Let's throw it against the wall and see what sticks
A hodgepodge.
1. I just completely blanked on everything. Give me a second.
2. And that's the kind of week it's been :) Very, very busy, which as I've pointed out a mabillion times is both rewarding and punishing in turns. Right now I'm doing pretty well. Last night was an entirely different story. And so it goes.
3. Mao and Chloe met the alpacas this morning. Q and I did the morning feeding, and the two cats tagged along. The next thing I know they're both not just in the paddocks, but they're in the barn. Mao was nose to nose with Hannibal for a while, and then Mao let Hannie sniff him all over to check him out. (I cannot believe that this was the one time I didn't bring my camera with me.) The rest of the herd was on alert, but they weren't doing that shrieking alarm call that they sometimes do; I believe it was because they saw that Hannibal didn't think the cats were a threat. I almost got to see Chloe and Neo go nose to nose, but as Neo was coming into the barn to check her out, she got distracted by something else and went zipping outside. Anyway, it was the cutest thing in the world, and I'm really happy that at least those two cats will be accepted out there.
4. About an hour later we all ended up racing out to the barn because we could see the herd in a tight circle and it looked like they were stomping on something. My first thought was that one of the cats went back out there and for some reason the herd attacked. (It's not uncommon, btw, although more so with llamas than alpacas.) It turned out that Neo's cria coat had come partially undone, and was flapping around his body. Satine thought it was attacking him, so she panicked and was trying to kill the coat - which unfortunately was still attached to the poor baby. Q made it in there first and got the coat off of him, and everyone settled down. Talk about scary. He was OK from what we could see then, and he seemed perfectly fine when Dar and I were out there this evening.
5. We know have over 100 bales of hay stowed on the property. For reasons too long to go into, we had to find storage for it all in a big damn hurry. Only half of it would fit in the loft of the barn, so Q and I cleared out the storage shed were we normally keep the lawn tractor and the big weed cutter and other large pieces of hardware. While trying to remember how to put the lawn tractor in reverse, we discovered that not only is one of the front tires flat, it's also halfway off the hub? wheel well? whatever you call it. We still managed to move it anyway.
6. My beloved little red wagon is also down for the count. One of the front wheel mounts needs to be spot welded. Dar said her son Oliver is qualified to weld it, so hopefully this weekend that'll get done.
7. Sparky's eye is infected again. Q and I thought that maybe he had been kicked, because his eye was swollen almost shut and the skin on that side of his face and nose was all mottled red and purple. Dar took a look at it tonight and said that it was caused by the infection, so he got a shot of . . . something.
8. I'd managed to watch about half of the Carrier series on PBS. Did anyone else catch any of it? I'm guessing no :) I was fascinated for two reasons: my brother was stationed on an aircraft carrier when he was in the Navy during the early 70s, and when I was 20 I came this close to enlisting in the Navy. The recruiter had the form in front of me, he was holding out the pen, but I walked away because back then women weren't allowed to serve aboard ships, and that was really the experience that I wanted. And now 35+ years later, it's no big deal. Timing is everthing, as they say.
I still wonder what my life would have been like if I'd signed up that day. I had only a high school diploma, I was unemployed, depressed, dirt poor. I went to the recruiting office because I thought that the Navy would have been a good option, but I found out that aside from the prohibition against shipboard duty, they also wouldn't guarantee what I'd be trained for, and they wouldn't guarantee that I'd get to travel. At that point I thought I might as well just try to find an office job somewhere because it sounded as if that's all I'd end up with if I enlisted. In retrospect I think I would have made out pretty well. I'm sure I would have tested off the charts, and they would have placed me in some sort of higher end training - or at least higher end for women recruits at that time. I'm almost positive that I would have traveled as part of my duty. Maybe not to an overseas station, but certainly around the US.
It's kind of a crap shoot as to how I would have fared personally. There are things about the services that I admire: the cameraderie, the dedication to duty, the uniforms (I'm a freak, I know.) I don't even really have issues with hierarchy as long as there's respect up and down the continuum. Blindly following orders? Yeah, that's where it gets iffy :) I'm a big one for questioning, and that doesn't really go over that well in that environment. Still, I was watching one segment of Carrier that focused on a middle-aged woman who'd been enlisted for over 19 years, working as an air traffic controller on board, and she absolutely loved her life. And I thought, "That could have been me." Not that I regret my choice, but I've always wondered where that path would have led. It drives me crazy that we can't live several lifetimes concurrently.
9. I still don't have a referral to a nephrologist, but at least I know that the request is on her desk awaiting her decision. I did some phone calling during the week to make sure all the paperwork was where it needed to be, and I'm glad that I did because there was a snafu that's since been straightened out. I'm actually not that concerned about it all right now. (Surprise!) While Dar was at the hospital for the delivery of nonoluna's baby (which is her story to tell), she ran into an old friend who also happens now to be working for that nephrologist. At least I think that's how it goes. Anyway, she's going to put in a good word for me, but also she told Dar that what a rheumatologist thinks is a big deal kidney failure isn't always that bad looking to a nephrologist. So I expect that I'll be playing doctor tag for a while as they pass me back and forth, but I'll also be getting blood work done every other week - if something really starts to go south we'll see it pretty quickly. It's not the best solution, but it's one I can live with. Little kidney failure humor there, get it :)
10. Dar had been gone most of the week, or so it seems. What she was doing was important, but I missed her. And damn she's good at what she does. She is my hero, no lie.
