Robin Research

I've Moved My Blog

2009-04-20T20:28:00.000-07:00

Please follow my adventures at:
www.dvm2be.blogspot.com

By Train: New York To Connecticut

2009-02-20T04:05:00.000-08:00

One thing my sister and I share in common is that we are both readers (neither one of us has ever owned a TV). Above I am reading an article on apoptosis titled "Genetic Control of Programmed Cell Death in the Nematode" (see the little C. elegans in the top right corner of my paper, Dr V?:) Below my sister is taking a break from her reading to check on her daughter. Her paper is on 16th century women's craft production, if I remember correctly. Last week on the train she was reading bell hooks, which is a bit more my speed.

Baby T At The Met: The Ming Gallery

2009-02-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Baby T At The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2009-02-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

Above: Big stretch on the changing table. Note the "P is for penguin" shirt, mom loves penguins.
Below: Me and NieceT in the Egyptian gallery.

Below: My sister knew I would love the depictions of birds in the Egyptian gallery (yes, I am that predictable:) but my baby-calming skills failed me once again and I had to hurry through that section. Note to all those who gave advice: in my limited experience, no matter what one does there is little one can do to calm a crying baby who is either hungry or has a dirty diaper. NieceT rarely seems to fuss without a reason so if her diaper isn't dirty and she isn't ready for a nap, then I turn her over to mom for a feeding.

Finally Some Good Yemeni/Yemenite Food & Fond Memories

2009-02-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

Above: My sister has no problem reading a menu or eating with her daughter conveniently suspended in a sling.

Below: Tasty Yemeni food:)

Once upon a time (when I was still a teenager), I lived in an insular Yemenite community in Israel. It was an interesting experience-- imagine constantly being referred to as "Ha-Amerikani" (= The American). It would be an understatement to say that I stood out with my light brown hair, fair skin and blue eyes. It would be accurate to say that everyone within twenty blocks knew of my arrival and who I was within 24 hours. (The most common question I got in those first few days was "Who is your husband?" and "Where is your husband?" as no one could quite comprehend why I would be there without a man or that a young woman could move halfway across the world all on her own).

In addition to having an eye-opening cultural experience, improving my Hebrew and learning a fair bit of Arabic, I also became a big fan of Yemenite food, despite a bit of a rough start. My first day in Israel, my host family siblings took advantage of my disorientation (hello jet lag) and poor Hebrew to dupe me into eating a spoonful of schug (mainly ground up hot peppers)-- HARIF (spicy/hot in Hebrew)! I was not amused, despite my penchant for spicy food.

Since then I have often longed to eat a meal of traditional Yemenite food, but alas, no such opportunity has presented itself in California, or even this summer in Washington, DC. Since this is the first time I have spent more than a few hours in New York city, I decided to hunt for a good Yemenite restaurant.

First problem: If you put Yemenite into Yelp or another online restaurant review or guide, it only comes up with Jewish/Israeli Yemenite food. However, Yemeni yields a full set of results.

Second problem: The Yemeni restaurants are in the Brooklyn/Cobble Hill area, quite far from my sister's apartment.

Solution: I decided to try Queen Sheba in Harlem, the only Yemeni restaurant listed outside the main area.

The food was quite good. I had tea, vegetarian shorba, fattah/fateh bread with honey and butter and fasoulia/fassoulia (kidney beans and rice).

I realize that the food I grew accustomed to in Israel is not the regular Yemeni cuisine. For example, the Jewish version of fasoulia is apparently called fasoulia bzait. Who knew?
If I could have any Yemenite food, I would love some jachnun (jachnoon), kubaneh or most of all, matrid. I was able to find recipes for kubaneh and Yemenite chicken soup in The Sephardic Table: The Vibrant Cooking Of The Mediterranean Jews by Pamela Grau Twena, but those are just a few of the recipes I would like to have.

What has eluded me completely, and most frustratingly, is a recipe for a Yemeni yogurt soup that I remember having after my family broke the fast on Yom Kippur and also that my family made for me one time when I was very ill. I could have sworn it was called matrid, but many fruitless searches have turned up nothing under that name. A search for Yemenite yogurt soup on google turns up one recipe for "zom" which sounds similar:

I have no idea why the entire internets haven't generated 1 recipe for yogurt soup. Seriously, this is the best comfort food on earth. spicy, creamy, satisfying. What more could you want? Oh - high in calcium, low in fat.

I make it a bit "by ear" but.. you need this for a single serving:

Zom. Yogurt Soup.

2 cups of nonfat yogurt, fat free is fine, by lowfat is smoother

2 tablespoons of flour

water

some sort of spicey stuff - I like yemenite Schug but I suspect that comes from my historical love of the flavor. I bet other hot sauces would work just fine.

Hunks of bread

Mix water with flour in a small pot on the stove until well blended. Turn on stove to medium. Add in yogurt and stir until the yogurt breaks down into a smooth mix. Add small amounts of water to achieve desired consistency. I like it pretty thick - sort of "potato soup" thick. As the mixture warms, add some spicy sauce, to taste. Continue stirring until you achieve a boil and immediately remove from heat. (It's rather prone to burning, strangely).

Pour into bowl. Dip or submerge hunks of "good bread" in it (like giant fresh croutons). Enjoy.

The book Yemen by Anna Hestler curiously describes "a refreshing green yogurt soup called shafut ("SHA-fuht") made with sour milk mixed with chili beans and herbs, poured over bits of bread." There is also this online recipe for chefout:

2 pieces flat bread
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1/2 cup milk
2 cups yogurt
1-2 hot chilies (or 2 tbsp canned green chilies)
3/4 cup coriander leaves

Directions

1) In a blender, finely chop coriander leaves. Add all other ingredients except bread.

2) Put bite size pieces of bread in a bowl and pour over soup mixture. The bread absorbs the sauce and is refreshing.

And last of all, apparently the recently published Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker's Atlas by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duquid includes a recipe for Yemeni yogurt soup.

I'll have to try some of these recipes out and report back...

Meanwhile, if anyone out there has any suggestions for spicy Yemeni yogurt soup, feel free to post a comment. I imagine getting the flavor and texture right in America is quite challenging, as our dairy products are quite different (and lacking in my humble opinion) compared to the variety and flavors available in the Middle East.

Baby T And Mom On The Bus

2009-02-17T15:26:00.000-08:00

Out And About With My Niece

2009-02-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

Above: My sister, my niece and me overlooking Harlem :)
Below: I seem to be threatening to throw NieceT out the window if she does not stop fussing...

Above: I'm not quite sure what to do to calm a baby except to lift her higher and higher.
Below: My sister outside her apartment building-- notice no coat, it was a relatively warm day.

Cell Fate, Cell Differentiation & Traveling Again

2009-02-15T20:13:00.000-08:00

Above: Me in San Jose, all bundled up in preparation for my marathon trip to Cornell. I flew from San Jose, CA to Phoenix, AZ to Charlotte, NC to Philadelphia, PA to Ithaca, NY. It took me almost 24 hours due to delays.

Below: Me in front of the puddle jumper I took in and back from Ithaca. It was a 35-seater. The Thursday that I flew into Ithaca was extremely windy and both my flight into Philadelphia, on a much larger plane, and into Ithaca were pretty bumpy. Oddly enough, I did not feel in the least bit scared or nauseous. It might have had something to do with all the benadryl I took on the overnight flight to Charlotte. I remember thinking groggily, "Oh, a free roller coaster ride." But on that same Thursday a similar, slightly larger propellor plane crashed on the way to Buffalo-- probably due to the high winds-- so everyone in my family who knew where I was got a little worried. As it turns out, my flight was the last flight into Ithaca due to the wind so I was lucky to get there.

Below: Me on the commons in Ithaca. A nice couple was friendly enough to let me hold their 7-week old puppy. Can you tell I am happy after my three days touring the veterinary school?

Although I have done lots of journaling lately, it's been awhile since I've updated this blog. I've been pretty busy, with what it's hard to even remember. As most of you know, the most exciting news in my life is that I got accepted to Cornell's veterinary school. I am thrilled beyond belief (literally-- it took a full week for it to sink in that this was really happening to me after all the time I had dreamed of it). This weekend I went to visit the school. I loved it.

For so long I have worried and wondered about my career path. I wrote in a post this fall:

I was nervous of course, dreading what I call "terminal differentiation" (which is something I picked up in a biology class, meaning when a cell becomes so specialized it can no longer be anything else; the cell loses the ability to change course, reverse direction, perform another function in the body-- the term appealed to me because it sounds so harsh, which is how I feel about specialization). But I knew I couldn't stay a pluripotent stem cell forever...

However, I think I know what my path will be. I am now comfortable differentiating, specializing. I know my cell fate. Finally.

And now, I am enjoying a short trip to New York city, to be followed by a visit to Aunt K in Connecticut. Then, it is back to California, where I will immediately get on the road to Davis to tour the veterinary school there.

I am traveling again. On the plane I could hear Dar Williams' song by the same title in my head:

Have I got everything? Am I ready to go?
Is it going to be wild? Is it gonna be the best time?
Or am I just saying s-o-o-o? Am I ready to go?

