Getting Rid of the Clutter

I have a new roommate. Last weekend was spent clearing out the room that he is now occupying, which was my old childhood room turned into an office turned into the i don't know what to do with this so I'm putting in here room.

A lot was thrown away, but there was a lot of stuff that I just didn't know what to do with. I moved the office furniture into my room so the setup might actually be cool... but I wouldn't know that yet. I can't even see the floor at this point because everything I wanted to keep from the other room is now in my room.

I'm guessing a lot of it is go in the closet stuff, but my bedroom closet is already full. I don't even use my closet anymore because I've managed to pile things in there to the point of avalanche when the closet doors are opened.

So I braced myself and started cleaning my closet. Yikes.

I'm trying to just throw things out. OUT OUT OUT.

But I've got quite the large pile of stuffed animals. Mostly little bunnies from Easter baskets. They're too cute to be thrown out and a part of me still thinks they are alive. I don't think that they get up and have a party when I'm here or anything, I just can't bring myself to put them in a black trash bag and send them off to the stinky dump where no one will ever love them again and birds will peck out their eyes and they will die a horrible, smelly death. ITS SAD AND DISRESPECTFUL.

So not only am I googling all sorts of organizations that accept stuffed animal donations, I am also putting off any further cleaning for the next, say, half hour. Yes!

I think I'll make some dinner and do laundry and... trim the dogs nails. By putting off one giant task, I manage to do about 20 other things that need to be done. It totally makes up for it, right?

Venipuncture and the "death grip"

It's been at my job for a month now, and I still love it. Normally, a month is plenty of time for that first bit of optimism to fade away. But not with this job.

Today I placed my first IV catheter. I think it was my 4th or 5th attempt to do so. Usually when I can't get it the first time, I give up. I don't like the idea of poking and digging around a dog's leg in order to find a vein when I am so inexperienced. So for the rest of the day, I was giddy. Earlier that morning, after an unsuccessful try, I had an "ugggh I'll never be able to do this!!!" moment. So yay me, i'm on my way to more experience.



I also killed a dog today. But then he came back to life. I'll explain.
It was a tiny pomeranian that needed to have some blood drawn, so I was holding him still so that we could get the blood from him. Squirming is not really something you want a dog to do when you're poking his jugular vein. Anyway, we finished pulling the blood and I was just loosely holding him when I said, "that's my death grip!" in reference to the way I kept this squirrelly little dog so very still. All of a sudden, he goes limp. He stops breathing, his eyes roll back and he's out! The tiny and very old little dog freaking died. I pass him over to someone else to check for a heartbeat and in the meantime i'm getting the crash cart ready and then the little guys decides to come back.
Good Lord. I can't even imagine having to explain that to the owners, who only brought him in for a checkup and blood work.

No more references to my death grip.

One Year Together

Mark and I celebrated our self proclaimed anniversary on November 9th. Our actual anniversary is a bit hard to determine... since he was living in Utah, our relationship began online and over the phone, and after a few months of this we were officially "together", even though we still hadn't met in person... which still isn't true because I knew him from middle school and we saw each other in high school, but we hadn't really been friends or talked for 7 years... so it was a bit confusing. November 9th, 2006 was the day that I finally flew up there after months of late-night (and all-night) phone conversations and endless emails.

Mark flew into Long Beach airport Friday afternoon, all dressed up and looking mighty fine. I picked him up wearing my best little black dress and the tallest heels I could find. We drove into Orange county and had dinner at a gorgeous restaurant perched on the side of a hill overlooking the city of Orange. The view was absolutely amazing and our server was really nice.

We waited until we were at our table to exchange gifts. Mark had a funny grin on his face up until this point, and I was unsure as to why.... until I opened his gift. I carefully removed the wrapping paper, in the middle of the fancy restaurant, candles flickering... and this is what I saw:And for the rest of the evening, I did my best to conceal the naked people from our server and everyone that walked by.
My gift to Mark was a monogrammed flask. Now he's one of the cool kids.

We spent the weekend together and it was wonderful. And even though it was just a short visit, it was so nice to be with my love and make an event of our milestone together. And it's also nice that the goodbye at the airport wasn't sad -- he'll be back for thanksgiving.

I just love my hunny.

Miso Hungry

Eating healthy seems to be really expensive. I feel like I spent less when I ate Jack in the Box for lunch and could only afford ramen noodles and cans of soup for dinner.

Now that I'm working, I've been a health food junkie. Veggies and deliciousness, oh my! Tonight I gorged myself on homemade Miso soup with a little too much seaweed thrown in. I've been snacking on fruit to hold me over at work, and have been eating chicken/veggie lunches.

I keep finding myself at WalMart on my days off to restock. And I end up spending what I feel is an obscene amount of money each time. Then again, I'm cheap when it comes to grocery shopping. But still... it would be cheaper to just buy junk.

