Mr. TicTac

In... oh I don't know, winter quarter? Steve showed me his new little buddy, TicTac the hermit crab. He is very cool in that he'll climb all over you (if you have clothes on... he has trouble with smoother surfaces like skin). About a week and a half ago TicTac came to live with me until when/if Steve wants him back. I think this is more of a permanent arrangement. So my little menagerie is growing.

TicTac finally unburied himself three days after he got here, giving me a chance to pick him out of his tank and snap some quick pictures of his busy little self. I've been looking at websites that talk about hermit crab care, and I think it's safe to say that they're all pretty horrifyingly hideous. But they do have good information, when it's not lost on nasty backgrounds. They sound like busy little things, but what TicTac does most of the day is stay under his shredded coconut substrate and keep warm and dark. Between Steve, Jessie and I we've been trying to tempt him out of that hideous racing shell he came with when Steve got him, and into a larger prettier version. Not only is the racing shell idea ugly but the shell really is too small for him. Oh well...

I Envy...

My dad sent me this link the other day for an artist named Cayce Zavaglia. She paints these canvases and then embroiders on top of the paint. Absolutely amazing work.

New Buddy

My newest little felty friend.

21

Evan's 21! We threw a birthday party at Laser Fun Tag or something like that, over in Lacey. That was fun. Then I made him a cake (which was AMAZING! I love this recipe and I think we'll be seeing more of it crop up around birthdays) and Jessie helped me frost it. That too was fun. And then we had bunches of people over for twister, Strawberry drinkies and snacks. We wound up watching Live Free or Die Hard until 3 am. Then Jessie spent the night and this morning we got to clean up all the frosting, strawberry stickiness and empty bottles left in weird places. It was all soooo much fun!

Evan is a huge Mac fan so I think I chose a totally appropriate cake theme.
Jessie, helpin' me frost and dribble.

Thanks Ben... Happy Birthday Evan!

Monty's Antibiotic Dependency

Since Monty's battle with a facial abscess he's been on some antibiotics. He has also developed a very strong attraction to said liquid. So strong that I'll find him sitting in the dark, alone, sucking on the syringe in an attempt to get any remaining medicine out. It's a little frightening. At least he hasn't figured out how to open his cage, hop upstairs and perch on my chest in an attempt to threaten more liquid crack out of me.

This is his morning dose.

Fire

Monty, will you be this kind of bunny? What if I ask and say "pretty please", how about then? No? Well... that's sad.

Update

I took Monty in to the vet again for his last check-up. Everything looks much better and the vet said that everything should close up on it's own. He still has two weeks of antibiotics left and some more morning and evening face cleanings to go until he's all better!

On a side note,
this is the giant sun painted over the sun deck door at the pool.

Look a little dictator-esque?
Heehee...

Dinosaurs!

The LA Museum of Natural History has the right idea with this enormous dinosaur puppet. The kids love it and I bet it put a smaller dent in their budget than this less realistic version I saw at OMSI a while ago.

SOOOO cool!

Le Jardine Part Deux

This is my garden that I planted oh... a month ago? I think that's about right. In anycase, it's happy as can be for a first-time garden.

I even have a baby tomato popping up...
and some wee broccoli
As well as some yellow squash flowers...
and a single, very happy potato plant.
I just hope that the squash and potato's will start to do something before summer's over and I have to abandon the garden. However, everything will probably be a bit late because everything else has this year. Thanks, crazy weather.

Gunther

If you have no idea who Gunther is, let alone listened to his music, I think you should probably take the time to go to his website (note: this page isn't safe for work, and this one is moderately safe). He parodies the 80's German pop bands, at least that's what people say he's doing. Really, I think he's just living the lifestyle in all seriousness. He has an array of music videos on youtube with songs like the Ding Dong Song or Tutti Fruity Summer Love. In any case we're big Gunther fans so Katherine and Peter decided to have a Tutti Fruity Summer Love/Gunther themed party last night. I made candy sushi, there was tons of Gunther dance music playing, Endless Summer was playing in Monty's room (he was upstairs in mine) and, somewhere in the middle there were a few fantastic games of Twister. We switched some of the lights to colored light bulbs and rigged bicycle lights on their strobe settings to the walls to make dance lighting. All in all I had a great time and I'm glad that, as the last real party of the year, everything went well. The only thing that got spilled was water and only one person was.... feeling sick. Everything's cleaned up and back to mostly normal!

JibJab

JibJab is a studio that manages to produce some hilarious political commentary animations.

The newest one about the 2008 election:

After the bad 2005 year under Bush:

The last election:

Hope you enjoy as much as I do!

