13 posts tagged “zoology”
December 31st of last year was a blue moon, as well as the last day of the decade, and so I assumed things would be relatively normal in my world. I mean, I'm the sort of person who gets GOOD luck on Friday the 13th, and I don't really hold that full moons do much too people's moods (any more than any other placebo).
It wasn't relatively normal.
First, I had my car battery discharge light go on, followed by extremely difficult steering, and then followed by my engine overheating. Thoughts of thousand-dollar repairs in my head, I called AAA and then called GH. GH deduced (correctly, it turns out) that it was my serpentine belt. Attend me: I called AAA at 12:30. The tow truck arrived at 12:50. We were at the repair shop by 1pm. We were done at the shop by 2:30; the C and I spent the intervening time at the local McDonalds where he was supplied with an Avatar-based red bird thing and nuggets; yours truly was supplied with Diet Coke.
Never underestimate the healing powers of diet coke.
Car fixed, we continued about our day; whence we returned I found that Thumper let me know just what she thought about crate training, by having pooped in it. (Dogs are NOT supposed to do this -- but I really do think she's just that dumb). We've left the crate for overnight, now, but the rest of the time she's free to roam. However, the thought of random poop in my house was more than I could stand and so we stuck with a simple NYE get-together at my dad's. I therefore missed Ali's party which included an Ice Luge and fascinating furry hats. I vow to go next year, even if I have to board the dogs.
Thus far this year I have continued my organizing frenzy, had a dinner party featuring Xbox avatar creation, conceived of at least 3 knitting projects I want to do (mind you, still haven't finished my 2x2 scarf), and done absolutely no damage to the 3 pounds I have gained over the holidays.
Tomorrow work starts, and with it the typical coffee-and-stress diet. That should fix that.
I have some highfalutin' friends. While sitting in a backyard of North Seattle we drank wine and made tacos and played Quelf, which is awesome. We also (briefly) discussed the "seven year itch". Note that of the attendees, I was the only single lady. Or divorced lady.
Ali is married, has been for 10+ years. Mindi and MK are in the 5-ish range (plus years of engagement/dating). CC is a blushing bride with only a year under her belt -- plus 5 years of cohabited bliss. These are happily married, and in most cases procreative women. They are also all professionals, mostly within analytics (or medicine).
We were discussing the seven year itch; and while I admit mine was long past due (X and I tanked at the 10 year mark or thereabouts) MK noted that every 7 years your nerve cells have regenerated.**
Now, they don't all do this at once, because that would be 1. inefficient and 2. painful. They do it in bits and pieces, like the rest of your body, so you don't notice. But the cycle takes 7 years, so the person you are now (in terms of nerves -- if not nerve) is essentially not the person you were 7 years ago.
Think of the possibilities... please. Because I did and I have and I still can't shake it in the giddy mental-masturbatory sense.
*If* you're willing to posit the following: that human beings possess real live energy, that that has to go somewhere when you die (and people don't know where it goes), that your brain and nervous system is what controls that energy, and that it's the nerve cells regenerating... what does that mean?
- Is psychological damage healable within 7 years if you are willing to "let it go"?
- When people say, "people can't change", how is that possible with this news?
- If it is true that you are essentially a "new/different" person every 7 years (and it's a moving target, so from day to day/week to week/month to month you don't really note it) then wouldn't it make sense to limit contractual relationships between individuals (e.g., marriage) to 7 years?
It's an intriguing thought, to consider that it may be just the luck of the draw that marriages beyond 7 years work out because the "change" affected in those individuals allowed them to be compatible as a couple. It would also provide a convenient culprit for those of us who still have to label themselves as "divorced" on legal paperwork. It is *not* my fault, my/his nerves changed! (Then again, I'm very happy where I am, and can't imagine myself still married; so this is a good thing and I'll gladly take the "Credit" instead of the "Blame").
However, I need to look more into this, because (for example) I had a large-ish surgery that severed a nerve about 9 years ago, and I still can't feel anything in a 3 inch diameter around my navel.
Maybe my stomach doesn't have the nerve :p
** I have no idea if this is true, but it wouldn't surprise me. There is no shortage of things that wouldn't surprise me about the human body. Think about all of the neat things yours has done -- and all of the illogical things -- and you'll see what I mean. For examples of illogical, I encourage you to ponder nipples on a man. For neat, I encourage you to ponder reproduction.
