Update

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

My Mom got very sick, so I went home to visit her.

Kitten is doing wonderfully.

She is growing a bit and her back legs have a LOT more movement. Little twitches here and there. I have caught her a couple times trying to stand up on them, she props them up underneath her and wobbles a bit.

Her tail has also changed. After a meal or so, I take her to a sink, the water stimulates her and she poops for me, which is very convenient and self-taught. But before, her tail would just hang limp as I did this. Now, however, her tail reacts to the water, twitching out of the way. Very cool.

We have also started water therapy for her, where she spends time in a warm bath, swimming and floating. Water?! you say, Cat?! Nooo. But Sketches seems to like it. She purrs and really enjoys playing with floating toys.

We’re thinking she’s either full or at least part Bengal. Both from the way she looks and the way she acts.

Anyway, I contacted WeCare, a humane society in Saint Helena, and they have spread the word about Sketches all over California and we’ve been getting lots of really helpful emails.

I just got an email today from a potential adopter.

There are only two clauses to the deal:

1. We get to visit her and watch her grow

2. If it doesn’t work out, she is to be returned to us.

Not too bad, yeah? I really want to see if she regains movement in her back legs. That would just be amazing.

ANYWAY, other updates of my life:

We have started dissecting cats in lab, which is pretty amazingly cool. It’s mind-boggling to see the muscles like that and all the connections with the ducts and veins.. Just awesome. The only lame part is that for the rest of the day after lab, my hands smell like formaldehyde. Grossy.

In lab, we have groups, in my group, there’s three other girls, all of whom are very cool, but I worked closely with Ayla. We had some pretty fun times with our dissectokitty. We laughed at our wonderful professionalism when Ayla opened the sutures and they went flying, she complained at me when I started talking to the kitty like it was alive, saying it made it too real, she laughed at me when my fail-sutures came undid, and accidentally flung fascia (membrane covering the muscles) at me while demonstrating a point. I know, gross, but we had fun. I look forward to next lab.

Other news, I have broken my dog’s brain.

I recently found out that he had been pooping in the downstairs room pretty much daily. Andrew’s mom had been keeping this fact from me, because she didn’t want me to feel bad. Odie actually pooped in Vance’s slipper too. HA.

Anyway, this is unacceptable, so I started crating him at night again.

That’s all it took to shatter his fragile world.

He now spends the day sulking on the bed downstairs and is refusing to eat or potty when he needs to.

-sigh-

Why must I have the emotionally fragile dog?

Oh well, it’s not like I’m a stranger to this behavior. Just a little speedbump.

I really need a animal psychic to tell me what the hell is wrong with Odie.

When Andrew and I travelled up north to visit my mom, we stayed a night with his brother, Justin and his fiancee, Dani.

Dani was wonderful! She showed me her garden, I smoked her out, we played with the kitten. When I awoke in the morning, she had the kitten out and was playing with her. She gave us her old kitty cage for the kitten, which has seriously saved my sanity. (We had just been using a cardboard box, which Sketches hated and had figured out how to escape from)

Dani is determined to help us find a home for Sketches. She has created a sweet Tumblr!

http://helpsketches.tumblr.com/

Also in the world of Lizzie, at RCIA, father Brian has informed the couples that if we are living together with our significant others, we MUST get married before being baptized. Rachael and I are feeling extremely pressured by this and frankly, it’s unnecessary and not right. Marriage is a personal thing and no one should pressure you into making any decisions before you’re ready.

I understand the idea that father doesn’t want us “living in sin” after we’re baptized, or being in a situation that might cause concern. But really, in this modern age, that’s just silly. Immediate marriage is NOT the answer for that. If a couple is living together, and we make vows with God to live by the faith at least until we’re baptized, that should be enough. It shouldn’t matter what other people think.

Rachael and I are determined to fix this, because it’s silly. It’s just silly. And annoying.

She recently talked to father Luke about it, and he was flabbergasted at the idea of someone pressuring us into marriage. I wish HE was teaching RCIA.

I just really hope that they’re not going to be like, hey, you’re not getting married, well fine, then you can’t be baptized and you’ve spent all this time in class for nothing, ha.

I don’t think they can do that, but it’s worrying me a bit.

Anywho! I need to email the guy back about Sketches, update the tumblr and go to my doctor’s appt.

Did I mention I was exhausted? I am.

Kitten

On the way home from the DMV, I pleaded with Andrew, “can we go to the pound?! PLEEEASE!! I want to pet kitties!!” He relented and we went to the pound. After petting numerous kittens and fluffy kitties, it was time to leave.

In the main lobby, a lady entered holding a tiny kitten. She looked very sad. I overheard her talking to the receptionist. The kitty’s back legs didn’t work. The receptionist looked at the kitten, made a “tsk tsk” sound and said “we can take her, but we’re going to euthanize her. The lady started crying. Apparently someone had thrown the kitty in her yard in a garbage bag.

