June 2006 Archives

Notice the blood-filled mosquito on his lip. Somehow I didn't notice it while I was actually taking the picture.

• Kory and I played a card game with Derrick over Christmas Break, and haven't been able to remember the name of it. Well, I remember a few things about it, so I just searched for "card game keepers ecology" and the first result told me the name of the game! Fluxx! The best game ever, I'm going to have to order it.
• I played soccer the other day. Well, not really. I just kicked a ball back and forth with Kory and dribbled around the yard so Atrayou could run along and chase the ball. But I haven't touched a soccer ball for a really long time, and it was fun. I really need to get a badminton set.
• Kory just informed me that I finally received my diploma in the mail. I've only been waiting two and a half months to know if I really graduated!
• My legs are not doing too good. I have 5 mosquito bites on my ankles, a huge bruise going down my left leg (probably about 7 inches long), two identical bruises (diagonal lines) on the top of each leg, and bruises on both knees. The bruises are all from Chompsky because he is a monster. The mosquito bites are what I get for not wearing socks.
• During a game of Cranium the other night (during a Club Cranium), Andy and I had to draw a jungle, and we both ended up drawing a tree with a snake coming out of it (apparently the official symbol for a jungle). Kory didn't get it right though, even though my drawing was genius. I also drew the best toilet ever with my eyes closed, of course Kory didn't get that either. During another Club Cranium, Kory and Andy had to draw the Grateful Dead. Kory drew tomb stones. I was like, "Tomb?" and he made a check mark as if that was part of the answer. If he was drawing dead, how was he going to draw grateful? I obviously didn't guess this one right and am considering not being partners with Kory anymore. Andy, being a genius, drew one of those Grateful Dead bears and a skull and crossbones and Amy guessed it right.
• I haven't been out in the field in forever! Dr. Foote has been on vacation, and I've also been pretty busy. I have a five day weekend coming up, so I think I might go out to Jennings and run around catching bugs for a while. I have to take Kory out with me sometime because he hasn't been out there since this past fall, and it's really beautiful right now.
• I tried to rescue a stray dog the other day, but it didn't work out. I was driving home from work on 43, and as I drove past that rock quarry or whatever it is (where there are crazy curves), I saw the dirtiest dog ever walking along the guardrail on the overpass. It literally had only two feet to walk on the side of the road, and people drive like monsters on 43. So I pulled over in the nearest driveway, jumped out of my car and started walking back to where the dog was. Let me just say it was scary. On one side of me were a bunch of cars (and trucks!) going like 50 miles an hour and on the other side there was a really steep cliff that leads down into the quarry or whatever. So there I am, in my fanciest of my fancy work clothes, climbing back and forth over the guard rail when there wasn't enough room to walk on the quarry side. I can't imagine what that poor dog felt like walking on this scary road. So I walked and I walked, and I just didn't see the dog anywhere. He was walking super slow when I drove by him, like he was about to die, so I doubt that he just started running. I don't know how I would have got him back to my car if I found him. There definitely wasn't room for both of us to walk side by side, and if I had to bend down to hold his collar to pull him along, someone probably would have ran into my big butt sticking out. And I think he was too big for me to carry. I don't know, it was just depressing. Not being able to find him, no one else caring that there's a sick dirty dog walking down a scary road.

Here are some photos from down at Kane's mom's house a few weekends ago (at our graduation party).

Here are three e-mails I sent to Michelle the other day while I was at work, all within about an hour or so. Things to make note of: How incredibly boring my job is and how I use the word "like" way too much.

I've been starving all morning, but I decided to wait until lunch to get something from the machines. So I just went and tried to get Famous Amos fake oreos, because they're tasty, unhealthy, and delicious, but the machine didn't give them to me! They moved like half an inch and stopped. Just as it happened this guy comes walking in and I told him it didn't give me my cookies. He was like, "Oh, man!" And he started shaking the machine trying to get it to move and I was like, "No, it's okay, I can just buy something else." And then he kicked the machine! Like...the bottom of the machine! How is kicking the bottom of the machine going to make my cookies fall?! It was hilarious. I can't believe he kicked the machine. I'm still laughing about it, I hope I never see him again.

