The Veterinarian's Log

Well, the sister is graduated. :). And her present, which I have carefully not talked about on this journal since she reads it, was well recieved.

We're having a cookout tonight, though I may just go for the dessert - dinner was super filling.

Am off to sell books.

The world might be coming to an end, yes.

And then I went to the store and enjoyed clothes shopping.

World is definitely ending yes.

I know that exercise is good for me. After nearly a month of no regular exercise other than dashing around the hospital, two days in a row is fantastic.

What's not fantastic is my currently-not-as-fit-as-it-was body feeling like it has been beaten with particularly large sticks.

Remember 'Run Fatboy Run', the scene riiiight after the spin class, where Dennis is sprawled on the locker room floor? Yes, like that, just without the powder (say thankya). Though there was the greatest line in that movie, and one you know I'll be thinking every time someone feels the need to comment on my weight.

Anyway. Two more days, and then it's back to the hospital grind. Maybe I'll get some cool cases. Maybe with the power of Ettinger backing me up, I won't be as much of an idiot. Maybe it will be much like last year, just with a graduation ceremony in the middle.

Got my hair cut today. Once it dries and goes all curly-like (which is does much better, at the moment), it only just brushes my shoulders. Which means I really do need to discover a good way for keeping it out of my face while on duty, without succumbing to the horrors of the minuscule pony-tail. The hair that was cut off is just about long enough for Locks of Love, so it'll be heading that-a-way once I find a padded envelope. Yes, it had been a really long time since my last hair cut. Try years. Srsly.

Have discovered that while I am finally able to beat Civ III by world domination, I can only do that on the default difficulty setting. Up one level, and everyone wants to go to war with you, and develop tanks entirely too fast. Spoil-sports. I'll go back down a level and return to beating up on archers with my mechanized infantry. Neener.

Saw little shelves for plants, that have full-spectrum light sources built in. I'd have to get some of those if I ever moved up north, to defeat the winter BLAH due to the sun mysteriously disappearing and betraying all of us who need natural light to not go wailing to Ben & Jerry's for Chocolate Therapy.





Why? I'm not entirely sure. *eyes result skeptically*

Driving home tomorrow morning - slightly tragic, since it seems we just got here, and I'll have one week of Orthopedics before getting dumped into Neurology where I'm going to get my butt kicked. Awesome.
We didn't find any cute Christmas cards today (they were all rather.... eh), but we did get mint cocoa from Starbucks, and we found the missing Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (even if their employees were lazy layabouts), and we got movies and stuff for mint chocolate brownies.
And I finished my book, and basically didn't think about school all day.

You-ology

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And now: Amazing Race, the Sierra Edition!

*cues dramatic music*

So our two heroines, 'Ro and Raurence, can be found teaming up at the UC Davis VMTH, where they're cannily making use of the working printers and printing out directions to their next destination.

And, totally talking about the relative eye-candy merits between 'Quantum of Solace' and 'Australia', which isn't exactly race-worthy behavior, but Hugh Jackman is hot. :D

They race off to their first roadblock: 'Repack 'Ro's backpack so it's less 'VMTH survival' and more 'fun things to do in Tahoe'. The second part of this task involved moving 80 pounds of cat food from the back of the car into the closet, so that the car won't get pried apart by a bear like a sardine can once in Tahoe. Our heroines did fairly well on this task, managing to complete it in under an hour.

Successfully completing this task, they charge off East in their trusty Saturn coupe towards Tahoe.

And immediately run into traffic on the Causeway between Davis and Sacramento.

One hour later, our heroines finally make it to a gas station in Sacramento, where the car is successfully filled with gas for under $15. They also get beverages, because the person driving has been working 13-hour shifts the last two weeks, and the person riding can't drive a stick. Traffic is better once they get back on the highway, and they make good time to Auburn.

Where all windows in the car promptly fog up. Completely. Within ten seconds. 'Ro, trying to stay calm, throws in the emergency lights and pulls over onto the (very narrow) shoulder, and attempts are made at fiddling with the controls to provide clear windows. Their attempts begin to succeed when... a tow truck arrives.

