Pocket Pet Fun

I've got pet mice. They can entertain me for hours on end. Forget AIM--in college I procrastinated by watching my little mice chew on seeds, chew on the cage, chew on toilet paper rolls, and run round and round on their wheel. They're fantastic little balls of energy.

They're quite tame, too. I got Heidi when she was a month old in July 2005. I introduced her to being held slowly. First I'd just lay my hand in the cage to get her used to my smell. Then I'd put food in my hand and have her crawl up onto it. It took about two weeks for her to crawl up into my hand whenever I put it in the cage. Ada was easier to tame. I got her when she was 2 weeks old in January 2006. She wasn't weaned yet, so I kept her in my coat pocket and feed her a mixture of milk and chow by hand. After a week she was strong enough to eat by herself and I introduced her to Heidi. They get along great. Ada is the dominant one even though she's only half the size of Heidi. Ada shows her dominance by "barbering" Heidi. So I've got one itty-bitty mouse and one bald mouse.

Heidi is 1.5 years old now, and Ada is 1 year old. They've been with me through a lot: 3 boyfriends, an Honor's research thesis, a 1,200 mile drive from VA to TX, plus transitioning from college to medical school. I'm rather attached to them. So when little Ada started sneezing, I became very worried. I did what any concerned pet owner would do and called the vet. It took a lot of calling. Turns out that most vets don't take care of mice. And most receptionists at the vet's office will make you repeat yourself many times when you try to explain the problem:

"Hello, thanks for calling Hillside Veterinary Center. How may I help you?"
"I'd like an appointment for my mouse."
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"My mouse. My mouse is sick."
"Oh, your mouse...ok...what seems to be wrong with your mouse?"
"Well, she's sneezing."
"Sneezing? Ok....lemme see if Dr. X will see sneezing mice."

I finally found a vet who would see Ada. Ada was such a good little girl. She crawled right into my hand so I could give her over to the vet to examine. And she didn't bite the vet at all. I really thought she would since the vet was poking and prodding her. First she looked in her ears, eyes, and nose. Then she pried open her mouth to look down her throat. Then she placed Ada on the bell of a stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs. It cracked me up. The vet was actually doing a thorough exam on a creature less than 3 inches long while it wriggled and squirmed around.

Somehow the vet diagnosed an upper respiratory tract infection and gave me some antibiotic to administer to her daily for the next 10 days BY MOUTH. How in God's name can you get a mouse to happily drink down cherry-flavored antibiotic? Cherry! In fact, the vet added the cherry syrup to the antibiotic and charged me for it. Mice don't like cherry syrup. Maybe cheese or trash-flavored syrup, but not cherry. I spent 30 minutes trying to get Ada to chew on the end of the syringe so I could squirt the medicine down her throat. I ended up just squirting it all over her face. She was pissed. My poor, pissed, sneezing, sticky Ada. It was pretty funny to watch her try to clean it all off. I hope she ingested some of it in the process.

I'll be trying something new tomorrow. I'm going to estimate how much she drinks in a day and mix the antibiotic with the correct amount of water. I hope I get the dosage right. Too much and it's bye bye Ada and Heidi. (I'll be treating Heidi too since it's probably contagious.)

The auriculotemporal nerve hugs the middle meningeal artery after it branches off of V3 in the face. Think about that.

It's all about the Food

Seriously. I just wanted to chronicle my weekend in food.

Saturday
Breakfast: Homemade bacon pizza with the archaeologist :). Homemade pizza is amazing. My aunt and uncle gave me a pizza stone for Christmas and I use it at least twice a week. If you make a bacon pizza, be sure to put cheddar in with the mozzarella cheese.
Lunch: Two Yuengling draft beers (which, no matter what you may have heard or seen, is an unusual midday meal for me).
Dinner: My famous spaghetti sauce with pasta and garlic bread. Consumed with wine, old milwaukee, and white russians.

Sunday
Brunch: Eggs on toast, with basil (pronounced baa-zel, according to the archaeologist).
Dinner: London Broil! with mashed potatoes, broccoli, and mushroom gravy (family recipe). Absolutely spectacular.

Mmmm. And I didn't eat any of it alone! I didn't even make all of it! Spaghetti on Saturday was followed by round after epic round of Kill Dead Uno with the girls and Noah, and the archaeologist.

Tomorrow I'm making pizza with garlic and spinach and mushrooms and bacon. I can't wait even though I'm stuffed after tacos tonight. I'm so glad I love food.

