Zoonosis Review

For my fellow vet students who haven't read that Compendium stuff, have no fear!  I've summed it all up for you.

1) Don't let your kid share goat food with a goat out of an ice cream cone.

2) Don't let your kid drink water out of an aquarium.

 

3) Don't let your kid play in a placenta.

4) Don't let your kid lick reptiles or amphibians.

5) Don't let your kid hang out in the poo.

Oh...and wash your hands.

SNOW DAY!!!!

"The Rite" + Theriogenology = Crazy Demon Dreams

    Last night after coming home from seeing "The Rite" I had a long, odd, somewhat scary, but surprisingly beautiful dream about demons.  The fact that, due to vet classes, reproduction, and specifically placentas, has been a major topic of conversation among my friends meant that the dream had a lot to do with finding the perfect woman for the demons to impregnate to further their cause of spreading evil.  "The Rite" was also largely about a possessed pregnant girl, so I'm sure that added to it as well.
    So the dream focused on a man (who looked suspiciously like the main character from the movie) who was trying to save the woman he loved from the demons.  It was mostly in third person, but every now and then I would become the man.  I won't go into all the details, but it involved a lot of running, a ballet performance, falling down a never ending hole into the universe/the heavens/outerspace, demon rituls, and clouds/galaxies/stars swirling above me to form a horrible demon face which spoke.  The unfortunate part is that I woke up before I could find out how it ended.  Very dissatisfying.  Try as I might, I couldn't make myself fall back asleep and re-enter the dream. 
     At one point, I either achieved lucidity, or maybe just dreamed that I did.  As I was sent falling down the giant pit, it occurred to me that I could change the dream if I wanted.  I could make myself being flying instead.  For a moment the dream changed and I was falling and then starting to fly in a bright blue sky.  Then I decided I wanted to finish the dream, so I was back to the dark pit crazily swirling around me.  Maybe that was a step forward in my lucid dreaming endeavors.  I don't really know.
    I really wish I could create a picture to capture the beautiful parts of the dream, but there's no way I could do justice to what my mind is capable of creating.   

    Crap, I really need to get you guys a funny comic/cartoon thing.  I guess I'm having a dry spell.  Sorry you're stuck reading my actual thoughts instead.  Not as fun.

    Well that's all for now.  See ya later alligator!

Right Now I Wish I Were....

- watching a movie
- reading a fun book
- drawing/painting
- sleeping
- designing a new tattoo
- crafting
- talking to a friend
- talking to the boyfriend
- baking
- singing
- riding a horse
- line dancing and/or two-stepping
- at a concert
- playing Mouse Trap or the White Unicorn or 13 Dead End Drive
- skydiving
- white water rafting
- cave diving
- rocketing to the moon
- disassembling a bomb
- stopping bank robbers
- time traveling
- staring at a wall

or doing anything other than what I'm actually doing which is studying.  In particular studying Zoonosis and trying to figure out what the difference is between the Kansas Livestock Association, the Livestock Marketing Association, and the Kansas Livestock Marketing Association and why it even matters.

Musings On My Life

    Well let's see...all attempts at lucid dreaming have failed.  All attempts at studying have failed.  And I have yet to wake up to find that I acquired model-esque beauty during the night.  I guess I'll have to settle for being normal.  That's right, I said it.  I'm average.  This is very disappointing to me at times.  As I explained to my mom once, it's not that I want to be the best at everything, I just want to be the best at one thing.  And I'm not even talking the best in the world, just the best in my world.  I'm not the funniest or the prettiest and certainly not the smartest.  I'm not very athletic nor am I very driven.  I'm sort of okay at drawing, and I used to be musical when I practiced. Even the number of people who read my blog is just so-so.
     Recently, I've decided to blame my mediocrity on my brain, which is far easier than taking responsibility for my lack of work ethic (which is necessary to accomplish anything on the above list).   Did you ever have to take one of those tests that tells you what side of your brain you operate with?  I did.  And I always came out pretty even, a couple points higher on left-brained.  I think this is the reason I'm okay at a lot of things, but not really good at any one thing.  If I were all right-brained, maybe my drawing and flute playing skills would be masterful.  If I were all left-brained, maybe I would be excelling at vet school.  Alas, I'm just in the middle.  *Sigh*
     Maybe I should have embraced my normalcy long ago.  Then I wouldn't have tried to get into vet school, and I could be living a happy, relatively stress free life right now with a regular job.  I ran across this quote yesterday: "Look at me.  My life has no meaning or direction, and I'm happy."  It's from Hope Floats.  I kind of wish I had this attitude.  Is there something so wrong with this?  What happened to just living life and enjoying it?  No one seems to feel it's good enough to just work in order to get the money you need to live.  It seems like everyone expects you to always be aiming for that next big promotion, a better paying job, or that next degree.  Used to, you just needed to have a high school education.  Then if you wanted a good job, you better have graduated college.  Now, you should probably be getting a masters.  It's a little overwhelming to me.  But guess what.  I would rather work to live than live to work.
     What do I want out of life then, you ask?  It's pretty simple actually.  I want a job that I like but which doesn't take up my life.  I want a loving marriage and probably kids.  I want a decent house on a little bit of land, if I can get it.  Overall, I want to be happy when I grow up.    That's all.


