Esoteric Lucubrations

Philly Fan-Friends; Baby's First Rat Show
I had an incredibly wonderful time in Philadelphia, especially at the rat show. Isabella was a real trouper, and in the "Fun Show"not only overwhelmingly won best costume--much oohing and aahing; a photo was taken, and may be on the cover of the mouse & rat club's newsletter--but also took largest and tied for longest tail (quite a coup for a female rat).

nancylebov took the train to and from the rat show to join us. This was a good thing, because womzilla, especially, found long portions of the show to be boring. Well, it does take a while to individually judge each rat, and of course the "Fun Show" was after everything else. So Womzilla and Nancy could talk. I looked around and met people, got input on a lot of questions I had about color and marking terminology, and didn't really find the show boring, but I enjoyed the time chatting with Nancy and Womzilla for its own sake.

The night before, all three of us had dinner at Rebecca Ore's, take-out from a really good place for Mexican food. I had crab enchiladas, which were sublime. We ended with a simple but scumptious dessert Rebecca provided: fresh-baked bread, fresh Jersey butter, apple slices, and honey for apples and/or bread. And an excellent oolong tea served traditionally. It was great to see Rebecca again. Her house and yard are pleasant and welcoming.

The rat & mouse show was held at the same time and in the same set of rooms as a ferret show. This didn't seem like the best choice in terms of the happiness of the already nervous show rats, but worked out well for Nancy, who I think likes ferrets more than she likes rats--or at least more than she liked rats before the show, at which she met some very personable rats, and Isabella Rattelinni worked her usual charm. Many other rat people said Isabella is the most mellow female rat they have ever met.

As expected, the show had both standard and unusual rats, the latter including many hairless, many dumbo (slightly larger ears, set lower on the skull), rex (curly coat), satin (shiny coat), and tailless--even one of the world's few hairless-taillless rats, which I said had a rear view like a chicken butt, Pope's nose and all. I saw my first Siamese, which is like a Himalayan (like our Lotus) only moreso, with darker points not only at nose, ears, and tail but also more of the butt and the four paws. I even saw a Harley rat, which has nothing to do with motorcycles: all are descended from a rat named Harley, Himilayans with a unique coat, like a rex but longer and much softer. People are trying to breed other colors with the same fur.

Yet in terms of variety and color, mouse breeding is much further along. This would almost tempt me to keep mice again--after breeding them a little over 20 years ago--but now that I'm a rat-person, mice seem so tiny and fragile! But calico mice! Pinto mice! Tabby-like mice, with an overcoat of stripes!

The Fun Show also had a category for "best costume" for mice, but a judge says no one ever enters it. Hmmmm. I have a mini doll tutu that would just fit--but no, that would be madness. (Felix just showed his own rejection of mice by kicking my computer mouse off the desk. :-))

Part of Womzilla's job was to make sure we came home with the same number of rats we left with, and he did it well, almost succeeding totally. Our coming home awoke supergee, and I called out to him, "All four of us are home." Ex-math-student that he is, he thought of the fact that only three of us had left and quickly concluded that I had, indeed, acquired a rat from a breeder at the show. He was sanguine, and said he'd expected me to give in and felt he'd be satisfied if I brought home only one rat. My men not only love me but really know me!

We haven't named her yet, but she's a Siamese dumbo with a very good temperament. Most of all, I got excited about buying from that breeder after an unsolicited (by me or the seller) testimony of how healthy the breeder's rats are. Also, Isabella will have to be in quarantine for at least 11 days after being around so many strange rats, and she's easily bored, so we felt some quarantine company would be nice.

Yes, I'm committed to the idea of attrition, but I also wanted to get some healthier genes in our menagerie; and with three females over two years old and another with inoperable cancer, there will be attrition enough among females in the immediate future. I would not have bought her had not Womzilla made his own decision the same way. He did keep me from bringing home even more, including a large agouti boy , like our late and lamented Pluto.

We happened to station ourselves near, and got to know , a family of wonderful people from South Jersey. Three generations--mother, two daughters, their daughter and two sons--all were showing rats! (The grandmother did not seem very old to me, but we'll ignore certain implications of that one.) They had a big, squidgy male blue-hooded rat with a wonderful temperature--in other words, much like my late, beloved Dr. Butch--named Skeeter. They plan to breed some litters after Christmas, and I left them my card, on which I wrote, "interested in after-Christmas litters, especially by Skeeter." They even lent me a show-display box for Isabella, in a blue that complemented her outfit!

Speaking of Isabella's outfit, digital photos were taken before we left, and will show up today or Monday.

We also did extremely well at the raffle. I bought six tickets at the beginning of the show. Much later, Nancy, Womzilla, and I were talking in the lobby, and I had an urge to check on how the show was doing. Just as we enter, they get to the sixth raffle item, and we win! We also won the eighth raffle item, a bizarre and lovely hand-crafted tree-topper with a hand-sewn stuffed angel rat. We bought some books, some rat treats, and a hammock made of celestial fabric that will go will in the Drinkwater Boys' cage in my study.

The show wasn't over until 8:00 pm; we'd been thinking of maybe driving Nancy back, but we had to fish out due to the hour and the fact that her house is in the complete opposite direction from our home. We three had dinner at a Bob Evans (the weather had grown cool enough to leave the girls in the car), then dropped Nancy off at the train station and headed home.

I told Womzilla that the only thing that could have made the trip better was if I didn't have to work on Sunday and we had stayed over another night. Later in the drive, my right knee (which I somehow used wrong days ago and has gone from hurting to stiff) started complaining about the long ride. Still, it was a splendid weekend around old sf friends and new rattie friends.

By the way, rat people are an interesting blend, some looking very much like sf fans and some more like the cat or horse people I have met. (I guess I would describe that as "Western librarian"--neat hair often short, often no make-up, clean-scrubbed, neat but down to earth clothes, lots of Western jeans but as likely with a regular shirt or top as with a t-shirt.) There were some punkish rat girls, but fewer than I expected. The Ferret people inclined more to punk-and/or-biker-looking people, and I saw more tattoos on ferret people. None of this mattered, and we were as united by our enthusiasm as an sf convention, but I find it sociologically interesting.

Rat on Shoulder: Felix, who probably missed me more than anyone except Supergee.

Music: earworms from Shoggoth on the Roof, which we played during the road trip

Mood: Happy; trusting that caffeine will get me through the day