And I'm afraid, oh, was there any good reason to go
When all I know is I can never come back

I Ran My First Half Marathon Today

2009-01-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

Here I am grinning ear to ear, perched above the town of Pacifica, after running my first half marathon this morning.

I didn't actually wake up this morning intending to run a half marathon. I had switched my registration from the 21k to the 9k after hearing from a number of runners that the Pacifica PC trail run is a very difficult course. But on the car ride to the race, the other runners that I was carpooling with strong-armed me into running the 21k. So I set out to do my first half marathon. (Note to self: Be careful who you carpool with. But in all seriousness, despite being much better runners than me the other three were very supportive, coaching me and making me drink water and eat even though I didn't feel like it).

It was indeed a very challenging course. The first 6 k was completely uphill, with the 1700 foot ascent culminating at the top of North Peak. Then it was back downhill on the same treacherously rocky trail. I did twist my ankle at the bottom, but it wasn't too bad and I kept going. Thinking I had the hard part of the run behind me, I set out on what I thought would be a short 9k loop after eating some oranges and PB&J squares at the aid station. The next part of the race was killer. We did a short uphill then a really long uphill that was just endless switchbacks, until we reached an elevation of 850 ft (making the total elevation for this run over 2500 ft!). The downhill back to the finish was shorter, but by that point even it seemed long to me.

I now have a better feeling for the exhaustion long distance runners experience. And it was a humbling experience, as I placed 25th in my age group and in the bottom half of the 21k finishers overall.

Still, another beautiful day spent outside on beautiful trails is a blessing. So far I've done an 8k at Rodeo Beach, a 5 mile Resolution Run on New Year's day in Los Gatos, a 16k at Angel Island and today the 21k at Pacifica. Next up is the San Francisco half marathon Feb 1 which promises to be much flatter!

A Picture Perfect Pacific Coast Trail Run On Angel Island

2009-01-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

Above: I'm jubilant that I reached the summit on Angel Island without walking at all-- though I did jog in place for a few photo opportunities.

This morning I ran a 16 kilometer Pacific Coast trail run on Angel Island. It was what my Aunt K would call a "sparkling day."

The views were absolutely stunning-- all three bridges and San Francisco.

Below are some views of Tiburon in the foreground and Mill valley in the background:

And here is a view of Alcatraz in the foreground with San Francisco in the background, and below a photo of me with my BerekelyRunningPartner and the Golden Gate bridge behind us:

And then some more of me-- me in the morning, on the ferry in Tiburon, leaving for Angel Island. Me on the run with Tiburon and Mill valley behind me. Me and BerkeleyRunningPartner stretching out after the run:

This is one of those days when I feel lucky to be alive and immensely grateful to be healthy and able to enjoy running. The views were heartbreakingly beautiful and the good cheer of the other runners bouyed my spirits when I was tired. I'm grateful to have all these photos to remember them by.

I Can Now Say I Have Tried Lesbian Speed Dating

2009-01-08T21:34:00.000-08:00

I imagine some of you have been waiting with bated breath to hear about my lesbian speed dating experience. So here goes...

The event was held at a Mexican restaurant/club/lounge near the SF MOMA. It was a small place, there were 16 women participating. Mostly in their twenties, one or two older (that's including me folks, I am 30 after all). I was pleased to see that not everyone was white, there was a good mix, at least one third of the women there were African-American. Range in education from community college to graduate school. Dressed from casual (jeans and a sweatshirt) to dressy (me and a few others). Some who grew up in the Bay area, others from the East coast or the South.

I don't want to write anything personal about any of the people I met just out of respect for their privacy on the small world of the internet. I found most people very easy to talk to (for all of three minutes before the bell rang). Typical questions were:

What kinds of things do you like to do for fun? (Me: Run, read, swim)
What kind of work do you do? (Me: Veterinary nurse in an emergency room. I don't know if it is how I said this or if people are actually impressed but lots of people reacted with strong admiration. I realized that out of the group I was one of the people who was most passionate about her job. I feel so lucky to have a job that I love. The only other people I spoke to who loved their jobs were the teachers-- there was more than one PE teacher there.)
Where did you grow up?
Where did you go to school?
Do you live alone? Who do you live with?
What type of women are you attracted to? (Which inevitably led into a discussion of butch/femme and how that didn't describe anyone perfectly. The most interesting tidbit I picked up was from a woman who had just come back from spending six months in Beijing, where apparently the scene is still heavily into butch/femme and butch women are called "T's" and femme woman are called "P's." I was pleasantly surprised that most of the women at the event were on the femme side of the spectrum, though as always I was one of the most feminine of the whole bunch)

I'm not dying to date, I'm happy single and I'm super busy so I don't even know when I would have time to date, but I checked off my secret scorecard showing interest in a few women that I liked so if they checked me off on their scorecards then I will get an email informing me of a match and I can follow it up from there. I did have one woman ask me for my number outright and I gave it to her, though I think she is a bit more into the bar scene than me, and I gave my email to one other woman who was fun to talk to and interested in meeting more gay women in the South bay as well as a potential running partner.

I went into it viewing it as a combination of an adventure and an anthropological investigation of speed dating among lesbians. Also, I view any group setting as good practice at improving my social skills.

I came out of it having gotten a boost in confidence. I did just fine talking to a whole bunch of strangers, I enjoyed it and didn't feel awkward or shy, just happy and curious to meet new people. It helped that I got some positive attention and feedback too. What I'm hoping for is not so much a relationship, but a new friend or two, and I think that there is a good chance that will happen.

After the speed dating, I stopped by work and posed for photos with Muscles and LaMexicana. Muscles then obligingly took some very nice candid photos of me. He is a talented photographer. In case you are wondering, the dog in the photo is LaMexicana's pooch, previously featured on this blog, Frida (Not Kahlo).

Come Back, My Readers, I'll Try Anew

2009-01-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

So I've gotten several concerned emails about my lack of posts. I am alive and well, thank you :)
I'm still busy settling into my new place. And though I have been writing (those of you who know me well know that writing is a bit of a compulsion for me), it has been too private to post publicly.

Now that I am so far behind a synopsis of the past few weeks seems overwhelming. I may tackle that when I am more rested and have more time. Today I will just give you a brief history of my day.

I woke up early and sat through four hours of calculus class. It was not the most interesting part of my day because I have already had calclulus with a fabulous teacher, back in high school (and why am I taking it again? long story!). Then I went to the saltwater pool in Menlo Park (a gem of a find) and swam 160 plus laps in the unheated, outdoor pool (water temp in the high '60s, brisk but pleasantly cool and not frigid).

Though I have been rather dismayed by the amount of stuff I have accumulated in the last four months that I am forced to confront in the process of moving, I have continued to purchase things. Tidbits: I finally caved and bought a hat, since I didn't own one, something my running partner in Berkeley found hard to believe (we'll call her LongDistanceRunnerMom). I also bought my first purse (in a thrift store for $4).

Weirdest thing that I moved: a 12 pound butternut squash that was in my closet that I plan to turn into soup sometime this week. I got it at a bargain at closing at the farmers' market awhile back.

I want to publicly thank Sunshine for her help with my move. She is a good friend. It is the first move I have done in years where I had someone to help me. Also another kind nurse (who I think of as StableSaneNurse) helped me move my bed.

I will try to keep up with this a bit more, though forgive me, the last two weeks there have only been two nights where I have gotten more than four hours of sleep.

One last update: I got on the list for the second lesbian speed dating event in San Francisco this Thursday. Wish me luck!

Happy Holidays

2008-12-25T07:27:00.000-08:00

Above: Me with RunningRoommate and her incredibly athletic and sweet border collie mix.

Joy and peace to the world. I didn't grow up celebrating Christmas, and I don't now, but I enjoy all the feelings of goodwill and holiday cheer that people have at this time of year. And yesterday I got to participate in a really neat tradition in the Quicksilver hills behind where I live-- the Quicksilver running club and other running clubs, including Women on the Run (who I joined), run up to the peak in Quicksilver park (about a four and a half mile run all uphill) and everyone brings a biodegradable Christmas ornament which they then hang at the peak. It was cold and raining on and off, so we only sang two Christmas carols and took a few photos, then ran back down to do a potluck breakfast at the bottom. The potluck had hot blueberry soup (I'd never had that before, it's a specialty from Sweden apparently, but it was delicious and warmed me right up) and all kinds of other goodies. I also sampled some Black Muscat, a desert wine that was made by the Jesuit priests who lived in the Quicksilver/Almaden hills decades ago. The label is no longer available (and hasn't been for over thirty years-- it says since 1888 on it though), so that was a very fitting treat (they also apparently had a wine named Angelica that was even better according to one of the old timers there).

My contribution to the ornaments were a variety of flour and salt cookie cut-outs that I made with one of the women from the running club the night before. We added dried beans, sprinkles and food coloring to make them pretty. Check out the blue foot and the cat just to the right of it!

I know I've been delinquent in blog posting, I'm in the process of moving in with RunningRoommate so life is busy, plus I'm working every single holiday so it might be a little while but I'll post a synopsis of the last few weeks and a whole bunch of photos when I catch up.

