Whispering Wind

Tblog seems to be limiting my posts' size. I like writing, not putting two sentences. It might be an internet thing. In the meantime, have patience.

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Well the illustrious President Bowman has decided we still have school. Too much bloody snow to tromp through. Have 8am test. Tired beacuse I watched Conan and the most annoying guest ever- Flavor Flave.

Generally not a happy day. Ugh.

 

 

 

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I went through my old photos* today and threw out all the ones that were fuzzy, of stuff I didn't care about, people I don't talk to, and things I didn't want to remember (like an ex boyfriend). It was a good feeling to have lightened the box quite a bit and perhaps symbolically moved on from things in the past that may have been inconsequential. I did keep pictures of my family, any with me and my 2 closest girlfriends, and the very few I have of me and my latest beau.

Upon further pondering, it made me realize that the people and things I thought were desperately important in high school were in fact very transient. The one thing that has remained constant, however, is the presence of my mother, father, and sister.

I've taken few pictures since entering college, likely because most college pictures are crazy drunken ones and I'm not that into just "hanging out". If I'm going to go out with friends, I'd like to be doing something. Ex: bowling, shopping, taking a walk, swimming, playing with pets, baking together, etc. Also, I'm currently not really interested in socialization. Chatting before the start of class is fine by me, but after school is over, I really don't have much to say to people.

In any case, a quiet night at home with a cup of cocoa and a wonderful guy rubbing my feet is my favorite. And those are the kind of memories that stick with you forever. No picture needed.

*I also found out today that gelatin is used to make photos! Another reason to go digital, I guess.  

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I'm moving in approximately 3 months, and after we are all settled in our new surroundings I am planning on adopting a cat. I'd like a black one, simply because I love how they look. I also want a good cat. Yet it is difficult to tell what kind of cat you're getting at first, and I am not very good at reading cat personality. As my evidence will show, a black cat can vary quite a bit.

I offer 3 examples:

 

This is Coco. She lives with my parents and is the cat I've had since I was about 12. She's a luxuriously soft long haired cat. We adopted her from the shelter at the age of 3 after she stuck her paw out of the cage she was in and pawed gently at my mother's leg, as though to say "Take me". She is a very talkative cat, especially first thing in the morning and late at night. She loves to perch on your lap and if you are reading on the floor, she will sit next to you attentively or sprawl across the newspaper. She has only hissed once, and that was when someone accidentally stepped on her tail. When a family member is sick or upset, she does not leave their side. She will groom your arm if you let her. If there is an argument in the house, she rushes in, meowing and everyone forgets what they were arguing about in order to pet and calm her. She came declawed, and loves to kneed your shoulders or leg with what's left of her front paws. She is the best thing that ever happened to our relatively high-strung family.

 

 

This is Smoke. He is my younger sister's cat and lives with her in her apartment. She adopted him from the shelter when he was a new kitten. She said she picked him because he looked and acted the craziest out of the bunch, and crazy was what she was into at that point in her life. He grew from a curious kitten into a monster. He is short haired, and you're lucky if you can get 2 pets in before he decides he's had enough and chomps or claws your fingers. Hard. He climbs on everything including the table and counters, and scratches the furniture. No amount of spray bottles, green apple repellents or time outs will curb his behavior. Even neutering seemed to have no effect. No, he's not hugging that toy. It's his prey. He carries it around by its neck and tries to rip the legs off. If he's hungry and you're asleep, he'll pounce on your face, claws unsheathed, and bite your nose. He's seems to have some sort of kitty autism because he does not seem to understand emotions of others. He rarely meows. The world is his, and if you're in his space, blood will be drawn and you will be the one to move, not him.

