i got two baby dwarf hamsters last week from a professor across the hall. they were just weaned. two girls, which i have named Lady Avalanche and Dame Scribble (their names are silly and lab-related). you can follow the adventures of their two brothers here at erin's blog. last week i went and bought them a hamster palace. assembling it took some brain power.



cynthia saw it and said, "it's so, i don't know, over the top." and i thought she knew me enough to expect that already.



it took them a day to get used to their hamster paradise and start using the tunnels, but now they run around everywhere. i'll have to go get more tunnels. and a ball to put them in and let them run around the lab. maybe then my boss will notice them since somehow the muticolored plastic monstrosity on my desk has not attracted his attention yet.



they look exactly the same, and i tried using sharpie to mark one so i could tell them apart but it turns out they're always cleaning themselves so that didn't last long. to help me out, starting yesterday one of them has been very mean and biting me and other people that try to handle her. she's a little bit bigger than the other nice cute one that doesn't latch on with fangs and draw blood. so the bitey one is lady avalanche and the nice one is dame scribble. i hope lady avalanche gets nicer and stops biting but at least i can tell them apart now. that's dame scribble that i'm holding.