5 things...

You didn't know! Except you probably already know these things because I don't have many secrets.

1. I dated - past tense, phew - a certian someone with a tattoo that reads, "Trust No Bitch." It was tattooed in ink made out of a suspension of lotion ashes and god knows what else. Amy's taste in men? Questionable apparently.

2. I love grocery shopping! You find the randomest things on sale and you get creative and the possibilities open up before you...it's like creating a new painting!

3. I once spent the night sleeping in an outhouse because I was too scared to sleep on top of it, and I sure as hell wasn't lying out like a cat poop in a dog park with grizzles around.

4. The first time I saw a moose, it ambled out (ever so suddenly) from behind a nearby tree and I peed my pants. Unfortunately I had a UTI so I didn't just pee a little, I drenched my pants, the only pants for many miles, and had to break through ice to wash off in the river. In retrospect, I'm not sure what the point of washing off was - warm pee seems better than cold water when winter backpacking.

5. If I were a therapist, I would be like Cesar Millan and have one solution for every problem: Get a dog. I would not have survived highschool (socially at least) without those walks with Po and Pill, I attribute much of my headache healing to Iggy, and since I've had Joy I've been able to cut my prozac dose in half! Ponies are good too.

At work with my cat friend Chief - He has already been adopted!

And this is a fuzz ball that I was really fascinated by...

When we shave cat's bellies to look for spay scars, sometimes the fur comes off and forms a perfect little fuzz worm. They're hard to capture on camera, but quite striking in their natural habitat. It's pretty cool the way they stick together when you poke them.

FAIL date

But not EPIC. Phil and Scooter did not hit it off, but to his credit, she totally started it. They were doing well - he was letting her come sniff his litter box, and they were eying each other romantically. Then he hopped over to her litter box for a sniff, and she responded inhospitably with a mock lunge. He gave up on her immediately, testimony to the hurtful relationships of his past, and bit a big chunk of fur out of her forehead. Whenever I'm having romance troubles, I just thank God I'm not a little bunny.

We're now trying some intraspecies dating. I'm fostering Nudie, a guinea pig that needed some TLC and Vitamin C before he's ready to go up for adoption. He's mostly hairless and has giant sweaty balls (seriously, they're always strangely moist), but I'm hoping Phil will fall for his inner beauty... So far I don't think they've noticed each other. Joy thinks he's facinating though, especially when he wheeks.

Joy is eating stick bits, helping me with the room cleanup that is so desperately needed. Rosie punched a good little hole in her lip (trying to help her with her punk image no doubt), but Joy opted not to put in a sexy lip stud and has healed up unbelievably fast. She hasn't been as combative with the puppy since she got home, so I'm hoping getting thrashed by much larger and more snaggle-fanged Rosie and Lily cooled her hot head a little.

Four Paws and Very Pesky

I found out what would happen if Joy got inadequate exercise. Between me being a sickie and the weather being below zero all weekend, Joy's only been only getting out for short potty breaks, with the exception of one very nice walk with her granddad. She's neatly proving Cesar's Exercise, Discipline, Affection mantra true by being an obnoxious pillbox despite unlimited cuddling and belly rubs. Actually, she's being really wonderful, I'm just comparing her to normal, nearly perfect Joy. As bored as she must be, she hasn't destroyed anything or eaten any household pets, she just won't stop poking me and every time I wake up she's right there, breathing heavily on my face and staring with tragically hopeful eyes.

My feet have suffered a barrage of insults throughout the years, among them "homeless" and "masculine." In a valiant effort to prove these cruel and superficial hoobie-skanks wrong, I've painted my toenails "Teak Rose." It's irresistibly sexy.