I just went back to try to buy fake oreos again. The ones that I was supposed to get last time fell out, but the ones behind them almost fell out too, but didn't make it. They are so close to falling down. Really, so close. I bet if that guy came and kicked the machine again that they would fall. If I wasn't such a wuss I would go shake the machine myself. Can you see me shaking a vending machine trying to get fake oreos to fall? How embarrassing. I'm embarrassed to even buy these things.

Sorry for writing you like a crazy freak today.

But, the man that kicked the machine just came into my cubicle with the second bag of fake oreos that were just barely hanging on! He said they were laying next to the machine, that some nice person must have left them there. Too funny, he probably thinks they're the first ones that wouldn't fall.

So all in all, I didn't get ripped off today. And somehow the man knows where my cubicle is.

And my goodness, I just realized how funny the subject of this e-mail is. I wrote "The Kicker" as in like...the final twist of the story. But it could also mean "The Kicker", as in the man, the kicker.

These kind of things need to happen more often to liven up my boring day.

Sulu is pretty happy in the Carefresh Ultra that Kory accidentally bought. For $25! $25 for a bag of Carefresh, absolutely ridiculous. I usually use the normal Carefresh, which is also way too expensive.....but $25? Come on, I can't believe people actually pay this much money for white bedding! Hello, rabbit poop is dark brown!

Doesn't he have a gorgeous face? So Chompsky is for sure his name now. Kory refuses to call him anything else, and that's how he is now listed on petfinder. He's definitely getting a lot better. He's decreased his mounting A LOT, and now he just licks everyone's ears instead. He acts like a...huge puppy, which he probably is. He just has so much energy and Brooke and Atrayou just want to lay around all day. He plays with his toys more than Atrayou has played with toys since he's been with us. He jumps around the house, shaking toys back and forth furiously, and then he flings them across the room. And he plays with every single toy, even the old ripped up wash cloths that Sunni claimed as her own that are still sitting in the toy box. Our house doesn't seem like the most stable house, and if I jump, all the water in the fish tank sways back and forth. So when Chompsky does 360° jumps around the living room I'm always scared the fish tank is just going to fall over. We bought a new toy for him the other day, and oh boy, he had a blast. A giggling eggplant! After a few attempts at killing it, he decided he wanted to bury it, so he tried to dig around all the walls and doors. After that failed, he jumped up on the couch, kicked off the cushions, and started trying to bury it there. He's such a goof ball.

The one thing that drives me crazy is his water consumption. I have never seen anything drink that much water in my life. I hope there's nothing wrong with him. We must fill up two bowls at least 12 times a day. We used to fill them up no more than three times a day. It's insane. And he's so ridiculously messy. Our kitchen floor is CONSTANTLY wet. And in case you didn't know, I can't stand when things are wet. Every time he walks by the bowl he takes a "drink", which means he dips his mouth into the bowl and lifts it back up while still walking, spilling huge amounts of water all over the floor. And water continues to drip out of his mouth for at least the next 2 minutes, and by that time he's already paced the whole house while dropping water everywhere, rubbed his face all over me, and cleaned Brooke and Atrayou's faces for them. And then it starts all over again. I always wear my zori around the house, and they have absolutely no traction on the bottom. We now have a 6 foot rug in our kitchen whose only purpose is to catch all this excess water so I don't slip and break my bones.

The dogs have raised feeders that have metal bowls that fit into a plastic base. Similar to this. The one day I took out a bowl to refill it, and before I even turned on the water, I heard him drinking something. I looked around the corner, and he was drinking water out of the depression in which the bowl sits! He's so crazy messy that INCHES of water had accumulated beneath the bowl! And the grosso was drinking it! So now I have to empty out the whole plastic part daily, which is fine I guess. But still, that's just ridiculously messy.

There's already been an adoption application for him. The woman sounds like she really has a specific dog in mind though, so I don't know. We'll see though!

