Today is the longest day (except if you’re Richard Grant, of course). Around six months ago, on the shortest, we acquired this
who has now grown into this
and yesterday we noticed that she was leaving small spots of blood around the place. We’ll have to save up for Heidi to have a small operation. In the meantime, she’ll have to go through one cycle of estrus and before we take her for walks we’ll have to spray her with something that Mrs Gee assures me is called Smack My Bitch Up, although I might have misheard her.
Sigh. Tempus Fugit. Sic Transit, Gloria Mundi. But, most of all, Non Illegitimus Carborundum.
Must go: Heidi says her boyfriend’s about to call and she wants the car keys. Ho hum, another night waiting up until 3 am, oiling the shotgun.
Say Hi to Heidi!
I certainly will, Bora.
my goodness, that fast she turned so big?!?
:)
(I could make some kind of comment about not
understanding my nephew growing either but…)
One of the really interesting and not-completely-solved problems of evolutionary biology is why animals have the lifespans they do, and why they differ so markedly between different species. Yes, there’s a great deal to be said about the relationship between mass and metabolism, and trade-offs between earlier fecundity and lifespan, and resistance to oxidative phosphorylation, and so on, but I sense that there isn’t a single, cohesive theory on which all agree as yet. Our hamsters, Nippy and Zippy, are rapidly ageing – we don’t think Zippy will last beyond Christmas. Beelzebun Demon Bunny of DOOM is about six or seven (we’re not sure how old she is) and is going grizzled around the nose and ears; Marmite and Fred the cats are twelve (but retain their kittenish good looks). Sid the snake keeps his own counsel, but poikilothermic animals are laws unto themselves.
Heidi has about half the mass of one of my children, but is maturing ten times as fast. Perhaps that uniquely complex structure, the human brain, has something to do with it.