To remain sane I need to be continuously viewing animals. It started with snails. 5 Cornu aspersum in a glass terrarium. They are sweet and surprisingly fun to interact with when they're awake; however, they sleep for days at a time. I needed more stimulation. Then came my cat, Snuffy. If I'm honest, he's plenty; he endlessly demands attention, and he's extremely entertaining. I used to think he was more like a dog than a cat. Now I realize that he is much more like a rat. Then came a fish. My first Betta was named Cobalt, and he lived about 5 months before succumbing to pet-store genetics. A few months later came Faust, a white and pink betta. He's doing well. He hates his reflection more than anything. Accompanying him is Mephisto and his children, a legion of multi-color Apple Snails. They look like a little army of organic roombas. Constant exposure to r/BallPython eventually compelled me to get my next pet, Daisy. During the day, I call her my pet water dish. Her resting place of choice is beneath her big ceramic bowl, and she only makes herself known by wiggling the water in the dish. During the night, she comes out and snakes about. She likes humans because they're warm. Owning a snake needed I had to feed a snake. The rats and mice I bought for her were kept in depressing conditions; I decided to take matters into my own hands. Then came my rats. I recieved my first rats for free; I named them Gemma, Ruby, Frank, and Jones. Ruby was sick, and she didn't survive for long. I was confronted with the fragility of rats' lives early on in my keeping of them. I haven't lost the habit of checking for the movement of breathing every time I see them sleeping. Sometimes keeping rats feels like keeping itty-bitty monkeys. They are clever, communicative, and extremely capable of thwarting your attempts to contain them. Just now I had to take a break from writing this because one of them came and insisted that I throw her onto a cushion over and over, like a little kid. If I didn't she would nibble my toes. The culling is without a doubt the hardest part of this process. I select a few of the friendliest ones of each litter to keep and adopt out, because if I didn't, I would probably succumb to despair. My oldest girls have only had one litter each- they both had so many combined that I haven't needed them to breed again, and won't until the spring. The way my cat regards my rats is one of the most life-affirming things I see on a regular basis. Snuffy is very vocal; he has a language that I am well-acquainted with at this point. The vocalizations he uses with the rats are identical to his vocalizations to other cats, specifically kittens. He has a very markedly different vocalization when he sees something he regards as prey. I have no doubt that Snuffy believes the rats are a collection of weird kittens that I cruelly refuse to allow him to play with. I don't have much to say about HTML or CSS at the moment. I've got animals on the mind.