Our heroines, thinking they're about to see someone smashed on the highway since there are great big trucks rumbling on by in the slow lane (thanks so much for getting over, guys), try to wave him off, but he makes it all the way to the Saturn's driver's side window (why he didn't go for the passenger side, I'll never know) before getting the message that there wasn't a car failure, there was a window failure. Tow-truck guy then trundles back to his truck, narrowly avoiding getting squished, and disappears off into the night while the girls wait out their windows.

When the windows are finally clear, they take off again.

Fifteen minutes later?

Fog.

Rinse and repeat (sans tow-truck guy).

Once the windows are clear again, they take off up the hill.

Fifteen minutes later?

Fog.

This time our heroines (now rather flaily and wanting their car to just work damnit because it's 7pm and it's really time for dinner) are able to make it to an actual exit, and pull into the lit overhang of a gas station (very slowly, because any attempts to wipe off the fog just brings it back a second later. The user's manual is dug out of the nether regions of the glove compartment and consulted.

(This would be the scene where the two racers are looking worried and at their wit's end and there's dramatic music. Yeah really.)

Finally, it's discovered how their window-clearing strategy is wrong, and it is adjusted. Clear windows! Enheartened (and kinda hungry), they speed off into the night.

And then, about twenty minutes later as they roll into Truckee... snow. Did we mention that neither of our heroines have ever driven in an actual snowstorm? Lucky for our heroines (who did have chains in the back, but weren't relishing the idea of using them), they got in right behind a plow truck, thus not needing chains.

And then the truck turned on all of it's lights, which our heroines decided was a lot like being at a rave party (in the mountain, near cliffs, in the cold). It was at this time our heroines hooked up the iPod to the radio and Raurence got control of the play list. A grand time was hand by all, and the rave party truck was left behind once the snow turned to rain. They finally rolled into the pit stop at 9:30 where... tragically, there was no Phil to tell them their place.

There was, however, family, and food (yummy chili) and warmth, and beds. Which is better than Phil, actually. :D

And now we're criticizing the acts in the pre-parade show, and (really) waiting for the dog show later. :D

So, other than my rather non-spectacular performance in Neurology?

All B's and two A's (Orthopedics, a total sleeper class, and Exotics Med, where I seriously kicked butt).

Also, the official Neurology grade is not in. Am hoping, probably futilely considering my inability to remember all things neurological (freshman neurology was an agonizing ordeal of hate), that I actually did better than what they said, because... um. I would have had to have gotten the exact same grade on both tests. Which. You know. Studying hard for a week and a half on the dang thing, I should get a better grade on the second, yes?

It's probably still a C-. But.

I can hope, right?

Also?

B's and A's. :D!!!

Why yes, I am moodswingy with grades. I like doing well. It is a thing.

Lalala went back in my transcript to see what, exactly, I got in freshman neurology (C), and saw that that was the v.v.v. bad quarter that had Cardio in (WAUGH). That was... not a fun three months. Nope.

Also, we went to Whole Foods today, the ginormous one that is roughly the size of a Costco (just more organic), and there was ooooohing and aaaaawing over tiny one-person tea kettles, and the tiny little saltcellers with their tiny little spoons. There was also drooling over the fancy chocolates, laughing at the ones named 'Tetons', and consumption of chocolate hazelnut ice cream (YUM).
I also finished the first of twelve Christmas ornaments (Twelve Days of Christmas theme) I've been working on - I'll need to pick up the pace if I'm going to get them done by Christmas. Probably won't happen. But it is awful cute.
We also iced the gingerbread cookies the other day - not the most professional job in the world, but it was fun.
Also, why do they not sell pasties and samosas with meat in here? Why? *misses them*


Last note: I would not think it a good idea for a OB:GYN to have a book titled "What to Expect When Your Wife is Expanding" on your waiting-room table. Just sayin'.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We got up pretty early to eat a nummy breakfast of egg puffs and an upside-down pear and cranberry cake. And lots of Satsuma tangerines, of course. We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade while the kitchen buzzed, making little snacks and the big dinner tonight. Then we watched the National Dog Show, where I was expected to know all the breeds (I knew... most?) and the terribly cute Aussie Shepherd won. :D

Now, I think, a walk. I'll bring my camera. :D

(oooh, look, pretty horses! *eyes equestrian dressage on tv*)

So, we're almost home. Like, maybe 45 minutes.

YAY.

There will be fetching of the Martha cat and eating of storebought tacos and massive unpacking and clothes cleaning and so on and so forth.