Next Wednesday December 17th

2008-12-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

Next Wednesday will be the first night in two weeks that I am not either studying for or taking an exam. To celebrate I can pick from the following social gatherings occurring that night:

1. Lesbian speed dating event in San Francisco
2. Holiday party at a private house on the peninsula by Peninsula Women's Group (ie lesbians)
3. A dinner at Blowfish at Santana row in San Jose with co-workers including several very sweet and funny gay men, Slow Feet and MonkeyButt.

And I will be at.... yes, you guessed correctly if you guessed an Orthodox Jewish wedding. Actually I am very much looking forward to it but do somewhat regret that it coincides with the other three events.

And on Thursday Dec 18th I had to choose between a lesbian party thrown by Curves in San Francisco and my company's holiday party. I chose the emergency hospital holiday party, which consists of a dinner followed by a night of improv at a comedy club in downtown San Jose.

That makes two nights in a row that I chose to not participate in the events of the queer community. Sigh. I chose my friends instead. And they happen to be straight.

C'est la vie.

My Niece's Name is Talia

2008-12-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

Which means gentle dew drops from heaven in Hebrew. And it also has a Greek origin, meaning flowering or blossoming or blossoming flower.

And Talia also already has a Chinese nickname, Yua, a derivative of happiness.

I'm thrilled my sister and her husband picked such a beautiful name.

I'm An Aunt!

2008-12-10T17:57:00.001-08:00

My little sister had her baby yesterday. Amazing! Above is my sister with her newborn daughter. Below is my niece :)

Let The Fun And Games Begin

2008-12-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

Two weeks from today I will be free. Done with finals. I can barely wait.

In the meantime, I'm owned by my books.

However, that does not mean I will not have some fun. I'm going to see the South bay opening of MILK on Friday and have some runs planned over the weekend, the standing date with the farmer's market on Sunday (last week I checked out Campbell's farmer's market and got some sage and cheddar goat cheese for when I finish my current slab of garlic goat cheese).

I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. Four days of back to back shifts at the emergency clinic kicked my butt over Thanksgiving so I actually returned to school more tired than when I left. Nice.

Above is a photo of me with QuietSuperstar nurse at Dr Cool's party. After this photo was taken I then went straight to my graveyard shift. November was a long month...

Thrift Store Heaven: I'm A Used Bargain Hunter

2008-11-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

There is a thrift store around the corner from Dr Cool's place that I stopped in one day after a run and found to be a treasure trove of bargains. It is the nicest thrift store that I have ever been in with the nicest staff.

Today and tomorrow they are having a 50% off sale which I have long anticipated. I got lots of kids' clothes for the many kids in my life thanks to my friends and family suddenly all deciding to reproduce at once. It's nice. I enjoy buying kids' clothes immensely but have none of the other responsibilities associated with child rearing.

When I walked into the store at ten minutes to opening this morning (hey, the door was wide open and the sign said open so what if I was a few minutes early?) there was this beautiful suit on the to-be-re-hung-after-trying-on rack. 6 petite. My size exactly. Jones New York (brand name). Black with pink stripes. Brand spanking new. Tags still on. $300 at Macy's. $50 at the thrift store, but wait, with the half price sale make that $25. I tried it on and it fit perfectly. This might be the best deal yet that I have gotten at a thrift store. Heaven.

My mom is a born bargain hunter. The day after Thanksgiving shopping was as sacred growing up as a religious holiday. We began early and went all day. While my mom always shops on sale, and does a darn good job of it, I am a whole new generation of bargain hunter. I am a used bargain hunter. I restrict my shopping solely to thrift stores. And thrift store sales are the pinnacle of bargain hunting achievement for me.

In fact, now that this day's shopping is over, the next big event on my horizon is the half price sale coming up in mid-December at my favorite thrift store in Menlo Park. Luckily, that's not too far off.

Food, Food, Food: More Farmers' Market Goodies and Veggie Stew Take 2

2008-11-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

Top to bottom:

third pot of veggie stew with beans (kidney, black and pinto, the only stuff in it from a can)
no, not a salad but stuff for the third pot of veggie stew (I use everything-- the stalks from the Swiss chard, etc, plus all the red stuff is hot peppers, I like it spicy!)
the potatoes and carrots have to cook extra long, second pot veggie stew
all three pots of veggie stew combined in a gigantic bowl (the first pot was cauliflower and onion)
last week the artichoke farmer offered me a 12 pound butternut squash for $5-- mmmm! and the week before that I treated myself to a trip to the Mountain View farmers' market, where I got a rare yellow cauliflower (apparently worth its weight in gold as it cost $4 for 2 pounds!). I already ate the cauliflower (cooked in the oven till tender) but I am planning not to bake all the butternut squash but instead try my hand at butternut squash soup, which I hear is quite forgiving and so doesn't sound too difficult

All Work And No Play Makes For A Long Day

2008-11-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

Well, not exactly though it rhymes.

Yesterday I came home from school, took a nap, did some research, then went to Dr. Cool's party until midnight.

From midnight till 9 am I was at work doing my first solo graveyard shift.

Then I finished up my research (it couldn't wait as the project is a collaboration and my teammates need my part of it now, as in yesterday).

Now I think it is time for another nap.

More details and pictures soon.

My Anonymous Quiz And Other Tidbits From The Peanut Gallery

2008-11-21T19:31:00.000-08:00

So today in genetics we got back our quizzes. The one on top of the pile was mine. It had my handwriting, my paper, but no name. Date-- yes. Quiz number and title-- yes. But no name, just a bunch of question marks in the professor's red ink where the name should have been. Oh yeah, and a perfect score.

I brought it up to the instructor and told her it was mine. She recognized the handwriting and believed me. She said she and her husband had been laughing at breakfast about how someone could get a perfect score and then forget their name. Yes, that's me. Space cadet.

In other news from school, FYI, shark kidneys are not retroperitoneal. They also don't look a think like mammalian kidneys. Oh yeah, and on that same shark dissection, I confused the ileum with the rectal gland. Oops again. Note to self-- shark intestines do not look like mammalian intestines either. Oh well.

How Do You Know When Something Interesting Is Going On Outside Your Window?

2008-11-18T22:22:00.000-08:00

The cats are glued to the window! (Lindy on left with marbled coat, Simon on right with spots).

Ouch

2008-11-18T02:21:00.001-08:00

My genetics exam this morning was not pretty. Not as bad as the notorious quantum exam of oh so many years ago whose questions I could not even decipher, but not pretty nonetheless (so glad you remember that exam too, Poc Poc). Lots of nit picky details, like 5-bromouracil is a base analog for thyamine, what base does it incorrectly pair to (not adenine, but is it guanine or cytosine?). There are too many mechanisms for mutations for me to memorize them all, and it is not a high priority since it is not clinically relevant information, like physiology.

I had been up since 5 am this morning, so when I got back from my exam I ran some errands and then took a nap since I knew I would be at work till late tonight. In fact, if I hadn't slept I would have gone 22 hours without sleeping at this point. Which has never been a problem for me in the past, but I'm trying to be more careful with that lately. Kind of crimps my style, but healthy is worth it.

Then it was off to zoology (thank goodness for that class, makes me feel smart), from there straight to work.

Work was strange. I was the most experienced technician on the shift, and the only licensed one (maybe not the most experienced in everything, but in anesthesia and lab yes). I'm still not used to that. It kind of freaks me out to have no one above me to go to except the doctors, and often they don't know nursing stuff like how to get the suction in surgery to work or how to get the capnograph to display readings... I think I like being a small fish in a big pond way better than being a big fish in a small pond. In fact, I'm sure of it.

And now, to see if I can somehow get myself to sleep all wired from this shift when I finished the fantastic lesbian romance novel I was reading at a snail's pace of one chapter a night. I don't think genetics reading will put me to sleep, it'll only get my brain going more. It's genetics or finances. Time to make a trip to the library!

My Holiday Wish List

2008-11-16T20:28:00.001-08:00

EB and some of my other faraway friends have posted their holiday wish lists online. And I got my first query about holiday presents today. So here is mine:

What I'd Really, Really Like

A quiet place to live
A full-time job in veterinary emergency medicine, critical care or internal medicine
An acceptance to one of my first choice schools (Cornell, Davis, Maryland or Wisconsin)

And if my family sends me money I will spend it on:

Running shoes (another pair or two would be nice, new ones help prevent injuries)
A two month pass to a local, outdoor saltwater pool

Anything else would be extraneous, superfluous and unnecessary-- I look really simple on paper, huh? Too bad my personality isn't as simple as my needs and wants or I'd really be a winner.

Birthday Girl

2008-11-16T10:24:00.001-08:00

This is the Birthday Girl. She definitely seemed to be enjoying herself. She reminds me an awful lot of me as a kid. She is so precocious, so verbal and so very, very active. Below she is standing on the fence in her yard, which she just climbed over.
Birthday Girl was quite insistent on everyone gathering around to watch The Amazing Trick, which consisted of hanging upside down and then dropping off of her jungle gym. I had many similar amazing tricks as a kid (including bracing against the doorway until I was perched at the top of the doorway, where I would stay as long as possible, liking being high up). Good thinking whoever's decision it was for Birthday Girl to wear shorts underneath her dress!