This weekend I had the opportunity to go to a car show. It wasn't my dad's car show. It was a show of Porsches and Ferraris and the errant Lamborghini and Lotus species. There was easily $5 million in cars displayed at Remlingers, and I know one thing for very certain: I will never ever own one.
It's not so much that I'll never collect the apparent $50k "entrance fee" to purchase a respectable entry. I suspect I should, if I want to retire, for example. But I don't know that I'd have the $50k "extra" that that would represent, and if I did that I would spend it on a car. Or a horse, for that matter. Both are shiny, both are pretty, both give you something to do and talk about. You can hang with that crowd and have the appropriate accoutrements.
Horse poo and auto maintenance/insurance are enough to deter me.
They are both, however, quite nice to look at.
The C has pointedly requested to have a Pet Of His Own. You see, it was my idea to get Thumper, and while he has enjoyed pet ownership of another furry beast, the fact of the matter is that most of the time Thumper is in my care and he can't give her commands because, sadly, she doesn't listen to him.
(This will be a useful lesson later.)
So, off to PetSmartCoThingy we went, where I was thinking "goldfish". We had picked out a reasonable tank, gravel, filter, heater, etc. when the Nice Lady informed us that the tank would have to go home and be set up for a couple of days before we brought our Newest Addition(s) home.
The C heard that and asked if he could get a Betta.
Everyone, meet Luke the Betta. He apparently requires no tank-resting time, so we are now the proud owners of him, and he is a vibrant blue. The C picked him out, after an agonizing 10 minutes, from at least 3 other exactly the same shade of blue bettas. I have no idea what siren song prompted the C to pick Luke, but pick him he did, and name him he did. When I said, "Oh, like Luke Skywalker?" I got the most pitying look and heard, "No, mom. Luke is like a real name too."
I sit corrected.
Luke spends much of his time swimming in his little half-gallon bowl, which is decorated with special glass beads rather than gravel because Luke's owner's mother has decorator issues. He has a token plant that he likes to rest atop or behind, usually so you don't see him and fear he's somehow magically escaped. He eats exactly four (no more! no less!) teeny pebbles for breakfast and dinner. He gets his water changed each Sunday, because that was the day we bought him. And thus far he has the personality quotient of, well, a betta. We get a swish of the elaborate fins every once in a while and it's fun to watch him burp, but he doesn't really register high on the entertainment scale (for me).
For the C, however, he's awesome.
(Anyone want to take bets on how long Luke lasts? When I told GH I was thinking about getting the C a fish, he inquired if it was so I could teach him about death...)
Reginald is our house spider.
He doesn't actually live *in* the house. That doesn't creep me out, it's just that the spider that lives *in* the house -- specifically, in my room -- is Hamish. Reginald is the spider that the C can see outside his window. Reginald is about 2 inches in diameter and rather impressive in oranges and browns and blacks, and his web takes up the better part of the C's window.
I took to naming spiders early on -- they don't do much damage and probably do more good (eating bugs that prey on our food or worse, on us) and they're pretty and they have cool accoutrements. The C is therefore not afraid of spiders: they are cool, and the first thing he does when he returns home from school is apprise Reginald of his day. Yesterday's conversation was lengthy, I gather.
As I finished reading to the C tonight he got ready to bed down and looked out his window: the luxury of autumn is that it's finally dark when the C goes to bed -- and announced Reginald was sleeping, we needed to be very very quiet.
Hopefully Reginald liked "The Sneetches" and "The Night Before Kindergarten".
The C and I are watching David Attenborough's "Life of Mammals", instead of the VP debates. I have no cable. I am blissful therein. I suspect tomorrow there will be nine thousand videos of the debates and all sorts of analytical content. I, however, am listening to an aged agile anglo animal lover saying things like "The sloth moves rather like it's powered by the wrong sort of batteries", which is just awesome no matter how you look at it.
The C did not run away from school today. I left work early because I could not think. I got to have roasted broccoli and chicken. Life is good.
I just got rid of my home phone and am changing my ISP, all in the name of simplification. Naturally, the cable modem I purchased off of craigslist (with an eye to save myself $90 bucks worth of purchased modem, or $120 worth of leased modem, over 2 years) has some sort of hitch attached to it so I'll have to detangle that.
Oh, and I decided to nix the chickens.
It sounds all very romantic and pastoral, but since I am scooping dog poo 3 times per week the idea of additional animal husbandry has me rethinking that plan. Like the idea of growing my own veg, I think it will be more trouble than it's worth; I'll patronize the farmers markets (and the farmers themselves) instead. And I'll take the SC to local farms to go see chickens if it comes to that.