• Waders- Preferably hip waders from Cabela's.
• Badminton set - I used to be the badminton queen in high school and I've been wanting a set ever since I moved into this house.
• D50 or D70 - Does anything need to be said?
• Raincoat - This one is long overdue.
• Scrabble Folio Edition - Mmmhmm.
• Haircut - Definitely too long.
• Bug vials - Lots of them from BioQuip.
• New bug net - Nice sturdy one this time, not a collapsible one.
• $2500 to go to Costa Rica in December with Jess, Dr. Foote, Dr. Grafton, and Ferenc! - Two weeks in bug heaven with a bunch of geniuses!

Kory and I took on the responsibility of making a poster board for the rescue group. It's pretty much a poster board with all the adoptables on it that is taken to all the events the group goes to. We made little cat and dog head frames for the photos, and the photos can be taken out when someone adopts them and then replaced. I'm not sure what's going to happen when we have more cats and dogs than there are spots for on the board! There aren't many in between photos because we were up until five in the morning working on it and my camera refuses to take good photos when it's dark out. So here are the photos.

This is my new foster dog. He's a greyhound mix, and he's crazy. I picked him up from the Geauga County Dog Shelter, where he was dropped off, which I can completely understand! Of course I’m kidding, but he is definitely a wild monster. He didn’t come off his lead for about his first three hours here because he has a HUGE problem with mounting Brooke and Atrayou. Huge as in every single second that we’re not pulling on the lead and telling him no. I called Christine to complain and ask for advice and she just thinks it’s hilarious! Seriously though, I hope he calms down and starts acting like a civilized beast soon. Brooke and Atrayou are already sick of him and growl at him all the time.

He’s also completely spooked by everything. When he’s outside he’s constantly either a) trying to run away from every single noise that he hears, or b) trying to have sex with my dogs. I kept telling Christine that I don’t think he’s ever seen anything before, but she insists that that’s probably impossible.

Also, this crazy boy doesn’t have a name yet, so if you have any suggestions let me know.

Oh, I didn’t mention that I got this crazy dog because there aren’t any greyhound hauls coming this way any time soon. There is one coming from Florida in July, but they won’t cat test any of the hounds, so we can’t really take any. So Brooke’s pup will have to wait until a haul is coming this way. But at least I know she isn’t in any danger.

Here are the last photos I'll probably ever have of Sunni. =( I love this pup, I'm glad we found her a good home. The second to last picture of Kory and Sunni was taken at her new home, it makes me want to cry every time I look at it. And the last photo is of course Sunni with part of her new family, Kathy and her daughter Stephanie.

We let our pretty little girl go today. A nice family from Pickerington adopted her. It's about time, huh? I think she'll do great there. They have a ten year old daughter who is in love with her, so I think she's going to have a lot of fun. I'm really glad she's in a home with another dog and kids. I just hate feeling like I'm betraying her by leaving her there, but I don't think it's possible to not feel that way.

Christine called us on the way down to Pickerington to tell us that someone has found one of Brooke's pups! Christine and a few other people have been helping me look for the pups that she had, and it's just awesome that we found one. Her name is PB's Poor Baby and she's at a track in Kansas waiting to be adopted! So it looks like I'll end up adopting fostering her at some point!

Also, tomorrow is Brooke's birthday! That old woman is going to be 8 years old!

Frank left this pool in the shed when he moved out so I decided to give it to the dogs. I assumed Sunni would be the only one to venture in, but no, Atrayou, my most shy and timid dog was the only one brave enough to get in.

And of course the point of the pool is to cool them off on hot days, so what does Atrayou do after he's done? He runs a million laps around the yard as fast as he can and ends up being hotter than he was before. Such a goofy boy. It's quite funny though.

Whenever people come over they never think the hounds can reach top speeds in our backyard, but they certainly can. It's so funny to see Atrayou run, I think it's because he's so skinny. Brooke is much more muscular than he is, so she just looks awesome running around. But Atrayou is so lanky and somehow he always ends up with his back legs up in the air, almost like his front legs stopped moving but his back legs just kept going. It's hilarious and I always think he's going to do a somersault. If I ever get a good video of it I'll have to post it.

On Saturday we're doing that home visit for Sunni, way down near Columbus. I sure hope things work out this time.