Finally, here is Birthday Girl bouncing on her trampoline:

And I can't help but show off the gifts I got her: a plush white vest with silver tinsel woven into it (Birthday Girl loves sparkles and soft things) and also a purple dress whose upper half is made of velvet. I think she liked the vest a lot, judging by the fact that she put it on immediately.

The vest was a bit expensive at $3, but the dress was only $1. I felt free to announce this fact as Birthday Girl's mom, Self-Sustainable Nurse, is one of the most thrifty people I have ever met. She considers $1 a lot for a piece of clothing, and like me, only shops at thrift stores. In fact, prior to the party I stopped by San Martin's community store to check out Self-Sustainable Nurse's all-time favorite thrift store (how could one pass up something so highly recommended?):

Downtown San Martin, like San Juan Bautista and the other towns around Gilroy and Monterey, makes me feel like I've stepped onto the set of a film from the Wild West.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Thanks for the invitation, Birthday Girl!

Good News For Lindy

2008-11-15T21:34:00.001-08:00

Update on Lindy. Her blood pressure was in the normal range at the internist's. Thank goodness. Also her retina looks normal-- no blood pooling, no signs of it being detached. Please, please let me catch hypertension in her if it develops before she goes blind, suffers brain damage or further kidney damage. Please. I would feel terrible if I didn't. But I might never have to worry about it, only about 20% of cats in renal failure develop hypertension-- a compensatory mechanism gone awry due to changes in pressure in the glomerulus having to do with vasoconstriction of the afferent/efferent arteriole (I still don't totally get this mechanism even after bugging the internist about it-- how does that stimulate renin production and activate the renin-angiotensin pathway if the carotid sinus and baroreceptor in the aortic arch aren't sensing low BP????)

She had a slight heart murmur at the internists (graded I out of IV) but this was probably due to her HR of 240! (Think she was releasing some norepinephrine that caused the alpha 1 adrenergic receptors on the sinoatrial nodal cells to increase her HR? See what stress can do to an animal?) Ohm's law of hydrodynamics no longer holds above a certain threshold and then instead of laminar flow you get turbulence (thank you Osborne Reynolds for determining this threshold, may I never need to calculate it). Hence the murmur. At least my best guess.

Of most concern, her packed cell volume dropped 5% in the past three months. This may indicate her kidneys are decreasing their production of erythropoietin, which may mean that I need to put her on synthetic EPO at some point. This is not without any risk, as it can sometimes stimulate antibody production in cats and then they lose the capability to produce RBCs entirely, the kiss of death (unless you are crazy enough to do continual blood transfusions). But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

For now it is good news for my girl and for that I am very, very grateful.

Friday: The Good and The Bad

2008-11-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

The best thing about it being Friday: I get to see my Friday night crew at work, though admittedly dwindling-- now just me, Muscles and Self-Sustainable Nurse. Thank goodness for them, they keep me sane by making me laugh the entire shift.

The other good thing about Friday: Only two days till the farmers' market, which is the other highlight of my weekend.

The bad thing about this Friday: I have a genetics exam Monday that I am fairly unprepared for and I don't plan to spend much time inside on a beautiful weekend like this. Grades, shmrades. I'm aching for some sunshine and long runs. Plus I've got Self-Sustainable Nurse Jr's birthday party to attend tomorrow. Apparently I will be manning the hot glue gun to prevent the kids from burning themselves. There will be six 4 year olds. I don't know any other details. Like what they will be doing with the hot glue gun????? Hey, in my book any excuse to spend time on a South county ranch is a good one...

Maybe getting outside will make me feel less blah. I was feeling so happy earlier in the week thanks to an awesome experience at work. Now that feeling is gone. Hence the lack of recent blog posts.

The question of the moment-- what to eat for lunch? I have an artichoke steaming, Swiss chard sauteeing, and I just munched on some fresh greens with lots of arugla (yay spicy greens). I think I will make my special yellow cauliflower later after my run. And there is also a yam to finish off, as well as my winter squash from earlier. Love those farmers' markets. Yum. And I'll top it off with a bit of sturgeon or goat's cheese. (Hmm... I wonder what goodies Self-Sustainable Nurse will bring in to work tonight-- I can't wait till spring so I can have fresh goat's milk again and goat milk tapioca pudding... in the meantime I think it is mainly eggs...)

A Trip To The Vet's

2008-11-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

Saturday I took my cats to work to re-check Lindy's bloodwork before her appointment with the internist on Tuesday morning. Simon was just keeping her company-- as you will see below they provide each other with a lot of comfort in stressful situations. Below I am checking Lindy's blood pressure. I was quite distraught to find she has become hypertensive, but I am smiling because of something funny Dr. Cool was saying as he snapped the shot.

They like to huddle together in the cage. Pretty darn cute. Between Lindy's high blood pressure and their obvious stress at being in the hospital, I jumped at the chance to go home early when we were slow, and so I got them out of there as fast as possible.

Who Needs Supermarkets When You Have Farmers' Markets Like This?

2008-11-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

Collecting My Thoughts On Prop 8's Passing

2008-11-05T22:50:00.001-08:00

I feel like I ought to write something thoughtful and deep, or at least attempt to, but it has been hard to wrap words around my emotions, let alone wrap my head around the outcome of the election. It is the first time since prohibition that existing legal rights have been taken away and the first time ever that Americans have amended a state constitution to take away rights from a minority group that previously enjoyed those same rights, which makes for a scary day for this country, this state, civil rights, and me and all my LBGT friends. To quote Lorri L. Jean:

That is because Proposition 8 is the very first time in our nation's history that one group of people has succeeded in putting a measure on the ballot that seeks to eliminate the fundamental marriage rights of another group.

And that's one of the worst things about Proposition 8. It's an effort to start something very dangerous in our country -- something that flies in the face of the very bedrock of our democratic society and of the reasons why we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. One group of people is not supposed to be able to vote to take away the fundamental rights of a smaller group of people. To do so is not only wrong, it's un-American.

Before I go any furher, I want to express my thanks to all the kind folks on the East coast who expressed their regret, either in private email or in their comments on this blog. I appreciate your support immensely, and your acknowledgment that this is a difficult piece of news for me as well as your recognition of the disturbing larger implications of the proposition's passage. This especially includes my parents, who wrote to me almost immediately expressing their sadness and outrage.

I was very disappointed last night when the election returns on proposition 8 came in, but not shocked. I had a feeling it would pass. After all, the Yes signs vastly outnumbered the No signs in my part of town, as did the Yes protesters. My signs kept getting stolen. Many of my acquaintances and friends had told me they were voting yes. And many of my friends who would have voted no chose not to participate at all, not even bothering to cast a vote. So in my small world it didn't look good from the outset.

On a personal level, prop 8 has been a wake-up call to me about the environment I live in and the rampant homophobia and religious fundamentalism that dominate in my neighborhood/area of town as well as the apathy of way too many people when it comes to voting. The first thing Dr. Cool said to me when he saw me today was that it must be a difficult day for me. And then he added that it says a lot about our state, and our neighborhood in particular.

On a more political level, I think that a lot of the reason that prop 8 passed was the conflation of religious values and legal rights. There is supposed to be separation of church and state in this country, but many people seem to have missed that point in making their decisions on how to vote on this one. Many people seemed to want to impose their religious values on others. This wasn't about a spiritual definition of marriage or G-d's will (and notice here that I always hyphenate G-d's name, as do all religious Jews or people who were raised in that tradition, out of respect lest the full name be written and then desecrated, so it is not like I am without any understanding of religious tradition or spirituality myself). This was about taxpayers being denied equal rights. And yes, as the gay rights attorneys astutely argued in the Supreme court case, it was also about semantics. That domestic partnership may convey many of the same legal benefits as marriage but it does not have the same meaning to people and that this can have important consequences besides the obvious emotional component, such as in medical emergencies.

To quote Veronique de Turenne, who put my first point above much more succintly, "Behind the dollars and sentiments the question remains -- is marriage a state of the soul, or sole discretion of the state?"

Despite feeling disappointed last night and this morning, overall I remain optimistic that I will see gay marriage prevail in my lifetime. That I will live to see acceptance and not just tolerance and thinly veiled homophobia. The exit polls showed that people under 30 overwhelmingly voted no, meaning they supported gay marriage. The tides are turning. It was too soon this time, but just by a hair. I think it is inevitable that change will come, with time. As a rabbi I heard speak on this issue said, "Change does not come overnight. It is a gradual and frustrating process. Sometimes it is one step forward and two steps backward." But once set in motion, change like this does come. And so even in the face of defeat I embrace hope.

Writing My Planaria Paper-- Does This Sound Surreal To Anyone Else Or Am I Just Overtired?

2008-11-05T22:42:00.000-08:00

"When exposed to light planarians display a distinctive light avoidance behavior known as negative phototaxis. Such behavior is temporarily suppressed when animals are decapitated, and it is restored once the animals regenerate their heads."

I dunno, I just find reading that kind of disturbing. Then again, I haven't been sleeping much lately so it could just be me...

(Here's the full article if you are are interested).