Cost two dollars and burned like hell.

Not for human consumption

On Friday (I just didn't feel like writing it up Friday), I was using wikipedia to learn more about methylphenol, a semi-volatile VSWMR constituent. It is a type of Cresol, an organic chemical that can be manufactured, but also occurs naturally in coal tar (think creosote, the black shit they use as a preservative for railroad ties.)

So, as I continued to read wikipedia, I learned more about cresol.

Cresol is a primary component of Lysol. Lysol is a popular disinfectant and deoderizer that was incidentally used by my best pal Holly to decontaminate ME on more than one occasion in the past two years accompanied by threats of death (her death, by my bare hands).

Reasons (according to wikipedia) why Lysol should NOT be used on humans:

"Effects observed in people include irritation and burning of skin, eyes, mouth, and throat; abdominal pain and vomiting; heart damage; anemia; liver and kidney damage; facial paralysis; coma; and death."

GOOD to KNOW. Then, reading further, I came across the following external link:

"Lysol advertisements advocating use as a douche, from 1928 and 1948."

WHAT!!! Apparently, Lysol was an extremely popular vaginal douche in the 30s and 40s as well as a CONTRACEPTIVE. Reading that made me cringe and cross my legs. One 89-year-old woman was surprised to read on a website about all of the health problems and at least a dozen deaths associated with the use of Lysol as a contraceptive:

I'm going on 89 years YOUNG . . . LOL . . . and was very amused by the Lysol douche ad. I don't know if I'm "still the girl my husband married" as I have pretty bad osteoarthritis (could it have been the Lysol?), but I used Lysol as a douche and contraceptive ever since I married at age 17!! I had two children, both sons who turned out very well, in spite of the Lysol!! LOL

It's rather funny as I used it every day for many, many years because back in the early days, we didn't have the "Pill" and Lysol was used after "the act" to prevent unwanted pregnancies by just about every lady I knew, including my mother and grandmother who had just ONE child each.

Holy Hell! Also, that an 89-year-old Canadian woman uses "LOL".

Check out the following ad.


Read the complete article here. Oh, horror of horrors.

Well, my mama told me, my papa told me too

Weekend Update

What a weekend. I intended to chronicle the events, and chiefly the food, but right now I have so many different thoughts and emotions ricocheting between my ears that I can't even hold one still long enough to fully describe. And if I could, I wouldn't share. Maybe I'm just full and content, with my tank topped off again thanks to the last few days. A long hot shower and a night's rest are all I need now, and I know I will fall asleep quickly and sleep like a newborn, eager to dream and learn more tomorrow.

I find myself reflecting on the ways relationships change over time. The way I make friends and keep them. How to realize when once-close comrades have left your team, and how to remember those great times from the past in their own right without comparing them to right now. The habit of growing closer to others without noticing, only to discover suddenly how much you communicate without needing to clarify. The surprise of reconnecting after time apart with little talk and finding none was needed regain the same level of friendship. The unspoken, resigned letting go when we both know that our outlook and values are no longer compatible due to changes in our lives and maturity. Recognizing that moment when habits that were once unfamiliar are now something to grin at, and depend on, not because I like the traits, but because I love my friend.

It's a lot like fractionation (geology term). Things change, recycle into new emotions and events, but the process eventually and inevitably continues in only one direction. Memories can only accumulate. If I believed in God, I would give thanks for that, but as is, I'll just say, what a great way to live.

Alright, enough of this horseshit. I swear, I haven't even been drinking.
In the words of my West Virginia rafting buddies,

WA-HOO-WA, MOTHERFUCKERS!!

Gotta love it all.

Don't give it up, you've got an empty cup only love can fill.

Ole Virginia Fried LOVE

At first, I thought it was a mistake. A fortuitous happenstance. A once-in-a-lifetime event.

But then it happened again, a third time, and now I've come to expect it, but still with excitement and wonder.

I keep getting extra pieces of fried chicken! Every time I go to my favorite neighborhood chicken shack for lunch as a treat for working extra-hard, I am rewarded. Three legs instead of two. An extra wing thrown in. And today, the ultimate surprise:

Eleven pieces of chicken in an 8-piece box! What joy!

This is an unmistakeable sign that my earlier hypothesis is correct: a fried-chicken man is in love with me. This idea was first formulated by Bubba several months ago, when I recieved an extra bounty in my lunchbox and he did not. From then on, I ordered all of the chicken. I began to credit the idea one day when my order number was not just shouted out and my chicken bag passed through the window between the back and the register- it was brought out from the back and handed to me personally by one of the fried-chicken men and not given to the cash-register man at all. I made sure to smile at him.

