wasting time

ok--putting the computer away now....off to do something productive.

the trip to philly

here are some pictures from my trip








independence hall. fun. fun. fun.



being goofy.




(she really is)

the mutter museum. a must see for anyone interested in preserved body parts.


(I've been playing with the camera today)

Am I crazy?

As you can see, I did get my new camera as promised. I took it out of the box about an hour ago and voila!!! It's not as pretty as my old best friend but I think the software's alot better. It lets me add text to my photo's (I have photoshop but I still haven't haven't figured out how to use all the vectors and thingies)

I spent the whole day building a new cage for my bunnies. I think I'm crazy. I know the bunnies think I'm crazy. I got a new bunny last summer. She's crazy. She refuses to live in a cage.

When I first adopted her, I put her in the cage she came with. And she went nuts: pacing back and forth. chewing the bars. It took her hours to settle down and then she looked miserable. So I built her a huge NIC pen. 3 feet high, lots of bunny safe toys and boxes--bunny heaven. (for a normal bunny) She jumped it. without even blinking.

So I made it 4 1/2 feet high. No 4 lb. bunny can jump 4 1/2 feet, right? She scaled it. right in front of my face. So I called the house rabbit society. They agreed she was abnormal and recommended she live in a cage....which I couldn't do so they recommended I put a top on the pen. So I got an old tablecloth and pinned it to the top of the pen with a million clothespins ( really it was a million).

This worked for a couple of days. Then I came home one day and pyscho bunny is spread out on my sofa, real smug like. I go to investigate and theres a huge hole in the tablecloth. INSANE. I mean seriously, INSANE. Plus she managed to jump into my sexy man bunny's pen and took a few chunks out of him. (He was fine but we had to call him scarface for awhile). At that point I decided psycho bunny needed some serious alone time to "adjust" to her new home. (her 3rd new home btw--no wonder she's a little psycho). So...she went to live in my spare bedroom. And she's lived there for the last ~10 months. She gets to come out for an hour or so every other day. (Sexy man gets run around the house time the other days. )

Until last week when saphire decided it would be fun to chase the psycho bunny. Now bunny chasing is not an approved activity in my house, but from time to time it happens. and in the past when a cat chased the psycho, psycho got reeeeally reeeeally scared and ran reeeeally reeeeally fast in every direction all at once. until last week when saphire pounced on psycho and psycho stood her ground and then chased saphire down the hall. cute? yes. funny? definitely! But more importantly it means that psycho is no longer psycho and has finally adjusted to her new home. right?

So the other day, I decided to retry the NIC pens. set it up --let her hang out in there all day with the door open. She loved it. Closed the door at night and went to bed. Just as I"m about to fall asleep a cat hops onto my chest. only its not a cat. turn on the light, its the psycho. and she hops to the foot of my bed, next to saphire and does the amazingly irresistable bunny side flop with her hind legs stretched out. long story short she spent the night in my bed.

But today I did some reconfiguring. Moved the furniture around. put the pen in a different location. put a convertable sofa bed in the pen. yes, thats right. there's a sofa bed in her pen. Her pen is the size of a nyc studio apt. maybe bigger. But she's been in there all day and she loves it. I even ran out to get more supplies. and when I came back, she was still in there. The real test will be in another hour when I go to bed.

You dont think I'm crazy do you?

*UPDATE*

SUCCESS! Psycho spent the entire night in her pen. I'm so proud of her.

I'm back.

Lots of stuff to talk about. First a really good friend passed away earlier this year.....my canon powershot digital elph. (sorry) The best damn little tiny digital cam a girl with a blog can have. I thought I'd never be able to replace him--but I did some online window shopping and turns out I can! I'm taking me mom's employee discount and getting a new best friend on Sat.

What else is new you ask???? new job! yes, another new job. I start in 1 week. I'm very nervous. and anxious. what if I hate it? what if they hate me? Every time I think about it I want to vomit.

And this tuesday--ROAD TRIP!!!! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. My first ever. I'm very excited. I plan on taking lots of pics with my brand new best friend.

Oh, I got to run. I have to take another PPD test for this new job. Is that right? maybe its a PDD? I'm having a dyslexic moment. Anyway, this job better be worth all the running around and jumping through hoops I've had to do. That's all I'm saying.

guess what it is!!!!!

