Fun and Lunacy

Do you ever start laughing, and then you can't stop, and everything anyone does is funny? My mother and I both do that, sometimes at the same time, and then it's like a perfect storm of choking, giggling, crying, and dribbling. It's best when there are lots of people around, because the embarrassment keeps us from stopping, and my brother and father keep alternating between laughing at us and staring around helplessly. I burst into hysterical laughter when I am trying to read something funny out loud. I had the worst time of it when I was little, trying to read Hank the Cowdog's opinion of horses out loud to my parents. I had a cold at the time and laughing made me cough. I remember letting out huge racking coughs, drawing in breath and gasping out three or four words before the laughing led to more coughs. I read the whole passage though, and my parents thought it was funny too.
Now my mother and I burst into hysterical laughter over many things, the dogs, inappropriate statements, strange things my father says (I love you daddy), and my homework. My mom and I just finished watching season 2 of Teen Wolf, so we have been laughing over funny things that werewolves say and the wonderful lines of Dylan O'Brian. I am sick again (have been for weeks), so all this laughing is really very uncomfortable, but I suppose it's a nice problem to have. At least, I will think so until the little dog tries to run off with my hand and my laughter makes my face an easy and enticing target.

Thanksgiving Aftermath

Two Thanksgivings is a tradition with our family. Once with Grandpa and one or two of my Aunts, and then once at home when we get to keep all the food for ourselves. After a formal reading of "When Father Carves the Duck" by Ernest Vincent Wright, Dad carves the turkey and we all eat like a pack of wolves. The dogs, Nixie and Zooey, must make do with tidbits from our lunch; they are the lowest ranking members of the family after all.

Now we shall be eating leftover turkey for weeks, and bits of it shall explode in the microwave like it does every year, and provide us with great mirth.

Because I have been so very bad about updating, I'm going to use this blog for two goals of mine, and hopefully get better about writing on it. :)

The first goal is my long term quest to become a veterinarian. I'm pre preveterinarian, I have taken a lot of classes I need, but I'm still 16 classes or so away from being able to apply to vet school. My Dad has informed me that becoming a vet costs money, and after doing a little research it looks like it will cost a minimum of $124,000. I am going to try and find a job after this semester, and in the meantime I will try and write and get something published, and perhaps go to school to become a massage therapist. I've been wanting to do that because every other member of my family has terrible back and neck problems, if it would help me pay for college that would be very helpful. I'll write how it goes. Right now however, I just need to pass my classes, I have two A's, 1 B and 1 D. One A has the potential to drop all the way to a failing grade, it's just that type of class, and the D is going to be a challenge to raise.

The other goal is simple fitness. I weigh 147 pounds, and I want to weigh more around 120. Of course I would love to look like a movie star, but I don't think I can. Mainly, I want to be healthy and legitimately  athletic. I cannot run for more than twenty seconds without being out of breath or jog more than a quarter of a mile. Each arm can only lift fifteen or twenty pounds, so I cannot do a single real pushup. I also can't do a backbend, which makes me very depressed.

These are my two goals, well, the two I'm working on now. I have many others but they would take up too much space. Becoming a werewolf is one of them.

Now on to homework.

Miss Beaumont's House for Disturbed Dogs

I love dogs. They smell, they slobber, and their hair always ends up in your food, but dogs are wonderful. Pet dogs genuinely love you, that horrible reeking smell is probably your dog's breath as he or she scrambles into your lap slobbering with joy. My family has owned three dogs during my lifetime. The first, a black lab named Jack, was such a perfect dog that I can't do him justice. He used to steal the socks off my baby feet when he was a puppy, and my mom would chase him screaming around the yard. When he got older he was a sweet, loyal, good dog, and I have never met any dog like him since. My mother, brother, and me used to tease him by pretending to get into huge fights, play slapping at each other and shrieking in distress. Jack would look nervously between us as if he didn't know what to do, and then he would place his body directly between the two arguing family members, always stopping us short. When he was very old I would occasionally use him for a bookmark, which he was quite good natured about, and when we got a new puppy he let her chew on him, and only occasionally fetched the balls she was supposed to be fetching.

                                                             Nixie and Zooey

Our other two dogs are both girls; one is the puppy we got while Jack was still alive. Her name is Nixie, and she's starting to go a bit gray around the muzzle herself. Zooey is our newest dog, a diabolical mix between a Boston Terrier, and a Lhaso Apso. She is adorable, but I don't think these two breeds should be bred together with any frequency. Nixie steals from the table, in full view of us, sometimes while I am distracted she will ease a bit of food off my plate. Zooey loves to play, most often at six in the morning, and if you don't play her bites increase in force. Nixie has allergies, so she is itchy all the time, covered in scabs, and nothing we try really cures it. On a bad day she climbs all over me, eyes wide and foul breath scorching my face. No matter how much I scratch her it is never enough and she resorts to scratching herself on a chair, whining like a banshee. When Zooey and Nixie play, it resembles a full scale fight that Guillermo Del Toro would film, and, as Nixie feels the need to bark the entire time that they play, everyone's ears are set ringing. It isn't all noise and biting though, Zooey likes to snuggle, and she adores my father, everytime we watch something she can be found curled in a little ball on his stomach. Nixie loves my mom, she's her favorite person. When my mom recently got home from a two week stay in the hospital she was jumping and barking and slobbering and climbing, you know, all the things good dogs do.