Not so irresistably sexy that the BF noticed, but then again he is a boy and also didn't notice when I cut 6in off my hair (also incredibly sexy).

the apartment is a mess right now. it's disgusting. only one man can solve this problem, and that man is tim mcgraw. yeah, i'm getting in the mode, just a little more coffee and I'm gonna have this place lookin like new. I'd like to do my laundry as well, but Joy is much to comfortable on top of the pile to be disturbed.

i officially adopted Joy on Thursday. i had been thinking she was from a Northern CO shelter, but she was actually from the other transfer that day - KY! Her Kentucky name was Sherry. Per the KY shelter folks, her best qualities are: Loving and Playful. I would have to agree, though I'd add: Crazy Smart, Athletic, and Well-Mannered to the list.

The birds are doing great. Don't know if they did the math and figured out that they're siblings, but whatever the motivation they've elected to hold off on making eggs. They still like putting nests together, but then they just sit in them, seemingly quite content with selfless genes. They've now each had a narrow brush with murder. Hope fled the room at one point while I was changing her water. She immediately became disoriented and landed on the carpet to get her bearings. The cat was apparently not in a sporting mood, and took advantage of this disadvantaged prey. Hope somewhat got the idea that she was being hunted after she was pounced on a time or two, and made some effort to fly around but kept choosing vulnerable spots to land in, chiefly the floor. By the time I caught the cat, Hope was in her mouth. I shook the cat and Hope emerged miraculously unharmed. Darrel repeated the performance with Joy, but I caught him in a pillow case before he got chomped. Looking at their survival skills, you'd think they'd been raised in captivity or something. If nothing else, they have provided some pretty fantastic stimulation for the predators in the house.

Although this technically makes me a bad person, I may have found a new home for Phil! One of the investigators at the League is looking for an older male rabbit to keep her female company, so we're gonna try a date (This is why I say maybe. We all know how phil does on dates.).

I'm justifying betraying my promises to Phil by focusing on how much happier he would be with a lady friend. I'm also assuaging the guilt by remembering my dear horsie Drummer, who - I swear to God - had completely forgotten me after three months apart. Ouch. On the other hand, there's nothing like a good kick in your anthropomorphising pants to get you back down there in reality. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to euthanize animals right now if Drummer had been as touched by our nightly ritual of ear snuffles as I had been. The jury's still out on whether or not that's a good thing.

Works gotten a lot better since I stopped trying so hard. I've started frolicking, slacking, and generally taking my sweet freakin time. So far I've been getting all good feedback. Yeah my efficiency has dropped like a rock, but I do have some fantastic attention to detail. Amazingly, you hardly make any "mistakes" if you triple check anything that's not blatently obvious. Technically I'm getting paid to make decisions, but it's become apparent that certian authority figures want to be the only ones making decisions. Now that I'm no longer putting pressure on myself, I have all this time for things like photography...

We named him Yeti. My coworker and I put this kitten in different poses for about half an hour. It was pretty hilarious, and I think Yeti benefited from the socialization and the dance practice (he does a pretty good jig).

Although certian experts suggested that Joy was a impulse adoption, gave off a bad vibe, and was mostly likely a chow *gasp*, she seems to be proving all that hype pleasantly wrong. I either had some wicked good luck or a benevolent angel helping out with my critter pick on this gal. I just taught her to shake, which tallies up to TWO tricks if you count sit (clearly Joy is a genius AND I'm a progedy of a dog trainer). As long as I'm capitalizing on her talents, I should teach her to fart on command. Don't know what's the deal, but we've got some chronic pollution troubles.

Joy!

eyelash crisis!!!

My ambition for removing unwanted hair has gone too far! I was waxing my eyebrows to ward off their rectangular growth pattern when a hot blob got all caught up in the moment and went after my poor unsuspecting eyelashes! Hot wax on your eyelid is not pleasant. Nor is having your eye glued shut while you try to come up with a solution other than ripping out your lashes. Two tragic tugs later, my right eye is looking a little naked. I lost the inner half. Surprisingly, plucking lashes isn't nearly as painful as you'd expect. Not only do i look strange and have a stinging and swollen lid, but I lost the four dollars I spent dying that half an eye of lashes. Ah, woe is me.