I'm just determined to eat well and feel good. In all of my past jobs, I was usually just sitting all day. Now, with all the running around and lifting and crouching, It has become pretty apparent that I need to be in better shape in order to get through the day.

So we'll see how long this kick lasts. :)

Add it to the list

I've discovered that I have another odd interest:
DRAG SHOWS ARE AWESOME! :P

I went to a Halloween themed drag show and had a really great time. It was so fun!

Ferret Scare

Right before heading out to go grocery shopping, I went into the ferret room to say hi to the kids and feed them some dinner. After serving up a nice cup of kibble, I proceeded to nudge each ferret to let them know that their food was awaiting them.

Mischief wasn't very responsive at all. She looked almost dead.
I noticed she had caught one of her nails on her blanket and wasn't able to get up... and she was way dehydrated. She was so limp and dazed... I knew she'd die soon if I didn't do something. So I tried to feed her some calorie supplement and water with a syringe, but she was too weak to take it. I wrapped her up in one of my shirts and headed to work. On a Sunday afternoon, it was the only place that I could take her.

After a large amount of subcutaneous fluids (which she quickly absorbed like a little sponge), and a little bit of time, she was back to herself. Had I not taken her to the hospital, she would have died.

It's just amazing how fragile life can be if you aren't careful.

Computer Crashes and Bulldog Love

I've been MIA for a few days now as my computer crashed on me and I haven't been able to get online. I feel like I've been in a cave. My computer is still non functional but I am hoping that it will work as soon as one of Mark's brilliant friends takes a look at it. I am fortunate that a friend of mine basically gave me her unstable laptop... "If you can get it to work, it's yours!" It's a fairly new Toshiba that threatens you with imminent doom every time you start it up. But that's okay, because I like living on the edge. Oh yeah.

I'm online and I've managed to catch up on all my unread Google Reader posts. I feel so good.

In other news, I LOVE MY JOB. LOVE IT. I can't believe that I worked for so long doing things that I didn't love. You spend too much time at work to not like it. Granted, my feet hurt and sometimes I want to take a nap... but that's the extent of it. I don't dread the next day and the days are just flying by.
I looooove these dogs. All the dogs are great, but I've found that have a total bias towards English bulldogs. Sometimes the dogs stay for 20 minutes, sometimes they stay for 2 weeks. Either way, I'm happy to see them go, even though I love giving them smoochies the entire time they're in the hospital.





I'm going to bed because I'm responsible and because I've gotten my Internet fix for the evening. Hooray for my dependence on technology! :P

Happy Birthday

You'd be 73 today. It's hard to imagine you being that old... but then again, you never acted your age anyway, ya old fart.

I wish you could go back to making me laugh instead of making me cry. I miss you.

New Job

I started my new job today as a vet tech. I love it.

It's tough. You have to go from "awww I love animals! they are so cute!" to "this dog has no chance and we need to hurry up and euthanize it."

My morning started off with a 12 year old white chow mix that had been hit by a car. Since I had only been there fifteen minutes and I didn't know where anything was, I was basically stuck standing there, watching this dog pant heavily and let out a few whimpers. I can't really describe the feeling that I got when I saw the x-ray; his spinal cord was broken at a 90 degree angle and there was absolutely no hope. It was a sort of a helpless feeling coupled with the urge to go back in time and change the course of events that morning. The owners authorized the euthanasia and opted not to be present and to not have the ashes returned to them. I understand that everyone is different, but I couldn't help but feel a sense of abandonment. But then again, they did bring the dog in in the first place, so it was unfair to assume that they didn't care.
I held his paw while they euthanized him. It was so fast. Although it makes me sad to think about it, it was incredibly relieving to see his body suffer so terribly and then just stop in a matter of seconds. I closed his eyes when no one was looking and gave him a little scratch behind the ears. And that was it. He was placed in a black bag and I took him back to the crematorium.

It was business as usual.

So it's pretty apparent that I am a total softy. I felt a tear when I was walking back from the crematorium, but there wasn't time to be sad because there was another emergency case arriving. All this before 9am.

I've already found a mentor among the techs and I can tell that we will be getting along very well. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the things that I need to learn, but I feel so comfortable in that environment. Finally, a job that fits. It's like searching for that perfect pair of pants and finally finding them. And then getting paid to wear them. Oh yes.

I'm exhausted, my feet hurt and I want to just go to bed now.
I can't wait for tomorrow.

Let it be known...

Mark just drunk dialed me for the first time ever. Awwwwwwww! It was actually really cute and sweet. hooray!
So being the wonderful girlfriend that I am, I directed him to call 1-800-734-0880, where he could leave a message that gets posted on drunkdial.org, the "official drunk dialing site." It was pretty hilarious. I recommend all of you to put this number in your contacts list and to also make sure that your friends have it as well.