However, I *am* going to use all of my nice saved lumber to build a housing for my trash bins, as I see no reason to have to look at them when lounging on my fabulous new deck. Oh, and the potting bench shall be built as well, because I see no reason why I wouldn't be potting things (pottering?).
But really, then, I'll be done with projects for a while. Seriously. Uh huh.
The irony is not lost on me that, having made an appointment for tubal ligation (the 21st! Yay Team No More Babies!) I am having MASSIVE nesting instincts.
How else do you explain the last 48 hours, in which I have reorganized my pantries and fridge, sewn a ring pillow, organized my quilt fabric and templates, scrubbed down the house, washed the spa house panels (each of them larger than me and not quite as heavy but certainly unweidly little buggers), harvested berries (every day until end of September, that), moved my wood pile (and sorted it according to size and use), etc. I am *literally itching* to get my craft room. ITCHING! No amount of cortisone will help.
This brings me to my next Big Outdoor Project, which will be a potting bench and shed (translated: something to keep your pots in and on while you are not or are preparing to use them). And since that's really easy -- and may involve me using a disused avocado green bathtub, because I'm trashy like that.
But once that gets done -- and, at the rate I'm currently going, I'm fixing to get that done quicklike -- I have a chicken coop and run to build, which has led me to sites like this, which are terribly funny and somewhat informational and the addition of each site is an addition to the randomization that has taken the place of careful planning.
Oh, I think I've had too much caffeine, as well.
Goodreads won't take my library DB I have unless I have ISBN numbers, which I suppose I do... if I were willing to go through 2736 books and type them out. Yes, I have that many books (inherited mostly, I've only read about 70% of them) and no, I'm not going to fish out ISBN numbers. I'll just update Goodreads as I read, and update my DB as I add ones to the permanent collection. Also, Google's Picasa and Flickr don't seem to want to keep my preformatted hirearchy of folders (for organization) for my pictures, so those shall remain on my 'pute. The good news is, I FINALLY used the card P-Ade gave me and got all of my pics off of my phone. I'm not going to go retroactively add them to posts -- why bother? -- but I hope this bodes well for future image enhanced posts!
I now weigh less than I did when I started dating GH! Finally. I hate losing weight: it's such a battle of plateaus and dips. I'm trying not to get cocky here. I have about 10 pounds to go and then I'll be at the weight I was when I started dating X, which is my personal best. I was really in shape then but I work out more now; so we shall see how it looks on a post-mommy, mid-30's body.
With the kilt nearly done (all I have left is the lining and I want to do some reinforcing stitching here and there -- but it pressed beautifully! I really recommend that book and I really recommend reading every step 4 times before committing thread to wool), I'm also using the family genetics (engineering) to conceive of a better chicken coop. I've scoured the wiki's, the forums, and the 'blogs; I've got stats on how many perches and how high and how many nests and how large and how often they clean out and how frequently they lay and how much space they need in and out per chicken. The chief pains of keeping chickens seem to be coop clean-out related; I'm going to have a coop that is 3 feet from the ground and will have a floor on hinges, bifold, so when you unlock the unhinged sides, the floor falls away (ostensibly with the chickens in the run, not the coop) and the litter falls to the ground. Or better yet, to a wheelbarrow. I'm also determined to make it from as many recycled or reclaimed things as I can; I've got quite a lot of decent-shape decking leftover and a friend with extra roofing felt. Craigslist is now my favorite haunt -- even once you take out "Missed Connections".
Which brings me to: IT'S NOT 'ROT' IRON, PEOPLE. It's wrought. As in Wrought Iron. As in the iron was wrought; iron itself can't rot. Why oh why do these people not use a dictionary?
But before I get all up with my bad chicken self, I need to manifest dinner and dessert for 28 people this Saturday. I hear a Costco trip...
Oh Amazon, how thou facilitates my girly side. For less than $200.
I am now the proud owner of 2 bark control collars (take that, neighbors! -- and special hugthanks to Pink Bizzare for the idea; these are humane and condoned by vets) and a Harmony 670 universal remote (sanctioned by GH, who is in charge of my technologies).
As soon as they ship, of course.
X is selling me back the LCD tv and I should have it in time for a Godfather viewing-- as should be the Harmony remote. *I*, of course, wouldn't dream of touching it.
Cuz I'm girly like that.
(You can start snorting now).