    Well enough of that rambling pity party.  I know that, in reality, I have a pretty great life with plenty of family and friends who love me.  I don't know what I would do if that were ever taken away from me.  We grew up with enough money and were never deprived of anything we needed.  And as much as I loathe it at the moment, at least I've had the opportunity to go to vet school.  I know that most people in the world have real problems they are suffering from.  In comparison, my self esteem issues are ridiculous and I realize that.

    All in all, I'm very thankful for everything I have, but it wouldn't hurt if I could claim I was the best underwater basket weaver you'd ever met. 

    Please continue to tune in.  I plan on posting some more of my attempts at lucid dreaming.

Sing

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    You do your best to squeak out a song.  By the time you get halfway through, your voice has stopped quivering, and you're actually sounding pretty good.  Caves make for great acoustics.  As your song comes to an end, the minotaur steps toward you.  He tells you that was the most beautiful song he has ever heard, and he has fallen in love with you.  Taking your hand, he leads you farther back into a corner of the cave.  Before you lies an immense treasure of the type only talked about in fairy tales. The minotaur realizes of course, that you could never be together, but to show you his undying love, he grants you all the treasure in his hoard and tells you to head home.  You say farewell to the handsome creature, gather your riches, and leave to live happily ever after.

The End.

Hide in Cave

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    As the storm gets closer, you speed up and run to the cave.  You make it inside just as the first bolt of lightening strikes.  You'll be safe and dry here.  You look for a spot to sit down.  Near the back of the cave you see a shadowy figure that you can't quite make out.  You step closer.  To your surprise and horror, you find a minotaur standing before you.

    You stand in stunned silence as he begins to speak.  Oddly, he asks you to sing for him.

You are far too scared to sing, and you stand there quietly with your mouth agape.  Your story continues here.

You're not a very good singer, but you give it your best shot.  You don't want to refuse that monster anything he asks for.  Your story continues here.

Don't Sing

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    Unable to sing for him, the minotaur becomes enraged.  His eyes glow red, and he lets out a horrible beastly roar.  He pounces on you and rips you to shreds.  You die.

The End.

Don't Kiss Frog

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    You ignore the frog and turn around to head for home.  After your long walk, your house is a very welcome sight.  You go inside and live happily ever after. 

The End.

Kiss Frog

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    You scoop up the little frog.  He really is rather cute.  You pucker up and kiss him right on top of his head.  After a moment, it becomes clear that this frog is no prince.  As you set him back down, you begin to feel a strange tingling all over your body.  Then a sharp pain causes you to look down at your hands.  Warts!  Warts have erupted all over your body!  Horrified, you run home screaming.
    After consulting numerous dermatologists and plastic surgeons, you are told that there is nothing to be done for you.  You live out the rest of your days in shame of the warty skin you got from kissing a stupid frog.

The End.

Hide Under Tree

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    You huddle beneath the tree, and it begins to rain.  Fortunately, the storm blows itself out quickly.  As you're looking at the little pond nearby, you notice a frog seated on rock at the edge of the water.  The story of the frog prince comes to mind, and you wonder if it might not have been true.  What would happen if you were to kiss that little frog?

What could really happen?  You decide to go for it and kiss that frog.  Maybe you'll find yourself with a prince.  Your story continues here.

After thinking about it, you decide you would rather go home than kiss some muddy old frog.  Your story continues here.

Don't Cross

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    As you continue along your walk, you look up and realize the sky is growing darker.  A storm is coming, but you're too far away to make it home before it hits.  You look around for someplace to take cover.  Nearby is a small pond with a big pine tree next to it.  You could probably huddle under there.  A little farther away, you see a cave in a span of rocky cliffs.