The receptionist says, “well ma’am see, there is something very wrong with this kitty and she’s in pain, we’ll be putting her out of her misery.” I looked at the contently purring kitty. She wasn’t in pain.

I pointed that out and asked the receptionist if there was any way someone could foster her. No.

So then the lady turns to me, “I don’t want her to die, please, can you help her?!”

Bleeding heart, I say yes.

A vet visit later, two antibiotics in her tummy, kitty is purring contently on my lap.

We’re looking for rescues tomorrow.

Midnight Romp

So that was interesting. It’s 3 am, the doorbell rings. It’s an old lady who says she’s lost. She has a doggy with her. She says she’s locked out of her house and lost her dog. So we give her the phone. He doesn’t answer. So then we asked her where her house was. “Oh just over there” She says. She is calling to another dog, Tootsie.

So we walk outside with her, still wary of the situation. The big black dog is obviously freaked out, no leash, just hugging the side of his owner. I notice that she’s not so steady on her feet and the Dog might knock her over, so we grab a leash and put “Marvin” on a leash while we try to figure out where this lady is going.

Now she’s about 60 “64″ she corrects. We call the police, to get her a ride and the entire time, she’s freaking out about where her other dog is, where her stuff is and where she is. She’s obviously disoriented.

Poor Marvin is freaking out, shaking, panting and trying to stick close to her, not let this weird stranger take him away, and I’m trying to keep him from knocking her over.

We walk down the street, towards where her house “is” and halfway down, we realize how disoriented she is. So we turn around and head back to our driveway to wait for the cops, all the while, trying not to scare her with words like “cops” so we’re telling her her ride is coming, no worries.

She keeps calling out for Tootsie, and saying, I should go look for her, over there. I distract her by asking her about Marvin, how old he is, how many other dogs she has. Suddenly Marvin starts barking. I hear a man’s voice up the street “Marv?” I yell, “Are you Marvin’s owner?” No answer…..I wait…Marvin obviously recognizes someone and is barking. I yell again, “Hello! Are you looking for Marvin?!”

This man comes into view….”yeah, and the wife too” he says. Yes! “She’s here! Marvin’s here, everyone’s okay.” I yell. He approaches. “She was looking for Tootsie” I say. “Tootsie is home,” he says. Thank god. Okay. So I hand over Marvin, who is beside himself with happiness and they walk back to their house. “Don’t worry about the leash” I say. We call to cancel the cop car and walk back inside. Yeesh.

Someone approaches the door and the husband returns the leash. Well that was fun. Elapsed time, 85 minutes.

Goodnight.

Radius, Ulna, Tibia, Fibula

I spent the majority of my day playing with bones.

Yup.

Fitting the humerus to the ulna, fitting the femur to the Tibia… Exciting.

My whole class was left to wander around, pick up random bones and try to figure out what they are. (We have two large exams coming up.) So I found myself mainly with this one other girl. We we determined to be able to figure out how the humerus connects to the ulna and radius, even though the sample bones we had to use were from two different animals of different sizes. We succeeded enough, getting them to articulate somewhat.

Also, I found that the Pelvic bone looks a lot like an african voodoo mask, or for some reason, it reminds me of the bunny from Donnie Darko. I kinda wanted to be nerdy and dorky and make faces through it, but the audience was wrong.

SO! I feel slightly more confident in my identification of bones. And I found that I’m a nerd and really like playing with bones. Especially if they are articulated at the joints with a squishy fake cartilage.

I had always seen those big human skeleton thingies, you know, in science classes, but I never really got to play with them. I did today. I was thoroughly amused. Did you know our radius and ulna twists as we rotate our carpal joint? It’s really strange looking after studying the radius/ulna of carnivores.

Anyways, thanks to Sarah, I have no discovered I have been matched to a secret santa on Reddit. I got a simple one, a girl named Amy wants a surprise. Okay, Not too bad. I’ll have to go shopping soon. I haven’t heard from the person who got me, apparently Sarah has. I just hope I don’t get poop.

Then I came home and watched the latest Doctor Who: Closing time. Hilarious, of course!

I mean, c’mon, Stormy was awesome. <3

Anyways, I of course finished with goosebumps. River Song, man. Oy. I dunno what I’m going to do when Doctor Who is over.

Buddy, the big golden retriever, has apparently been feeling threatened by the puppy. He doesn’t eat his rawhide bones like he used to. Instead, he holds them in his mouth, parades them around, and then apparently, in private, stashes them.

(sorry the pic is sideways, couldn’t figure that out)

How did we find out that he stashes them and then secretly eats them all in private? Him throwing up a rather large pile of rawhide. Thanks Buddy. Maybe we should cut back on the bones….

Okay! I made it longer! Yay. Also, dinner eaty-time.

<3

Quicknote

Seeing if this works..