Also?

MASSIVE PICSPAM OF DOOOOM.

Over 400 pics, people. I'm scary with a camera. Of course, not all of those pics are share-worthy, but still. That's a big damn pile of photos.

Also, I now have my anatomy book, two of my breed books, and all the back issues of TIME that I missed because I neglected to change my address back to home address.

WHEE!

One thing I forgot: After the cowboy cookout? On our way over to the valley to look for wolves, we saw a big female moose contentedly munching away at water plants, while her absolutely adorable baby moose sprinted around the lakeside on his impossibly long, spindly legs. Cutest thing ever, if only because it was the most improbable collection of head and limbs and body that ever existed.
On Monday, we got coffee drinks at a little drive-through hut in West Yellowstone (he gave us little yorkie patties with our mochas) and after taking pictures of a lot of painted buffalo, we meandered off through the park. We went up the west side, going to Mammoth, and then over to Roosevelt lodge for an early lunch. It was good, though they were out of what looked tastiest. The waitress was enormously slow though, but she brought huckleberry ice cream at the end, so.
Then we took off out of the park through the Beartooth Mountain pass, which is horribly steep. We got lots of pictures, but it wasn't much fun going down. After that, it was the plains of Montana and Wyoming as we made our way across to the Bighorn Mountains. There are lots of little towns along the way, some doing really good (one looked like a resort town) and some just barely hanging on. None of them sold good pie, which is sad. Sis read from a book we'd picked up from Gardiner, which equated how things work in Yellowstone to cooking things. There's some tasty recipes in there too.
Five hours later we were up in the Bighorn Mountains, where my Grandma and Grandpa are volunteering at one of the ranger visitor stations. They like it up here, though it is a bit... isolated.
On Tuesday we had wonderful muffins courtesy of Grandma, and after sitting around talking for a long while, we drove up to the edge of one of the buttes and ate lunch. Again, many pictures were taken, both of the many wildflowers, and of the mule deer.
Wednesday we did much the same thing, though over a different set of hills. We saw a herd of sheep guarded by two huge white dogs (the breed name escapes me just now), lots of pretty butterflies, and a gorgeous golden eagle that had been stooped over some prey on the ground and startled away when we drove nearby. SO COOL! That night we cooked marshmallows over the campfire.
Today Dad and I are going to take a hike down to Paradise valley, I think. Maybe. Dunno, there will be hiking.

We met Sis's boyfriend, Mr. Wonderfulness, in Idaho Falls, after getting rather lost. We then proceeded, much to MW's despair, to go to the Potato Museum. There we saw quite a lot of pictures of potatoes, potato fields, potato-planting machines, potato picking machines, potato picking girls, Marilyn Monroe in botato sacks, and pictures of various species of potatoes. There was also the world's largest potato chip (no really. A giant potato chip. Made by scientists who really didn't have anything else to do. Officially, it has 960 calories), and a potato signed by Dan Quayle. There was also a picture that they claimed was the world's largest potato, except the caption claimed that the potato was from the 1700's. Um? Then we claimed our potato products - freeze-dried instant hash browns in one of those little pint milk cartons you get in school lunches.
We then tried to check into our hotel, proceeding to get very very lost despite MW in the back giving helpful directions. We did find the hotel, and then proceeded to go to dinner.

Note to self: Don't eat at the Brownstone Brewery again. The 'fresh' Idaho trout was. Um. Gross. The fries were good though.

Then there was walking along the falls and taking of many pictures, and after that a swim.

Today, we had breakfast with MW (yay IHOP!) and took off for all points east. We with through the South Fork of... some river, I'm guessing the Snake river, and a little ways further stopped at a gas station/convinence store at Rainey River. Why? For the world famous square ice cream, of course!

...

No, it wasn't Klondike bars. It was actually very good.

We listened to 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' all the way to Jackson Hole, where we have gotten buns from the Bunnery and saw the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar On ethe way out of Jackson Hole, we saw two moose! Thus, we have started the wildlife count. We are now in the Grand Tetons National Park, taking many pictures of the... attractively named mountains. :D

Wildlife count: 2 Moose
Boyfriends Embarassed: 1
Number of square icecream cones eaten: 3
Questions right on 'Wait Wait...': More than the actual contestants