Since the tree is closest, you decide to take cover beneath it.  As long as it doesn't rain too hard, you should stay dry enough.  Your story continues here.

You may not be able to reach the cave before the storm arrives, but you decide it would be a safer hiding place.  You head that way.  Your story continues here.

Walk Away

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING


    You take the path that goes a different direction.  After walking for awhile, you come to a ravine that is bridged by a fallen tree.  The trail continues on the other side, and you wonder if you should investigate.

The tree looks pretty sturdy and definitely wide enough that you wouldn't fall off.  You decide to crawl across.  Your story continues here.

Afflicted with a terrible fear of heights, you feel it would be best to continue along on this side of the ravine.  Your story continues here.

Cross

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING

    Edging your way onto the old tree, you slowly begin to cross the trench.  As you get out to the middle of the gap, you hear a creak.  You hear a crack.  Something snaps beneath you.   The log begins to tremble and then splits right in half.  You fall to your death.

The End

Escape

 DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING!!!!

  You have decided to escape and there is no time like the present.  You snatch the torch from the wall and begin to use it's pointed end to chisel your way out of your earthen prison.  After some time, you mange to create a  hole just large enough to wiggle through.  You start to run!  Somehow, you miraculously find your way through the labyrinth of passages and up to the surface.  You emerge in the forest and sprint for home.  All your family is there, you regale them with your story, and you all live happily ever after.

The End.

Wait

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING!!!!   

Since you've decided to stay, you have no choice but to sit and wait.  Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that the king imp intends to have you as his wife.  He is even more horrible than the one who captured you.  He has long gnarled fingernails, bejeweled horns, and a hideous tail.  The walls of his throne room are adorned with dead bats.  The evil little creatures waste no time, and you are wed at once.  You spend the rest of your life trapped in their underground world, miserable and alone.

The End.

Approach

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT STARTING AT THE BEGINNING 

   As you come closer to the child he starts to stand up.  He looks a little strange to you.  He turns around, and you can see that this is no child at all!  Before you stands some strange imp-like creature with evil eyes and sharp yellow teeth.  You barely have time to register what you're seeing before it has leaped upon you and bound your hands and ankles with a thick rope.  You try to struggle free but it is no use. You try to scream out, but your mouth can't open.  It must have cast a spell to seal your lips.  What a small devilish creature it is, but it drags you off using remarkable strength. 

    Where could it possibly be taking you?  Twigs and stones scratch your face as the creature leaves the trail.  You can feel the cuts stinging and bruises rising on your limbs.  Soon it drags you into a small tunnel and takes you downward into the earth.  Upon reaching the end of the passage, the ground levels out.  It takes you farther back through a system of caves and more tunnels.  Finally, you stop.  It unbinds you, and you shakily stand up.  No sooner than you're on your feet, does it direct you into a small dark alcove, a small cave that had been turned into a prison cell.  You're shoved inside, and door clangs shut behind you.

    At a loss for what to do, you curl up in the dim light of the solitary torch on the wall.  Exhausted and sore, you fall asleep.  When you wake, you decide you must come up with some sort of plan.  It seems that there are only two choices.

You decide to wait out the situation for awhile to see what happens.  Perhaps the creature doesn't intend to keep you.  Perhaps you will be released.  Your story continues here.

You decide to find a way to escape!  You won't let your future be decided by waiting to see what might happen.  Your story continues here.

Choose Your Own Adventure Story!

    It happens one day, that you are forced to stay inside, consumed by your studies.  As you jerk yourself out of your school induced stupor, you glance out the window.  It suddenly occurs to you that there is an outside world!  Not only that, but it is a lovely day!  As a break from the drudgery that is your life, you decide to go for a walk and get some vitamin D and all that. 
    You head for the trail that leads into the woods behind your family's house.  The fresh smell of the grass rejuvenates you, and you feel relaxed for the first time in months.  As you continue along, you begin to feel that maybe the world isn't so bad after all.
    After some time, you come upon an old tree where you see a child seated in the grass at it roots.  How strange?  Why was this child out in the woods all alone?  You wonder whether or not you should go to him.  He may need help.

You decide to go up to the little boy and ask if he needs help finding his parents. Your story continues here.

You decide it would be best to leave the boy alone.  He may be just a kid, but your parents taught you never to talk to strangers.  Your story continues here.