Quail Before the Untamed Fury of the Grasshopper Mouse

This is probably one of the greatest things I've ever seen on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvvjgDIC3e4
It sends my family and me into paroxysms of mirth which we can't explain to anyone. It's loud though, so you shouldn't listen to it at high volume. Besides, it would scare your dog.

Weary Week

I haven't posted in a while. My mom had a heart attack, and I've been visiting her at the hospital a lot. She's improved by leaps and bounds. She started out clammy, tired, unable to get in enough oxygen, she had horribly low blood pressure, she couldn't concentrate, and she would scarcely eat. A week later her blood pressure is normal, she is breathing almost normally, she can watch television, stay awake talking, keep warm, and she's eating almost all her food. It's a relief. Her friends are great, sending cards and flowers, and offering to take care of my father and I along with my mother. Dad is leery of accepting food from anyone, many of my Mom's friends eat odd and slightly eldritch food, and he's not that eager to jump onto the health food train. "When your mother comes home. Do you want a Pepsi? I'm having a beer."

A Lady Tortoise

In my family there is a box turtle who has been here longer than I have. She's a Three-Toed Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina triunguis, for those of you interested in the Latin; and her name is Ginji. Now, ever since I was a little child Ginji has been nothing but a perfect lady. Before I was born she used to have free run of the house, eating the macaroni and cheese that fell from my big brother's high chair, running to greet my mother when she arrived home, and begging for blueberries. Begging is a special skill that she has only demonstrated to me about five times. It consists of Ginji craning her wizened little head up as far as it will go and fixing a family member with her glistening eyes. Slowly, and with much deliberation she then raises one arm up above her head and holds it there for several seconds before returning it to the ground. When she does this, I know that she's fed up waiting for me to get around to feeding her.
As I have said, for most of my life she has always been a mild mannered, sweet old lady that should rarely be subjected to undignified handling. However, several years ago there was an incident, and she hasn't been quite as sweet since. I had let my three pet rats out, a father and his two sons, named Dresden, Castiel, and Jasper. All three of them had adventure and idiocy ingrained in their genes, and after I had released them off they scurried onto furniture, cages, and object piles. I knew that they loved climbing up to look at the python, a young lad by the name of Geralt, but I wasn't worried because Geralt's lid had been piled with The Oxford English Dictionary, and so I went about my business. A few minutes after the rats had been released I heard a crunching sound, and, running to Ginji's cage I saw all three rats racing around in the leaves and dirt that filled her cage. Ginji had actually begun to hiss, and as I watched, she unfolded out of her shell and began to make for the nearest rat with considerable speed. I quickly scooped up the rats and put them back in their cage, and rushed to get Ginji some food to calm her nerves. Ten minutes later, when I came back with fruit, she was still circling her cage as fast as her stubby little legs could manage. I somewhat nervously placed the fruit in her bowl, and sure enough here she came, feet pedaling her furiously towards the movement. Instead of eating the food, as I hoped she would, she instead gripped the bowl in her jaws, and did what can only be described as the turtle equivalent of shaking it violently like a rag doll. After she dropped the bowl I pointed down at her food, hoping she would notice it; instead she came after my finger. I retreated, and it set her off again. Round and round the cage she went, biting into the leaves, her water dish, the dirt, anything that moved. It took her another full day before she calmed down. Even now years later, though all three of my rat boys have passed on, she still chases me if I mess with her cage.

Danger Zone!

So I just inherited my friend's roller skates. She's giving me half of what she owns for some reason, and I am happily accepting her possessions. She hasn't given me her sparkly Batman coffee mug though, and that makes me sad. How am I going to drink coffee without the Dark Knight?

So, her roller skates are inline, which means that all the little wheels are in a line. When I was little and had roller skates they were four wheeled like a stocky jeep. About a month ago I was invited to go to a skating rink, and when I asked for four wheeled skates, the man behind the counter gave me a pitying look. After I received the skates I attempted to skate with them. It didn't work. I fell down three times, and spent the entire time at the skating rink circling around the pool table on the carpet, hoping something would click in my brain. Occasionally I moved to allow a five year old to zip by on her inline skates. Despite the miserable start, skating looks genuinely fun, and I'm going to try to learn with my friend's skates. She has told me three times now that it will make her very sad if I perish while using her skates, so I have promised not to. I don't know if I can keep this promise however, part of the trouble I am having with the skates is that every time I lace them up a tiny voice says, 'today is the day you are going to die.' I will ignore this tiny little cretin in my head and skate anyway. Roller skates will make me strong and fit like a panther! They will also cure blindness!
I'm going to pray a lot.

Lawn Shrimp!

After a long rainy couple of days, I walked out on the porch and was surprised to discover lots of tiny little dead shrimp-like creatures scattered on the porch. I put one in a jar and looked at it really closely, but even under intense scrutiny it still looked like a shrimp. I searched for 'insects that look like shrimp' online and was rewarded with Lawn Shrimp, otherwise known as the Terrestrial Amphipod.
 Behold.

                                                                                     Credit for picture goes to whatsthatbug.com

They are crustaceans, which means that they ARE in fact related to shrimp. It's wonderful! A whole host of land-burrowing shrimp are living close to me! It's like some sort of strange fantasy beast, probably plagued by Lilliputians and in league with mice. I can search for them while wandering about with the dogs in the backyard. Naturalist time!