Hot Mess Minimalist

I was astonished to hear first that the house had been taken by the democrats, then the senate. I think after 6 years of Bush, and the 2004 elections in particular I had pratically given up hope. It kinda made me wish that I had joined the DNC in their campaign efforts (they were looking for people to help campaign in different areas.) Anyway, congrats DNC! I'm impressed.

I've herd a few stories from other people at work about troubles with pets who won't stop licking themselves. If you think training an animal to sit is difficult, try getting them to stop self-gratifying in front of you. Despite the fact that I have herd several stories, I honestly think that my cat is the weirdest. When we first got him he started. He would come up and sit on my lap, or my boyfriend's, and promptly start licking his penis. We tried to punish him for a little while, but it didn't work (of course). We also tried picking him up and putting him elsewhere. The funny thing is, if he is not sitting on one of our laps, or at least in very close proximity he won't do it. For instance if he is on the bed licking himself and I get up and leave the room he promptly stops, and follows me, then will sit on my lap once I sit down again, then continues! Once he reached 6 months old we thought that getting him neutered would help. We were planning on doin...

I think everyone has days or at least moments when they think about... well everything. When you think about the whole world and what's going on in it, or even just the whole country. Sometimes it inspires me to think about what it is I want to try to do in that world. How I would like to be able to influence it. Sometimes though it is just so overwhelming and makes me want to go back to bed. Today is one of those days, and I'm not sure of why. I've been trying to figure out where my next steps will be, and what I need to do to reach my goals. I keep thinking, maybe I want to be a teacher. I applied to be a substitute and never heard back, so I assume they disliked something about my resume. Then there's the possibility of going back to school, which I suppose is the easiest solution. My only problem with that is, what do I go to school for? Physics and Astronomy, teaching, administration, TESL, technical theatre, economics? I am interested in way too many ...

I have lots of stuff to say but I am so frustrated. I was going to try to clear my mind a bit, looking at friend's web pages and stuff, but Firefox and my computer had a fight. I lost all my bookmarks. Stupid. Something happened this week that made me wonder about the freedom of speech, in a forum such as a blog, and one's profession. I've read all sorts of articles on military websites about people getting in trouble, even being court marshaled for stuff they write on their blogs. Most of the time those things make sense to me, because they have important policies on operation security. Like if your are going to Iraq you can't give people information on when you are going to be doing what and where, because it potentially exposes the plans of your unit to the enemy, especially when those things are written in a public area like the Internet. But until this week I had only thought a bit about what could happen in a normal job. I very purposely choose not to w...

Today I was helping a doctor do a surgery, she was trying to find a bleeding vestal in a dog's abdomen after a spay. She looked up at me and said "your going to need to put on a pair of gloves." I was really excited. I put on the gloves that were at least a size too small. The doctor had me hold the exterior wall and some fat that was in the dog's belly out of the way so she could find the vestal . It was really neat. I could see her belly move when she took deep breaths. I told the doctor that out of everything I have seen and done since I have been working at the animal clinic, that this made me want to be a veterinarian the most.

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Last night I watched the Daily Show. Jon Stewart did a segment regarding Bill Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace. I was completely unaware of what had happened, considering that the news exposure I get now consists of what other people bring to my attention, the Today show in the morning, and the Daily Show when I stay awake for it. Watching the segment I became really frustrated. I hate the way the media treats people. To me it is completely absurd how any outburst of enthusiasm or frustration or anger creates a backlash of media attention. Howard Dean during the primaries, Tom Cruise on the Oprah show, and many others who have gotten similar criticism for showing... well something other than a pre -scripted completely predictable rhetoric. I really don't understand. Why when there is something dramatic on a scripted television series we love to watch, and when it happens in real life to a public figure we love to criticise. Aaron Sorkin had the introduction to his new sh...

I don't know who won, but I don't care. Thursday felt long, and I completely forgot to post. Friday I realized I didn't post, and after a while I didn't care. I've had a bit of a cold all week, so that's my excuse.

