I recently got money from my grandparents for my birthday, so I finally had the funds to buy a mouse! His name is Cornelius Fudge, for reasons yet unknown except that the name really suits him. He's a beautiful cinnamon-beige with a long, silky tail. I also have to mention that he's a NINJA MOUSE. He climbs everything, and when I saw him at Petsmart he was laying flat out across his water bottle about ten inches above the enclosure floor, sleeping soundly. When he woke up, he proceeded to climb *straight down* the corrugated wall head-first.

Oberon (a maine coon/tabby mix cat) is very happy; ever since Merry and Pippin (two gerbils) died of old age, he hasn't had any scurrying rodent to watch, and with the new addition of Cornelius he has his TV back. I'll take some photos of Cornelius and post them soon; I want to let him get acclimated to the new habitat first before I startle him with camera flashes. And he's already paranoid-- as soon as I open the top of the tank and my hand goes in, he dives as fast as he can into his little two-story wooden house and barricades the doors with bedding. I feel rejected, but maybe he'll come around once he gets used to everything and my scent.

So, Lord Kass fursuit progress: I've started the base construction with plastic mesh for the head and finished the final designs on paper, so it's coming along well. I've also found a couple of good sites online that sell purple faux fur and feathers of the right length, so now it's just up to saving enough money to buy them through CafePress sales.

And as for college... I've decided to go to FSU instead of UCF becaues of FSU's excellent biology and geology programs and their new biology building. There's also the fact that it's right here where I live, so no worries about dorms or meal plans. I figure I'll go to FSU for a dual-major in biology and geology, then move on to graduate school at UoF in Gainesville for a Master's and Doctorate in paleontology. I've been reading up on fossil mammals (especially rodents) lately, and they're fascinating... who would have thought that I'd find prehistoric mice more interesting than dinosaurs?

~Blizzeon

Awesome Silverwing and Redwall fanart by my brother: