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( A sample hummingbird picture in low light from the old camera, at the maximum resolution at which it is still intelligible. )

( A sample hummingbird picture in low light from the new camera, with 15x optical zoom, sized down from 10 megapixels )

...yeah. I'm pretty freaking stoked. XD

My mom is a teacher at an online charter school (she works with middle schoolers but I believe it's all grades). Basically the parents are the ones who make sure the kid does the homework, but the teachers give lessons via chatrooms and phone calls, call the student and parent regularly, and grade the student's assignments and tests. Most of the kids are rural and too smart/bored for non-self-paced learning. It's a pretty cool gig, but it does mean that she usually doesn't meet her students in person, until the yearly school picnic in May. Each teacher has to bring a poster to identify themselves, and they decorate it with fun things about themselves. My mom has the artistic ability of a twig so while I was up in Portland I made hers for her, using drawings of pets, flowers, things she likes.

This is a crappy camera phone picture of the best part of the poster, because I had lost my camera before I made it, but still. Construction paper cutout Kirk and Spock <3



Aww! :)

I'd be very interested to get any comments or critiques on these poems; most are leftovers from high school, and one or two may have been posted here before. But in honor of the approaching summer and with the realization that when it gets really hot, I get both sweaty and creative, I decided to post these. The dashes indicate different poems, and some are untitled.

----

Here on the far side of summer
The land cracks
Brittle and desiccated.
( Your eyes (bright formerly) )

-----

"Sunburn"

Scratched my back
And shreds of skin fluttered to the floor
Feisty sun had seen fit to roast me
And now I seethed with itch
And tore and tore.
I emerge from the sunbaked chrysalis
Tender and blinking and raw
Transformed into something wiser
Something new.

----

"Bamboo"

I remember ducking through bamboo forests
In the drowning heat
Little burrs clinging to my jeans like hitchhikers.
( I peered through green jungle walls )

----

"The Jungle"

I recall a time
When I’d hop onto my bike
And ride into the shimmer above the pavement,
Into the no-man’s land
On the edge of our neighborhood.
( A summer sun overhead and four white letters beneath )

----

The heat always made her feel at once sickly and dignified. The warmth pressed in on her like a mask and her only recourse was to remain perfectly still, or lose the ability to breathe. The skin beneath her eyes had a waxy quality, and the flesh of her face seemed stretched too thin over the bones. Yet she did not complain, instead holding herself nobly still in her heavy wool suit.

----

"Summerwalk"

The dog and I trudged up the hills
Our footfalls slapping
The sun-soaked sidewalk

( The dog panted in the heat )

----

"Into the East"

In these groves of dead trees
I like to sit
To look out upon the parched yellow grass
( The dry creekbeds )

Again, any feedback or even mention that someone read these would be awesome :) I feel like I'm largely talking into a void these days, and while I know it's largely because people are busy it still makes me go 'aw, my lonely heart.' Haha.

It seems I am incapable of sleeping in to 7:15 - 7:45 on weekdays. I work at 9. I know I procrastinate in the morning, so I like to give myself plenty of time before I need to be there. So I figure, 7, 7:15 on days I want to work out, 7:45 on days that I don't.

For the past 3 weeks I've been waking up at bloody 6:15! Some days it's even been as early as 5:45. I don't think it's that I've actually gotten enough sleep, since I usually go to bed around 1 AM. I never had a problem sleeping in to my alarm time during school. I wonder what the deal is? Maybe since I'm not particularly stressed out right now about anything, so my body has decided I only need 5 hours of sleep? But when I do wake up, I'm tired -- and then have difficulty falling back asleep until the alarm (as in, can't). Grrr. My body needs to figure out what's going on so that it either sleeps until it's supposed to, or if it does wake up early, it actually feels awake instead of groggy and lethargic.

*shakes fist*

-- As wonderful as my trip home to Portland was, it did have one major downside: namely, the disappearance of my trusty point-and-shoot camera. ;_; I have taken literally thousands of photos with it, and many of them were quite good, but after tearing the house and cars apart several times my last few days there, with my mom continuing after I came back to CA, there is no other conclusion to be made but that it is lost. A moment of silence ;_;

-- I have given up on the old camera and bit the bullet to buy a new one. Check it out. It's like a low-end high-end camera, or point-and-shoot on just a bit of crack. Or so I hope. The zoom, burst mode, and the 10MP photo size are definitely exciting to me, and it also seems like it's still small/light enough to be fairly portable, important for a girl who loves her birding and her random walks about town :) It's also not ridiculously complicated, so that means it should be usable in time for my upcoming Disneyland trip with linzeestyle. :-D And most importantly, while at the high end of my price range it was still in my price range! ;)