I never quite imagined I would work in a place where we would have these dinner meeting type things, although I imagine that most places have them now. Today I will be going to my second dinner with my job. So far it seems like we mostly do these when a representative from a company wants to meet with the staff to encourage product education. Most of the time the will come in with pizza, or our chosen lunch, but on occasion we get these big group dinners. I don't even remember what tonight's is about, but I will after dinner. I actually think it is a pretty good strategy to encourage the use of your product in other businesses . I learn a lot more from their representative than I do from packaging, or hearsay around the office. The only problem is I feel somewhat skeptical every time.

Today I attempted to make beef stew. It reminded me of something that happened in China. The first time I tried to make spaghetti I was in Shanghai. I was suppose to meet with my language partner, but I had begun the sauce as soon as my classes were done. He called, and I suggested as he had never had spaghetti that he come over while I cook, and join me for dinner. When it was dinner time my earlier mistakes were showing, I had hoped the access water would evaporate off, but that hadn't happened. I served it as it was... very liquidy , with mushy noodles (I'm always critical of every dish I make.) After a little bit of time eating and talking my language partner looked up and said "this is very good soup". I thanked him, then explained that I was trying to make sauce, not soup. Today I made a soupy stew. It still tasted decent though, and I have lots of leftovers.

About two weeks ago we adopted out all of our kittens who were ready for homes. Then last week we got a few more. Three more to be exact. Then today we get another kitten... back. This little guy was adopted out, and was returned. The poor little guy apparently had too much energy for his new parents. What??? How could anyone adopt a puppy or kitten and not expect 1) High energy 2) Accidents in the house 3) Minor behavioral problems, like trying to rip up the carpet, or begging. Babies are babies, even if they are animal babies. The have to learn, and parents need to be patient. It makes me sad that the he is back, but I'm kind of glad that he's not going to be staying with people who don't want to play with the little guy.

Okie , so a friend challenged me to a blog off. I've been trying to write more frequently and this gives me further excuse to do so. So for today I couldn't remember something that I wanted to do online, so I went to bravotv .com, and found this http://www.brilliantbutcancelled.com/ It was pretty interesting. A lot on Firefly of course. I had herd a lot about Firefly in college. Many people recommended it to me because I speak Mandarin (or at least I speak some Mandarin.) Anyway, I finally saw it, and although I was not hooked at first, after about 4 episodes I was really looking forward to the next. Serenity is the only movie I have ever seen in the movie theater twice. I was never interested in either Buffy or any of Joss Whedon's other work (other than Toy Story ,) but this particular series was really good. I think to some extent it tapped into when I was a child and watched Star Trek TNG , or Sliders . But it was also more adult than both of those sho...

Yesterday my day didn't start off so well. I couldn't seem to hold off a vain for the life of me on a single animal. Then I did not hold a dog properly or well enough, so my doctor shot a microchip into "never never land." A lot of my days have been going this way lately so I was thinking about how maybe I should quit and things of that nature. Then I was thinking, that I really do rather enjoy this job still, and it was only a few screw ups. One of the things you learn doing theatre is that if you dwell on your screw up you don't keep your mind on the moment, and things will continue to go wrong, so I decided not to let that happen. Fairly soon afterward we were called to a room. It was an annual so I drew up the vaccines, and got a fecal loop, and as my doctor and I are about to enter the room she stops and says... "I had a dog, that went by the same name and was this same breed a few years ago. The dog was so bad that the owner pinned it to the floor and s...

I got so frustrated yesterday. This woman brought her dog in, she's over 60 years old, and she takes her dog to us regularly for shots and anything he needs. She has an outstanding balance with us, and when her visit yesterday was added to it it was more than $800. She normally pays us $75 a month, but right now she can't even afford that. In addition we charge a monthly billing fee. My feeling about this situation is that unfortunately I don't think that she will ever get out of this debt. It really frightens me, and bothers me that she is stuck in this situation. I realize that at the clinic we provide a service that she has to pay for. I am also aware of why we have monthly billing fees, but it really bothers me that we have to. Some of the people at work had good suggestions for how she could avoid further debt with us in the future, but the situation made me think about how much I would like to be able to tell her how to get out of debt and stay out of debt. I reall...