 

 

 

This is Catdog. Catdog is a farm cat of my boyfriend's family and, like most country cats, is the product of who knows what mother and who knows what father. He is approximately 5 years old and gets his name from the fact that he thinks he is a dog. When Catdog was little, the farm had nearly 60 cats all lounging around and generally doing nothing. They were not altered, so they bred like rabbits. They just ate and ate and ate. Country life has different rules when it comes to animals, and the family decided that the cats were reaching critical mass and had to go. All 3 of the boys and their father kept a tally chalkboard in the kitchen of how many they had taken with their shotguns. Soon, only Catdog was left. And he has remained. Why? Because Catdog decided that if the humans found him useful, they would spare him. No one avoids work on a farm. Catdog mouses, keeping the barn he lives in free of rodents and often brings his catches to the doorstep as proof of his work. Also on the farm are 3 springer spaniels, who flush geese and ducks and retrieve for the boys when they go hunting. Catdog saw this as a wonderful duty. The family were amazed when he began to accompany them on hunts and drag whole ducks back to the feet of the hunters! Thus the cat who thought he was a dog became known as Catdog. He is very friendly and will eat or drink anything left on a picnic table. There are sprigs of wild catnip that grow around the property, and sometimes on a lazy summer afternoon, he will become intoxicated with catnip and sleep in the sun for hours. He does have claws and if you play with a long stalk of grass, be careful because he is indeed a hunter. However he much rather enjoys purring and rubbing against your leg and the door to the house in hope of a stolen piece of morning bacon.

 

Tell me your cat stories! Have you experienced a horrible cat? A caring one? One that thought it was something other than a cat?

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If you look at my profile picture, you'll see I'm working on something. Here's what I'm up to:

I buy old metal filing cabinets from garage sales and paint and decorate them. It's really easy and you can do it for under 20 bucks.
Haggle a bit with the yard salers (you can usually talk them down to five or ten bucks if it's an old ugly filing cabinet) buy a couple cans of whatever color spray paint you desire and a paint pen (metallic looks best). Spray, let dry, touch up and pick your favorite book and write passages with the paint pen all over the cabinet.
Voila!
You can also leave it a solid color or cut your own stencils out of an old shoebox and spray on designs.

 

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I've got a bad case of it. I just keep putting off writing on my thesis. I'm worried that my professor doesn't seem too interested in it. Then again, he is pretty level headed about everything. I suppose I have teacher's pet in my genes. :)

 

 

 

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Wow, is it weird that I love Webkinz, even though I'm 22? If I had a child right now, I would hope they'd be into Webkinz, not that sickly sweet, ridiculous-acting Hannah Montana. But that's just my opinion. And I know some say kids zonk out at the computer with Webkinz, but they do get an actual toy which they can animate themselves and create a whole world for.

Maybe it's the OCD, (I have a thing about textures and things that are soft) but I've always had a weak spot for plush animals.

 

 

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Played water polo today. It was more fun than I had thought it would be.

Got 5 pages of my 40+ page thesis written. Well, you have to start somewhere.

Baked cookies for boyfriend for tomorrow. Wrapped up a small gift. I got him another dragon. He loves dragons and I get him a different dragon something every holiday. This one will look great on the wall over his computer desk in the office. 

 

 

 

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These are some pictures of the leg of one of my fox squirrels. He was busy eating out of the bird feeder so I had an opportunity to zoom in and get some detailed shots. It freaked me out at first because the way he was gripping the feeder it looked like exposed muscle, very stringy and spaghetti-like. Thus, we have given him the name Spaghetti.

Incidentally, he also has a similar patch of hairlessness on his back that has been there for at least 4 months. The leg patch is a relatively recent occurrence. He's not one of my regulars, but I do see him every couple of months at the feeders. The leg does not seem to bother him at all and he walks, climbs, jumps, and runs without any apparent discomfort or limp.

It looks like mange to me, although I can't rule out an old hawk wound as there is a Cooper's Hawk hunts around my bird feeders every now and then. The main thing I'm worried about is exposure since the temperature has been so low recently. Other than their own winter stores and any foraging, when they come to my feeders they get a mix of corn, black oil sunflower seed, a few peanuts (too many can be bad for digestion) and shelled walnuts. If it is mange, and it persists or spreads, I'll probably get some medicine from the vet and put it in their food.

 

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This morning I finally found out: I've been accepted to the George Washington University Graduate Program in Museum Studies!