(I'll try to get some better pics up)

I just finished it. It has a purpose. Post your guesses in the comments section.
Winner gets my admiration :-) You can enter as many times as you want. I'll post a picture of the mystery item in action next week.

I'm one of them now

I've become addicted to the myspace. Its all very sad. I think I need an intervention. (i blame you, michele)
If you dont know what myspace is, stay away but if you're already one of them .....like my blog? be my friend

My next entry will be sooner and longer and will have actual knitting content.

In the mean time, check out my new favorite blog It's my other addiction but not quite as insidious as the myspace.

"dayzed"

Ok, so the internship isn't as evil as I thought it would be. I didn't have to get a tetanus shot. And its only a 1 hour commute each way.
I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. The work is almost fun-- in a monotonous...anal retentive... sort of way. It actually feels really nice to be back in an academic setting. This week I've been thinking a lot about going back and finishing my bachelors.
The down side is I've had to completely change my work schedule. After working nights for the last 10 years I'm now working all days. I have never been so tired!!! I also had to drop a day so I'm working 6 days a week but I'm only get paid for 4. :-(

anyone else feelin a little dazed and confused?

the cell phone is back in commission

I HEART EBAY

my first nasal oxygen tube

I got to place my first nasal oxygen tube on Monday!!! This doggie came in with a pnuemothorax--that's when air gets into the pleural cavity (the little space between the lungs and the chest wall). The air pushes against the lungs making it difficult for the animal to breathe .

Sometimes these are caused by a trauma, like a deep wound that pierces the chest wall. But this guy had a spontaneous pneumothorax. These are caused by some kind of abcess or disease that affects the lung tissue. He had a bunch of little air filled blisters on his lungs called blebs. The blebs had ruptured and leaked air into the pleural cavity.





He was taken to surgery where they opened up his chest and removed a part of his left lung (a partial lung lobectomy). They placed a tube in his chest to help remove the air from the pleural space. After the surgery, he wasn't doing very well. His gums were grey and his pulse ox was 75-80% (normal is >90%). The doctor asked me to place a nasal oxygen tube, which is a tube that goes up the dog's nose and the other end is connected to an oxygen source.

I've never actually placed one before so I was soo nervous. Luckily the dog had very large nostrils and after a little poking and prodding and lots of topical anesthetic (for the dog!!!) I was able to advance the tube up his nose. I had to suture the tube to the dog to (hopefully) prevent him from pulling the tube out.




A few minutes after the tube was placed his color was back to normal and his pulse ox was 95%!!!

in communicado

My cell phone is dead. D.E.A.D.
dead.
some bunny chewed up my charger. I have no cell phone. Can my life get any worse???

If your reading this and you actually know me (or know someone that knows me) CALL ME!!!! leave a message on my voicemail--- I've been checking it frequently.

My phone's been dead for almost a whole day and I've only gotten one message. And that was a wrong number. :-(
I'm going to assume that you all have been leaving me text messages.

CRY SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM

grrrrrrrrr................
I just found out that I have to do my internship in the city instead of where I thought I would be doing it. Which means I'll be sitting on a train for 3 (maybe 4) hours a day. During rush hour. In the summer. Hold on, I'm gonna go cry again...........

And... They want me to get a tetanus shot--I wouldn't get a tetanus shot if someone stuck a rusty nail directly into my vein!!!!

I am in SUCH a bad mood because of this. I hate LGCC!!! Biggest mistake I ever made. (ok--maybe not the biggest but definitely a mistake.) If anyone wants to be a vet tech and is thinking about going to LGCC--DON'T DO IT!!! Go to Suffolk or go to Mercy or go online. Don't go to LGCC.
Gonna go cry some more now.

Even the cats are angry:

knitting at work

So I got a new job last month. Its really boring.
I started bringing knitting into work with me. Just so I'd have something to do on my lunch break cause this place is in the middle of nowhere
and there's no place to go and no one to talk to. So I would knit--but just on my break.
but then I would come back from my break and there'd be nothing to do.
So I'd break out the knitting again.
At first it felt really wrong-- to knit at work.
I'm getting over it.

I started this scarf when I started this job. I only work on the scarf when I'm at work.
My goal is to finish the scarf before they fire me for knitting at work.


And here is a scarf from my pre-employment days. sigh.

I call it my "acrylics can be fun-fur" scarf.

