Our new babies are here!!! We met Leslie’s mother in Taco Bell’s parking lot. Because one of the dark rats turned out to be a hermaphrodite, LOL, they substituted him-her with a Dumbo rat. This worked out better because I think having two dark rats would make them hard to tell apart. Dumbo rats’ ears don’t rise above their eyes and his fur is a bit wavy and wooly compared to the smooth shiny fur of his roomies. This is our first Dumbo rat and while I still don’t think they’re as cute as top-eared rats, they’re not as ugly as I thought they would be. Dumbo is a cutie. Yeah, I’m just calling him Dumbo.

I’m calling the other dark one Burke because he’s a Berkshire rat, and Simon is our Siamese rat. He looks exactly like Sugar ratty looked, only Sugar has dark eyes, which makes him a Himalayan rat.

They’re a little shyer than I expected them to be, but I will work with them after seeing Stacey this morning.

The new cage is HUGE! It took us about an hour and a half to put it together. It’s very heavy but sturdy and is more of a dark charcoal gray than a true black. I could almost stand up in the thing that’s how big it is. The giant rat sticker looks cool behind it. We plan to add more accessories to it soon. We’ve got splatter guards on the way because the bedding pans are a little shallow. I’m surprised they didn’t make a big mess because certainly, they had to have been up all night while we slept. They’re nocturnal and they certainly would have been curious and wound up. After all, yesterday was their first car ride and they’re used to being in a small glass aquarium.

They kind of huddled together in the white-wired, magenta-based little birdcage we transported them home in, but you could see the excitement in their movements as soon as we assembled the cage and were able to load them into it. Rats will always tell you if they like something by their bouncy movements. When I got up real early this morning, Simon was on the wheel. They’re all asleep now.

They also have a hanging hammock and some wood chews on the way.

Tom printed some brackets with the 3-D printer to make it easier to attach the baseboards to the legs of the couch to keep them from nesting underneath it when they’re out and about. Oh, the havoc Little Buddy wreaked on our Arizona couch! LOL

We got a really nice white two-drawer file cabinet with a shallow drawer on top that we plan to keep in the utility room. It can be locked but we see no point in locking in it. One problem is that the folding bikes are in the way of where we want to it. The plan is to raise one of the bikes and hook it on the wall just above the other bike, which can stay at the side of the file box. Another problem is that the pedals stick way out, so we ordered folding pedals.

Yesterday, while awaiting the arrival of the new cage and then to pick up the rats, I began sorting through papers and the file box. I used to have one giant medical file, for example, but I think at our ages it’s time for multiple medical file folders, even though we’re still pretty healthy. Like a folder for Massachusetts & Arizona and one for California. Maybe someday there will be a Florida one. We mostly have the Boston records on my ear surgery, our eye exams, and my thyroid tests.

Yesterday I sent a message to Doc A letting her know that although most of it is gone, I had throat irritation and some lip-tingling, though no stomach or anxiety issues. She did ask to be kept updated anyway. I just want to make sure this isn’t dangerous, though I doubt it is.