-- I am attending my first veterinary conference tomorrow. Parking is exorbitant, but considering I only paid 1/4 the price that a real vet would pay for the full conference, I guess I can survive that. I fully expect the drive to be a bit harrowing, just because I'll be going it in the morning. I also hope that instead of falling asleep during the lectures/courses that the fact it's all new and totally voluntary material should help me keep awake. I don't really know anyone going tomorrow, so I'm expecting to just breeze around and maybe introduce myself to a few seatmates at most. We'll see how it goes! I'm excited for the stuff on avians, exotics and holistic medicine :)

-- I have taken up acrylic paints. Nothing hugely fancy yet, but I'm hoping very much so that I can actually sell them for a decent bit of money on Etsy. Photos forthcoming when THE NEW CAMERA arrives!

-- Research is going all right. We don't have any results yet and haven't even done a PCR reaction yet, due to equipment setbacks and my professor's adorable but verifiable paranoia when it comes to contamination. But, I'm really happy that there is another student, a second year, working with me, so I always have someone to talk to. And the actual work is easy, just tedious and at times terrifying when you think "OH GOD I'VE CONTAMINATED SOMETHING, NEW GLOVES, NEW GLOVES!!!" :-P

-- Yoga alone on the fourth floor balcony in the warm sunlight with a cool breeze blowing gently past you to ruffle the blossoms of the jacaranda trees below is... pretty fucking awesome.

-- Several new birds recently: Common Moorhen, Great-tailed Grackle, Hooded Oriole, Wrentit, Black-chinned Hummingbird :)

That's that for this random post. Poor LJ, you have been so neglected as of late ;_;

I've got weddings on the brain recently... while Ben and I are not engaged yet and probably won't be for another year or two, two good friends of mine are getting married this year and it has made me think some. (I don't want to get married while I'm in vet school; so much of our relationship has been long-distance that I want the actual marriage to be the end-point of our long-distance life, and in 3rd and 4th year I have to travel all over the country, so that's right out.) Preliminary thoughts:

1) Money. Don't want to spend a ton of it. AT ALL. Apparently the average Portland wedding costs over $15,000. What the fuck? Argh. The only weddings I have been to are church weddings and I'm pretty damn sure they didn't cost anywhere near that. However, between food and the fact that I'm no longer religious and thus would feel rather weird getting married in a church, it seems that a damn good deal of money would have to be spent.

2) I want it small. Homeslices and their families/significant others, college friends, immediate family. I doubt the majority of my California relatives would want to go, and even if all the ones I've met this year came that would still only be an extra 15 or 20 people. Under 100 people for sure, probably under 50. No 'his and her sides,' as Ben would only have his parents and a few of our college friends on his side, as his high school friends would be in the wedding party, whereas I would have more people. But yes, I want it pretty small. The idea of paying $2000 to feed 100 people scares the shit out of me.

3) I still want a pretty dress and pretty flowers. I also want to hand-make my invitations, being that I've got that whole Etsy thing and all.

4) Outdoor would be hella nice, though if it's in Portland I would hesitate because there's always a chance of rain. However, it would probably be easiest for the people I'm closest to if it was in Portland, and we certainly love Oregon far more than California.

5) Wedding etiquette strikes me as some of the stupidest shit ever and hearing that people can't do x or y SOLELY because of etiquette pisses me off. I mean, I can definitely see it being rude to put wedding gifts in your invitations to people, but I've also seen people say 'omg, you can't dare ask even a close friend about x detail with the wedding because of etiquette!' and I'm like, 'wtf, I'm their close friend, why the hell not because I would expect them to ask me if I was the bride!!!'

6) Wedding party... many many choices. Ideally I would have like 10 bridesmaids and no maid of honor because it's hard to choose one, not having a sister but having lots of close friends, but that might be a little excessive.

7) I have no idea when I'm supposed to plan this shit, as I want to start working here in LA pretty damn quick after graduation; Ben will have a stipend as a PhD student and probably university-paid housing, and presumably if we're married I can get in on that and thus most of my salary can go to paying off my loans instead of paying exorbitant rent. But, that would probably entail planning a wedding during fourth year of vet school and probably in another state where I can't go visit anything or meet people in person.

Ugh. Whose idea was to make this a ridiculous production anyway, lol? If only someone just had a really, really big backyard I could use...

I have very few married people following this, but those of you who have gotten married or helped plan weddings -- how much did it cost and how large was it?

