![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More animals, getting people angry
Jun. 10th, 2004 08:01 pmMore rabbit sightings. I've now either seen three, or the same one three times. It/they are remarkably brave for a rabbit, which is worrying.
Lots of road kill. An opossum, and several squirrels. Even the chipmunks are getting bold. We should probably get a feeder up.
I saw another snapping turtle too, at school this time. When I noticed, she had already finished laying eggs.
( Long, rantish fun school drama )
I also just went to the pet store, because I felt really, really bad about the beta my mother saw. He was still there (poor baby...he's a really little red male, so he doesn't stand out much). He looked sick, lying at the bottom of the cup, but perked up and swam around when I picked him up. Another beta there was dead. It had starved to death. He'd already been there a few weeks, so that would probably have been him soon.
I brought him home and put him in the main tank, still in his cup, of course. He flairs right up at my other beta, who's about three times bigger. My other beta ignores him. He swims past the cup, he nudges against the cup, he swims off, he swims back...and the little male is displaying and displaying and just getting completely blown off.
I take out the other beta. He's been hanging around the heater, which is a hint he was too cold, and put him in a smaller tank I had set up with the same water and another heater. The water's just in the high seventies to eighty, and he swims around a bit. Then I let out the new beta, who acts sick and scared after he stops displaying. The goldfish try to nip his fins a few times, which they do when they see anything new, but he swims off. I feed them.
The next day, I find that the power has shifted to the little male, who's smaller than any of the goldfish. He's flairing at the goldfish and attacking them. He's even torn off sections of their tails. This is really odd, because beta flairing is triggered by things that look like betas and food, and betas don't think huge fish are prey. I take him out and feed him while I try to figure out what to do. He eats, and eats, and eats, and keeps eating even after he's eaten about five times what my adult beta can manage. Turns out the problem was just that he was still too hungry after not eating for so long and so he was trying to eat the fins of the goldfish. It'd warmed up and both tanks were up to eighty, so I switched the two tanks of the betas. I've been feeding the little male twice or three times a day, and he's stopped flairing, so he should be okay for a community tank again soon. I think I'll leave him in the fifteen gallon and move the larger beta with the goldfish.
My cats have also been experiencing some strife. My female cat is starting to go after the kittens. I don't know if this is normal or just more hormonal screwiness. We had to get her spayed while she was just finishing weaning one kitten and pregnant with another litter, and she went a little nuts and started to try to carry her half-grown son around by the underside of his throat and chewed on his mouth. Then we got a bunch of very young kittens (young enough to need bottle-feeding) and she adopted them. Mainly the two longer-haired spotted calicos, who looked a bit like her. She licked them and even caught a vole and crawled through the window to bring it to them (I put it back outside. She hadn't even scratched it). So I don't know why she's acting so aggressive to these cats, except that they're half-grown. I really hope they get adopted soon, because we can't keep them.
::sighs:: I'm also emailing yet another author over a review I gave. I don't understand why everyone makes their trainer start overage. Dammit, is it really that hard to just start the story with them already a trainer? It's not like it's that interesting that they woke up and picked a pokemon. I could survive without hearing that for the hundredth time. But no, everyone's got to start there, and their trainer can't be ten because a ten year old would never be able to wander around on their own. I'm so sick of the condescending attitude people have toward ten year olds, especially when the author's just a few years older. The seventeen year old authors, while they should know better, at least have the excuse of having a reasonable age difference. But twelve, thirteen, and fourteen? It's always whatever age the author is. It's like they forgot they were ever ten.
Give ten year olds some credit, people. They can use a cell phone, order their charmander to light a campfire, and walk along a road, which is not only enough to be a trainer, but probably as much or more than what the authors of these stories are able to do.
I also don't understand why the authors I talk to keep assuming that because I don't agree with them, I'm the one who doesn't know about the subject, not them.
Lots of road kill. An opossum, and several squirrels. Even the chipmunks are getting bold. We should probably get a feeder up.
I saw another snapping turtle too, at school this time. When I noticed, she had already finished laying eggs.
( Long, rantish fun school drama )
I also just went to the pet store, because I felt really, really bad about the beta my mother saw. He was still there (poor baby...he's a really little red male, so he doesn't stand out much). He looked sick, lying at the bottom of the cup, but perked up and swam around when I picked him up. Another beta there was dead. It had starved to death. He'd already been there a few weeks, so that would probably have been him soon.
I brought him home and put him in the main tank, still in his cup, of course. He flairs right up at my other beta, who's about three times bigger. My other beta ignores him. He swims past the cup, he nudges against the cup, he swims off, he swims back...and the little male is displaying and displaying and just getting completely blown off.
I take out the other beta. He's been hanging around the heater, which is a hint he was too cold, and put him in a smaller tank I had set up with the same water and another heater. The water's just in the high seventies to eighty, and he swims around a bit. Then I let out the new beta, who acts sick and scared after he stops displaying. The goldfish try to nip his fins a few times, which they do when they see anything new, but he swims off. I feed them.
The next day, I find that the power has shifted to the little male, who's smaller than any of the goldfish. He's flairing at the goldfish and attacking them. He's even torn off sections of their tails. This is really odd, because beta flairing is triggered by things that look like betas and food, and betas don't think huge fish are prey. I take him out and feed him while I try to figure out what to do. He eats, and eats, and eats, and keeps eating even after he's eaten about five times what my adult beta can manage. Turns out the problem was just that he was still too hungry after not eating for so long and so he was trying to eat the fins of the goldfish. It'd warmed up and both tanks were up to eighty, so I switched the two tanks of the betas. I've been feeding the little male twice or three times a day, and he's stopped flairing, so he should be okay for a community tank again soon. I think I'll leave him in the fifteen gallon and move the larger beta with the goldfish.
My cats have also been experiencing some strife. My female cat is starting to go after the kittens. I don't know if this is normal or just more hormonal screwiness. We had to get her spayed while she was just finishing weaning one kitten and pregnant with another litter, and she went a little nuts and started to try to carry her half-grown son around by the underside of his throat and chewed on his mouth. Then we got a bunch of very young kittens (young enough to need bottle-feeding) and she adopted them. Mainly the two longer-haired spotted calicos, who looked a bit like her. She licked them and even caught a vole and crawled through the window to bring it to them (I put it back outside. She hadn't even scratched it). So I don't know why she's acting so aggressive to these cats, except that they're half-grown. I really hope they get adopted soon, because we can't keep them.
::sighs:: I'm also emailing yet another author over a review I gave. I don't understand why everyone makes their trainer start overage. Dammit, is it really that hard to just start the story with them already a trainer? It's not like it's that interesting that they woke up and picked a pokemon. I could survive without hearing that for the hundredth time. But no, everyone's got to start there, and their trainer can't be ten because a ten year old would never be able to wander around on their own. I'm so sick of the condescending attitude people have toward ten year olds, especially when the author's just a few years older. The seventeen year old authors, while they should know better, at least have the excuse of having a reasonable age difference. But twelve, thirteen, and fourteen? It's always whatever age the author is. It's like they forgot they were ever ten.
Give ten year olds some credit, people. They can use a cell phone, order their charmander to light a campfire, and walk along a road, which is not only enough to be a trainer, but probably as much or more than what the authors of these stories are able to do.
I also don't understand why the authors I talk to keep assuming that because I don't agree with them, I'm the one who doesn't know about the subject, not them.