Raised a few eyebrows then she went on down alone

My house, etc.

As much as I bitch about having to go to bed by 10 pm, I'm not very good at observing said bedtime. Example- last night, after an enjoyable Guild Wars session with Renee (I havent' played in over 6 months), I left with the excuse that I really needed to get a full night's sleep. Which was true. However, upon arriving home I immediately spotted the mostly-finished puzzle strategically-placed-for-maximizing-distractability on the kitchen table. I returned the archaeologist's phone call (to make up for my earlier response of "I-can't-talk-I'm-playing-an-intense-computer-game") and started working. Luckily, there were only about 100-150 pieces left, and I'm an amazing puzzler, so I was done by 11, but still... 11 is an hour after 10. Goodbye, 8 hours of sleep. Then! I stayed up reading Harry Potter for another half hour.

Then I couldn't sleep because my bed was cold. I probably spent at least 20 minutes huddled under my two! comforters with two layers of clothes on waiting to get warm enough to fall asleep. It wasn't even that cold, my alarm clock reported a temperature of 61.7 degrees Fahrenheit. I am just unable to generate body heat to a satisfactory level.

HOWEVER- On a Positive Note, my landlord came and unclogged my drains! They had been getting worse all winter even as I poured super-concentrated drano down them a few times a week, to the point that I showered in 3 inches of water. Ugh. But they're fixed, and my tub is clean, and I took a long hot bath yesterday to celebrate.

Well, I'm going where those chilly winds don't blow.

Sleeping in and Harry Potter

I should have slept in this morning.

Every morning I find it difficult to get out of bed. It doesn't matter what time- it would be tough to get up even if I had to be at work at 8 instead of 7. My new alarm clock doesn't help either- it has an amazing snooze feature that makes it really easy to ignore the alarm. But today was worse than usual. I was in the middle of a very intense Harry Potter dream- Harry and Malfoy were dueling in a house, and Harry was losing, but then Harry put Malfoy in a headlock and was going to town with the non-verbal hexes. I think he used sectum-sempra and some petrifying hexes.

I usually can't remember my dreams very well, and I'm sure that the only reason I can remember this much is that exactly at the moment when Malfoy started reeling from the multiple hexes, I was interrupted. Damn alarm clock. Not only did it interrupt an action-packed dream, but it felt like midnight, not 6:15 am. Ugh.

I made it out of bed after something like 6 snoozes...and parked at our building by 7:10. Unfortunately, I lack the 6th sense that would warn me when everyone else is later than me. I was alone in the office until about 7:30, and all I could think about was...

...I could have slept for another half-hour...

MOVIE: Speaking of Harry Potter, if you like Stephen Lynch, you should check out this link, it's fucking hysterical. Harry Potter-what's he doing??? Caution- slightly twisted adult humor not suitable for children.

You keep me up just one more night, I can't sleep here no more.

Snow in Charlottesville!

It has FINALLY snowed in Charlottesville. There were scattered reports of flurries back in early December, but I didn't see any snowflakes and they certainly did not stick if they fell at all. But Sunday morning around 1100, the snow began to fall. Later in the day, it switched over to sleet, so the total accumulation was not very impressive. My back patio was a solid sheet of ice by the time I went to sleep on Sunday.

Nevertheless, it snowed for several glorious hours, setting a perfect pace for the day. Except for a two-hour-long walk around UVa in the snow later on, I spent the entire day with the archaeologist watching That 70s Show (2nd season), working a new puzzle, and drinking white Russians. We killed a half-fifth of Kahlua, not to mention almost a whole gallon of milk. What a way to spend a snowy afternoon.

Monday morning was beautiful with a layer of ice covering everything. Of course, it was difficult to get out of bed knowing that many of my friends and the archaeologist had a SNOW DAY. Seriously... aren't we out of school? Come on! Go to work, people! Bubba at least had a valid excuse, and he was only 4 hours late to the office. He'd been on his way back from Atlanta, and was forced to get a hotel room in Roanoke when I-81 closed.

Temperatures today remained low, barely breaking 40 degrees. The snow from the weekend was mostly gone, and a few hours of snow that we received this morning disappeared pretty quickly. Naturally, today was the day that Bubba and I chose to hike along a creek for 2 hours to do a stream survey. At least I didn't fall into the creek this time! like I had done in October. Too Cold.