One of the reasons I particularly like our clinic is because we take in animals. I never thought that a veterinary facility would accept strays. I thought that they would just refer them to an animal shelter, but we take them in. I would not like to call the clinc a "no kill shelter" but we certainly try our best. We have had some of our animals for years, but most of them have only been around for a few months. I adopted one of them. He is a 6 month old kitty named Harry. I wish I had a huge yard and lots of property, because then I could adopt more animals. I think with my tiny space though one is enough, especially the way Harry tears around the house. One I have grown especially attached to is Sasha. She is a year old Pit Bull. She's small though, only around 35 pounds. I've started taking her for walks in my time off because she has so much energy and she bounces around the cage. Everyone thought she was a puppy because of her energy level. I hope ...

The recent long period of silence was mostly due to the fact that I didn't have too much to say. I mean, I've had plenty to do. Lots of animals and the like, I even took a small vacation. But I really haven't had much to say. Two of my friends got married in the past few weeks. I am sad that I couldn't go, but I wish them well. I'll write once I find more to write about.

This is something that somewhat came up in my last post, and over the last week at work, but it just hit home for me. How should you treat an uncontrollable animal? Cats can be crazy, toy dogs can be angry, gun dogs hunt, and large breeds can kill with a single bite. I realize that not all animals are uncontrollable, and I know that the best of animals can simply have their days, but when do you as an owner draw the line? When do the authorities have the right to step in? In the past week two things have happened that makes me ask this. One was the case of dog killing cat (both were owned by the same person.) The other thing is my uncle's dog was killed by an unknown dog. We had several discussions on what you do when it is your animal that did something last week. If it were my dog that killed ANY cat I would have a lot of difficulty restraining myself. In fact I am sorry to say that I don't think I could. My mom was just telling me about how the dogs they had for a while woul...

One of the difficult things about working in an Animal Clinic is that the pets brought in are often like their children. But there is a huge difference between a child misbehaving and an animal misbehaving. Imagine being a kindergarten teacher, of course you have a few students every year that are the bullies, that may bite or kick another child. Of course you can talk to the parents about this behavior, and you can also give them an honest evaluation (and let their future teachers know about your experiences with the kid) in the form of grades. Sometimes the parents will just blow you off, thinking that their child either isn't actually like that, or that the behavior is completely acceptable. Now think of that kindergarten kid as a 100 pound dog, or worse a 30 pound crazy paranoid one. Now imagine not being able to give the parents any sort of evaluation. Even if the thing bites you this is something that we are not suppose to tell the owner. I really appreciate the owners who ...

Okay, so this won't be entirely about a fat cat, but fat animals in general. If you think your kitty with the jiggle draggy belly is overweight, you may be right, but you are not necessarily the owner who your vet is the most concerned about. Lately I have seen several cats that don't have a belly, their entire body is not just thick, but like a large deflated football, or like a bag of flour. These cats are fat. Today we got a dog, I forget the breed, but it's one of those short long dogs with the stubby legs that already looks malformed without any extra help. This dog was fed table scraps and junk like that. The man who brought it in described the dog as belonging in a circus sideshow. He was completly right. This dog didn't just look overweight or fat, it looked like a bloated balloon. he was a cartoonists dream, the real life depiction of these crazy looking dogs.

I noticed the other day that the clinic where I work is usually a very plesant place. Most people come in smiling because they are bringing their animals in for an annual check up (although those faces occasionally change when I read off the cost of their visit.) Mostly the clinic feels like a happy place, perky animals, smiling staff, and clients who love to just sit and talk with our vets. Yesterday we had two of our stray kittens adopted also, so that created even more smiles. But of course like any hospital it is impossible to have all smiles. I was thinking about how for the vast majority of the time we have animals coming in the client would be happy, but it is those last visits that are the hardest, and they really are heartbreaking. Sometimes you get to know the animal and the client really well because they are coming in at least once a week, and other times an owner will walk in who we have seen a few years before to put an animal down. I worked with a doctor to put an ...