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Had a great weekend with Ben. Friday was pretty chill, but Saturday we went out for dim sum with some of Ben's friends, which was exciting. No chicken feet were ordered but I did try some of everything on the table, and it was all pretty delicious. I still balk at some fruit things but when it comes to meat or vegetable dishes there's not much that phases me anymore, it seems. After dim sum Ben and I went to Griffith Park, a huge park in LA (well, Glendale) with an observatory and theater in addition to hiking trails. Unfortunately the bird sanctuary portion seemed to be closed, so we had to make do with a walk around an arid hill. Highlights included Nuttall's woodpecker, whiptail lizards, a possible wrentit (will have to go back to confirm) and seeing two guys furtively leave a brushy section five minutes apart, clearly having just done unspeakable things together, lol. One was a big burly black guy, the other was this wee little pale fellow who emerged sadly fondling a sprig of leaves. I don't know. It was highly suspicious, lol. Saturday night was rounded out with playing Risk with some of Ben's friends and his new roommate, then Ben and I playing Quoridor on our own and settling down to watch some X-Files. A nice mix of being out in the World (I get antsy when I'm inside all weekend) and also staying home and being comfortable, too.

Today was spent exploring the only coastal wetland remaining in Los Angeles county, which is still in Los Angeles proper (Culver City, at any rate). It's right next to LAX and it was actually extremely productive. 29 species seen, which for a summer's day with no migrants or wintering birds is pretty damn good for me anywhere, let alone in Los Angeles! I got to add Great-tailed Grackle and Common Moorhen to my life list, and Ben got to observe a Gina in her natural habitat :-P Tons of Ruddy Ducks, seeing the young of Pied-billed Grebes and American Coots, active Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets, and the Grackles' hilarious space-attack noises proved to make it a most fun trip, especially considering it's only 20 minutes from Ben's apartment and doesn't require a big production like packing a lunch or getting up early to go to it. It also wasn't swarming with people -- one of the first "natural" places we've been here that hasn't been that way. So overall, a success. The only downside was that I forgot my sunscreen (which I had in Ben's room! just forgot to put it on) and woe was both of us after being outside for 3 hours. Yesterday was cool and cloudy and we didn't burn at all, and I think I'd been expecting today to be the same, but then it wasn't. Already kicking myself but all I can do now is aloe, aloe, aloe! :-P

So yes, a most excellent weekend spent with the Ben. Research is going to be really kicking off this week; I'll be slicing and dicing tissue samples and hopefully setting up some PCR reactions, and learning how to avoid contamination, which will probably be the hardest thing for me. We'll see how it goes. Overall I'm excited. :)

Sun + late night + walking around with t3h Ben = sleepy Gina, so off I go. Night!

Wow, it's been 10 days since I updated! It might be a new record. ;)

I've been crazy busy, of course. Finals ended. My classmates and I were all petrified, feeling as we did that the exams didn't cover what we actually studied (brain structures, vision pathways, reproductive hormones) and instead focused on microbiology and clinical questions. Everyone thought they were in actual danger of failing an exam or two. Instead I, and many others, got the highest scores yet on our written exams -- 82.4 when my previous highest score was 79. I don't know what the hell happened, but I'm not going to question it too hard! It looks like I will probably get a B in Vet Basic Sciences again, I got a B in Molecular and Cell Biology, a pass in Clinical Skills, and an A in Vet Issues (though I wasn't exactly worried about that one).

One awesome thing -- for my mental health I took two hours to go to the Botanical Gardens on one of the study days during finals. I saw a Phainopepla!!! which absolutely made my day, as I had thought I would have to go out to the desert to find one and instead I found one there at my own little Botanical Gardens. I also saw the coyote several times throughout the morning -- so shifty and mischievous, I can see why native cultures had so much lore concerning Coyote -- and got to point out a Red-shouldered Hawk and her nest to two wide-eyed little girls. It was a great day! Then I had to go back to studying, of course. :-P

Ben and his parents picked me up Wednesday night after finals. We had sushi for dinner at Katana Sushi in Rowland Heights, which was just as delicious as last time. I had sake with Ben's dad, which was fun. Ben's parents were highly impressed and we had a lovely time. We dropped them off at their hotel and had a few more drinks at Ben's place, but then I wasn't able to get to sleep because the mockingbirds are much closer to Ben's apartment than mine and they were too loud to sleep over. >_< Really not what I needed after days of sleep deprivation and caffeine overdoses, but I survived.

