An Actual Break?

7:20 am

                Hard to get started this morning, so I decided to just start in with pages. Then I’ll do everything else like take psyllium and do some stretches (my back has been hurting), feed buns, eat breakfast. I looked out this morning and the buns are all standing there in their cages looking expectantly towards the house. I suppose they are waiting for breakfast. Of course it makes me feel guilty. And it is true that it is probably cruel to a certain extent to keep them in these cages where there is not much for them to do. Oh well. I have not yet heard back from the teacherwho contacted me (probably the thing I will do after writing is check email). He asked about borrowing a bunny for his classroom. Well I did in the two that I will not be keeping, (well, duh, I guess I won’t be keeping them now…), but I think I will not keep Cassandra. She has had some good litters, but her own coat is too coarse. I like the darkness, and I like the little bright highlights, but it has too many coarse guard hairs. So I will see if he wants her to borrow.  And maybe I will bring her to the fair also. I hate to bring a bunny I will be keeping bc it is definitely a stress, being in the warm building all day then back out to the cold. And this year, after the full day on Saturday, I must go with K to his work xma party at Delany House. Oh total joy and rapture. Last year the food at this gathering was AWFUL. I expect it will be the same this year. And they do the yankee swap thing. And I will be exhausted. And it was expensive. Oh brother. And it will mean the rabbit must stay in the car until we get home. Which is even more stress for the rabbit. Anyway, that kind of stress can bring on the pasteurella that pretty much lurks in all of them. Of the two I did Sunday, one had signs of it, the other did not. It was the male that did, so just as well I decided not to keep him.

                I worked so hard over the whole TG “break.” Time for a bit more of a break today. I have to grade the Thurs urine tables, but I may decide not to start them until tomorrow. Of course I also have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do when I am there. The tables do not take very long, so maybe I will try to whip through them. Then I should also at least look at the independent results that the Monday group turned in so I can give them feedback before they present next week.

                I have been knitting up a storm in prep for this fair. I did a pair of wrist warmers and hat from the blue yarn. I managed an entire hat from one skein, but it is a small one, really child’s size. And I have started another hat from the really fat pale yarn that used to be a scarf until I frogged it. Thinking about it now, I am thinking that it will not be a very popular item, so maybe I’ll put it aside and make some other angora item. Maybe another pair of wrist warmers. Or a headband. Something that might actually sell.

                I also would like to do a bunch of bunny plucking today. There is a lot of need for it. I want to do it now before it gets really cold so they can grow a coat in before then.  I also have 2 rabbits in the fridge that I need to deal with – maybe a nice stew with tomato base. And maybe freeze one of them. And MAYBE I will see what my friend is up to and see if she wants to get tea at some point.

                Ok, better get started. Now it is bothering me about what I needed to do w car, out and about. Maybe once I stop writing I will remember.

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Busy Day Ahead

7:15 am

                Not sure how much time I have before the hordes awaken. Any why should that matter? Well, if the childers awake, it will be distracting.                     

                Well anyway. Today is going to be kind of sucky. I must find a way to grade all the Monday lab tables – I checked their data and calculations, now I have to evaluate the presentation. And besides that I must get things solidified for the lab this week: review the papers on liver that we are providing them – decide what parts they should read, look up stuff about cirrhosis and how alcohol leads to it (and in what case it would not), see if I can find images of that on line that I can provide them, solidify what they will be doing in the rotational part of lab, and what the case study will say. Oh and I would like to go to Salvation Army and goodwill if they are open to see if I can find some large slippers. I have a bathrobe I can bring, but any slippers of mine will be way too small for most of the students. The idea will be for someone to be the “patient” who is wearing bathrobe and slippers.  And as for the livers – well, the preserved ones did not arrive, and I do not know if or when they will, so I will also see if I can find any liver at the store, and I have dug a nice hole so I am set to butcher a rabbit or two, which is very time consuming. I am thinking that I may not keep Cassandra. I love the darkness of her coat, but it is very coarse with too many guard hairs. I would rather keep the new black ones born this year.

                I did manage to turn the compost, fill the last bed, and start a new compost with the leaves yesterday. And I almost finished another set of wrist warmers (knit at a friend’s while watching the football game, big thrill) and I started a hat with the blue yarn. I may try to come up with a hat kit. I’ll see how many skeins it takes. And I finished the PlayAway book and have started Dombey and Son by Dickens on LibriVox, but I do not like the reader, so I may try the other version that exists.

