Friday, July 09, 2004

Stella, the Giant Gambian Pouched Rat

I felt compelled to post this photo I took last night of Stella, Socar's beloved pet and the reigning star of her online journal, a fantasmic mix of tall tales, stark reality, and unabashed poppycock.

Stella's looking very cute in this photo, probably because she's preoccupied with drinking rather than escaping from her cage and mayhem-ming. (No, it's not a word, I just made it up.) I don't see her much as she's usually buried deep in her nest of papers and fast asleep; I've only seen her eat a couple of times. By all accounts (especially Socar's journal entries), Stella is ornery, which is something to be expected of exotic pets, I suppose. She doesn't really look anything like a domesticated rat -- not only is she much larger, but with those large ears and furry body, she's less rat and more... jeez, like a gopher or something. Then there's her squealing! In this entry there's an MP3 of her protestations. She sounds like a herd of squeaky toys!

I shot a video back in April of Stella shuffling off with some food, and I'll include it here so you can get an idea of her size:

Stella.avi (6.9MB, 47 secs)