The next day we went to Universal Studios! I had never been before, it was loads of fun. Highlights included the Simpsons, Jurassic Park, and Revenge of the Mummy rides, NO LINES due to it being a Thursday in May, my spiffy Jurassic Park t-shirt with a skeleton on, "Best Me" Oscars, the tour and our hilarious tour guide, Jaws photo ops, seeing an absolute BRAT of an unsupervised kid get kicked out of the Waterworld show, and hanging out my boyfriend and future in-laws. :) It was fun and had just the right amount of activities for a day -- you don't have to rush around like a maniac to get to see everything, unlike Disneyland where there's just so much stuff.

Friday was Ben's graduation. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke, there were 40,000 people in attendance, and we couldn't see a thing, ha, but it was fun. Arnold's speech was great! Basically just saying "I'm an incredible weirdo and I still became successful because I worked my butt off, and you can do it too." He was self-deprecating and made (for the most part) some great jokes, and seemed all-around a very amicable guy. I can see why he got elected. He does appear to have the right idea in some areas, identifying as an environmentalist and opposing Proposition 8. Anyway, it was a good graduation despite the MASSIVE crowds, and Ben looked very cute in his ginormous gown. We hung out with some of his friends later in the evening at a swanky hotel and got drinks, which made me feel that silly 'omg am I really grownup enough to do this sort of thing?' feeling, but it was fun! Mojitos are tasty.

Saturday -- Ben's moving day! Nothing too exciting there, haha. I packed after I got home and had to get up at 4 in the morning for my flight home.

And now I'm back in Portland! So far I've seen Star Trek with the parents, hit a garage sale or two, played with all the animals, been to Oaks Bottom (and saw a bald eagle, yay), and napped in a lounge chair in the shade for a lovely two hours. It's been good times. :) :) :)

After a childhood of laying down, rolling in, and sitting in grass, yesterday it seemed perfectly natural to lay down in the grass outside my class building for like 20 minutes to relax in the sunshine and work on my Tan o' Protection/sun tolerance/heat tolerance. I'm trying to get 20-30 minutes of sun a day to get me used to the temperature, and also to get a little color (without burning -- hence the 30 minutes max) so that if I do go out for a long period of time and miss a spot of sunscreen/the sunscreen wears off/I forgot the sunscreen entirely, I won't instantly burninate.

At any rate I had a pleasant lay in the grass, though it was a bit pokey. Still mostly soft because it was green. I went inside and saw I had red lines on my legs -- indents from the blades, I thought. I rubbed some lotion on my legs since I'm turning into a lizard, and they started BURNING at the lines! For about the next half hour! The red lines -- welts by now -- did NOT go away... and in fact, it's now about 16 hours later, I've put hydrocortisone on my legs, and taken a Benedryl, and they are still there :(

What the hell, random allergy??? I don't know that they would spray a *lot* of pesticides there, since everyone, including the Banfield on campus, uses that grass to walk their dogs and I've never heard of any of the dogs, even sick ones, having problems. I'm hoping that maybe there was some residue that just irritated the fuck out of my skin, or else that this is just a weird varietal of grass I've never been exposed to much before and won't have an issue with outside of California. Because I was perfectly happy having fluconazole as my only allergy! Now I have to add grass in contact form (oddly my respiratory stuff is doing perfectly fine). What the hell?

See? This was last night... they're less well-defined this morning, but still red, raised, and welty.



wtf whyyyy

Sherman is gone. He had lost 10 pounds since his last visit... they thought his heart was going. He was able to walk into the clinic on his own and he went for a walk this morning. His week was full of pork chops and scrambled eggs.

Mom said it was very peaceful.

Love you, Sherman-dog. <3

California earthquake #5 as of 15 minutes ago. 4.4 60 miles away, still enough to make me and my chair go back and forth for a few seconds. Oh California.

My facilitator second block had his first son seven months ago, and was always updating us on how the little one was doing... the baby died this week. He was born with a heart defect and had been on several medications and had several surgeries already. Luckily my professor and his wife sound like they have a really strong faith so I'm hoping that will comfort them now, to believe they will see him again and to know that their baby no longer has to struggle for breath or energy. So sad :(

I'm feeling better today about all my imagined neuroses, though still seesawing. Stupid emotions.

Sherman's euthanasia is tomorrow. I haven't cried about it since last Friday, but even though I've come to terms with it and know it's right, I know I'll be a bit of a mess in the morning.

I just booked my flight home. May 17 - May 30.

Thank goodness. <3

First icon I've made of myself in a long time... first one with short hair, even! I've decided it will be an excellent zen icon.