Boyfriends #4

Matt (Jenna's)

Chris
Max
Derek

Boyfriends #3

Derek (Adrian's)

Chris
Max
Matt

Boyfriends #2

Max (Katie's)

Chris
Derek 
Matt

Boyfriends #1

This is the first in a series of portraits depicting my own boyfriend and my roommates' boyfriends.

Chris (mine)

Max
Derek 
Matt

Bad Day in Progress

Spineless.  I am spineless.  I can't stand up for myself one single little bit.  When someone pronounces my name wrong I don't even correct them half the time because somehow it would be embarrassing to me.  It should be embarrassing for the other person.  Instead I'll just keep my mouth shut while they continue to say it incorrectly.  This is especially stupid when there's someone else there who also knows the first person is saying it wrong so then they wonder why I'm not correcting the first person.  Or even worse, I don't correct them and the third person steps in and corrects them for me!  How ridiculous is it that I can't even stand up for my own name?  I like my name!  I also can't bring myself to tell someone when they're out of line, even if it's to my own detriment.  Instead I just start to feel bad about myself even though I did nothing wrong except for not setting them straight.  Then I just go find a small dark hole to wallow in whilst I feel worthless.  Pretty soon, really trivial things start to bum me out like unicorns losing to narwhals and eventually I burst into tears because I dropped my spoon!

*Deep breath*

Okay, sorry about that.  Disregard.

Some Randomness

    Well I had to come back to school today.  :(  My weekend was great though!  I got to see my family and my boyfriend.  Megan showed me and Mom her current first pick for a wedding dress, and it's gorgeous!  Both the sisters and I took a nice walk down memory lane, which resulted in several new posts for you all, and lots of laughs for the three of us!  Apparently Stephanie used to love to draw ninja turtles but wasn't too hot at geometry, and Megan couldn't spell worth poo, but was an excellent artist. 
     In regards to my grade school posts, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of pageviews they brought me.  I had a total of 169 views yesterday after I posted them!  I'm a little concerned there was some sort of Blogger glitch though because the day before I only had 30 and the day before that I only had 15.  You can see why I might be skeptical about such a giant jump in my viewership.  If it's for real though, thanks!  I'm flattered you took the time to visit me.  Also, after posting my 15 year old picture, I feel the need to include an up to date one.  The whole reason I put it up there was because it was so terrible I thought it was funny, but now I am compelled to prove that I'm not completely unfortunate looking.  I'm no super model but I at least feel comfortable saying I'm not hideous.

 

Oops!  That's not it!

Nope, not that one either!  (Yes, I'm in a blanket fort I built in my room.)

 

Ahh, there we go.  That's a little better.  ;)

Well, I'm quickly running out of stupid things to blog about, so I bid you adieu!

Mermaid

I got bored and drew a mermaid.  Don't judge me.  My art skills are average at best and people (or people-ish creatures) are my worst subject.  Here it is though.

Unicorns and Narwhals

    It's common knowledge that narwhals are the unicorns of the sea.  Of course, unicorns are way more cool, because they are magical, and you can ride them, and they're friends with dragons.  As soon as I hear about a narwhal using it's horn to heal a dying person, they will be as awesome as unicorns.

    Lots of people have noted the similarities between narwhals and unicorns.  In fact the internet is littered with them.  Here's my own personal representation of the two.

Note that Mr. Narwhal has no rays of magic emanating from his horn.  But it's alright; we like him anyway.  I think I shall include a poll so that everyone has an opportunity to support unicorns.   So look to the right and be sure to vote!

Here's another picture:

 

I drew this one before I realized you can use a stylus to draw on Paint.  It's much harder to draw using your fingers and your laptop's track pad.  

On an unrelated note, it's a three day weekend this week!!  We've got no school on Monday.  It's pretty exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I realize I've only had a week and a half of class, but man, has it been exhausting.  Actually it hasn't been exhausting; it's been boring. But now I get an extra day off!  When I get back, I should probably actually get my head in this semester. 

