neighbors and rainy days

When I titled the post "neighbors" you probably thought I was going to write about my neighbors, right?  Wrong!  (Seriously people, what were you thinking?  You know the only thing I have been doing this summer is research.  What else do I have to post about except rats?)  My rats got new "neighbors" about 2 weeks ago, meaning that they are no longer the only ones living in the rat room.  The "neighbors" belong to the lab next to ours which has induced them to become diabetic rats.  They later plan to study their hearts and tendons to see how they have been affected by diabetes.  However, these new rats are stinky!  Because they are diabetic, the neighbor rats drink so much water and subsequently pee so much that their cages need to be changed every day.  And they still stink!  (By comparison, my rats have their cages changed twice a week; they could go even longer if needed before they smell.)

Seeing the behavior differences between my rats and their neighbors is quite amusing.  Since rats are nocturnal, they typically sleep during the day.  However, every time that I go into the rat room, my rats immediately wake up and run to the edges of their cages to greet me.  On the other hand, the diabetic rats are always asleep and never wake up when I enter the room no matter how much noise I make.  Perhaps my rats recognize the sound of my voice or my smell and know that they will either be handled or fed anytime that I come in.  (In case you were wondering, both sets of rats wake up when the animal care tech comes in to change their cages.  Maybe she smells differently than me.)

In other news, it rained today.  Weather in Arizona is WEIRD.  Today, it was crazy sunny and hot...a pretty typical day.  By 6PM this evening, the temperature had dropped by 30 degrees (to about 82, which actually felt cold in comparison) and the skies had gotten super dark.  When it rains in Arizona, it doesn't just get cloudy and sprinkle.  When it rains in Arizona, you feel impending doom like the world is going to end.  It gets SO dark.  Because there are no tall buildings or trees, the sky is HUGE.  The most interesting looking cloud formations roll in and just overwhelm everything.  The mountains disappear into the dark sky.  It is equal parts beautiful and frightening at the same time.  Tonight, I drove through the storm to visit Vicki and I couldn't stop admiring the weather.  Then it rained.  Driving in the rain in Arizona sucks.  Usually, I am pretty comfortable driving in the rain; heck, I've been doing it for 9 years.  Down here, people do not know how to drive in the rain.  So I am terrified of the other drivers and what they might be doing because they can't drive in the rain.  Also, the roads flood quite easily here.  I made it home without problem.  Yay.