Coping with Coping

Starting May 1, I will be permenant at my job. This is good. It's looking like I'm going to stay there a little more than a year and then move on to a little more school or something new. I'm thinking something along the lines of scientific writing and/or editing. The idea of working for a museum is kind of cool too. As I was trying to wake up while failing to turn off my alarm, I had this insight that I should work for Science in the Public Interest, presumably because NPR was doing a story on them. We'd have to move to DC, but that might not be all bad.

My new compulsion is pulling hair out of the cat. My friend Jane started grabbing tufts of his hair and pulling. He loves is, and he loses an amazing amount of fur. His face is skinner and more kittenlike now. This is Muggle,of course. Quid will have none of it, which is a shame because he needs some serious grooming help.

I'd like to give a shout out to frog for the cat toy fleece knots she gave my kitties. They are (still/again) a big hit around here. Another shout out goes to our lawn mower for showing up on Saturday and making it seem like summer. Although we pay him, so that's qualified praise.

And I have nothing to say about the snow from this morning.

Last night I was unable to post all I wanted because I needed to go home as it was after midnight.

Things I would like to add:

1. The cat was covered with cheese because I dropped some grated parmesan (okay, really it was Parmigiano-Reggiano, the fancy stuff) on the living room floor. Muggle apparently rolled in it.

2. In other cat news, Quid thinks he's a raccoon. He upended the waste basket to get some of the apple cinnamon graham cracker stick that the niece had left at our house. He proceeded to eat it. There was an almost whole one under the car (and some ants, but that's another story) which we also gave to him. I don't think he understands the meaning of carnivore.

3. I am offically without a softball team. There weren't enough Cubs around during the month of May for us to play. Not so good.

4. I am considering a career change. I do not like lab. It's not pull-my-hair-out-and-scream awful, but it's hard-to-motivate-myself-to-get-out-of-bed-and-go-in bad. If anyone has any words of encouragement, I'd appreciate them.

The purple martin hotel is open for business. I bought a purple martin house last year with birthday money from my step-grandparents. There was already a purple martin house up when we moved in, but after a strong wind the roof blew off. Upon closer inspection, it was determined that the house was beyond repair. So, up the new one went in it's place. We never got any martins, probably because it was too close to the trees.

My father-in-law brought his post hole digger and helped me put the new pole up on the other side of the garden, 25 feet away from trees and buildings, per the instructions. This nifty new pole also had the benefit of being telescoping, so it should be easier to get into to clean out. Assuming we get birds. FIL rigged a base for it, so I can take the whole thing in during the winter and not mess around with sparrow guards and oiling the screws. He even thought to get a cap for the base to keep water out during the winter. He's a smart man.

While the cement was curing, I got the old house down to clean it out and attach it to the top pole. There was only one compartment that had any nesting material. A pretty good clue that it was in a bad place. I was afraid we'd gotten starlings in there, but nope. I pulled out the straw, and glanced in, hoping not to see eggs. No, no eggs. But there were babies. Definately not birds, I think they may have been squirrels. Probably red squirrels. There is no way a fox squirrel could get in that hole to give birth. Chipmunks, I think, are ground dwellers. I carefully moved the nest to the bottom of the old pole.

I felt guilty and worried all day. I didn't mean to disturb the babies. And what would Mama think? I checked on them periodically. In the evening, I finally told Em because I couldn't deal with the guilt alone. We went over so I could show her, but the babies were gone. I'm going to assume that Mama came and moved them to a safe, new nest.

I got an email from one of my sorority sisters yesterday. Apparently the left turn signal on her Honda will only turn off automatically (after a turn, I presume) when the weather is warm enough. We have reached that point. It is therefore officially spring.

I had my annual last week. One of my prescriptions was changed because I have been really groggy. Unfortunately the new one makes me queasy. It’s getting better since I started taking it at night. The first day, all I could eat was toast. I had yummy leftover risotto, but the thought of it made me ill. So, after it had been out of the fridge all day, I decided to pitch it. Did I put it in the trash? Nope, I put it in the compost. A raccoon got into the holding bin and eat it all up. I wish I could have seen that. I feed her cabbage last night because it was too chewy for us. This year, I will not freeze cabbage no matter how much food we have to eat. It will go straight into the compost. I wasn’t sure if the raccoon would like it, but the presence of peanut oil and garlic may have helped. She ate quite a bit of it. This time I just left it in a tub, so she didn’t have to dig through coffee grinds and eggshells to get to her dinner.

Last week, my alarm went off, but I couldn't wake up enough to hit snooze. Instead I dreamed about turning it off, then unplugging it, then taking out the battery, yet the noise wouldn't stop. It was the evil clock radio that would play nothing but the pledge drive and couldn't be stopped.

This morning I woke up to Bob Edwards (how I'm going to miss him!) saying it was 10 years since Kurt Cobain's death. Man do I feel old. A whole decade. Their kid is twelve now. I remember when I heard about it. I was on spring break at my Grandma's. I feel like I understand better now what a tragedy it was, but I also understand how suicide can seem like an option. I'm only 2 years younger now than he was when he killed himself.

I do have to say that I wasn't very impressed with their coverage. Maybe All Things Considered did a bit about it. I don't know, I wasn't able to listen. I'd be curious to know what Courtney Love and the rest of the band had to say, but instead they just interviewed a photographer who followed him around a bit.

It's so weird to think of all that has happened in the past ten years. I'd be curious to know where a bunch of my high school friends are now. But I'd like to know in an impersonal way. It'd be nice it I could get an update without having to talk to them myself.