Ok, that's it!  ttyl

Explorations Into Lucid Dreaming

    I've always loved dreaming.  Probably because I tend to have crazy dreams that involve riding unicorns, flying, fighting dragons, and other such awesome adventures.  Unfortunately, I do tend to have pretty horrific nightmares.  I'm also pretty good at my remembering my dreams.  Within the last couple years, however, I've decided I would like to try to develop lucid dreaming skills.  In lucid dreaming you are aware that you're dreaming and may be able to change the plot of your dreams.  Although apparently being aware you're dreaming and affecting your dreams can occur independently of one another.
     There's a few reasons I want to become a lucid dreamer.  Supposedly, it can be a good cure for nightmares.  It makes sense I guess.  I wouldn't be as scared if I knew it was a dream, or if I could make the nightmare around me end in favor of becoming a tree-house-dwelling cat-human.  Plus it would be awesome to decide you want to go cave diving with luminescent algae one night and then do it!  I'm also very intrigued by the idea of astral projection or out of body experiences which, it seems, are closely related to lucid dreaming.  Although, that's slightly scary because some people claim you can get stuck out of your body.  I don't know if I believe that though.  (When I was kid I was totally into that stuff and read books on astral projection, and auras, and telepathy, and feeling colors, and the power of crystals, and all that sort of stuff.) I think trances, and meditation, and some other phenomena that you hear about with Eastern religions may also be tied in there somehow. So, if I can learn to dream lucidly, maybe it will help me learn to meditate and vice verse.  On that stuff, I'm not very informed, and I'm mostly making connections in my head, so I apologize if I'm completely off-base. 
     Now hopefully I will be capable of learning to do this.  They say one of the first steps is learning to recall your dreams.  For awhile when I was in high school I tried keeping a dream journal but didn't stick with it.  I tried again within this past year, but with school I found that I was so tired that when I woke up at night I just wanted to go back to sleep and didn't care to take the time to write down my dreams.  So, it kinda fell through again.  I think relating all my dreams in detail to my froomies has helped though.  Lately I've had lots of dreams that I've been able to remember pretty well.
     I was reading up on how to induce lucid dreaming and sites that I looked at mentioned that you have to sort of go through a sleep paralysis stage where your body goes to sleep but your mind is still aware.  I think I've inadvertently experienced this in the past, and I bet you have too.  On several occasions during my life I have "awoken" but felt trapped like I couldn't move and couldn't make my eyes open.  If you've experienced that you know it's scary as heck!  I'm not sure that it's exactly the same thing, but from what I've read it sounds somewhat similar.  So anyway, my thought is that if I can already do a good job of recalling my dreams and experience sleep paralysis, maybe it won't be too difficult for me to learn to control my dreams.
     I think I'll take a nap this afternoon and try it then.  If you don't see me for a very long time, come check my room and shake me awake to make sure my spirit isn't trapped outside my body.  I don't really want to be floating around in space while my brain turns to mush.

Update:
I just woke up from a nap.  First attempt is a fail. 

Update:
I've found what I believe to be a great site to help me lucid dream:
http://www.dreamviews.com/content/
I'm going to use this site as my guide.

Tas's Snow Adventure

After a couple of our family cats went missing, potentially eaten by coyotes, we decided it would be best to have only indoor cats from then on.  And that's exactly what Tas is.  He's been outside maybe twice, during ill planned escape attempts.  These are silly anyway since as soon as he gets outside he just freezes because he doesn't know what to do next.  Today was special though.  It's been snowing for the past 24 hours, so I decided Tas should go outside.  I got the kitty leash.  I found what happened next hilarious.  Tas...not so much.  All he wanted was to get back to the door and get inside.  He hunkered down, tried to roll over, and high stepped with his paws but to no avail.  He may not have been very happy with me, but perfect little white snowflakes sure look pretty against black fur. 

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I let him back inside he bolted upstairs before I could even take the leash off. But once I placated him with water from the sink, he was back to his normal obnoxiously meowing self.  Good day!  I may have to try again tomorrow.

Dreams

    If you ask my family or anyone who has shared an apartment with me or had a sleepover with me, they would probably be able to tell you that I have crazy dreams.  They also often tend toward violence.  Last night was particularly chock full.  I had three dreams in quick succession that sort of melded into one another.  I have only written the final one, because it was the scary one, and the one from which I can remember the most details.  It was proceeded by a dream in which I was at a golf driving range, and one in which I had to drive a semi-truck to get home.  It ended up being really long written out, so please try to stay with me.  Here it is:

