mundane happenings

finally got to go to the dentist today (my other appt got cancelled due to the entire city being shut down due to the snow). i thought i was going to get my teeth cleaned, but this was some preliminary appointment where they just check me out and make me reschedule to have the actual cleaning. geez. i guess i'll have to wait on that free toothbrush too.

i also finally got a library card today (a couple of months ago i was going on and on about the library). the library closest to me, conveniently located next to the dentist, is impressive from the outside but didn't have quite the selection i was anticipating. it's ok though. also my card works for the super-duper library downtown so that's a nice option to have (it has a beverly cleary children's wing which i love...well i love the name at least). i got a stephen hawking book just for kicks but i don't know if i'll be able to wade through all of it if it gets into hard-core physics.

now that my body has recovered from last week's snowboarding, i may go again tomorrow, but i'm not sure yet.

ow, my everything

i finally went snowboarding yesterday for the first time, on beautiful Mt. Hood. it involved A LOT of falling (but that was expected). i got this package where all the gear and a lesson was included, at least. the lesson was really helpful and i could make it down the bunny hill and stop without falling by the end of the evening. i had a lot of fun, but i'm still deciding whether snowboarding is right for me, mostly because a)risk of serious bodily injury/death b)going fast, falling, hurts, happens often c)lots of gear, cost, traveling involved. i think i should give myself a chance to get more comfortable with it (also i bought three passes). i can definitely see it being something fun to do a couple times a year.

but what about skiing? maybe i should give that a chance and decide between the two. although when you're skiing you have to keep track of four pointy pieces of gear and also go very fast. i wonder if it's easier to learn. hmmm. so many choices. for now i will take some more ibuprofen and enjoy sitting in a soft chair.

ow, my eyes

this weekend at work i finally had the chance to do a cool surgery by myself, removing an intestinal foreign body from a big dog. it turned out to be a large chunk of a green rubber toy, origin unknown. the dog went home last night, hooray!

in other news , *gasp* it's actually sunny here today! crazy.

my favorite representative

yes, we are a little wacky in oregon. so david wu (D-OR) made an argument on the floor of the house arguing against the president's policy recently. the most quotable part of his plea is:
don't let faux-klingons send real americans to war.
i don't know if that's how you spell klingons or not and i'm too lazy to find out. but i remember being really bummed in november when i found out i couldn't vote for wu because i wasn't in his district. he's actually not the raving lunatic that that clip makes him out to be. although he did assume the rest of the house would get the star trek references, which is a little crazy.
thank you, jon stewart, for sometimes being my most current news source (how sad).

bob barker would be proud

ooh, i almost forgot. sunday i spayed a bunch of ferel cats. it was pretty fun. ferel cat coalition is a group that holds spay/neuter clinics to control the populations in wild colonies all over the area. these are cats that have been basically been living as wild cats and would not do well if they were adopted into a home, so they are re-released. there were 100 cats total for the day that got neutered or spayed. normally i really don't get to do the "emergency" spay (unless it's a c-section) so this was the first time i had done it in at least a year.

what about regis and kelly???

again with the freaky weather here. this time it's turning the people really crazy. it's about 1 pm right now and started snowing at about 5 or 6 am (the snow stopped an hour or two ago). so every single local tv channel has canceled all regular morning programming and has been reporting nonstop about the weather. reporters out in the field all bundled up and pointing at traffic, sticking rulers in the snow and exclaiming about the 2 or 3 inches, interviewing anyone that stops by to bring them starbucks or a donut. then they'll flash to the traffic cams and the chaos that's occurring on every major road. then they'll get someone on their cell phone who is stuck in the traffic and have them relay their story about how long they've been stuck in the commute. then they'll repeat the whole cycle. it was pretty entertaining at first, but come one, 6 hours of this?? i guess it's the most snow they've had in ten years or something.

so of course, my dentist called and canceled my appointment for today because they closed their office due to weather.

i better be able to get out later or i might go a little stir crazy. chris is trying to finally finish hooking up all his games, which equals a lot of wiring and me turning into instant psychobitch. it also reminds me how different some of our priorities are. maybe i'll take sage for a walk instead.

this morning i finally feel recovered from a crazy week at work. i worked five nights in a row instead of my usual four and it took me a little longer to get back into my routine, but the week itself was just way more exhausting than normal - a full hospital of sick sick dogs all night and a busier than usual ER caseload. my first night working i got my fingernail chomped on by a crazy dog and now it's all purple. i never got the intense throbbing pain i was expecting though, so that's nice.

apparently it's unseasonably warm everywhere else in the entire country but here. we actually got a little snow this week. and by a little, i mean that in the city at least there was about an inch and the actual time it snowed was 1-2 hours. but everyone went up into a panic, schools closed, people called into work, and the city probably released its four snow plows. people are totally ridiculous here. i guess it is pretty dangerous if the bridges freeze and it gets worse outside the city at the higher altitudes, but come on. the schools were closed just based on the forecast, before a single flake fell. of course i was driving home from work in morning rush hour during that only hour that it was snowing, so that was fun. then i let the animals outside to play in the snow.

at least look at the picture

so this made top headlines in portland this week...
Owner of Jumbo Cat Steps Forward
your classic touching PR story.

slowly getting back into the swing of things after returning from after-christmas vacation in austin. i don't think it's stopped raining since we got back (well, maybe it has, but the sun hasn't shown its sorry face). i've spent the weekend catching up on some things like...
...blowing all of our christmas money! we finally found a coffee table after much searching, but aren't going to pick it up until next weekend. we also bought a new vacuum, which leads me to the next point.
...cleaning the disgusting house! holy crap there was a lot of animal hair everywhere. good thing we got a new vacuum.
...finally getting some groceries! not much to say about that one, except that i looked for some vitamin D at trader joe's and they didn't have it. no one but those who were in austin will understand that one, but apparently everyone is vitamin D deficient, especially people like me who live where the sun never shines. read about it, people, miracle supplement.
...updating my flickr page with some new and not-so-new photos.
...well i guess that's it. also a lot of sitting around. since we were in central time for a week we are getting up really early and going to bed early also. but i'm sure that will all change after tonight because i go back to work (five overnights, ahhhh! i took an extra shift for someone).