I used to buy One-A-Day "Active Women" vitamins, but now they're making a "Mentally and Physically Active Women" version. Can you really walk out of the store with the plain old "Active" version without advertizing to the world that you're a mental slob? This leaves me in a tough spot, because now that I'm out of college I really don't use my brain enough to warrent those extra dimes for the mental variety. Once I get off work (pretty much walking around and petting things) I read novels and pet more creatures and workout and generally loaf around. I don't even play soduku on the toilet anymore, I just read my Rabbits USA magazines.

This looks uncomfortably familiar...

Ahh, the rabbit saga continues. Darling Phil got a new girlfriend, an actual girl this time named Ginger/Boop. Very pretty and very sassy, just the way he likes 'um. The brawl-to-lovin' ratio hadn't yet dropped to healthy relationship level, and there was still a lot of fur flying, but I got my hopes up. Then I woke up one morning and found Phil all sick looking. I took his temp - 106.5! Yikes. So he spent an entire paycheck getting better, and his girlfriend died suddenly and mysteriously in the meantime. All alone again, and lookin to stay that way. Having medicine shoved beteen his fuzzy lips made phil one very angry fellow, ending in a brutal attack...


Although having your pet bunny charge your face can be a bit disturbing, my rabbit book put a positive spin on the problem: "Many aggressive bunnies are on the high end of the IQ range for rabbits!" Oh thank God, because there is nothing worse than a rabbit that's not smart enough to become bitter and plot revenge.

Anyway, now that he's a healthy bachelor again, he's redirecting those viscious inclinations towards parsely (and the occasional computer cord). He's even being sweet provided I don't get out of line and rearrange his things or pet him in his ticklish spots.

NOM




NOM

NOM

Global Weirding

noun: an increase in severe or unusual environmental activity often attributed to global warming.

Guess who?

has internet?!? YeeHaw! It was hell to install, and I had to talk to several Indian tech support fellows, but i have fancy smanchy wireless internet, AND a computer to use it with!!! Still don't have sound, alas.

Lolcats has added a new page called "Engrish," full of strange and offensive translation errors. Almost as fun as the failblog!

Live Free or Die Hard is fantastic. I won't give away the ending for you, but wow! Rambo would be proud. Bruce is almost the sexiest old bad ass out there, except... he gets his medical care from a hospital. Clearly he is unaware that you can clean a gunshot wound by dumping gun powder in it and lighting it on fire. Get with the program, Bruce.

My bunny's molting. The mass of fur clumps escaping his person is actually disturbing. I had to do some google research to make sure he wasn't dying of a horrible hair-loss disease. I guess bunnies just do this. What weirdos. I'd take a picture of the fluff-ball, but he's being antisocial and won't come out from under the bed. I don't think he approves of my attempts to train him. Or he's sick of the cat sneezing at him. It is kinda gross. I've discovered that cats, like horses, tend to aim their sneezes at the face. Just makes cuddling more exciting I suppose.

Phil and I've just started in on a regimen of bunny dominance. Phil was getting a little full of himself, attacking helpless cats, hapless dogs, and even my roommate if she entered "his" terriority (my bed and everything under and next to it). I did some reading and have started clicker training him so he has to work for his food and attention. Does this seem ridiculous? Yes, I think so too. Most people just stick their bunnies in cages and avoid these problems entirely. Well, hopefully I'll end up with a content and obedient rabbit... we'll see. Maybe I'll just get him a girlfriend to settle him down (apparently being neutered doesn't exempt you from having needs).

Yesterday the weather completely winterized! My entire self was having a dark and terrifying flip-out. I'm starting to get intense pangs of desire for studying and stress and having professors claim every second of my free time. HALP! I love my job, and I thought that maybe the DDFL was my professional soulmate, but I think getting promoted would mean working management, gag. Who wants to boss people around and make sure to order enough dog food?