SIGH

OH!! And I wore the hat!!! The "oh my god it's so fugly I can only wear it in a ginormous blizzard" hat. Well, we had a ginormous blizzard so I wore the hat. But only in the parking lot while walking dogs. I think they were laughing at me...

Nope, I'm not dead

Just really busy.
And tired. very tired.
I'd forgotten how much working sucks.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

PIPECLEANERS.
Fun to play with. You can make all sorts of crafty things with them. But do not put them in the microwave. They are not microwave safe.




Before you pass judgement...


This is the first time i have EVER started a fire...
that wasn't intentional, i mean...
and in the microwave.
And I've been playing with fire for a very long time.

Is it a mite?

I found this on a float yesterday :
(for those of you who just HAD to know :
the fecal sample came from a young male cat that came in for a neuter. He also had roundworms--sorry no pictures of those, I'll post worm pictures another time I promise!! )

What is it?Cute animal picture to make up for gross bug picture ***UPDATE***

According to Kristen, our friend up there is a biting louse. So, Curtesy of Gordon's Mallophaga Page(http://www.earthlife.net/insects/mallopha.html) here is everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about biting lice. (That was a good guess though Joey--you should take the stupid test)

The Biting Lice (Mallophaga)
The Mallophaga are described as wingless (Apterous), hemimetabolous (having a simple metamorphosis i.e. no pupa) ectoparsites (living on the outside of their hosts) of mostly birds but also of some mammals. The range in size from 0.5 to 10 mm long. Their mouthparts are designed for biting.
Most feed on fragments of hair and feathers. Some have formed a symbiotic relationship with bacteria, these may help with the digestion of blood etc as individuals deprived of their bacteria die in a few days. They are often adapted to live on particular parts of their hosts bodies. They can only survive for a maximun of three days after their host has died and may hitch a ride on a pasing fly (phoresis) in the hope of reaching a new host, they may also use phoresis in order to spread to a new host even if the present one is still alive.
Females lay up to 100 eggs which are cemented to the hair or feathers of the host with a clear fast drying glue which is secreted onto the hair or feather by the female immediately before she lays the egg. The eggs take about 3 or 4 days to hatch and the nymphs go through 3 larval instars in about 20 days before they reach maturity.

MY HAT

I just finished it. Right now. I hate it. It took me entirely too long to make it. I kept making boo boos so I had to do it over and over and over. And it still has boo boos. I really hate this hat right now and I want to burn it.
But it's cold out and it might snow. I cant go out there without a hat!
I have to know:
Is it too fugly to wear in public?
What if it snows? Would it be less fugly if it was snowing? Is there a minimum amount of snow that must fall before I can wear this hat out in public?
We're supposed to get 3-5 inches. I've been watching the weather updates and they say, at times it *COULD BE* heavy!!! What if I only wore the hat during these "heavy" times.
It may be ugly but its warm and soft

click pic to enlarge

"i'm too sexy for this hat"



Or maybe I'll just order in chinese...

Why martini glasses and cats don't mix

This is Saphire.

Isn't she cute??? Saphire broke her food bowl the other day. So today I ran out to Target to get her a new one. I couldn't find any bowls I liked, so instead, I bought MARTINI GLASSES.

It seemed like a really good idea at the time.

I brought them home, rinsed them out, poured in a scoop of cat food.

The cats just sat there and stared.
Like they were too good to eat out of PLASTIC martini glasses. And then Saph yawned, turned around, swished her tail and sent the plastic martini glass FLYING. . .
The glass broke in two. There was cat food everywhere. The rabbit went nuts. It was ANARCHY!!!

I AM the next Einstein

thanks alot!

I would like to thank everyone for not shunning me while I had the cooties. You guys are the best!!!

FASCINATING THINGS I LEARNED THIS WEEK:

• Every day, Mr. Nosey eats enough hay to fill two (2) McDonald's happy meal boxes.
• Benadryl licks my eyelids while I'm sleeping.
• I'm allergic to cat saliva.
• I can make breakfast with my eyes closed...(or, more accurately, swollen shut because my OCD cat licked my eyes while I was sleeping and I'm allergic to cat saliva)

The urban mitten

the uber cool arm warmer/mittens

(yes, that IS a super secret hidden pocket in the mitten)
All the coool people will be wearing them this winter