy kids.  I've never cared about keeping up with the rich popular kids, but my sisters were less socially awkward than I was, and they felt deprived compared to their friends. 

I have a motto:   "I don't mind spending money, but I hate wasting money." 

Okay, so like designer purses  seem like a waste of money to me.  I think they're important in much of the corporate and financial world and I guess Hollywood? They also seem to be really important to the legions of nouveau riche 30-to-50-year-old women on the North Shore of Chicago who power walk in herds all wearing the same expensive workout clothing with their identical long straight hair in a ponytail, exercising their identical bodies and smiling with their identical faces (I'm pretty sure one plastic surgeon is responsible for all of the North Shore), later grabbing their designer bags to go grocery shopping at Whole Foods so they can brag to each other how they buy organic food for their shelter dog because they care so much.   As a card-carrying member of the ACLU, I absolutely support anyone's right to completely conform with the people around them so they can have friends that they think will make them happy.  But I always feel a little sorry for people that clearly spent more than they could afford for a Louis Vuitton bag in the pathetically vain hopes of impressing the legions of Stepford Wives...  

...okay, I've gotten horribly off-topic.  Jeez, I have a lot of simmering animosity for my probably-very-nice neighbors and their probably very nice dogs.  I probably need to explore that with some sort of mental health professional.  Or a reddit forum.

What was I planning to write here?  Oh, right, things I never needed but I wish I'd known about before.  I figure I'll start a list here and then at some point I will give the list to my son so he'll know.

My new bread box.  The bread!  It's still soft!  I can't get over it!

Item 1:  A bread box.  OMG why did no one tell me about bread boxes?  We didn't have one when I was a kid and I cringe at the thought of all the bread that went stale that I had to throw away.  Right now I have a Jewel-Osco baguette I bought three days ago that is STILL SOFT.  No mold!  It's like magic!  I bought it because I thought it would hide some groceries in my teeny kitchen.  Little did I know I would be so happy with it!

Item 2: One of those handled things you use to open pickle jars.  

Item 3:  A power screwdriver.  Cordless is extra awesome.   I've built a LOT of flatpack furniture in my life, mostly from IKEA, and I always have dreaded it because of the sore wrist I'd have the next day.   I built a little bookcase thing this morning and it was actually fun.  I wish I'd bought one of these twenty years ago!

Item 4. A washcloth.   Growing up I took showers with a bar of soap and water.  No washcloth.  I heard a comedian making fun of people that mysteriously bathed without a washcloth.  The audience found this hilarious.  So I tried bringing one in the shower.  Cue the heavenly choir.

Item 5.  Parchment paper.  When I cook on aluminum foil the food sticks.  With parchment paper, nothing sticks.  And I've only ever caught the parchment paper on fire once! 

That's all I can think of right now.  Now I'm going to go out and talk to this woman coming down the sidewalk with her dog.  I need to change my attitude... first impressions can be deceiving.  :-)

 Today's Norwegian Vocabulary Word: skrutrekker
  Pronounced: (skloo-tlekk-eh).
   (Translation: screwdriver)
 Exercise: Use "skrutrekker" in a sentence:
 Example: Jeg trenger en skrutrekker; jeg vil bygge et IKEA bord."    (I need a screwdriver; I want to build an IKEA table."

So Many Hobbies

My mother and my son frequently badger me about dating.  I got divorced in 2000 and seventeen years later I am still single. I hate dating, and to be honest I'm pretty picky.  Also, I have all these medical issues which interfere with starting a relationship.  "One second honey, we can go back to cuddling after I puke for an hour."

Anyway, I did once try eHarmony.com.  My sister actually met her husband there, and they are basically the same person.  So I thought, well, maybe I can find a person like me.  Even if things don't work out romantically I might find a new nerdy friend.  

So I went online, took the survey (I think it is just a two hour Myers-Briggs test), made a totally honest profile and posted some photos and waited.  I got a lot of hits, although no one seemed particularly like me.   Then I got an in-app message from a guy who said he thought we would be a great match and he lived right nearby and let's get together for coffee. 

So I meet him at Starbucks, and he's nice enough looking and friendly and we have a pleasant conversation.  Early in he says, "Hey, I think we would make a great couple.; especially since I'm ALSO bipolar."

To which I replied, "I'm not bipolar;  I just have a lot of hobbies."

I went back to look at my profile to see what made him think I was bipolar.  I think it was the photo below, which admittedly does make me seem a little too happy.  (In my defense, I think that's a hilarious t-shirt.)  SIgh.

My "Aliens Gave  My Cat a Beard" shirt, that I got off some website like RedBubble.  Evidently other people didn't find it as ridiculously funny as I did.

So, no, I don't have Bipolar Depression.  I only have regular, boring, Major Depression.   I find a way to get through bad days the best thing is distraction.  Hence the hobbies.

When I first became disabled from my job as an eye surgeon (the coolest surgery there is), I was extremely depressed and spectacularly bored.  I'd been commuting 3 hours a day down to University of Chicago and routinely was down there from 7am to 6pm.  Suddenly becoming a stay-at-home mom felt boring and unfulfilling and only worsened my feelings of uselessness.  So I started taking classes at the local community college, Oakton.  I took classes in all the things I never had time to learn before.  I took:  Guitar, Voice, Acting, Drawing, Painting, Ceramics, Spanish and Graphic Design (don't judge me!).  Early on, I briefly looked into the University of Illinois Masters Program in Medical Illustration, in the hopes of finding a new career, but unfortunately 3D modelling software universally made me vomit (due to the vestibular migraine).  

Anyway, that's why I have so many hobbies.  (I've since gotten rid of the shirt.)

 Today's Norwegian Vocabulary Phrase: skjegg
  Pronounced: (shegg).
   (Translation: beard)
 Exercise: skjegg" in a sentence:
 Example: Utlendinger fra verdensrommet ga katten min et skjegg!
   (Aliens gave my cat a beard)