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Post TG Work

7 am

                So, bad news for today is that I must go in to work to get the big package of liver papers that I must absorb before lab on Monday. Crash course on liver structure and function. Not that I must be an expert, but I at least have to figure out what this case study is all about and how I am going to present it to them. And I did order some livers for us to dissect, and I guess they are supposed to be delivered soon, but I don’t think anyone will be on campus today, so I’m not sure what that will mean.

                So maybe I won’t get to do much of the other stuff I had hoped to: pluck and clean up some buns, work on the compost, get more things ready for the fair on Saturday. Living hand to mouth again as usual. By which I only am referring to what I said yesterday about dealing with what is most prominently in front of me. Little thought to long term. But if I think long term I get quite worked up with worry about how things will be in terms of our rapidly changing environment. Or I think about degrading health, things getting worse, not better. So then it feels much better to focus on the immediate that I can at least deal with. Like put in another laundry, that can be satisfying. Do each little task as it comes up.

                Yesterday, before we left for Mom’s, I had to empty the car. It was full of 3 bags of bunny feed, and many bags of leaves that I had picked up while Lucy and I did errands. We drove by a yard  with bags of leaves in front. I had picked some up from the same yard the week before, but hadn’t gotten them all, so here were the rest, and I decided to nab them. Filled the car quite nicely with barely room for the bags of feed I also needed to get. And when we got home I did not feel like emptying it. I had to finish some work I was doing and then get supper on the table. So it got put off until it really needed to be done in order for us to drive to Mom’s. Anyway, I fed the buns, then I one by one dragged the bags to the compost and the feed to the feed bin. And it was just this slow, tedious, step by step job. I was having such a hard time doing this little thing. I suppose it did not help that I had not eaten anything yet, had not had any tea or any such invigorating input. It was just a step by step tedious task and I had to keep myself at it. In retrospect it seems so silly. Other times and situations that would not be a big deal, it just felt it then. Oh well.

                I think Mom very much enjoyed our visit. We hit traffic on the pike on the way in and I started to get very worried that we would end up so late that we would miss the dinner. It was not us I was worried about, but how disappointed Mom would be. But the traffic cleared up and we got there in perfect time. The dinner was not especially inspired, but it was fine. And Mom had bought some pie tha she wanted to have for dessert in her apartment, so we went back up there. And then I got caught up in looking at photos. We then drove home, got back around 4-30 just before L’s friend arrived from COA. In the car drive to Mom’s (G drove) I finished a boucle headband, and started a pair of wrist-warmers, which I then finished over the course of the evening. Also made carrot soup for the gang, while G made tacos, and I listened to a bunch of the PlayAway I am currently listening to – some mystery novel. There is no bus today, so maybe I will go in with K at 10, then come back with him around 1. Guess I’d best get ready. I’d like to meditate, but it is hard with so many people around and no quiet space. It is quiet out here now, but I do not know when they will all get up, probably soon. I could go to the sun room, but it is pretty darn nippy, as in 27 degrees.

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TGiving!

7:30 am

                Good news is that I finished the book I was reading, so I can move on from that obsession. I can get back to Under the Volcano, and then to the Yeats poems we are reading for bookclub. I wonder if the others will read any of them?

                Of course today has its own tasks. At 10:30 we head to Mom’s for the big TG Dinner. She is very much looking forward to it and the wonderful part is that I do not have to cook. After all, we already did out family Fakesgiving in October at which I did plenty of cooking. So this is something else. And then tomorrow L and G are planning a big cook off of their own. They have acquired vast amounts of food, from the farm mostly, but also the venison from the road-kill deer a few weeks back, and 2 chickens from a friend’s flock that they all butchered a while ago. I’m not sure what all is planned, or who will be here.  Again – the good news is that I DON’T HAVE TO COOK!!!! Yay. Last night I cooked up some Aloo Gobi with potatoes and cauliflower, since we have a lot of both. It turned out fine which was a relief.