Also, for the record, no planarians were harmed in my experiment. I actually have a reputation for being the humane student of the group because I refused to cut my planarians' heads in half to try to get them to demonstrate regeneration. Granted, their nervous system is much, much simpler than ours, but they do seem to react to having their heads cut in half so why do it? I mean, I don't know what it feels like to them and there is no way I ever will and to do that just for a few points extra credit does not seem like an ethical decision to me.

One Week Later

2008-11-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

It seemed like this night would never come. Time passed so slowly all week, especially today. And yet, as predicted, here I sit typing my Planaria lab report.

What I care about most at the moment is the outcome of the election on Prop 8. The initial results at this early stage show a resounding victory for the Yes on 8 folks. It saddens me but doesn't surprise me.

Saddens me deeply. I can't reasonably account for my ability to focus on my Planaria report, which is not in the least bit intriguing, other than to say I have always found solace in my schoolwork. Even when it is not all that interesting, work is a distraction for me, and so I am grateful to have loads of it at the moment.

My exams did not go so well. I hate walking out of an exam and later remembering nit picky points that I missed. Like how on my diagram of the hemoglobin dissociation curve, I labeled the x-axis PO2 but did not give units (which should have been mm Hg). Sigh. Yes my mind really works like that. I try hard not to think about my exams once they are over, but of course it pops into my head and then my classmates want to talk about their answers and will even call me up to discuss questions!

Luckily I did not write anything utterly ridiculous on my exam, like my friend who wrote an essay on how the sympathetic nervous system works to increase the heart rate via fluffy hamster cells. OK, well in all fairness we both realized what is involved is release of norepinephrine which binds to beta-1 adrenergic receptors in a G-protein coupled cascade involving adenlyl cyclase and increased cAMP. But there was also a question about which cells specifically do the neurons releasing the neurotransmitter synapse onto-- I wasn't sure which is why I wrote about the unusual length v. tension diagram of cardiac sarcomeres instead. I suspected the neurons synapse onto sinoatrial nodal cells, possibly atrioventricular nodal cells as well. My friend put down that they synapse onto fluffy hamster cells. Really truly. Because she couldn't think of anything better. I had to laugh. She's a goofball sometimes. At least she got me to laugh on an otherwise rather dreary night.

So what else have I been up to? I spent the afternoon at the polls campaigning for No on 8. After my exam I returned to the polls for the final hour of voting. Then I got in a quick swim. Alone at night in the crisp cold air and dark water, trying to clear my head and decompress a bit.

I have to admit, I have been pretty blue lately and today hasn't helped. I am utilizing my usual limited coping mechanisms-- run and swim more, pick up more shifts at work, give away more of my possessions (books and clothing), study harder. It's not necessarily the healthiest way to cope, old habits are hard to break. Dr. Cool has noticed and teases me that it is my own special version of triathlon-- swim, study, run. Substituting studying for the bike ride. Hey, it works for me so don't knock it.

Perspective: Waking Up To Bushtits Calling, Sunshine And I Can't Help But Smile

2008-11-02T16:55:00.001-08:00

As anyone who knows me well or reads this blog regularly knows, these tiny birds are some of my favorites. I love their tinkly, melodious call and sock-shaped, unusual nests (that for some reason jump out at me everywhere I go but not to anyone else I know-- some kind of strange pattern recognition I possess and attunement to the natural world, as one of my more pereceptive dates-- we'll simply call her TheLawyer-- said, "That's an interesting brain you've got in there"-- she was one of the few who actually noticed what I was paying attention to while we were out walking around, and saw that my focus was on the animals around me and not the people even though we were in a crowd).

So I woke up this morning to a flock of them outside my window. I knew they were there before I raised the blinds by their lovely calls. It made me smile in my half-sleep and my heart warm as I slowly woke up, in no rush to leap out of bed for once. (And when I did get up, I immediately reached for my camera to document the happy moment for you, my readers).

I have to remind myself as I stress over my upcoming exams tomorrow and the next day and worry about the outcome of this election and its possible ramifications that these things will not cease to exist no matter what happens in the next few days. There will be bushtits calling, sunshine, and gigantic carrots and yams from the farmer's market to look forward to, thank goodness.

This Morning I Woke Up Thinking About...

2008-11-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

PAH (p-aminohippurate) and inulin. How PAH is completely cleared from the plasma and thus a good indicator of renal plasma flow (RPF). PAH is a meausre of whether you have good blood flow to the kidney since the renal clearance equals the arterial renal plasma flow.
And inulin is a measure of whether the filter is working since it is unprocessed, i.e. the amount filtered= the amount excreted. So inulin can be used to estimate glomerular filtration rate (GFR) since the amount of inulin that appears in the urine per unit time is the same as the amount of inulin that the glomerulus filters per unit time.

And I opened my eyes to Lindy, who while I lay there with my eyes shut had been head-butting and nuzzling my face, insistent on getting some attention. Lindy with her failing kidneys. I wonder what would happen if I injected her with PAH-- hopefully she has good blood flow to her kidneys. And inulin? The filter is working, but it has too many holes, not enough reabsorption and secretion. Would inulin demonstrate that in her? I don't know.

It was grey and raining, I rolled out of bed, slipped on my sandals and went for an hour and a half swim. The incredible hulk had to choose to get in my lane, and soon I was the only female in a lane of really fast male swimmers. I held my own, but I was eating water the whole time. Why do they seem to choose to get in with me? I can't pace off of someone who is twice as fast as me. A normal guy, maybe, but not these athletes. I wish they'd pick someone else to get in with for a change...

Some Poetry: How I Wish I Could Be And How I Am (Shy)

2008-10-31T20:31:00.000-07:00

Here is one of my all time favorite poems, written by Julie of Thumbscre.ws (link here):

"Brand-New Effervescent Action"

Nothing is as sweet as this moment
caught improbably between the teeth like a bullet.

To mentally calculate the odds of such a thing ending well
is about as wise
respectful
appropriate
and advisable
as biting down.

The properly appreciative state
(and I don’t know how to achieve this, but I’m trying nonetheless)
Is one of unconscious, reflexive grace
Drunk, giggling and balancing on a moving El Camino’s hood
The Roadrunner, post- cliff edge
But pre- looking down.

The rare Metaphorical Luna Moth
(cue the turquoise and crystals and incense)
Would be the perfect spirit guide
Antennae unfurled, gratefully receiving
Vibrations, visions, glowing pollen specks
Happy little twitches that haven’t happened quite yet.

The moon is bright. Breath crystallized. Her hair spread across a fresh-chalked goal line.
The lake’s blood-warm. Sky melted Creamsicle. World saturated in liquefied sun.
You do not think about the harshly bright awkwardness of the next morning.
You do not think about driving back to Providence on sopping wet upholstery.
You just jump in.

* * * *
And here is how I actually am, poem by Simon Armitage (another awesome poet, one I actually got to meet in college)

"To His Lost Lover"

Now they are no longer
any trouble to each other

he can turn things over, get down to that list
of things that never happened, all of the lost

unfinishable business.
For instance… for instance,

how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush
through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush

at the fall of her name in close company.
How they never slept like buried cutlery –

two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,
or made the most of some heavy weather –

walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,
or did the gears while the other was driving.

How he never raised his fingertips
to stop the segments of her lips

from breaking the news,
or tasted the fruit

or picked for himself the pear of her heart,
or lifted her hand to where his own heart

was a small, dark, terrified bird
in her grip. Where it hurt.

Or said the right thing,
or put it in writing.

And never fled the black mile back to his house
before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,

then another,
or knew her

favourite colour,
her taste, her flavour,

and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,
or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair

into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive
of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved

when he might have, or worked a comb
where no comb had been, or walked back home

through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,
where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand

to his butterfly heart
in its two blue halves.

And never almost cried,
and never once described

an attack of the heart,
or under a silk shirt

nursed in his hand her breast,
her left, like a tear of flesh

wept by the heart,
where it hurts,

or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,
or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.

Or christened the Pole Star in her name,
or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,

a pilot light,
or stayed the night,

or steered her back to that house of his,
or said “Don’t ask me how it is

I like you.
I just might do.”

How he never figured out a fireproof plan,
or unravelled her hand, as if her hand

were a solid ball
of silver foil

and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,
and measured the trace of his own alongside it.

But said some things and never meant them –
sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.

And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,
about the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often.

Happy Halloween: The Only Picture I Will Ever Post Of My Ex-Husband And I

2008-10-31T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm the dwarf (in case you couldn't guess). That was a few years ago. It was a fun party. No one knew who I was because my ex and I arrived separately and I didn't talk, I just drank and motioned with my hands. All that people knew is that I had blue, blue eyes. No one even knew it was a cross-dressing dwarf! (How many hits on search engines do you think I will get for that phrase alone-- "cross-dressing dwarf?")

One Week To Go

2008-10-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

In one week I will be sitting here typing my zoology lab report on Planaria and the following will be true:
The election will be over.
I will have taken my zoology midterm.
I will have taken my physiology midterm.

Seems hard to believe in just one week all that will be behind me. Time cannot pass fast enough for me right now, and it is rare that I wish for time to pass quickly lately as I have been happier than ever before this fall.

