Snowball's Big Adventure

(Disclaimer: The above hamster is not ours. It's a stunt double. Snowball's privacy is very important to her and so, she would not be photographed. Actually, she's tunneled into her little den and is soundly sleeping. I would imagine she may remain that way for some time. She's been through a lot.)


Young One has a rodent pet hamster in his room. Well, we thought she was in his room. Five days ago, D and Young One cleaned out her cage and left the back door open. You can see where this is going, can't you?

I don't pay much attention to her. It took a Valium (I'm kidding) and Lamaze breathing for me to even be able to hold her. D is still terrified of her, although he won't admit it. We both grew up in the country, so the only little furry critters we knew of in our houses were caught in traps. I find it hysterical that D won't hold her. He gets all tense and clenches his teeth and says repeatedly, words firing rapidly, "I'm good. I'm good. No, really, I'm good. She's cute. I'm good."

This morning D was stumbling to the basement in search of something when he caught a white streak out of the corner of his eye. I'm sure he gasped, perhaps shrieked. I'm picturing a housewife on a chair in a Tom and Jerry cartoon reaction. I heard the story a half an hour after it happened, so he'd had plenty of time to calm down and act all manly about it. Of course he wouldn't pick her up, so he had to get Young One. But, first he had to take a closer look to make sure that we didn't have a new species of infestation. Nope, short tail, calmly approaching the human in search of a treat, it was Snowball.

Young One swooped in to the rescue getting her back, safely to her cage.

We wondered why she wasn't eating much this week!

I can only wonder what she did for the last five, FIVE, days. This was a big adventure for her, down two stories, foraging for food (oh man, please tell me she ate dog food out of the dish). She's nocturnal, so this all took place under the cover of night. Maybe she partied, dancing and enjoying her freedom. I can picture a little tiny disco ball spinning while she assumes the Saturday Night Fever pose. I hope she's a he (we're really not sure of her sex having not looked very closely at her girl or boy parts--something I really don't want to add to my list of life experiences). We have had little grey mice in the house, so if in a few weeks (months?) we have a litter of little grey and white Hammouses I'll either have to figure out how to sell this new species to the designer dog girls with their giant handbags or we'll be making a little trip to the humane society.


Snowballs
These cookies come in at one point each, but you won't be able to tell. They're very rich and packed with fruit, something that our Snowball really loves. In fact, aside from the All-Bran and the sugar, she would love these!

4 cups All-Bran
1 cup pitted dried plums
1-2/3 cups raisins
1-1/2 cups dried apricots
2 cups chopped pecans
Confectioners' sugar

Place cereal and prunes in a food processor or blender; cover and process until cereal is crumbled. Add raisins, apricots and pecans; process until finely chopped. Shape in 1-in. balls; roll in confectioners' sugar. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Roll in sugar before serving. Yield: about 5-1/2 dozen.

One serving:
One piece
Calories:
59
Fat:
3 g
Saturated Fat:
0 g
Cholesterol:
0 mg
Sodium:
10 mg
Carbohydrate:
10 g
Fiber:
2 g
Protein:
1 g