My disease is rapidly passing. Yesterday was the last day of feeling too cold/too hot, and today all I've had to deal with is a stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, and period cramps (oh joy). Not sure if it's going to develop into a cough or not, but either way the worst is over. I will absolutely swear up and down by the power of vitamins in shortening the duration of a cold. I've been taking Kirkland brand vitamin packs daily (multivitamin, vitamin E, ginseng, vitamin C, calcium) for months, and then as soon as I felt the sore throat come on I started popping echinacea with goldenseal and vitamin C every hour on the hour when I could manage it. Thanks to that I've never felt worse than 'blah' and never needed to crash, and my symptoms haven't been remotely severe, just enough to be noticeably sick. I got my sore throat at 10 PM Friday, it's only Tuesday and already I'm just about over it. In the past I used to have colds where I'd be pretty dead those first 3 days and then just marginal for another 2 or 3, so this is an excellent improvement. The only thing that has suffered has been working out, and my diet plan... hoping to get back on the wagon tomorrow.

Made chicken stirfry tonight; marinading meat is definitely the way to go, it always comes out so flavorful. I like to use a mixture of garlic, ginger, soy sauce, olive or garlic oil, salt and pepper, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes. Lime would have been nice but I had none on hand. I could've done better on the veggies; I've decided I'm not a big fan of the bok choy and napa cabbage that came in my stir fry mix. I'd rather stick to heartier veggies, like chunks of carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas, celery and bell peppers. Lesson learned for next time. I do love throwing in several cloves of garlic though, sliced in small chunks; I always get excited when I find them in my bowl, haha. Mmm, garlic.

Yes, I'm procrastinating... I'd better get back to my Pathways to Pregnancy and Parturition reading. I've come to the conclusion that ovaries are really kind of gross, because in order to ovulate an egg, the follicle on the ovary literally has to explode. And the non-splodey ones look like giant warts of varying sizes hanging out on the ovary. It reminds me of Alien somehow, haha.

All right, back to the grind! Especially since I'm in a much better mood than I have been since yesterday, so I'd better make use of it while it's here and before I start getting all mopey with stress again :-P

In addition to the delightfully awful day I had Thursday, Friday decided to toy with me by first putting my leg back to normal by midday and second by letting me have fun helping to run a garage sale with my fellow ZWEACC (Zoo, Wildlife, Exotics, Aquatics, and Conservation Club) cabinet members (I am the wildlife/conservation chair). I also ran into a friend at Trader Joe's and was correct in my hunch that our facilitator would bring us yummy treats that day. Also, I don't think I have mentioned how awesome our facilitator is this block, but she's kiiiiind of a superhero. She's the person -- THE person -- who discovered West Nile Virus in this hemisphere and who had to kick the ass of the CDC with the aid of the US military before they would believe her. She was in Time and everything and even had a photo where she looked a bit like Agent Scully in her pathologist's scrubs and cap :-D Anyway. Random tangent. I hope to be that badass when I grow up.

At any rate, Friday deceived me by letting me have a pretty good day and then giving me a massive sore throat as soon as I finished my dinner with Ben. That's weird enough, as usually my sore throats start in the morning and take a day or two to ramp up. The sore throat didn't go away by the next day and now I've got lovely things like headaches, sinus stuffiness (and itchiness, oddly), lethargy, coughing, and giant sneezing. Though the sore throat has pretty much left today, which is a relief. I've been popping vitamin C and echinacea with goldenseal and so far I haven't had much in the way of horrible aches or crushing lethargy, so that's good. It's just irritating and keeping me from working out and preventing me from studying for decent amounts of time.

Today was up and down. Ben woke up at 8 after 4 hours of sleep with a dreadful, unrelenting stomachache that lasted four hours, leaving him able to do nothing but writhe in the bed. I too got four hours of sleep, since being next to a writhing giant in a twin bed makes it impossible to keep sleeping. I'm worried he's got gallstones, as writhing, constant pain, sudden onset, duration of 4-5 hours, and pain localized to the upper abdomen (where his was) are all signs of gallstones, and he's overweight so that's a group more at risk. I'm going to totally mom him into getting checked out once his finals are done, seeing if the doctor also thinks gallstones are likely, and making him get an ultrasound if they think it's possible.