I mention this not just to motivate myself that an end is in sight, but also for you, my dear readers, who I seem to have alienated by turning this into a political single issue blog as of late. I will be back, on a whole new track, in just one week. I promise.

The Saga Of The No On Prop 8 Signs Continues

2008-10-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

So I was mistaken yesterday. The sign I had up was not stolen, but rather taken down and placed under a tree in the yard by someone. Dr Cool found it and put it back up this afternoon, then left. A few minutes later I went on an hour run in Quicksilver park. When I came back someone had taken the plastic sheet part of the sign, just leaving the metal frame behind. This time it was gone for good. I was only away for one hour. The sign wasn't even back up for a full hour and someone took it down again!!! Even the usually unflappable Dr Cool found this rather appalling.

So this evening I went to the No On 8 campaign headquarters and picked up some more signs. I didn't put them out because I can't leave them out overnight. In fact, I might have to sit outside and study next to the sign tomorrow because apparently I need to babysit it like a newborn to ensure it doesn't get stolen.

I'm kind of bummed because the new signs don't say Equality For All. They just say Unfair And Wrong. In red no less whereas the old sign was in blue and green. It's too strident for me. I wish someone hadn't taken my old sign.

For My Biology Labmate: Does Gay Marriage Threaten Religious Freedom? Some Arguments For and Against

2008-10-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

She believes that if Prop 8 passes then churches are at risk of losing their non-profit status if they refuse to marry gay couples.

I did some research on this and present the following two articles:

1. "California Ruling Protects Religious Freedom" by the Reverend Dr. C. Welton Gaddy

While the decision frees the supportive denominations to perform same-gender marriages, it does not force any religious group to change its theology or traditions. The decision made the court’s position clear on this point:
“Finally, affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 4.)”

This article is particularly nice because it links to the entire California supreme court decision case and so you can see that on p117 it does indeed state that no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practice.

2. "A Gay Marriage Pandora's Box" Dean R. Broyles and Lorri L. Jean

The actual evidence is overwhelming that this conflict is not imagined but very real. Unfortunately, religious freedom and free speech are increasingly on the losing end of the equation. In 2005, Swedish minister Ake Green was sentenced to jail for preaching about homosexuality from the New Testament book of Romans (the conviction was eventually overturned). New Jersey's Ocean Grove Campground, a religious nonprofit, lost its tax-exempt status in 2007 because the organization refused to rent its facility to a lesbian couple for a civil commitment ceremony. In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston stopped doing adoption work rather than be coerced by the Massachusetts to place children with same-sex couples. A Massachusetts father was arrested in 2007 when he would not leave the school because the administration stubbornly refused to acknowledge his legal right to opt his child out of ongoing homosexual indoctrination occurring in a kindergarten class.

Unfortunately the counter argument does not actually address these points, so I will quote reader comment #34 on this (as well several others if you choose to keep reading):

34. Broyles is lying: Green's conviction was overturned; the US doesn't have a hate speech law. On Ocean Grove: the church ran it as a public business, and therefore cannot discriminate against one segment of the public. The same goes for doctors. The father was arrested for becoming belligerent and refusing to leave the principal's office. The court ruled that teaching tolerance is not indoctrination. The Catholic adoption service is continuing to do adoptions, but no publicly funded ones. The parents of the first-graders gave permission for them to attend the gay wedding. If passed, Prop * will be ruled unconstitutional.
Submitted by: William LeGro

4:31 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

30. "New Jersey's Ocean Grove Campground, a religious nonprofit, lost its tax-exempt status in 2007 because the organization refused to rent its facility to a lesbian couple for a civil commitment ceremony." HUGE crock 'o' lies. First, they DID NOT lose their tax-exempt status. They lost a $200 property tax exemption on ONE building. The building they refused to rent to a lesbian couple. And by saying "its facility," insinuates it was a chapel that was involved. Not true. The building in question was an open-air beachside pavilion. Kids skateboarded there, civil ware re-enactments were held there, as well as concerts and craft fairs.
Submitted by: mistereks

4:36 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

26. "This year, two Christian doctors here in California were successfully sued for violating state civil rights law because they asserted their right of religious conscience by refusing to perform artificial insemination for a lesbian couple." And the court ruled 7-0 that they have every right to refuse to perform any procedure they like on religious grounds. But they can't refuse that procedure to SOME people based solely on religious grounds. In other words, they can discriminate against procedures, but not against people. That's as it should be.
Submitted by: mistereks

4:37 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

23. "And famously, just this month, a first-grade class went on a "field trip" to watch its lesbian teacher's wedding in San Francisco." And parents who didn't want their children to go could refuse to sign the permission slip -- as two families did. Where is the problem here? Fight for Prop 8 all you want -- but at least do it with the truth.
Submitted by: mistereks

4:37 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

51. It does not appear Dean did his homework regarding this field trip that supposedly violated religious freedoms. Two of the students had their parents opt them out of the trip, the rest had permission from their parents, who wanted them to go. Doesn't sound like anyone was forced against their will to attend to me. And then an example of an overturned jail sentence from Sweden. Sounds like a pretty desperate cover for his homophobic attitude.
Submitted by: Chris

4:02 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

43. I love it when one side gives facts and the other side gives polemic. While Prop 8 limits marriage to one man and one woman, it is presently true, by decision of the Supreme Count that the State CANNOT limit marriage to opposite sex couple. It is therefore specious for opponents of Prop 8 to say "read the text, the Supreme Court decision mentions nothing about teaching same sex marriage to kindergarteners". Of course it doesn't. But the legal consequences in favor to compelling kindergarteners to learn the same-sex party line are as inevitable in California as they have been in Massachusetts. -- Chris Curzon
Submitted by: Chris Curzon

4:25 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

7. Everyone has the constitutional right to believe in any set of religious values they so choose. If, however, their religion commands them to break laws, or refuse services to those of other religions, or to run public business that exclude those of a certain race, it isn't seen as legal or acceptable. Those supporting Prop 8 use the right to practice their religion to treat another group who doesn't buy into their religion as second-class citizens. This is not protected by the first amendment, and denying others equal treatment under the law is not protected religious practice. Period.
Submitted by: Beargulch

5:00 PM PDT, October 27, 2008

In A Nutshell Why I Am Against Prop 8

2008-10-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

1. It makes me personally feel like a second class citizen to have the option of marrying taken away. Even if I choose to never exercise that right, I want to be entitled to the same rights as straight people.

2. It is a civil rights issue. I am against amending the state's constitution to take away the rights of any minority group.

3. I agree with the California supreme court's ruling and interpretation of strict scrutiny. There is no compelling interest for the government to deny gay couples the right to marry. Moreover, it does not hurt anyone. It might offend many people's religious views, but we do not live in a theocracy (thank G-d), at least so far. We live in a country that is supposed to have separation of church and state and so people's religious views should not dictate whether the government issues marriage licenses and or grants the same benefits to straight or gay couples.

How To Calm Down

2008-10-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm still incensed over the stolen sign, so much so it makes focusing on my studying difficult.

But getting all worked up doesn't change a thing, and I really need to get my work done if I am going to spend next Tuesday at the polls.

So I am sitting here drinking warm milk with a dollop of local honey, studying lactose metabolism. Sometimes I think I am quite clever (other times not so much so....). Warm milk= soporific. Local honey= sweetness, goodness. Just what I need.

Someone Stole My No On Prop 8 Sign!!!

2008-10-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

I am really mad, upset and bewildered. Someone stole my No On Prop 8 sign off of Dr. Cool's lawn. It is in a very nice strategic intersection by a church and their preschool.

I haven't stolen any signs because I believe in FREE SPEECH.

This election is more and more upsetting every day.

My friend L says that it just "reveals how ugly some people can be." And I could have lived quite happily without knowing that.

Meanwhile, the entire Bay area is out of signs for the moment, so there isn't even any way to replace it. Really, really crappy.

I Voted Today

2008-10-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

By mail in ballot. I am still consumed by this election.

I am trying to get my friends who are also enraged by prop 8 to volunteer with me in the final days for the No On 8 campaign. So far only SelfSustainableNurse has committed to a shift, but I have hopes I will rope in a few more of my politically active friends.

I can't believe in just over a week this whole thing will be over. Whatever will I think about then?

An OK Weekend Spent On The Peninsula Again

2008-10-27T11:47:00.001-07:00

Once again, the best part of my weekend was my Friday night shift at work. Crazy, huh? At least I've found work that I love. I was sad to find out our only hospitalized patient was euthanized Sunday afternoon. I did get pretty involved in that case and had hoped for a better outcome.

Saturday I went back to the Peninsula to volunteer at the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society Wildlife Awareness Day. I helped staff the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley booth in order to educate the public about their mission to help injured wildlife. A lot of people don't even know such a place exists, so they end up trying to care for hurt wildlife on their own, which isn't good for the wildlife or for people who don't know how to handle wildlife and end up getting hurt. It was heartening to see people chose the copy of the center's magazine, Tracks, from the fall of 2006, in which I wrote most of the articles. Made me feel good about my writing and efforts.