    I was in a house with a couple other people.  Another girl and I went wandering around trying to find haunted rooms.  We went up some stairs and she (we'll call her Kacey because later she turns into one of my friends, I think) peered through a crack in the wall into a room at the top of the landing.  I was terrified and didn't want to go in but she said it would be fine because the room was pink.  I still refused.  She said there was something cool in there and we had to go look.  Reluctantly, I followed her.  The room looked relatively normal, though not pink.  She told me I needed to press on the bricks at the bottom of the wall behind me and something would happen.  I turned around slowly and was horrified to see a man standing there!  Thankfully it was not a ghost, but one of the boys from the driving range who had followed us upstairs to see what we were doing.  He pressed the bricks and suddenly the room changed.  It became a little girl's room with pink walls and a princess castle in one corner.  It must have been what it had looked like when she had lived there sometime in the past. 
   We moved on to the next room.  Nothing happened in the next few places we went.  Then we walked into a room that was dark blue, and it was filled with mist. We could barely make out what was in front of us.  As I walked farther in, I saw that the room was filled three or four empty ping pong tables, standing sadly unused.  Another man was standing at the end of one.  I was scared and didn't want to go any farther into the room.  The man stepped forward, and he turned out to be the other guy from the driving range!  He was all excited that he found this room and wanted us to play ping pong with him.  Instead we moved on, and he came with us.
    The house was a complex labyrinth of rooms and hallways and secret spaces.  We walked around it for a very long time.  I don't know if we were still exploring or had gotten lost.  At one point we found ourselves in a bedroom.  There were three beds in a row with their heads against the wall.  I was looking around the room, when my attention was drawn to the last of the three beds, which I was standing next to.  The comforter on the bed had begun to move.  At first it looked at those it was creeping around in random patterns.  Then it lifted up as though some mass was filling it from underneath.  I could tell that it was the outline of body, a human figure that was squirming under the covers.  This began to happen in the middle bed as well.  Kacey had sat down on the first bed, closest to the door, when we first came in.  Now I looked at her and she was sitting up in the bed, under the covers.  They started writhing all around her, and then she began to rise into the air.  We had thought that maybe someone had come in and rigged the blankets on the beds to do this, using wires or something that pulled at them.  One of the driving range boys was standing next to Kacey though and exclaimed that this was truly happening to her.  He couldn't see or feel any sort of device lifting her out of the bed. 
    At one point, I think I became a little boy in my dream instead of myself.  I had wandered away from the group and had found a little black cat in one of the rooms.  I was running back through the winding maze to find everyone else and show them.   All the while, I was singing a rhyming song that was somehow implanted in my mind upon picking up the cat.  It basically was a list of possible things I could do with the creature.  I can't remember all of them, but I know one was that if you cut off the cat's head, it would grow three more in its place and it would kill you.  Or you could throw the cat at the mirror in the room where it was found and something else would happen.  There was a list of about five or six possibilities included in the song.  I had to hold the cat by its scruff so that it wouldn't turn into something horrible.  I was still super excited though, because I knew that as long as I held it tight, it would just be a normal friendly cat. 
   We moved on, going down some stairs to one of the lower levels or a basement type area.  It was very dark and eerie with low ceilings.  As we walked through we saw there were a few adjoining rooms.  Another woman that was with us said that if did some stuff to the rooms, it would change and we would be able to see the horrible things that had happened there.  She instructed us to roll up all the carpeting.  Most of the group stayed in the first room, but I went with another girl to the next room.  I was scared to be in there since it was just the two of us.  I wanted to be with everyone else, but we had to get the carpeting up.  We started at opposite ends and began rolling it.  The other girl had a terrified look on her face, and I turned around to see the face and torso of a scary old woman with scraggly gray hair and sunken eyes.  She looked dead and somewhat decayed.  We went back to the first room and found that the floor was covered in blood stains.  Impressions and visions of the atrocities that took place there welled up in our minds.  We went back through to the next room and started to go on. 
    The woman who had told us to roll up the carpet lagged behind the group and stood in the doorway between the two rooms.  She asked if anyone else felt nauseous when they stood there.  The rest of us had seated ourselves on a couch that was against one wall.  As soon as she that, we felt ourselves being pulled toward the doorway.  We held onto the couch and to each other to avoid being sucked away.  It was like an invisible vortex was drawing us to it.  Other furniture in the room was getting sucked into it.  It all got clogged in the doorway.  I grabbed a nearby floor lamp and lifted it into the air so that it was caught in the pull of the airstream.  I let go and flew to the door and jammed there.  I got another tall lamp and did the same thing.  Eventually, the hole was plugged up and force of the vortex stopped. 
     I went on through the door at the other end of the room.  When I looked back, everyone had disappeared.  I was alone in that horrid place.  I began frantically searching everywhere looking for my mom.  For some reason I thought she must have gone to the bathroom, but she wasn't there.  Finally I saw her.  She was standing, slouched in one corner with her back to me.  She's narcoleptic in real life, so in the dream I assumed she was standing there taking a nap.  I slowly walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder to turn her around.  When I saw her face, it wasn't her but some crazy life size doll/puppet/clown thing with a creepy smile on its face.  I was scared and angry and began to shake it screaming, "You are Carol! You are Carol!  You are Carol!"  I thought if she could hear me from inside the doll, she would turn back into my mom.
    I woke myself up screaming those words.  I laid in bed awhile to catch my breath, nervously avoiding looking into mirror in my bedroom, because nothing good comes out of mirrors.  Finally, I got up and went to the bathroom.  As I was going back to my bed, my roommate asked if I had been screaming.  I said, "Yes, you'll have to read my blog."