He finally recovered and we settled down to watch some TV and finally snuggle without him grimacing in pain. I ate my leftovers from the night before for lunch, and within 5 minutes of finishing the last French fry suddenly it was my stomach that felt awful... it went from okay to crushing pressure on both sides of my abdomen and on my back in five minutes. Ben suggested taking some meds for gas in case that's what it was, so I got up and realized I had broken out into a clammy sweat out of nowhere, and my arms were goosebumping. I took the medicine but I was shaking and breathing hard from the pressure/pain and felt myself getting teary. I called out to Ben and told him I didn't know if I was going to vomit or have diarrhea or what the hell was going on. I was actually frightened -- me, irritable bowel extraordinaire, frightened of my stomach pain. But the cold sweat was really creepy, and it had come out of fucking NOWHERE -- which is *not* what I'm used to. I went back into the bathroom, sat there for 20 minutes, and came out feeling pretty okay... it was gone just as suddenly as it had come on. It was REALLY weird, I've never had a stomachache come on so suddenly, feel like that one did, or put me instantly into a cold sweat.

Despite all that I don't think I have swine flu, though there have been a few cases down here :-P There haven't been any in the Pomona area at all though, pretty much just San Diego, so I would definitely doubt it. Though if the signs did worsen I would go into the doctor... it's just a hassle with not having one down here, so I wouldn't unless I was really miserable/unable to function properly. Right now I'm still functioning enough to whine properly, so I'm not too worried!

Blargh... getting headachey again. The only thing that seems to make me feel better is eating -- headache and sore throat go away, probably because my nerves are too busy doing things like sensing where my food is to bother about illness-induced inflammation. But I doubt that stuffing my face constantly is going to help me in the long run. Time to go shower, I think, or brew some tea, or both. Ciao!

Oh, and also: new record! I made it almost TEN MONTHS without getting sick!!! Usually my immune system only goes about 4-5 months between colds, so yay Gina's body for making it this far!

I have really been having dreadful luck today... :(

1. Still upset about Sherman, especially in the morning when it was still fresh in my mind. I kept fighting back tears as I got ready for my four-hour mobile van rotation at school, where I was supposed to be at 8 AM. I also could NOT find my scrub pants for anything, and tore apart my room last night looking for a pair that wasn't crushingly small, and went to bed dreading not being able to bend my legs and showing off my asscrack to my classmates if I'd have to bend over... and then this morning I remembered I had hung them up on the same hanger as a scrub top. Brilliant.

2. Almost didn't leave the house on time due to highly painful stomach attack... trapped in the bathroom for 20 minutes I didn't get to eat a real breakfast, just a glass of rice milk and a Laughing Cow cheese. My stomach was cramping and roiling terribly.

3. COULD. NOT. FIND. THE MOBILE VAN. It was a fifteen-minute drive from my house. I drove back and forth another FORTY-FIVE MINUTES unable to see the goddamned van from the street. I didn't have anyone's numbers so I called Eddie and he tried to give me directions, but they didn't make sense. He gave me a few phone numbers for people in my group, I called, they had left their phones in the car. I was almost an hour late when Velia went to her car, got her laptop out, found my number, called me, and directed me in. As the time was getting later and later, my stomach kept hurting again and I almost had to pull over for a bathroom, and I kept tearing up, and it was awful.

4. I got out of the car and though I tried to compose myself, John and Velia saw me fighting tears and said it was okay -- which instantly made me burst out crying, saying, "I just convinced my family to euthanize our dog, I didn't need this on top of it!" Velia gave me a hug and John looked sad and awkward the way guys do when a girl is crying. UGH. I kept fighting tears for the first hour I was on the van, too.

5. While my time on the van eventually evened itself out (and I had fun pulling ticks off a tom cat!), when I was walking back into my apartment building I guess I moved my leg funny, and now my leg has been fucked up all day. Under normal circumstances I can partially subluxate (pop out) my hips from the joint without pain or issue, though I only do it for laughs and never do it more than a few times in a row in fear of it sticking, lol. I haven't done it in at least a month or two. But it happening on its own and sticking is the only thing I can think of, because it feels like my leg is out of joint at the hip, and that it's twisting/shortening all the other muscles in my leg. It doesn't hurt, but it feels wrong and it's uncomfortable, and so I've been limping since noon trying to baby it so I don't twinge it in a worse way. I tried gingerly popping the leg in and out to see if that resolved things, but it didn't (and at first I couldn't do it at all, which was very weird). So bizarre. All I did was take one step into the elevator and then it was weird! I hope it goes away, I want to exercise in the morning and do laser tag or mini golf or birding with Ben this weekend :( Leg, get back where you belong!

6. I believe I just experienced my fourth earthquake in under a year, just as I sat down to the computer.

Ugh. While I did have a lot of fun hanging out with my group and chatting with people today, and held a grumpy cat recently and pulled ticks off him and placed a catheter handily in a Chihuahua, the majority of the day was pretty damn poopy. Blah, blah, and more blah.