Sunday I went for a nice run in Quicksilver, the farmer's market, and to lunch with L and her family to discuss the ballot. It was nice to share a meal with her family, I have been getting tired of eating all my meals by myself. Gets kind of depressing.

Sunday night I made a giant pot of vegetable stew, I kind of mis-estimated so it wouldn't all fit in one pot and I had to make a second pot and then combine the two later. At Sunshine's suggestion I added A LOT of curry, so much so that the whole house smelled of curry for the rest of the night. Dr Cool didn't seem to mind too much, he says it smelled good.

Not a bad weekend, but I am was exhausted by Sunday night. Perhaps because I went to bed after 2 am on Friday night and got up at 7 am on Saturday morning. Those swing shifts do throw off my schedule a little but are worth it.

Proposition 8: Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart Now, Baby

2008-10-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, sorry for the lack of posts recently. I've been consumed by school and every free moment has been spent thinking about politics. The fact that the vote on proposition 8 is so close makes me crazy. I want it to fail so badly. I keep hearing that if it passes, because it is a constitutional amendment, it will mean that I won't see gay marriage in California in my lifetime. Which means I will always be a second class citizen. And that any other minority group is at risk of a ballot proposition taking away their rights. Talk about a slippery slope, which is terminology the other side tends to use.

Wednesday night I was dreading doing phone banking because I always hang up on everyone who calls me who is not a personal friend. And in fact lots and lots of people hung up on me. The other volunteers joked it was karma getting me back. But overall it was a great experience because I felt like I was doing something positive for the No On 8 campaign. And the other volunteers were really friendly and upbeat. It was an awesome atmosphere.

I haven't seen a place so polarized by the religious/secular divide since I was in high school and Yigal Amir shot Yitzhak Rabin. This level of polarization does no one any good. We are all in this together. There is only one planet. One environment. Demonizing the other side hurts everyone.

In fact, the atmosphere in California today reminds me a lot of high school and the year after high school that I spent in Israel (I gave my valedictory speech on the negative effects of a deeply polarized society-- using Israel as my example-- since I couldn't talk about feminism or gay rights per the principal so that is how I addressed it indirectly). It still makes me sad to think of it. I truly believe history would have been less violent if Rabin had not been assassinated. Murdered. And the repercussions of that bloody moment are still being felt in Israel today. And as for me personally, because of that nanosecond that changed history, I will probably never live in Israel again in my lifetime because as much as I love the land and parts of the culture, there is no peace, peace which at one time seemed a real possibility and now is as elusive as acceptance in California.

Sometimes it is hard to understand these things. Not even why they happen, but just the sadness of it seems so incomprehensible, so much larger than me and my individual life.

It's been a tough time for me personally too, for even though I have no desire to get married, I have felt under attack for being gay. I realize that the level of acceptance of homosexuality even in the Bay area is a lot less than what I naively imagined. Several of my classmates that I assumed were liberal have basically told me to my face that they don't think I deserve the same rights as them. It hurts. Again, it also reminds me of being in high school in North Carolina, where the hatred was blatant.

I am looking forward to this election being over, so I can have my life back and not be consumed by worry over it. But I try not to worry, it is mostly out of my control. I will continue to volunteer with the No on Prop 8 campaign, I will vote, and that is about all I can do.

If any of you are interested in doing something, I recommend giving money. Talk to people about your views. Educate people about the lies being put out there by the other side.

And if you want to read a truly depressing article, go here.

A Weekend Spent On The Peninsula

2008-10-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Friday night I went to Coconuts Caribbean Restaurant in Palo Alto to see Lemo play. He's the musician that I met at the Princeton Plaza farmer's market (www.lemolive.com). It was a small, but good show, and I enjoyed hearing the accents from Trinidad. Afterwards, I went out to a few bars in downtown Palo Alto, rode a fake bull and did some dancing.

Saturday morning run with Baylands Frontrunners (http://www.baylands.org/index.php).
Running along the marsh was beautiful, it was hard not to stop to look at all the shorebirds.

Sunday afternoon in Los Altos Hills:

Congregation Beth Am and the Progressive Jewish Alliance present:
"Marriage Equality Is a Jewish Issue"
Sunday, October 19, 2008 - 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
With NCLR Board Members

Join NCLR Board Members Emily Doskow, Minna Tao, and Stacey Camillo at the Congregation Beth Am for an event entitled "Marriage Equality Is a Jewish Issue." They will be discussing Prop 8—the marriage ban, and what you can do to help defeat it in November. Hope to see you there!

I also got to see Deb Kinney and Ira Ruskin speak, as well as a rabbi from the area and members of the Progressive Jewish Alliance.

They did their job because they not only got me to donate money to the campaign, I also signed up to do phone banking this Wednesday. I don't want to see all the hard work that led to the victory in the court room undone. It appalls me to think that the California state constitution could be amended to take away the rights of any group.

Sunday night I made my first attempt at a veggie stew, inspired by seeing Sunshine's version of it when I eat lunch with her at school. I love the aesthetic appeal of the vegetables from the farmer's market all cut up and spread out (yes, those are purple potatoes):

Then, yesterday morning, bright and early, back to the grind of school, starting off the week with a genetics exam. At least that is behind me. Now I get a bit of a break until my next set of midterms in two weeks. I still have plenty to do, and am trying to use every minute efficiently because I have another busy weekend coming up and I can't fill up my weekends with fun activities unless I get most of my work done during the week.

Undercover Diva

2008-10-17T12:45:00.001-07:00

This is Dr. Chief-of-Staff's dog, Diva. Like Frida (Not Kahlo), she was a rescue who came in with a broken radius/ulna that her owners could not afford to fix. She was one of the first little dogs that I ever really liked, and she has helped open my eyes to the charms of little dogs (Dr. Chief-of-Staff says that, like me, she was exclusively a big dog person until she met Diva).

I love this photo because Diva's look seems to be saying, "You woke me up just to take a photograph? Seriously?!"

Also, I like it because it reminds me of Simon, who also loves to burrow under the covers, and who I have nearly sat on so many times when I sat down on my bed because I didn't notice the small lump of Simon under the covers.

(If you are wondering, I snapped this shot in the doctor's office. The last three shifts that I have worked I have been Dr. Chief-of-Staff's personal tech so I have spent a lot of time traipsing in and back from the floor to the doctor's office with updates, questions, lab results etc).

Yesterday: I Did Not Puke And I Did Not Sleep

2008-10-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

I got back my physiology exam yesterday and did very well on it. Needless to say, I was immensely relieved.

It was my plan to not even look at the grade, and I told the professor this when he gave me my exam back, but he smiled and said, "Good score." So I knew it was OK. And in fact I was two standard deviations above the average, which means I got an A. I felt really dumb for having worried about it so much.

Yesterday morning I woke up at five thirty am, after having gone to bed at 1 am the night before. I was wide awake. Nightmares. So rather than lie in bed in the dark afraid, I got up and went swimming. It is the reverse of my normal schedule to watch the sun rise rather than set, but it was every bit just as beautiful to see the sky change from pitch black to light blue every time I turned my head to take a breath.

I went to school, came home, got in a run in the hills, and headed back to school. From my evening class I went straight to Slow Feet's naturalization party, to celebrate the Brit finally becoming an American citizen. Reminds me of how much I like my work friends. Here I am (on four hours sleep) with LaMexicana Dog Whisperer, The Brazilian Dancer and Slow Feet, graveyard nurse extraordinaire.

Today I got in another swim and run. I am really enjoying our warm weather. When I get far up in the hills, I take off my shirt and feel the warmth of the sun, the wind caressing my skin, and with all the birds, the quiet, the beautiful views of the valley, it is pretty much my idea of heaven. I think I derive a lot of emotional satisfaction from my connection to nature that others get from other people. I am going to be sad when it starts to rain. Every sunny day is a gift for me.

Well, I have to be up in just a few hours, and I have another very full weekend, so more later. Thanks to everyone who commiserated with me about my wait for the return of my exam and wrote me privately to express concern. It is touching.

Wanting To Puke A Lot Lately

2008-10-14T22:27:00.000-07:00

For the past week and a half, every time I've gone to my physiology class I've felt like puking. Why? Because we are supposed to get our first midterms back any day now.

The funny thing is I wasn't all that nervous when I went in to take the midterm. I don't usually get nervous before tests-- I know I am a good student and I have confidence in my abilities. I knew the physiology material fairly well (considering I spent most of the first month of school doing little outside of class except filling out applications). The test went well. Of course, there were some things I didn't know, but I felt like I answered the majority of the questions well.

But somehow in the intervening weeks since taking the exam, I have developed increasing anxiety about how I did. I have this terrible fear that I flunked. I know that I am catastrophizing-- imagining the worst for no reason. I tell myself I've rarely flunked anything in my life (perhaps one quantum mechanics exam, but the average was so low I suspect even that I passed with my 11 out of 100... but that's another story). I've never, ever been remotely in danger of failing a class.

Yet no matter how much I try to reason through my fears intellectually, they persist as strong as ever. Darn emotions. Why don't irrational fears respond better to intellectual reasoning? Really, it annoys me so much when I can reason my way through something and find my emotions on the subject unchanged, it is like my heart just refuses to listen to my brain no matter how hard I try to bludgeon it into it.

