Tragedy on a Thursday Morning

My little hawkfish, as yet unnamed, commited suicide sometime last night. I fed the fish when I got home last night, and they seemed to be in good spirits (assuming fish have spirits). I didn't suspect a thing. This morning, I turned on the tank light, still unsuspecting, to wake the fish up a bit before I fed them. When I sprinkled the flakes of fish food at the top of the tank, I noticed that my hawkfish (definitely a fan of food) was nowhere to be seen. I crouched down and checked out the top of the tank to see if he was floating. No fish. I looked under all of the rocks and fake coral in the tank...still nothing. My heart sank as I realized what probably (actually) happened and started looking on the floor around the tank. I found my shriveled little fish next to the couch and deposited him as lovingly as I could into the garbage can. He will be missed.

Life is Good

It never ceases to amaze me how just a little coffee in the morning can brighten my spirits. I think it's the jangling nerves that send my brain into over-activity, and luckily I tend to think about things that are going well. I've been intending to do a blog for a while, but wanted to have some pictures to put on with it. They'll just have to wait.

I finally got my hawkfish on Friday. He is a falco hawkfish and really a cool little guy. I thought about naming him, but the only thing that came to mind is the luck dragon from The Neverending Story, Falcor. And I am NOT naming my fish after a giant dog with psoriasis, no matter how much I like that movie. I'm waiting until next weekend (incidentally, Casey's birthday weekend) and then getting a chocolate chip starfish (even the name is pleasant!), which will be the last addition to my tank. I've really enjoyed this as a hobby and hope to learn more about it.

My classes have been going splendidly. I'm loving both classes; how lucky for me to have two extremely interesting and challenging classes this semester! We started learning about epithelial cells last night and I've been thinking about them on and off this morning (perhaps a bit geeky). We do a rat dissection tomorrow night, which I have mixed feelings about: I'm excited, but have to wonder about the ethical implications of cutting into a rat as a rat owner.

We're heading to Fargo this weekend to visit some friends and my brother, and hopefully to take some time for some wonderful chocolate cake at Johnny Carino's (which they do not have in the Cities) and some early morning skateboarding at the skate park.

With a little caffeine and some positive happenings, life is sure good.

New Blog

Please go check out my new running/weight loss/workout blog, Swiftly April. I know at least two people who semi-regularly read my blog (Dad and P.B.) are runners, so I especially welcome your input and advice, as well as those who might read my blog that I'm unaware of. Even though a fitness blog may not the the most nail-biting of reads, I will try to keep it interesting.

And So It Begins

Today is the first day of my Anatomy and Physiology class, and while I have confidence in my cognitive abilities (after all, they enabled me to use the word "cognitive" in a normal sentence), I'm feeling a bit unnerved. You see, my book is ginormous. It also comes with a lab notebook, and two atlases (which I am not yet able to differentiate between). Add to that my Child Psych book and I am feeling downright skeered. Ok, not really, but I am a teensy nervous.

Not to mention, my preparation last night for my class today consisted of packing a lunch, a dinner, my eight gazillion things for anatomy and a change of clothes (because I do not want to go to class looking and feeling like I just got off of work, silly as that may sound).

Plus I have the beginnings of a cold.

But...I'm in school! I will be getting homework! I'll be that much closer to being a veterinarian once I finish these classes. All of these thoughts are enough to keep me going, even in spite of the $10 I pay to park below my building so that I might drive to class after work.

My Bleeding Heart

Two blogs in one day may seem a bit excessive, but when it rains, it pours. Plus I have good reason. About 8 pm, I embarked on what seemed like would be a pleasant walk with my mom. We made it not two blocks away when we had to witness the nastiest thing I've seen in a long time.

A young girl was helping a crow across the street using a stick--she didn't seem like she wanted to pick it up. She was having some trouble and cars started to pile up in front of her, so she abandoned the crow and went back to the other side of the street. One pickup pulled over and two SUVs went slowly by. I handed Jack's leash to my mom, as I'm not afraid of picking up a bird (that's what soap's for, right?) and headed over to at least rescue the crow to the other side of the road.

As I was nearing the crow, one of the SUVs backed right over it (not without a nasty splat noise) and then ran over it again. I suppose I could see "putting it out of its misery" if the bird was obviously suffering, but it wasn't. Plus both I and the people in the pickup were going through rescuing actions. I couldn't believe it.

You may think I'm just a bleeding heart, but you have to realize that I once carried my beloved (well, at least beliked) pet chickens to their death by beheading.

She's Ba-ack!

Now that my clothes are tumbling happily (I hope) in the dryer, my house is tidy, my dog walked, I have no company and no plans in general, I can finally address the fact that a blog is long overdue. In all fairness, I’ve been on vacation. I meant to do exciting things and document them with my camera, but unfortunately that only barely happened. Here’s what I got.

The first weekend, we headed up to Grand Rapids to visit Mikey, his family (who we didn’t even get to see) and Sheenah, plus a few of Chester’s friends.

Here is a picture some cotton candy that fermented in my car for a couple of weeks, which I discovered on this trip.



Chester and I were smoking outside of a movie rental joint. I wonder what the surgeon general has to say about stale candy cigarettes.





I also bought this 3D horse puzzle when we were walking around Tall Timber Days in Grand Rapids (I don’t think anyone tired of saying that name) for $0.60. It was more complicated than it looks.



My weekend away also involved seeing a beautiful aquamarine mine pit lake and helping Mikey do a mountain of dishes (Chester said they made him think of the huge mountain of dishes in “The Sword and the Stone”).

When we got back from Rapids, I decided to set up a saltwater tank. I have three damselfish, a live rock and some snails and hermit crabs right now to build up the good bacteria, then I’m getting a hawkfish.







My dad, Mikey and Sheenah came up to visit this past weekend. We did a lot of eating out and hanging out. It was an excellent vacation, and my prediction of it being over too soon came true.

My next installment: the Kurt Vonnegut book I just read and changes happening at work. Stay tuned!