Today I spent half an hour basically telling my mom to euthanize our dog. :( It's heartbreaking. Sherman's decline has been so gradual that it's so hard for them to put a finger on where they need to say "No, this is too much pain/too little quality of life." With Mindy, I felt it was so easy... she was 3/4 gone in the course of a few hours, it was obvious that euthanasia was a good option. With Sherman he's probably only at 1/8 his former self in terms of abilities and living without arthritis pain, but it's been in increments of 1/16 every few months to a year... making it that much harder to really realize how far he's declined. It's insidious.

But I think it's time....

It doesn't help that he can't really go in the car anymore, so between paying for a house call and for his cremation my parents will probably have to pay $400-$500. At the very least they have to wait until they can get that amount; that's not an easy thing. My mom for her emotional health wants to wait until the end of the school year when she would be able to really devote time to grieving, and my heart aches and my eyes prick imagining coming home in May to a house devoid of a giant Sherman resting on the floor... but from what she said today, and what I think I've probably felt for a while, is that the random really good days he does have still aren't worth it for the far more consistent bad days of barking to be helped up and having accidents in the house and not wanting to eat. But because he still knows them, still wags his tail for Mom and wants to be near to her, that makes it that much harder. The random really good days of energy and liveliness make it confusing, too. Another thing that helped with Mindy is that she was just dull by the end, and she didn't know them anymore. But Sherman still knows. I was gone for 6 months and came back over winter break and he still lumbered up and trotted to me to rub his giant head under my hand for a good scratch. If I saw him today he would be happy to see me. That makes it hard.

Augh. :(

Edit: I called my mom after writing her a really hard e-mail basically stating more firmly why I felt it was time... It was highly depressing, but she's going to call tomorrow and make an appointment, possibly for next Saturday. She's decided actually not to have a home euthanasia since when my grandpa died she can't go in the room where he died without feeling disturbed, and doesn't want to feel that way about Sherman's death. So they will probably do it at the clinic. And they want to have time to really spoil him the next couple of days -- scrambled eggs, yummy treats, walks, new toys.

*fights back tears again*

The e-mail I'd sent to the Bev!Mo store address went unanswered, so I sent it a second time a week later. With yet another absent answer I wrote it out by hand and mailed it to their corporate offices. Finally yesterday the regional manager called me during class. I called him back today, and lo, I am triumphant. Here's what went down:

1. The regional manager was very apologetic and very nice about the whole thing. He rationally explained that while they do have machines for scanning out-of-state IDs, Oregon is one of the 20 states whose IDs don't jive with the machine they have. Basically employees are up to their discretion for states like Oregon in terms of whether or not the person looks definitely over 21, and of course anyone in a liquor store should be very wary about guessing when people look on the young side. Also, Pomona locations in particular have to have stricter regulations (as dictated by the local sheriff/police) than, say, Bev!Mo Beverly Hills due to problems with fake IDs. So yes, the policy stands, but he gave me an actual reason for it, not just 'it's our policy.'

2. He asked how the situation could have been better handled. I told him if the man in question had a) told us that Oregon was one of the states that was incompatible with their machine and so they had no way to truly verify the ID, and b) told us that we looked young and they couldn't make a clear visual distinction if we were really over 21, that things would have gone a lot smoother. I mean, yeah, if the guy had told us what was said in number 1, and said "I apologize, but your appearance is such that it's difficult for me to say with certainty if you look over 21," I could totally get that. Most people do think I'm in my 20s, but I can still look younger, and Ben while ginormous still has a definite baby-face. So with that we would have been disappointed but it would have made sense.

3. Apparently they have a policy to not ring up purchases, even nonalcoholic ones, if there's a suspicion of the person being a minor, since as a liquor store they don't want minors at all in the store. Again, if the guy had flat-out said that he couldn't tell if we were 20 or over 21 and explained they want no minors whatsoever, that would've helped a lot.

4. The regional manager is going to send me an e-mail that I can print out and take to Bev!Mo that states I am welcome to purchase at Bev!Mo stores. The store manager, who the regional manager apparently reamed for not getting back to my e-mails, is going to send me a $25 gift card. The employee who totally failed at customer service will be spoken with. The regional manager apologized again for the delay in getting a response to my complaint.

So basically... go me :)

It's supposed to be 98 degrees today. NOOOOOOOOO! ;_;

On the plus side there are bagels and cinnamon rolls and coffee to purchase in the Vet Med building, so I will make a run for that before the sun gets too fierce. Mmm, breakfast. I agree with Chelsea, most delicious meal of the day!

