Cinco De Mio (NoJoMo 5) in NoJoMo 2021

List five (5) interesting facts about yourself.

Lets see…

1) I share a birthmark on my nose with my oldest Nephew.

2) Even as a disabled person, I delve into a handful of varying projects, and I’m very good at most of them.
-Cooking
-Sewing/Crafting
-Art/Painting
-Acrylic Nail Sculpting
2a) Now I know that there’s the idea that I could do these things and make a living, i. e. get a job in one of those fields. I could, and I don’t have to explain, but its interesting fact day. LOL. Anyway, so my days currently consist of trying to rearrange my tiny 12 x 12 room that contains pretty much our whole life that is necessary to have in it. I mean we are still sleeping on the box spring/mattress combo on the floor. Our bedframe got trashed in the move, so sleeping hasn’t necessarily been the best.

There is so much happening for Randy and I can’t say much about it. But he’s already picked up another commission, and has updated his workstation so much. He got a 3D Resin Printer, and the washing/curing station. He also got a workbench for the shed. Coincidentally, the same day that he and I went to Silver to shop, my dad started clearing out the front corner of the shed. We hadn’t communicated anything about that lol so we were all on the same wavelength I guess.

He has a Filament 3D printer, which he tried to sell before the move, but it is a good thing he didn’t. Again, as much as I can say about that. So we’ve been incredibly busy. just doing shit. We sat down in bed last night and I was fucking exhausted. But not enough to go to sleep right away. So we munched on stuff and watched Youtube videos.

But I looked at him when I realized how fucking exhausted I was, I said, “Is it just me, or do we not get any downtime during the day anymore?”. ANd he thought for a second, like, no....we don’t. No wonder we are so exhausted. And things are happening, just so slowly.

We’re one step away from filing for our money, but my brain doesn’t want to work. I’m gonna go on the PCSC website and see if I can file a motion online. Hopefully we don’t have to go all the way down to Tucson just to file a motion.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

3) I’ve to-date had four procedures on my right ankle, due to damage from Rheumatoid Disease.
April 2018 - Arthroscopy
January 2021 - Arthroscopy
- Anterior Ligament Repair
- Achilles Tendon Release
(I have pictures of the scars if anyone wants to see lol)

4) Randy and I have owned 22 Rats over the last 5 years.
In 2016 when we were on our way back from California, in August, Randy’s mom was house/dog/hamster sitting. Our coolers went out and she couldn’t stay there because it was so hot, and we were like an hour away. We told her just to leave the dogs outside because it was cooler outside than in the house. But when we got home, Hammy had passed. He was also 3 years old.

We weren’t sure if we wanted to go with more hamsters or what, but we started doing research on Rats. Our first three were Peanut, Spazz and Chatters. Peanut was an unfortunate FTT situation, so she was not even 1/3 the size of Spazz and Chatters. She lived with us for 2 days and then she passed. We made a cage out of an old book shelf. Worst Idea ever. It was impossible to clean, but I managed to keep it mostly clean and covered in fleece or other items so they weren’t on the wood so much.

They were around a year and a half when Chatters passed, and then a couple days later, Spazz did too. We had gotten Coconut, Butter and Scotch at that point. So when the first two passed, we still had 3 more. Those three were very special because they never accepted any other adult rat. Butter passed around a year old, from who knows what, coupled with the other two starving her to death.

At this point we did MORE and MORE research to figure out what we could have done better to help Butter, but we found out that they might do that to a sick rat, just kind of try to off them to thin the herd so to speak for safety reasons. even though they aren’t wild, it’s still instinctual.

Anyway, so we got Peaches, who came from a horrendous living situation. She was over a year old, her previous owners lived in a 5th wheel trailer, and they were heavy smokers. A rat, in a 5th wheel with two heavy smokers. Ugh. We got her out of there and she lived with us for another two or three months and then her lungs gave out.

After Peaches, we got Ralph and Racer from another rescue type situation. There were supposed to be 3, but the naked boy passed before we could get them to us. So They were 3.5 years old when we got them. Ralph was healthy and GIANT. Racer had a big lipoma on his side, but he was still very active and whatnot. They were both not handled very much by their previous owners so Ralph was extremely bitey and Racer just didn’t like being held.

Racer passed a year later, and that’s when we got Winston and Nigel. Ralph did not like other rats besides Racer, so the intro failed and Ralph lived his remaining 6 months by himself in a bunny cage. He developed an abscess on his hind quarter which caused hind leg degeneration. So we kept him clean and drained the abcess, but he passed at 5 years old.

We got Edana from the same person we got Winston and Nigel from, without even realizing it. She was supposed to be a feeder, but didn’t work out, but she was also rescued from a hoarding situation. She was NOT accepted by Coconut and Scotch, so she took over residence in the cage Ralph had been in. She was unhealthy, but we didn’t know, because she was so loving and cuddly. But feeders are generally not healthy rats, to be honest. We lost her the second week of November. She is the reason Randy fell in love with Rats. She was his rat and he was her human. Even though we only had her for a short time, like two months, she solidified Randy’s love for the Rats. Ralph did that for me.

Winston and Nigel were perfect rats. Winston moreso. They had been rescued by the person we would end up getting the remainder of our rats from. They were taken from a situation where they were living outside, in Arizona, In August. Throughout all that, Winston was not aggressive, loved on you and loved being held. Nigel was a bit bitey, and slightly aggressive, but for the most part was a great rat. He was definitely the 2nd biggest rat. We never weighed Ralph or Racer, but Ralph was easily 650+ grams. Nigel topped out at 618.

We got Eleanor shortly after Winston and Nigel. About a month or two. She was born on November 1st. She was very surprisingly accepted by Coconut and Scotchy. So they went into living quarters within a week of getting her. At that point Felicity, the Rat lady lol, messaged us about her siblings. She had 4 other siblings, two females and two males that needed homes as well. Since Eleanor was accepted by the older rats, we added Harriett and Parsley to their mischief. Hemi and Bandit were supposed to stay in their own cage until they were bigger and so we could have time to intro them to Winston and Nigel.

The 2nd day we had them, they escaped their temp cage and got into the bigger cage with Winston and Nigel. it had very large bar spacing, so they were easily able to slip in and out. Winston and Nigel accepted them immediately so they lived together that way since the very beginning. All 5 of those were 5 weeks old when we got them.

Coconut passed away about two weeks after we got all of them. She would have been 3 that following January. So Scotchy was left to raise the 3 baby girls. And she did an amazing job of it! Eleanor ended up becoming the alpha in the middle of it somewhere, but Scotchy didn’t mind.

We added Rizzo and Fievel to the mix, but they both stayed in their own cage for at least 6 months, the first time because they were tiny and the other boys were big, and then when Fievel got sick, Rizzo stayed with him for about 2 months.

Jovie and Trillian grew pretty big pretty fast, so they went into the girls mischief within a couple weeks. We lost Scotchy, Bandit, Nigel, Parsley, Harriett, Winston and Eleanor all within the last couple of months. Jovie and Trillian went to their new home in Prescott at the same time and we are now left with Rizzo, Fievel and Hemi.

We are planning on adding two more to the mix once Hemi passes, he’s the last one from that litter of 5, and he just turned 2 on Nov 1. Rizzo and Fievel will be 2 in June.

5) My mom turned 60 November 22, 2014. I turned 30 December 10, 2014. My grandma (moms mom) Turned 90 December 25, 2014. I wanted so badly to have a child when I was 30, so the tradition could continue. But, no such luck.

Last updated November 08, 2021