11. And now it's time for Battlestar Galactica. Yay!
longshadowsfall turned seventeen today. Seventeen! Man, I remember her as a little pre-teenie girl. As we used to say, "You've come a long way, baby" :)
1. I just completely blanked on everything. Give me a second.
2. And that's the kind of week it's been :) Very, very busy, which as I've pointed out a mabillion times is both rewarding and punishing in turns. Right now I'm doing pretty well. Last night was an entirely different story. And so it goes.
3. Mao and Chloe met the alpacas this morning. Q and I did the morning feeding, and the two cats tagged along. The next thing I know they're both not just in the paddocks, but they're in the barn. Mao was nose to nose with Hannibal for a while, and then Mao let Hannie sniff him all over to check him out. (I cannot believe that this was the one time I didn't bring my camera with me.) The rest of the herd was on alert, but they weren't doing that shrieking alarm call that they sometimes do; I believe it was because they saw that Hannibal didn't think the cats were a threat. I almost got to see Chloe and Neo go nose to nose, but as Neo was coming into the barn to check her out, she got distracted by something else and went zipping outside. Anyway, it was the cutest thing in the world, and I'm really happy that at least those two cats will be accepted out there.
4. About an hour later we all ended up racing out to the barn because we could see the herd in a tight circle and it looked like they were stomping on something. My first thought was that one of the cats went back out there and for some reason the herd attacked. (It's not uncommon, btw, although more so with llamas than alpacas.) It turned out that Neo's cria coat had come partially undone, and was flapping around his body. Satine thought it was attacking him, so she panicked and was trying to kill the coat - which unfortunately was still attached to the poor baby. Q made it in there first and got the coat off of him, and everyone settled down. Talk about scary. He was OK from what we could see then, and he seemed perfectly fine when Dar and I were out there this evening.
5. We know have over 100 bales of hay stowed on the property. For reasons too long to go into, we had to find storage for it all in a big damn hurry. Only half of it would fit in the loft of the barn, so Q and I cleared out the storage shed were we normally keep the lawn tractor and the big weed cutter and other large pieces of hardware. While trying to remember how to put the lawn tractor in reverse, we discovered that not only is one of the front tires flat, it's also halfway off the hub? wheel well? whatever you call it. We still managed to move it anyway.
6. My beloved little red wagon is also down for the count. One of the front wheel mounts needs to be spot welded. Dar said her son Oliver is qualified to weld it, so hopefully this weekend that'll get done.
7. Sparky's eye is infected again. Q and I thought that maybe he had been kicked, because his eye was swollen almost shut and the skin on that side of his face and nose was all mottled red and purple. Dar took a look at it tonight and said that it was caused by the infection, so he got a shot of . . . something.
8. I'd managed to watch about half of the Carrier series on PBS. Did anyone else catch any of it? I'm guessing no :) I was fascinated for two reasons: my brother was stationed on an aircraft carrier when he was in the Navy during the early 70s, and when I was 20 I came this close to enlisting in the Navy. The recruiter had the form in front of me, he was holding out the pen, but I walked away because back then women weren't allowed to serve aboard ships, and that was really the experience that I wanted. And now 35+ years later, it's no big deal. Timing is everthing, as they say.
I still wonder what my life would have been like if I'd signed up that day. I had only a high school diploma, I was unemployed, depressed, dirt poor. I went to the recruiting office because I thought that the Navy would have been a good option, but I found out that aside from the prohibition against shipboard duty, they also wouldn't guarantee what I'd be trained for, and they wouldn't guarantee that I'd get to travel. At that point I thought I might as well just try to find an office job somewhere because it sounded as if that's all I'd end up with if I enlisted. In retrospect I think I would have made out pretty well. I'm sure I would have tested off the charts, and they would have placed me in some sort of higher end training - or at least higher end for women recruits at that time. I'm almost positive that I would have traveled as part of my duty. Maybe not to an overseas station, but certainly around the US.
It's kind of a crap shoot as to how I would have fared personally. There are things about the services that I admire: the cameraderie, the dedication to duty, the uniforms (I'm a freak, I know.) I don't even really have issues with hierarchy as long as there's respect up and down the continuum. Blindly following orders? Yeah, that's where it gets iffy :) I'm a big one for questioning, and that doesn't really go over that well in that environment. Still, I was watching one segment of Carrier that focused on a middle-aged woman who'd been enlisted for over 19 years, working as an air traffic controller on board, and she absolutely loved her life. And I thought, "That could have been me." Not that I regret my choice, but I've always wondered where that path would have led. It drives me crazy that we can't live several lifetimes concurrently.
9. I still don't have a referral to a nephrologist, but at least I know that the request is on her desk awaiting her decision. I did some phone calling during the week to make sure all the paperwork was where it needed to be, and I'm glad that I did because there was a snafu that's since been straightened out. I'm actually not that concerned about it all right now. (Surprise!) While Dar was at the hospital for the delivery of nonoluna's baby (which is her story to tell), she ran into an old friend who also happens now to be working for that nephrologist. At least I think that's how it goes. Anyway, she's going to put in a good word for me, but also she told Dar that what a rheumatologist thinks is a big deal kidney failure isn't always that bad looking to a nephrologist. So I expect that I'll be playing doctor tag for a while as they pass me back and forth, but I'll also be getting blood work done every other week - if something really starts to go south we'll see it pretty quickly. It's not the best solution, but it's one I can live with. Little kidney failure humor there, get it :)
10. Dar had been gone most of the week, or so it seems. What she was doing was important, but I missed her. And damn she's good at what she does. She is my hero, no lie.
11. And now it's time for Battlestar Galactica. Yay!
longshadowsfall turned seventeen today. Seventeen! Man, I remember her as a little pre-teenie girl. As we used to say, "You've come a long way, baby" :)