Washington D.C. here I come!!

When I called my mother it sounded like she was jumping up and down. It made me laugh to hear her so happy. I called my grandma in Seattle and she sounded almost as if she was going to cry. I'm just so happy I can make my family so proud. 

 

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Saw a great Irish band on Friday called Gaelic storm. Had some rude folk in the audience who tried to tell other to sit down because "they couldn't see". I'm not sure if they thought it was going to be a tame, Riverdanc-y kind of sit down thing, but it definitely was more stand up and clap and dance about. Band was great though. Kinda wished the seats weren't so close to one another. I kept bumping into some random girl who stood the whole time with her arms folded, not clapping. Why do people stay through things that they obviously don't like? No one had a gun to her head or anything.

Went to see my parents on Saturday. Met my little sister's "soulmate" of 3 weeks or so. She tends to be very impulsive, what can I say. Apparently they're engaged, but waiting on setting an exact date. At first I was very "whoa!" about it, but after meeting the guy I am a bit less worried. Even if he is 9 years older than her. I have a feeling I came off as a bit pessimistic, suspicious and judgmental, but that's what older sisters are for: scaring the hell out of some 28 year old guy who's with my little sister. Insert mwahahaha here. In any case, it was a good dinner and I was glad I brought my guy along. It was nice having all of us in the house. Soon, I'll be halfway across the country, and it'll be a lot harder to get those moments.

Today was lazy. Very much so. Watched 3 movies:

Balls of Fury: lame but not painful, I think I laughed twice
Sicko: made me want to move to France, Michael Moore is still annoying though
Shrek 3: cute, predictable, hope it's the last one because the premise is getting old

Freakin cold out. Like -15 with nasty winds. 
Didn't do any of the house chores I said I would this morning, but I only have one class tomorrow so I suppose I'll do them then. Boyfriend's spent the day on World of Warcraft. What exactly is the appeal of that game anyway?

 

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Of course I wore the shoes that have no traction today. I was late, they were slip on, and I didn't think about it until I was out the door.
So it isn't a great stretch when I say I wiped out right in front of where the campus shuttle drops everyone off for morning classes. I was inspired by my lack of coordination to look into some Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin films. I wondered how they managed to make a living conducting themselves in a ironically familiar manner to my icy indisgression this morning.

In any case, I limped home and consoled myself with a giant mug of hot chocolate and the salacious insert to the campus newspaper concerning sex and Valentine's Day.

It's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that the mini marshmallows in the hot chocolate mix have gelatin in them. I try to reassure myself that they are indeed very very mini and I am probably consuming fractions of a milligram in ground, boiled animal bone, but the guilt remains. And somehow picking out all the marshmallows seems too daunting.

On the good side, I found a butter substitute that is gelatin free and vegan, and yummy called Earth Balance. I had been previously blissfully unaware that my margarine contained the stuff, as well as a whole host of hydrogenated and GMO-ed things. Thus my "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" became my "I Can't Believe I've Been Eating This Crap". That seems to happen a lot to me as I become aware of what is in the processed food I eat.

 

 

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Well I voted yesterday. Used the touchscreen booth while everyone became impatient with me and how long I was taking and chose to fill out paper ballots. I voted outside of my usual party because the presidential candidate I chose struck me as the only one left that felt genuine. I don't really subscribe to a particular party, but I tend to agree with most of the positions of a certain one. I still retain the right to vote for the person I feel I trust most, regardless of party. I guess you'd say I'm an independent.

It was pouring cold rain and the wind blew it into my face as I walked to the non-denominational Christian church that was my polling place. I was determined to vote, even in the face of unpleasant weather. And so I did. I did realize, however, that while I definitely knew who I wanted to vote for in the presidential arena, I knew pretty much nothing about the local candidates, which struck me as disconcerting. Thus, I'm resolved to better know who I'm voting for in the November election.

Come to think of it, I'll be living in the Washington D.C. suburbs for the next election. Won't that be exciting, to vote in a historic election in the capital!

 

 

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