It's boiling outside today -- approximately 95 degrees. Gah! And my air conditioner seems to need a kick in the ass to work at all.

I won a drawing through school and was all excited because I thought I remembered the prize was $100, but apparently it's just a copy of proceedings of a veterinary conference. Oh, the excitement. -_-

I started watching Death Note (subtitled, of course). ...I. GINA. WAS WATCHING AN ANIME AND LIKED IT. That in and of itself is pretty monumental, as getting me to even give it a chance is hard enough, and then when the things people persuade me to watch are all things like X, Chobits, and the Utena movie, well, you can see why it's difficult. But guess who got me to watch it? BEN. A friend at school nagged him into watching it and then Ben infected me. My mind was blown last night, you guys. My mind was blown.

We only watched 4 episodes but yeah, I pretty solidly like it. I knew of the basic plot through fandom_wank (thanks to them I have tangential knowledge of far too many fandoms) and had heard it was decent to good. Yes. I am liking an anime. Chelsea, I'm sorry that I could not do so through your efforts, valiant as they were. :-P After finals I'm going to have Ben give me the episodes on the computer, but until then I should avoid it so that marathons don't happen, ha.

Whew. I've been good at working out this week, though not so great on the diet aspect. However, I think working out is probably the thing that will have the biggest impact on me, so we shall see. But yesterday I tried on capris I bought last summer and I am too big :( I hope I can fit in some of my shorts still, it's going to be hot this week. :(

Time to shower, for I am sweaty and gross!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/17/schmidt.log.cabin/index.html#cnnSTCText?iref=werecommend McCain's campaign manager offers support for gay marriage and suggests other Republicans move to do the same.

I think that with time that will be a really good move. I know as a liberal that social conservatism bothers me far more than fiscal conservatism or wishing to have a smaller government. The latter two things I can usually see where people are coming from. You want privacy and autonomy in your own life, and accountability from the government. I'm for that too, we just have different ideas of what that means, and that's fine. I'm not going to be mortally offended that someone wants to pay less taxes in exchange for less government services.

Social conservatism taken to its extreme, where poor people are all lazy, gays are immoral, and fetuses are more important than women, is what terrifies/enrages me here on the left. Dialed back to wishing the government to not focus on welfare but on jobs, or calling for personal responsibility in *requesting* gays get married if they're up for it, now that, that I can understand. Unfortunately I don't see the Republican party calling for extensive sex education and free access to birth control, hormonal or otherwise, which is *really* what would reduce abortions, but maybe someday. Maybe someday the party as a whole will move from legislation allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill hormonal birth control, to encouraging programs and schools to educate in order to reduce unprotected sex. It'd cut back on abortions and cut back on costs for treating STDs, both of which I think the Republican party would love to see happen.

At any rate -- I'm heartened to see this Republican recommending the party support gay marriage. It won't be an overnight change, it will take time. Not every liberal supports gay marriage, even. But I think if people really step back and remember that this is about LAWS, *not* RELIGION, that eventually the majority will come to see that encouraging stability, commitment, and personal accountability in a greater population of people will only help the rest of the society in general. (Whether they call all of them marriages or all of them civil unions, can be determined later.) Additionally, if both sides -- not just Republicans -- try and move to a calmer outlook on things and present things more logically like this guy did, then I think the gulf between right and left will narrow considerably. Like I said, for me it's the social conservatism I violently disagree with and have trouble even comprehending -- but the conservatism directed towards fiscal measures and reduced government involvement, that I can easily understand even if I don't agree. I think a large number of liberals feel the same way and were the vastly different social outlooks brought a little closer, then discourse might be far more productive, and both sides might have a better understanding of the other.

Poor Charlotte. She was most perturbed when I put this milk cap ring on her head. But she looks so fetching in it!

Last night I dreamed that I had to explain cancer and other concepts in front of the class, only it was during our Vet Issues class which is all about morality and law. I did a pretty awesome job though, I have to say. I'm guessing that might be related to our lab activity yesterday, where our main pharmacologist had us divide in groups and answer pharmacology questions about half-life, glucuronidation, and volume of distribution in skit form. My group found the answer fairly quickly but were perfectly puzzled about the skit, so I pulled it singlehandedly out of my ass and made something up involving my group's different heights, a heroin-seeking bunny, and a pimp drug dealer. I'm just awesome that way.

Okay, enough yammering. Time to get to the gym. My class this morning was canceled and I have a busy morning planned -- half hour on the elliptical, shower, an hour or two in the lab looking at brains and epaxial muscles, and then studying some pharmacokinetics if I have time. Whee!