An update from my ongoing olfactory research: a GI bleed out is still the worst smell ever... but cat diarrhea comes in a close second! Wow, those beasts can create a stench. I got the opportunity to deep clean the lost and found cat rooms on shelter-wide cleaning day. Yummy.

Now in Denver...

And only one mile from work! Sir Phillip loves his new apartment. His house-rabbit lifestyle puts him in such a good mood that he often lets me share the bed...

.. as long as I don't snore or wake him up from an afternoon nap. Disapproving rabbit? I should say so!!Phil birdwatching with the ladies (Mugene's the tortie on the left and Marley's the calico on the right). Foley emerging from Phil's subterranean rabbitat.

Darrell and Joy do their best to keep the animals entertained by flapping around and chirping. The cats are mesmerized by the birds, the rabbit by the cats, and the dog by the rabbit - a beautiful example of interspecies environmental enrichment. There are occasional rabbit-kitty, kitty-kitty, and dog-kitty spats, but everyone's about evenly matched in weight/ weaponry/ grumpiness, so no one gets bullied.

I'm going to have internet once we get a router hooked up. We have a deck too. It's the shit.

Most Exciting Optical Illusion Ever!!

This is a picture of MY boobs looking like they actually exist. I'm thinking about changing my facebook profile picture to this here closeup. Usually, they're much more camera shy...

So, Harriet died. Phil and I were pretty distraught. She was just dead one day when i got home from work. i was gonna get a necropsy, but it was too expensive, and the vet said that she was old enough that i shouldn't be surprised. sigh. i miss the bitch. she was a blast.

anyway, that seg-ways into the story of Lola. I went to the animal shelter (aka i went to work) and found the most feminine and calm female rabbit in the place, and adopted her. i was about to carry her out of the building, when they rechecked their papers, which had conflicting info, and decided, WAIT, NO! she wasn't spayed. So i left her there for her surgery and recovery. a week later, i'm about to pick her up, and they ask, DIDN'T YOU GET THE CALL? well, no, because you didn't call my phone number, just some random stranger. And what they had told that random stranger was that they sliced open my bunny, poked around for a good long while, could not for the life of them find ovaries, and had an AH HA moment. Neutered male! (retarded vet? yes, i wondered that too). To give them credit, it is really hard to sex rabbits, esp if they're not intact. Lola was originally named for Bugs Bunny's girlfriend, but you can't say that s/he doesn't remind you of this classic...

Well, I'm not dumb but I can't understand
Why she walks like a woman and talks like a man
Oh my Lola, lo lo lo Lola, lo lo lo Lola

Yeah, so s/he's still named Lola, and Phil is slowly converting to homosexuality, although he's taking his sweet time with it. They cuddled for the first time today! big breakthrough. Just so you know how hard sexing bunnies is, below is a picture of their tiny junk, pushed out of it's furry crevice by a finger. the left one is a buck, and the right one is a doe.

It feels so good...

but it looks so bad...Why can't I look like this with short hair? Unfair!

Or this? How much is this woman saving on shampoo? ahh - damn my whiteness!!

Urban Sprawl

A picture I took from Bluff Park in Highlands Ranch. But now I live here...
upgrade much? me thinks so.

Yes, I know this is getting ridiculous

...but it's my day off, and I haven't gotten to talk about myself nearly enough ; )

My dogs are cuter and more wonderful than any other dogs ever, and I can prove it too...

EXHIBIT A:


EXHIBIT B:

Birdies!

I made my finches a bea-ut-tiful cage out of snap-together shelving and wire and coroplast (has nothing to do with photosynthesis). I'm feeling very proud of myself. And I have lots of holes poked through my exoderm. And I accidentally stabbed my leg with a exacto-knife. So worth it.

Here's the happy couple. They're siblings, but I'm not going to tell them that. It might complicate the romance. They're fawn zebra finches (from australia's grasslands).

Joy gazing out the window (what a beauty). Longing for freedom? Unappreciative little snot; I almost want to tell her about owls and malnutrition, but we'll let her dream.

