Bye, Natalya

My little hamster died yesterday. Some of you may remember that I originally had two hamsters, and although one died very early on, the other one lived happily for over a year - in multiple homes and states, and throughout a very long roadtrip in a rental truck. She was a trooper, and whatever your personal feelings may be on the rewards of having a pet hamster instead of an animal with more personality, it feels like a little piece of me is now missing. I spent an entire year unconscious of the fact that the first thing I did whenever I got home was peek into Natalya's cage to see how she was doing, and now it's hard to look past my desk into a big empty aquarium with no hamster.

Natalya was never a big fan of the camera, but I'm glad I got a few shots of her over the past year.