Will we get any more snow this year? I hope so. Perhaps we'll have another record-breaking March blizzard this year like we had in '93. (or '95? something like that).

Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain.

Minestrone Soup

This recipe has gone through many alterations- the best (I think) is below.

3 cups chicken broth
2 cans italian stewed tomatoes
10-12 oz frozen mixed veggies
fresh spinach
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
bowtie pasta

Heat chicken broth (I use chicken bouillon to make chicken broth), and add Italian stewed tomatoes in a large pot with a lid. Bring to boil. Add frozen veggies and beans. Bring back to a boil. Add as much fresh (washed!) spinach as you can fit into the pot and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add as much pasta as you want. Simmer for about 10 more minutes until the pasta is done. Serve with parmesan cheese on top.

"32 teeth in a jawbone..."

Mountain climbing

Yesterday I climbed a mountain just for the hell of it. Emily Ricks and Megumi and I were tired of waiting for the Brmrg boys (they got lost trying to find Sugar Hollow for some land nav training, how ironic), so we went for a little hike.

"Where should we go?" -me
"How about there?"- Emily, pointing to a peak to our left.

Two hours and 1600 vertical feet later, we reached our destination. Not the peak itself, but a relatively flat area from which we could not see the peak. Also, we didn't have a map, but I knew that if we continued uphill, we would hit Skyline Drive, which would be an anti-climatic ending to the uphill trek. The hike to the top was fairly rigorous, with Emily and Megumi frequently waiting for me to catch up.
Again, we didn't have a map, but thanks to a later trip to topozone.com, I discovered that we had hiked 1600 ft. uphill from the reservoir along Sawlog Ridge. The view of the lake and the Mormon river valley from 2200 ft. was spectacular with no leaves on the trees. The weather was perfect- clear skies with a temperature near freezing, and hiking along the creek we kept finding amazing icicle formations.

We hiked back down to the lake in an hour along the ridgeline, then came back to my house for some homemade minestrone. Perfect ending to a perfect outdoor adventure.

"Don't shake the tree if the fruit ain't ripe..."

Parents and Children

After the work for the day was generally finished, I was chatting with the office folks and we got to talking about the kind of shit parents pull on their kids that they think is funny. Specifically, traumatizing memories from childhood of our parents.

Examples:
1. My boss's dad woke up his two young daughters with a crow-call after they had all watched The Birds.
2. My father talking me into pulling a baby tooth by tying it to a door and kicking it shut.
3. Laura laughing uncontrollably at her fiance hitting his head on the cabinet... ok, this isn't that funny secondhand, nor is it a parent-child tale, hmmm.

What did your parents do to you that has forever changed your outlook on embarrassment or humor?

On the day that I was born, Daddy sat down and cried.

Famous Spaghetti Sauce

1 lb. ground beef
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
20 oz cheap spaghetti sauce
2 cans stewed tomatoes (italian style)
italian seasoning
salt and pepper

Heat vegetable oil in large pot. Add ground beef and cook until brown, drain off fat, and add salt and pepper. Push ground beef to one side of pot with a spatula, put onion on the other side of the pot over the hotter part of the stove eye. Add garlic when the onion is almost translucent, and when the onion becomes translucent, add spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. Stir. Bring to boiling, then add italian seasoning to taste and reduce heat to simmer for 2-3 hours.

This sauce is absolutely fantastic, and pretty cheap to make. It's good with pasta, bread, or eaten with a spoon like chili. Also- the ingredients and their quantities are flexible. I never measure anything, and it always tastes great.

Half-a-cup of rock and rye...

Eureka

I have several points to make in this first post. This whole blog thing is an idea that came to me just now... half-an-hour past my bedtime. I surely will pay for this tomorrow. Keep truckin' on.

Predicted themes of this blog:
1) The Grateful Dead
2) Food
3) Canoeing
4) Humor

This blog was born at this moment because:
1) My hard drive was replaced last week. All of my files and works-in-progress are lost forever! and the motivation to start from the beginning reloading software is hard to restore...
2) I acquired a wireless card at the same time I picked up my newly-restored computer. I am connected to the internet illegally, or at least unethically, in that I'm picking up someone else's wireless network. However, I don't doubt that I could quickly gain my neighbor's blessing by taking over a 6-pack.

The title would have been "any window" for Box of Rain, but it was already taken... so I chose an alternate, more kick-ass, song lyric.

May the genius and the wisdom of the Grateful Dead guide us all.