I pulled into the driveway after work last night, and Kory was standing outside talking to a neighbor with Atrayou's leash in his hand. My first thought was, "Oh no, Atrayou escaped!" Luckily that wasn't the case. Kory had actually found a pit bull running loose on his way home from the movies, brought it home, found its owner, and the owner had just picked him up before I pulled in.

After the neighbors left we went inside and noticed water on the kitchen floor. Looked up, and water was dripping from the ceiling. Ran upstairs to the bathroom and the sink was leaking, so Kory shut off the water supply to it. It took a while for the ceiling to stop dripping, but it finally did. Luckily I only use that sink to change the birds' water, which I'll have to do in the bathtub now I guess.

After that mess we had to take Brooke to the vet, she's been showing signs of hypothyroidism. We've switched vets due to some experiences a friend had with our old vet, so this time we took her to the same place she had her emergency leg stitch-up/mass removal done. This vet is super nice and smart, and she notices things that I don't think most vets would even notice. So Brooke had blood drawn and it's being sent off to MSU, which I guess is THE place to send for thyroid panels. She said Brooke also has allergies, and also has a small skin infection due scratching/licking because of the allergies, so we forked over a ton of money for meds. That's the one complaint I have about the vet, the three times I've been there she's given me a really expensive antibiotic, Simplicef. Anyway, we have to wait a couple weeks for the blood test results to come back in. Hopefully it's just hypothyroidism (or nothing!) because it's easy and cheap to treat.

Sunni's having issues too, which I've been worrying about. The fur on the underside of her neck is completely gone, hopefully it's just from her collar rubbing. This is really common in greyhounds (and other dogs) but it seems to have just sprung up so fast. It got much worse on Saturday at Bark in the Park when she was freaking out and pulling as hard as she could to get away from the madness. So last night I noticed she had red bumps on it, and then later in the night it looked like she scratched it all up. It had big long red marks all over, so Kory held a cold wash cloth on her poor little neck and I seriously could see the relief in her eyes. Poor girl. Today we're going to try to take her up the store to try on harnesses so we can take her on walks again and so that her neck isn't rubbed raw on her home visit this Saturday. The fur on her neck is really different from the rest of her fur, so hopefully the harness will be okay. We'll see.

Here are some photos from Bark in the Park today. Rose's Rescue had a booth set up so Kory and I brought Atrayou and Sunni up. The only pups that were there during our shift were Atrayou, Sunni, and Melissa's foster, Savanna, who is gorgeous! Melissa had five kittens up there as well. We were there for three hours, and Atrayou did amazingly well considering how scared and submissive he normally is. Sunni on the other hand got completely spooked by something (perhaps the crazy loud sound they made to get the dogs to bark for the barking contest) and was trying to hide under the table the whole last hour. Poor thing, she's happy to be back home now. It was fun though, we'll definitely be doing more of these types of things in the future.

This is Kory's response to my previous entry:

Kory: You make it sound like the lawn mower didn't keep shutting off.
Me: Nah.
Kory: Which it did, it would just stop running. It happened like five times.
Me: But only because you were overloading it with grass!
Kory: Not every time.
Me: If you would have only cut half a strip instead of a whole strip...
Kory: Yeah, I found that out later. I was only cutting like three inches at a time.
Me: SEE, I am the grass cutting GENIUS
Kory: You should put up why it kept shutting off.
Me: Because you were overloading it with grass?
Kory: Yes
Me: Haha, and about how every time it would stop you'd have to tip it up and dump all the grass out?
Kory: Yes, but everybody with a lawn mower knows that trick.
Me: You're just jealous of my cutting style.
Kory: Sure I am. And also point out that I cut half the lawn and all the long grass.
Me: Noooo you didn't!
Kory: Yes.
Me: You maybe cut half the lawn including the long grass, but I had to go over the long grass again so I cut more than half the grass.
Kory: Oh brother.
Me: And let's not forget all the little shoots of grass that you missed that I had to go out and cut with scissors!
Kory: You didn't do that.
Me: You don't know what I did, you were asleep.
Kory: Put up what you will, just remember that lying is wrong.