death and pie

I woke up with a stye in my eye.  All five of us went for a walk first thing in the morning...in part, because Eleanor called me lazy last night.  Chris and I bought Smashing Pumpkins tickets as soon as they went on sale.  I took a long shower.

I brined the turkey and made a giblet stock.  I scraped out the pie pumpkins I roasted yesterday.

My mom came over and we made 8 batches of pie crust.  I started to lose my patience with the girls' tendency to fling flour, etc as they measured.  I rolled out half the crusts.  The girls played and I put away the dollhouse.  

My mom waved me over to the coffee table.  Despereaux was flat and dead on the table.  Charlotte said she put him in the cage and I thought I saw her do it, but here he was, on the table.  The dollhouse must have been set on top of him.   I scooped him up in a magazine and took him outside without saying anything.  I wished that Chris was home.  I looked at my mom and she said why don't you go replace it before they notice.  

I told the girls we needed more butter and got in the car with the phone book.  I asked the pet store to hold a gray dwarf with black eyes.  I sat in day-before-Thanksgiving traffic and asked for my hamster.  Wrong store.  Back through the traffic to a closer store of a similar name.  This hamster was female and the girls know Despereaux was a boy.  It was also dark grey and not white underneath.  I paid $17 for it and then stopped in for my excuse butter, feeling guilty to leave the hamster in the car.

It must have taken 45 minutes to get out of there with four items.  Day-before-Thanksgiving.  I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack.  I bought a bottle of wine to share with my mom.  I picked up Little Caesar's and put the hamster in my coat pocket.

I got the kids' attention with pizza and slipped the new hamster into the cage.

My mom wanted to witness the discovery of the 'lost' hamster, so after pizza we pointed out that it had come back to its food.  

Some of Charlotte's comments:

It can't be a different hamster...?

(I suggested it was dirty after getting lost.)

Maybe we have hamsters in the basement.

(Oh god, she knows.)

It looks different.

(It is definitely not as cute.)

I feel like a murderer.  I know small rodents die and it would be OK if it was eaten by an owl or something, but getting crushed by a dollhouse on day two is unnatural and ultimately irresponsible of me to not have kept sufficient watch.  I feel guilty and a sense of gloom.  

I was busy making pie.  Four apple, three pumpkin, two blueberry, and one chocolate.  And cranberry apple sauce from scratch and sweet potato casserole.  

I feel so bad.  

In other news, my brother Ray and Nicole came by for a nice, surprise visit this evening.  I was grateful for the pleasant distraction.