Darrell striking a handsome pose. Isn't he a looker? And his mating call is getting pretty good too. He practices every morning between 4:30 and 8. Uff da. Dedicated much?

Bunnies and Their Hobbies

COOL FACTS ABOUT MY NEW EMPLOYER
We adopt out 17,000 animals every year!
Several of our vets can spay a dog in under 12 minutes (at a normal clinic the surgery might take an hour or more)
We have over six hundred regular volunteers, who contribute as much time and work as would 80 full time employees.
20% of animals in American homes are from animal shelters
Ironically, right next door is a puppy mill outlet
Also next door is a porn store with a giant billboard that says "It's cheaper than dating!"
A small mammal is referred to as a "smam"
A 314 is bad
Breed bans suck

Friends with Benefits, a helpful chart... http://i30.tinypic.com/34j3rzm.jpg
My favorite part is the Flexible Spending pie chart. Listening is an obligation of dating apparently not required in casual relationships - narcissists rejoice!

When coffee hits your stomach... http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1758754
Yeah, you know what that's talking about. Usually a good thing, sometimes...

You know how there's that little action hero in the back of your head who gets worked up and says inappropriately dramatic things like, "I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, Professor." Yeah, that one. To prevent dangerous outbursts when in traffic, it's good to do some weeding (with a big shovel; none of that pansy-ass dandelion plucking). My cranial gun-slinger particularly likes, "DIE MOTHERFUCKER!" and "I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING WEEDS ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLAIN!" The cheat grass will uproot itself in terror, I promise.

Captain Awkward Crotch

My weird friend Dan coined this phrase referring to emo kids who wear their girl jeans super tight on the thighs and really baggy up top. Professor Santurri suffers from Captain Awkward Ass, as he chooses to do his bunching in the back. Also highly attractive.

The library stairwell smells like hamster cage today. mmmm. think i might stock up on sunflower seeds and settle in for a nap.

If this doesn't make you smile, you may have forgotten your prozac this morning: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/eat-your-heart.html

Speaking of prozac, why does everyone in the Midwest still think that Jesus can even out your serotonin levels? Clearly (cough) depression is a figment of your imagination, psychologists are for crazy people, and antidepressants will turn you into a mindless zombie, but forgetting the science (cough) for just one minute, which one of us is nearly intolerable b/c she's a bipolar moody bitch? Hmm, not me.

FAIL

http://failblog.org/

Escalators

from xkcd.com.

Snuggling Wols

Took the words right out of my mouth...

"Religion says: Do this! --- Think like that!--- but it cannot justify it, and if it tries to, it becomes repellent, because for every reason it offers there is a valid counter reason...you feel you were being cheated, that someone [a sneaky theodicist] was trying to convince you by trickery."
-Wittgenstein

"And neither shall we tolerate that swindle which the believers are guilty of when they call and act 'a most shameful crime,' 'a most irreparable infamy,' as long as it is done by a man, but an 'act of inscrutable love' if God is its author. Either one or the other: the same law and the same sentence, but not the same law and different sentences." (no half-assed anthropomorphising people!)
-Tennessen

On a completely unrelated note...always good to check in at dailycoyote.blogspot.com!

Do you realize...

...there's a really large rabbit by your head?

Yes I do. I don't think he's going to attack, but just in case I'll hold very still. So far he seems satisfied with nibbling my hair.

I found a walled in patio out behind the dorm and was lying in the sun while the bunnies "ran" about in the fresh air. Sometimes I don't know why I bother getting them out for "exercise." They each hop about three feet and then settle in for a nap and some ear twitching. Oh well. got to keep them stimulated so their neuronal connections don't shrivel up.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1819977
I'm not sure why this is so hilarious, but it just is.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1713334
This is also funny. But i think i'm in a mood where everything is.