Oh Monty

On Tuesday night I was cutting up pieces for a new picnic blankie when I decided to take a break and have some snuggle time with Monty. So I laid down and started giving him a good scratching when I noticed this huge, throbbing mass on his face. None of the vets are open late in Olympia (and I didn't even think about calling the emergency pet hospital because I was in a blind panic). I called Jessie to see what vet she took her pet rat Choxie to, and then Dharyll and then my parents. By the time I was off with Dharyll and on with my parents I was in a full blown panic. After all, it was HUGE and scary and it was late at night.

So the next morning I woke up at 6 so that I could call around and find an open vet and decided to take him to that place down the road. They opened at eight, so I took the picture above, packed him up and hustled down there. Turns out he had a massive abscess that went all along his jaw. He had to spend the night, have surgery and then be picked up the next morning. I ordered his antibiotics from a pharmacy in town and then waited... and waited and waited. There was much crying and headaches for the 48 hours since I noticed that nasty surprise and he was at the vet's. The next morning (this morning) I went in and picked him up. His abscess has to be kept open and draining for at least a week because it was so bad. That means I have to clean it out with a Q-tip twice a day, soaked with a solution, and I have to syringe antibiotics into his mouth twice a day as well.
Poor poor Monty. I'm glad that he seems normal except for the fact that he's now pretty tolerant about letting me put him on his back. He's still trying to groom me, eating, drinking and sleeping. Oh Monty...

It's a Beautiful Day!

Trees on campus being pretty and green!

Professors VS Mothers... Who Will Win? MSN of Course...

Occasionally, when I open my hotmail account I scan the list of "MSN Today" stories they have camping out at the bottom of my window. I even click on them like I'm sure thousands of other bleary-eyed hotmail users before school/work/alcoholism starts them on their day. This morning was no different, but I decided to click on a story about how babies smiling trigger the same areas of the brain that are used when the consumption of alcohol or other more illegal substances happens.
This line, quoted from a pediatrics professor, caught my eye just as I was losing interest:

“We know similar brain circuits are activated,” he added.

“Whether that feels the same as a shot of cocaine, I’m not sure.”

And then I thought to myself, "that's an odd comparison... there's gotta be more crazy in this story than I thought." When lo and behold I find Crazy Crack Mother (now known as CCM) who said this choice line:

“Does it feel like a high? Oh, yeah,”

said Lyons, who surrounds herself with photos of her boys.

“It’s got to be like crack. I just have to see them everywhere."

She was later found rocking in a corner, crooning to herself over a bottle of baby shampoo.

In other MSN news, there's a school in New York that is supposed to prepare you/train you to try out for a spot on a reality show. I'm a little sad that the story just reaffirms that the shows aren't based on normal people, sigh.... if they were it would be full of boring, sane and totally reasonable people who would hang out, eat stuff, shower occasionally and then maybe take some tourist photos if they made it out of one of those amazing houses.

All of this reminded me of Ben's post about MSN stories and how utterly frightening they are. Especially the article about "Tiny Hookers? The Most Humiliating Baby Names of All Times." Classy...

Busy Busy Busy

I've been busy making birdies.

I'm thinking they'll make a good mobile.

Now Day

Joel, Peter, Jessie and I wound up at Evan's house again today for yet another round of badminton. This has to be our..... seventh day of badminton? Maybe. It keeps raining in the middle of the games, but they're still fun. I thought I'd try to take some pictures of Joel and Jessie playing once I was too tired to keep swinging.

You can click on these pictures to make them bigger, and thereby see the awesomeness up close.



And here's a video of Evan blowing up a can in his back yard. Well.... not really blowing up so much as shooting it into the air.

Happy 'Splosion day!

We had a 4th of July Party last night. Katherine and Peter made grillables after we went to Evan's to play some badminton in the rain. I made some rhubarb crisp and then we played some Risk which was interesting due to the higher levels of intoxication of some of the conquering world powers. There were deals struck, treaties broken and much wheeling and dealing that didn't make any sense. Then we watched Mel Gibson's The Patriot because there obviously wouldn't be any United States today if there wasn't the one-man killing machine that Gibson becomes when he watches one of his SEVEN kids get shot by those naughty red-coats.

Then Jessie and Steve made it over just before we went to watch the fireworks next to the Old Brewery in Lacey. Katherine, Peter and I rode our bikes down and Joel, Jessie, Paul, Steve and Evan took the car because of a bike shortage. The fireworks were great and it stopped raining in time to be a warm, pretty night. We managed to bike down there AND back in about four times faster than everyone who drove and the streets were really quiet so it was a much nicer way to go.

We all wound up back at the house, watched a little bit of Jim Gaffigan's full length Beyond the Pale that Evan managed to find for us and then blew up a few of our own fireworks (thanks Evan!).

Roman Candles
And all of these are pretty sparkly, I have no idea what their names were.


From over Joel's shoulder.