                Soon I will get dressed and feed buns which, these days, of course involves thawing water bottles. Well, not exactly thawing since I do have the second set. I imagine they will no longer be frozen after sitting in the pantryway for the entire day, but they might still have a bit of ice. Anyway, it does mean filling them all and bringing them out, as I’m sure all are frozen out there today. And then I want to spend a good part of whatever time I have knitting. I just started a headband of the boucle. I have 2 small angora squares ready to be shaped into stuffed bunnies. I would also like to make a few pairs of wrist-warmers, all for the fair which is next weekend. I did ok at the hartsbrook, but then when you take into account that it costs $125, well, that is pretty silly. We’ll see how I do next weekend.

                Heard or read somewhere recently some report, no idea what it was ultimately about, that brought up the idea that humans evolved to focus on immediate events, problems close at hand as they arose (escape this danger, find this food). So very true. I focus most of my attention on whatever immediate needs are before me. Really it is society that seems to deal with the longer term. We have institutions that educate, and try to plan and organize things. It is kind of sorry. Those old exercises after college of  - think where you want to be in 10 years, when you are 32… those never worked for me. Too far out. I could only think short term – what was going to work for right now. Same is true of the girls. Not that I or they are into immediate gratification, we are all fine at delaying, at not needing things to be pleasurable or wonderful right NOW, but hard to think too far ahead. Instead I get caught up in getting the laundry sorted, or tidying the kitchen bc it is so messy NOW. And dealing with things in that way is satisfying to me. We have set future things up, like putting money into retirement, but it has to be set and automatic so I don’t have to actually think about it. So maybe I will have to find a way to make some other futuristic things automatic. Make use of my in-my-face tendencies if there are any things that I want to accomplish longer term. Since after all, it does go by fast and how much longer do I have? Is that the nature of regrets? We deal short term, then the long term is suddenly there crashing into us and suddenly we are sorry?

                Hmmm. Time to feed the buns.

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Books and Bunnes (and a squirrel)

8 am

                Very very late and time to get a move on. As in: eat breakfast, take my psillium, feed buns, take care of some laundry work, then get started with (or continue with) my efforts at going over the urine lab data. I went in to work yesterday and did some of it there, but I need to finish up and decided to stay here today and do it from here. Oh and I need to bring the car into the shop to get some noises checked out. So I might take it in, then walk into town and work at Raos or somewhere. And I’d like to meditate, which I might do pretty much immediately before anything else.

                Trouble is that I’ve been obsessively reading a book As Nature Made Him that was on the take it or leave it table at work. It is about a man David Reimer who as an infant had his penis removed after a botched circumcision, and he was then raised as a girl. Very unsuccessfully as it turns out, so then he finally decided to transition to male. It is a story I had actually read about in child psych class at NA State many years ago. And of course it is utterly fascinating on many levels and so I have been reading it non-stop. Sometimes I feel like when I get an obsession like that I should just go with it until I finish the book. Which I will soon but it is time to get a move on.

                I am hoping I will also have time to do some bunny work today. A number of them need to be either plucked or at least cleaned up. Oh, here’s a funny story: I went out to feed them kind of late last night. It was dark, and I saw a bunny sized shape moving around on the walk way in front of the cages. Not sure it if was one of my bunnies or some wild critter, but soon discovered Bart’s empty cage, so that answered that. And the reason I left it open is another funny story… but to continue, I wasn’t worried about it, he was just hanging around nearby so I figured I would finish feeding everyone, then chase him down. I went along down the row of cages, and finally got to the last one. It is the big long low cage with the attached hut that I divided into two. There is one of the white babies in the long wire part, but no one in the hutch side, and both the wooden and wire doors to that part were open. I fed the white bunny and that is when I realized that Bart had jumped up into the other side of the cage! I guess he figured that was the best way to get his supper! Sure made it easier on me. As for why I forgot to close his cage – when I went out in the morning to feed, I found the traveling cage that I had used to transport Bathsheba to the fair on the ground on its side (so on top of the door) with a squirrel inside! Poor thing was jumping all over trying to get out, presumably he had gone in to get the bit of food lift in the food dish and the cage had fallen over onto the side with the door so he couldn’t get out! I called L out to see, then flipped it back over and he raced out and into the trees.

                So those have been my exciting adventures. Now time to meditate, eat, feed buns etc etc etc.

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