It Feels So Good

I find this song really satisfying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TAtNjdQ9fM

Just a tip: Always make sure you have concrete plans with your interviewer before you fly 1000 miles for a job interview. CRAP.

Wow, these are fantastic mojitos. I think rum is good for paper writing.

Also, look how cute this slug..er..puppy is!

Procrastination pays off

One of my captioned pics got chosen for ihasahotdog - Yay!

Library Emergency

A whole new kind of emergency.

I was working on my paper yesterday when one of the librarians rushed into the reference room, crossing the carpet in a rustling hustle that only a librarian could pull off. She whispered to the gentleman librarian at the desk, "THERE'S BEEN AN EMERGENCY!!" I pricked my ears, thinking by the panic in her voice that perhaps the fourth floor had been conquered by hostile forces, or valuable tomes were bursting into flames and shrieking satanic verses, or maybe one of the printers had achieved self awareness and was destroying humanity. The librarian continued breathlessly, "Tom's dropped a book on his foot. GET SOME ICE!!!" Stat.

If you think ketsup is spicy...

you might be a Minnesotan.

Too much to do..

..need more slacking off... ack! at least i have bunnies to pet, and it's been sunny for a few days! nearly cuts the humidity down below 100%. Why do peops live in the midwest? yeesh.

Puzzles! oh dorky yay!

Although this blog is already a show case for my nerdiness, i thought i'd just add to the pile. MN Companion Rabbit Society (from which I adopted my lovelies) now has a game page with bunny jigsaw puzzles. I find this fun. Here's the link if you are also procrastinating: http://www.mnhouserabbit.org/fun/jigsaws.html
While you're there...lots of good bunnies needing homes...eh?

I like dogs just a little

I haven't made it to the humane society in a while because I've been wasting my time on crap like finals and being sick. When I first started going to the shelter I would come up with names for every pup I met, but I guess I've gotten lazy, because now I just call them by their breed or some defining characteristic (this method is usually foolproof, but can cause awkward nicknames, like for Cocker spaniels.)

To your right here is Poopy Feet, aka "Poopie." He's a happy fluffy wonderful puppy, but had been slipping around in his kennel in his own diarrhea for the better part of the afternoon. And to make it even yummier, he had bad manners about jumping all over you. My satin evening gown destroyed, des-troy-ed I tell you! (Lab/akita mix)

And below is "Long Jane." If I had to define "athletic" in a video, I would show you one of her in an extended trot. Gor-freakin-or-geous! If this girl was a horse, she'd be worth a million. A wonderful stride, but not very into people and very drooly. Like eww. (Lab/pointer mix)



Below is "Sneaky!" She likes to back out of collars and apparently harnesses too (i'm impressed). Luckily she's boy-crazy, and after escaping she ran over to a group of men and let me catch her while she was flirting. Strangely her official name is Akita, but she doesn't have a drop of akita in her; all pit bull, shar pei and shepherd. She's a great buddy once she figures out you've got a slip lead.










Below is "Weimie." She's a pretty ho-hum, tad chubby, middle-aged girl. She was delighted when I took that gentle leader off. They had it on way too tight, and apparently decided she should wear it 24-7. Ooo, she loved getting that face scratched. She's not even much of a puller (once she gets off some steam).













This yellow lab is Mr. Crazy. you can kinda see it in his eyes. Yeah, total nut ball, but pretty out of shape so it didn't take too long to get him behavin'. He wanted to go swimming! He's one of those leap off the banks regardless of depth types. He was soo proud of himself for fetching an old soda bottle. Just needed a job, this one. Well, and maybe a little bit of tranquilizer.

I cleverly knighted the fellow "Beaglie." He's kinda tubby, but oh so cute. It was hilarious when he'd get on a bunny scent because he'd start yowling. I got some wierd looks running behind a dog who was yowling at mysterious intervals. His sniffing noises brought to mind a very hungry Jabba the Hut eating borscht. This dude has more than a little hound dog in him. Gotta love him. (beagle/dachshund)