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Monday, December 11, 2000

Ruby Slippers

I took Ruby to the chinchilla specialist. She said her front teeth looked great (not trimmed too short or anything) but her molars were defective which is why she stopped chewing and let her front teeth get so long in the first place. The roots of her molars were growing out the bottom of her jawbone, and apparently when that's happening they also grow up into the eye sockets (ick!). It's just a genetic occasion that some chinches and rabbits have this problem, and there's nothing that can be done about it--they just slowly starve to death.

Ruby seemed determined to go out more quickly than that, as she's refused to eat anything whatsoever in days and has been looking progressively and rapidly more pathetic. The chinch lady tried to feed Ruby some tasty paste that they use to get nutrition into reluctant chinchillas, but Ruby just let her glob it in and then stood there with a mouth full of the stuff but wouldn't even try to chew or swallow. She was still relatively chipper for little moments here and there when there was something new to see (the ride in the car) but after a few moments of that she'd go back into her slumping rest.

So I checked her into death row. By now she's under a pile of dirt in the lady's backyard next to a hundred other buried slippers.

I hadn't realized how often I thought of Ruby until this evening. Every time I walk through the house I glance over there to see what she's up to. I hadn't noticed that I noticed her.

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