Squeak now or forever hold your peace

I confess to being a terrible hamster owner. 
Ambush was mostly nocturnal, so he was hamming it up when I was snoring. 
We had a nice arrangement worked out: I would go in every other morning, make sure he had water, fill up two bowls with food, rub his little head, and let him snooze. 
When he got moved into Gealach’s room to make way for the Christmas tree, I started checking on him every three days.

Lately, he seemed to be in deep hibernation and hadn’t moved from his nest in days. 
His food was barely touched.
 I assumed with the house being as cold as it is, he had just decided to hunker down in his bedding and wait the cold months out. 
Nonetheless, I still checked in on him

I had a killer headache yesterday.
 I did nothing at all once we came home from the store. 

The last time we had checked on the booger was Monday. 
He was most definitely alive then. 
So I go in this morning to check on him. 
I lift his little lid up, expecting to see his little hateful, sleepy face, and his sleeping apartment was empty.

Well, alright, not really a big deal. 
He does move occasionally, so I lift his little tree hide‑a‑away. 
No Ambush. 
OK, this is getting not only serious, but downright weird.

The bedroom door had been shut since Monday. 
There is no way for him to escape from his cage. 
All the cage doors were shut, and the tubes connecting the two cages were tight. 
He can’t crawl out himself.

I go in and wake up Badger, thinking heck, I don’t know, maybe he’s in a tube and I’m just not seeing him. She shakes the cage, she whacks the tubes. No hamster in that cage.

We have torn the room apart.
We moved everything, we shook everything out. That hamster is just poof, gone. I mean, I don’t even know.

It’s possible a cat ate him, but Cowboy assured us that if a cat was playing with him prior to popping him in their mouth, we would have heard him screaming. 
He could not have squeezed out between his bars. 
I don’t care how much of a rat he is and how they are capable of squishing themselves. 

So I guess, RIP Ambush. 
He almost lived two years.

Raven and SK are supposed to come down tomorrow. 
Yes, Badger is having a fit about that.
 I know the risk of having people outside your bubble come into your bubble. 
I know that Raven and SK are not as vigilant about masks and social distancing as we are.
 Likewise, I also know that COVID‑19 is not going away, and we cannot go without seeing our kids and grandkids until the vaccine becomes widely used or we all develop herd immunity.

COVID‑19 is unpredictable.
Some people get it, and they only have a mild case and think it’s no big deal. Other people, healthy people, get it, and it kills them.

We take a risk anytime we leave our house to go to a store or the doctor’s office or McDonald’s. We don’t know which part of the population we’ll be: the no big deal part or the six feet under part.

But if I can go to Walmart, then I can see my grandkids.

We’ve cleaned all day and caught up on laundry so that the house will be clean in order for the boys to trash. 
They’re like little tornadoes going through. 
At least we are seeing them, though. 
It’s been weeks since we’ve last seen Gealach. 

Then we spent the rest of the evening wrapping presents. 
That took forever!
I still have four or five packages that are floating around out there somewhere, but I’m basically done wrapping.
It had to be done tonight so that we could hide them in Peacock’s old room away from curious, prowling little boys. 

I am getting off of here, going to find supper. 
It’s been a long day.