Bored

   It's 12:37 in the morning, and I'm bored, so I figured writing a rambling blog post would be a good idea.  I suppose it's really my own fault that I'm up late with nothing to do.  I fell asleep reading last night with all my bedroom lights on, and it wasn't until about 5:30 this morning that I got up and turned them off.  After that I slept for another 7 hours.  That's a whole night's sleep by itself, and I had already had at least 5 hours before that.  It's no wonder I'm not tired right now.  But that's only the half of it.  After being awake for about 2 or 3 hours, I went to sleep again.  This time is was 6:30 pm when I woke up!  I don't even know how it's possible to sleep that much.  Clearly I got enough sleep the night before.  A 4 hour nap was completely uncalled for.  I really need to start making myself get out of bed and get moving in the mornings.  Otherwise, I just lounge around and drift in and out of sleep all day.  So anyway, it was 6:30 in the evening before I finally brushed my teeth for the first time (I still haven't brushed my hair).  Then I proceeded to eat a dinner of Oreo ice cream, cheese nachos, and pineapple.  And Mom doesn't think I eat healthfully!  Bah!  It's a good thing I already have a boyfriend, because after admitting my lazy and unhygienic lifestyle, it might be hard to find one. 
   So, after a day of sleeping, eating, and watching tv, I find myself with nothing to do except watch a bad made-for-tv-movie on the Syfy channel.  Sometimes it does have good shows on (example: The Outer Limits), but this movie is not one of them.  I suppose I could study, but I really don't see that happening.  Maybe I'm just slowly becoming nocturnal.  Not entirely though because school won't let me.  Instead I'll be nocturnal on the weekends which will screw me up and leave me extra tired during the week when I should be being my most functional.  Ok, I guess I'm done now.  I hope you all are sleeping better than I am.

It's A Mousey!!

If you have cats and you've ever had a mouse running loose inside, you understand that it's chaos.  Just such an incidence occurred at my mom's house over Christmas break. With Tas home with me at the time, this meant there were four cats around.  The two girl cats are the main hunters, and Nolly, being younger and somewhat more svelte, is the real pro.

The Enemy

One morning I woke up to Stephanie telling me to get up and help her save the mouse the cats had.  Nolly was trying to trap it as it ran back and forth between the cabinets and the corner with the back door.  Tas sat watching nearby, interested but unwilling to help.  My sister and I felt the need to save the cute little mouse, so we took over for the cat.  If you weren't sure, the best way to trap a mouse is with a bowl.

 

 This particular mouse, however, was quite speedy.  We chased it back and forth before we finally got it cornered.  Now was my time to shine!!

Nolly kept the mouse in the corner, and I snapped the bowl down over it!  Success!!  But how to get it outside?  I grabbed the nearest flat, sturdy object, which happened to be a binder, and scooped the mouse up.  He was mine!  Muahahaha!

There was only one problem.  I hadn't noticed that the binder was...bent.  That's right, bent!  This unfortunate conformation meant that there was a gap between the binder and the bowl.  That's right, a gap!  That sneaky little mouse found that sneaky little gap and went right ahead and sneakyed himself out!

 

 

All was lost.  He ran to the cabinets and, despite Stephanie's efforts, disappeared into some tiny, unseen, mouse-escape-vortex.  That was it.  He was gone.  Nowhere to be found.  In an effort to save the mouse we actually probably caused it to die slowly and painfully from cat inflicted internal wounds. 

The moral of this story?  If there's a mouse around, just let your cats deal with it.  They will do a much better job than you will.