Tribute to Princess Aurora (23.2.2003 - 23.9.2004)

AKA Rory, Fatty...

During my last entry, I wanted to write a little bit on my hamster. The day before that, she had once again escaped from her cage, a feat she's achieved many times before, both with her old, and her new cage.

Now, it seems, rather than just a short entry, I'll be writing a lot on her. You see, yesterday morning, just a couple of hours after I ended my entry, I found Rory, lying dead on the lower ground floor of my condo, outside the balcony. Her wild spirit for running wild all over the place has eventually led to her death. I just hope she's okay, wherever she is right now.

Rory was given to me by Ozee for my 21st birthday. He got the idea after watching me play around with Nash's hamster whenever we visited Ramon's place. He thought that I'd like to have a hamster, although I have to admit that I wasn't too keen on it on the day he proposed that idea to me.
We went out for my birthday. We were in MidValley. He told me that he had an idea for my birthday present, but he was going to show it to me, and then I can choose it. I had no idea what he had in mind!
We went to Pets Wonderland, and there, he told me it was going to be a hamster. He had a budget of RM50 for my present. I don't even think he even realised how expensive it was. The hamster itself was already almost RM20, and the cage, a small round unit was also about the same price. But when I saw the cage, I told him I didn't want the pet. It was for 2 main reasons. Firstly, I found the cage too small for a hamster. I didn't like the idea of keeping my pet in such a small place. Secondly, if I bought a bigger cage, or included some other basic items for the pet, it would have gone very far over his budget. A bigger cage there costed about RM50 already, if I'm not mistaken.
So I told him, I didn't want a hamster for my birthday. He kept asking me what I wanted, but I kept asking him to choose something, because it wouldn't have felt like a real present if I chose what I wanted. After dragging me around the whole of MV pointing out suggestions, and me shaking my head for every suggestion, I finally took him to Petaling Street.

In Petaling Street, there's a pet shop which sells hamsters, among others. I was quite aware that the prices there would probably be much lower. And that's where we bought my first hamster, Rory! =) We bought a cage (a bigger one!), a bowl, some food and wood chips, a water dispenser and of course, a hamster. I'm not sure, but I think Ozee spotted her running around, and we took her. I remember walking around with her in the cage. A guy even asked me about the hamster and was saying that it looked cute...
Ozee named her Princess Allura, after the character from Voltron. I couldn't remember the character's name, so I presumed that it was Aurora, and anyway, I loved auroras. I find them beautiful and would love to see a real one in the future. I liked the name coz I could call her Rory for short. Partly influenced by the show Gilmore Girls.

A few months later, Rory grew up and I though she looked lonely. That was the time I decided to give her a friend. That was a very huge mistake. I went back to the same shop to buy a new hamster. The new hamster was really young, and seemingly quiet. I didn't know that I couldn't put the 2 hamsters together. Rory got defensive of her home, and attacked the new hamster. She didn't even have a name yet, and she never even survived the night. Although I had seperated the 2 of them after an hour or so, the new hamster had already obtained injuries from Rory that were too much to take.

The following year, I moved to stay in Cyberia from the hostels. Jing Nee had also kept hamsters, but hers was the dwarf type. Rory looked so much bigger than the others that CY named her Fatty. And from there on, everyone started calling her Fatty. Even Aneeta who used to keep hamsters said she looked a lot bigger than any of hers. Fatty was really cute. She was constantly eating and sleeping. We used to make fun of her saying that she was exercising off her fat whenever we found her running on the wheel. And she looked so cute whenever she slept in her bowl. And sometimes, when she was sleeping, we'd poke her up with some veg, and she'd give this huge yawn!!! She'd look at us with sleepy eyes, sniff around a bit, find the food, and chew it up with her eyes closed. How cute is that? =P She also had a habit of running round and round her cage, and once when I hooked a ladder on the top bar of her cage, she'd climb the bars of her cage to the top... carry herself monkey-bars style over to the ladder, slide through the top whole, and fall down n the other side. She'd do the same thing for hours! She also had a habit of chewing and digging everything. Hence the 4 holes in each corner or her first cage.

After moving to this unit this year, because JN is not around, on some weekends, CY may have forgotten to feed her during the weekends when I'm not around. Back then, Rory would climb to the latch at the top, push it open, climb out of the cage, run around the house looking for food. We found her running about in the house before. But sometimes, we also found her mysteriously back in her cage after wandering through the house. That was when I first realised how smart she was. She'd carry food back into her cage.

Recently, I changed her cage. The old one was smelly, and stained. Not to mention it also had 4 holes in its base. On the first day Rory moved into her new home, she kept scratching and biting everything. But after awhile, she got used to it and she loved sleeping in the compartment at the top. The cage had been easier for her to escape from. The door (or latch) was placed at the side instead of the top. Everytime she grabbed the cage bars with her teeth and shook it, the door flew open. Even during the holidays, she had managed to escape twice. But then later I added an extra wire to lock the latch.

Then just a few days ago, she managed to escape again. Apparently, this time it was from the small plastic hole at the side. It was blocked by a round piece of plastic, but that piece was held flimsily by 3 joints. Rory managed to bite through 1, and bent the plastic fitting to allow her to fit through the hole. After I found her (when Aneeta screamed), I put her back in and sealed the hole with cellaphone tape. When it happened the 2nd time, I used more tape (a whole lot more!) but then, unfortunately, it hadn't been enough.

It was her final trip outside the cage. Not only had she bitten through all the tape, she broke the remaining 2 joints as well. I noticed the hole and looked into her cage to see if she was in. I saw her wheel, and a dark shape underneath, thinking it was her. When I looked more closely, it wasn't her. I started running all over the house looking for her. When i couldn't find her, I checked outside the balcony. From the 1st floor, I could see her dead body lying on the stones. She fell down 2 stories during the night.

At first I just stood there shocked. The moment CY asked if I was okay, I starting crying. And it went on for the day. Everytime I thought about Rory, my eyes just started to water. The moment I got to Ozee place, I cried a lot. I couldn't help myself. It's quite ironic, sometimes I with I didn't have her, but when I lost her, I really missed her. But her death seemed too cruel and sudden. I just hope that when she fell, her death had been instant, and pray that she didn't suffer too much.

Now all I have of her is just a few memories. I don't have many pictures of her but I suppose her picture will be in my head for the rest of my life =) I love my hamster!

Mood : I feel a lot better now than I did a couple of days ago. And I'm happy to announce that I may be getting 2 new hamsters on Tuesday. Ozee planned to buy me 2 new hamsters the moment he heard about Rory's death. While on the bus today, we were discussing their future names =D Ozee & Mel had been rejected, so was a lot of others... but the funny thing was that I didn't want a couple... as in 1 male 1 female. So the names would be for a couple but the genders of the hamsters won't... =P