We Are All Gerbils

At this very moment, Blackout is in Boston, participating in an experiment.  A gerbil specialist that we know is attempting to see if she can forge a new family for him with two new "pups"; if so, then we'll have three gerbils in a few days, rather than one.  We're all hoping for a successful "adoption" on his part - especially since gerbils are such social creatures, and he has been alone for some time now.

The boys talk about this development many times a day.  Ever since Saturday afternoon, when we dropped them off, Ian and Daniel have been talking about the whole thing, and pining, quite dramatically, for much-loved, so-very-far-away Blackout.  It's really sweet; he has been gone just over two days, but they miss him terribly.  They're also talking nearly-non-stop about which of the pups he will adopt.  The way that the process works, is that the gerbil expert takes four different pups and puts them in a cage with him - really in a fish tank (yes - without the water)  in various combinations at different times, to see if any of them take a liking to him, and vice versa.  I'm not at all sure this is going to work...  But she's still plugging away at it.  When they're not in the same space - which is most of the time, so far - she has them in a kind of common enclosure with a little "screen down the middle" so that he can sniff them, look at them, think about them, etc - and they can do the same to him, giving them time to develop mutual enthusiasms without any danger of a confrontation erupting while they're checking each other out.  Ian refers to the attempt to find surrogate children for Blackout as Blackout "having babies," which is always entertaining, since Blackout is male.  I hope labor goes well...

The three "boys" made the journey to Boston together on Saturday, with Blackout.  Libby, the gerbil professional, was extremely welcoming, and took us up to the Gerbil Room, explaining the entire process and having the boys watch as she set up the preliminary adoption-tank.  It was pretty hilarious to see Blackout scampering around the tank with the four babies, all running around poking into each other, sniffing, and running off, like a bumper car ride at an amusement park.

In the meantime, all four of the pups have been "named" by the boys.  This might seem a classic case of "counting your gerbils before they're hatched" - especially since, in the best-case scenario, we will only take home two of the four pups.  But they talk about the four of them in some detail, with Ian and Daniel each having their favorites.  Tonight, Ian apologetically pointed out that Daniel's primary candidate will be the least likely to come home with us.  Daniel was forgiving of this indiscretion.

And the names:

The peach colored one is "Peaches, Jr.," in honor of Ian's first, much loved gerbil, Peaches, who had the same color.

The black-and-white one - with a pattern looking more like a canvas experiment than any kind of discernible design is Oreo.

And the tiny black ones which actually look almost like Blackout's own little clones are Blackout, Junior and Blackout Way-Junior.  The "way" particle contains the sense of "very" junior.  This name is certainly Daniel's unique contribution.  Ian, surprisingly, is critical of the moniker...

The idea is that, if all goes well and we get two new gerbils, Ian will get one and Daniel will get the other.

Yesterday, Daniel was thinking about his mystery-gerbil of the future:  "I wonder if my gerbil is gonna be seven like me."

(March 9 to 11, 2013)