So today I found out my exam will be ready tomorrow morning. It is among the last few to be graded. I haven't decided if I am going to pick it up or wait for L to get it for me so that I don't have to see the score, and she can tell me I did fine or break it to me gently if I didn't.

I think I have been so anxious over it because I know that I need a good grade in this class to achieve my goals for next year. And there are only three exams, and it is on a tough curve, so it counts for a lot. I hate when I am reduced to a grade or score on paper based on a few scant hours of my life. Last time I wanted to puke this badly was before I took the GRE a year ago. I almost puked all over the woman who checked me into the exam. And then I got phenomenally good scores. Go figure. But I still object to being reduced to a few numbers based on my performance during only three hours of my life. That simply can't be indicative of my talent. It can't capture me.

And I also want to puke when I hear that it looks like Prop 8 might pass and that gay marriage will become unconstitutional in CA. It seemed impossible that something like that could even be a real possibility. Why are people so closed minded? Who have I ever hurt by being gay?

And since I am a complete geek, I wonder why my stomach literally tenses when I get stressed. It's physiology folks, so I should be able to reason through that too. Flight or fight. Sympathetic nervous system. Adrenaline. Norepinephrine. Vasoconstriction of blood vessels in the digestive tract. That can't be the whole story, but I bet it is part of why I want to puke when my stress levels spike.

My Mom Would Be So Proud Of Me

2008-10-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

For 30 years my mom has been trying to get me to wear pink and cook. For 30 years I have fought her tooth and nail.

Recently I have changed, but my mom does not live close enough to see it (hence this post).

I wear pink. Lots of pink. More than one person has complimented me on it being a good color for me.

I cook. I made banana bread this week (thanks to Eagle Eye's famous recipe) and it was a gigantic hit at the emergency clinic. I sautee vegetables. I even steamed broccoli this week. I have an Amish friendship bread starter that I am endeavoring to keep going.

What changed?

My gender identification has definitely shifted a little. Before I wanted to look tough because I knew I wasn't. Now I know I am so I feel comfortable dressing in a more feminine manner. I know that on the inside no one can take away my new found independence. It's the real deal. I can wrestle big, aggressive dogs; drive around at four in the morning; handle a new city; run in 100 degree heat and 100% humidity for over an hour. These things are not external, they are part of me. Before I felt vulnerable looking feminine. Now so much less scares me and I am confident enough to dress any way I want. (I tried to explain this to someone and she immediately got it, saying, "Clothing as armor!")

And maybe it is age too. With every passing year I am more comfortable in my own skin. I know myself. I know I am not an alpha (I'm a total omega). I'm not dominant. Yet I can often bluff quite effectively, at least with animals (and for short periods of time), when necessary. I've stopped trying to be what I'm not. It doesn't mean I can't be a leader. It doesn't mean I will let other people walk all over me. It just means that I accept myself for who I am and I am not fighting it. (I might add that I'm not saying that someone who is more of an alpha could not be very feminine, certainly Eagle Eyes and T are very much more alphas than me, and they are also more feminine in their gender expression than me. I think it causes a lot of problems when people conflate gender expression-- or gender performance is the term we would have used at Amherst-- with other traits that are considered feminine. I'm just trying to say that accepting myself makes it possible for me to dress as what feels like me).

As for the cooking, that is a more practical matter. For most of my life there has been someone to cook for me. First my mom (thanks mom, I know I was an incredibly picky eater as a kid). Then my college roommate (I think EB singlehandedly kept me alive through the rough spots in college-- me and D, her two high-strung companions). After college my ex-husband cooked for me and then my ex-girlfriend, M (in retrospect neither were particularly good cooks, but I can only say this now having learned finally to cook for myself). The past nine months there hasn't been anyone else to feed me but me. So I've had to learn. It actually hasn't been nearly as hard or as tedious as I feared. I did myself an enormous favor by taking a really good nutrition class for human nurses last winter following my break-up with M. That class taught me all the basics about how to feed myself in a healthy manner. The rest has been collecting recipes and experimenting. I learned a lot from watching other people in my research group's house this summer and I got a lot of tips from my aunt K. I'm well on my way.

Well, life is certainly full of surprises. Who would have ever predicted that I would someday fully embrace my femininity? Or that I would cook-- well enough that when I stop by the clinic for something, the first thing the receptionists ask is whether I've made anything for them to eat? (I know EB for one is still in shock over the whole cooking thing, and Sunshine is surprised to see me in dresses).

But don't get any ideas about grandkids, mom. That's not in the plans. Kids are anti-freedom and will annihilate an unencumbered lifestyle as surely as anti-matter will annihilate its particle counterpart.

When Public Transportation Fails

2008-10-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

Today I went to San Francisco. Not wanting to drive when there is public transportation available, I decided to take Caltrain. Cuts down on the mileage I'm putting on my car, gives me time to study instead of having to focus on driving, and is good for the environment. Sounds like a good plan, right?

The train ride there didn't start off well, and quickly went from bad to worse. The train was jam packed. It's not like that when I ride it during the week. It was awful-- loud, hot, steamy, smelly. People sitting on the stairs, standing in the aisles.

Then the the train broke down just before Redwood city. The lights went out and air conditioning went off. We pulled into Redwood city and sat there for half an hour, sweating, before the conductor informed us that the engineer could not restart the engine and that we would have to get off and wait for the next train (they run every hour on weekends). About three hundred to four hundred people got off the train. Someone ahead of me flagged the one taxi waiting at the train station. There were no other taxis.

I asked the conductor what would happen if the next train was this full and we couldn't all get on. She said we'd have to wait for the train after that in that case. I decided then that I was getting a taxi, and began asking people on the platform if they wanted to share a ride and split the cab fare to San Francisco. Eventually a very nice Danish couple with two beautiful kids agreed. Then it was a matter of finding a cab, of which there were none. You'd think with that many people stranded there would be plenty of cabs, but no, there weren't any for several minutes. Weird for a train station, where there is usually a line of cabs no matter what is going on.

The cab cost me $30 and took forever. The traffic on the highway was bad and then the cab driver did not seem to know his way around San Francisco very well. Sigh.

The train ride back wasn't so bad. I arrived at six fifteen at the Caltrain depot in San Francisco and there was already a line for the seven o'clock train to San Jose. It seems there are often more riders than seats. So I stood in line for forty minutes, but got a great seat and the train had a smooth ride.

I don't know if I will take Caltrain again on the weekend. I will probably give it a second chance, but if it turns out anything like today that's it. Because today it really wasn't worth it.

Addendum:

I found out later that the people left waiting from my broken down train mostly made it on to the next train, but that about 120 people had to wait even longer for buses to San Francisco.

Last time my train was held up, in August, it was also because of a problem in Redwood city, which I found out yesterday was in fact a bank robbery, and the robbers got caught by the police on the highway!

Even An X-Ray Of Poop Can Be Beautiful

2008-10-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

The detail on this radiograph that I took awhile back is stunning. I'm off to work. Finally caught up on sleep going into the weekend. I got in a nice run between school and work too, yay.

Disciplined Studying & Photographic Memory

2008-10-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

I just spent four hours going over my physiology notes from today's one hour and fifteen minute lecture and turning them into flashcards (I know it is incredibly dorky, but I really do learn best by making and reviewing flashcards in my experience). It is hard to force myself to sit still for that long and focus, especially late at night when I am tired and just want to socialize or go to bed.

However, I know that if I can review the entire lecture before I go to sleep it will stick much better than if I do it another day. I discovered this my first year in college, when I was culled, along with a dozen or so other students, out of a class of 400 for the advanced introductory chemistry class our first semester. Not much of a gift in my classmates' eyes, it meant that instead of sitting in on an easy lecture with everyone else, I was competing against the other top students selected by their scores and high school course work in a course that was basically quantum mechanics (though at that point in my career I was much less into competing than the other students, who were mostly pre-med, whereas I was interested in research). I found quickly that if I reviewed my notes for just a few minutes after every class I could tap into a photographic memory. Exams were much easier when I could flip through my notes in my head. Saved me in that class for sure, though there was also lots of critical thinking (I still have nightmares about my first exam where our very first question was "Prove that orbitals are symmetrical"-- yeah, try to dredge up your calculus after a long summer break and a year abroad before starting college).

Since completing my bachelor's I've been pretty lazy about studying, and I wasn't even sure if I still had the ability to access a photographic memory until my first physiology exam, where I found myself flipping through pages of the book in my head (pretty neat, huh-- it certainly made my day). This physiology class is the first class I've taken in ages that has been graded on a curve, meaning I am competing with my classmates (who seem quite bright I might add), and also has an enormous volume of material. So I am forcing myself to be disciplined in my studying. The crappy part is I don't get out of class till almost seven pm, and I don't get home till close till eight, so Tuesdays and Thursdays are quite late nights, and then I have to be up around six am to get to my 8:30 am genetics class. Not exactly the most fun schedule, but I think the hard work will pay off in the amount of material I retain.

Oscar Also Finds Too Much Studying And All These Books To Be Soporific

2008-10-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

Actually, I hate to say it but I think this is a prime napping spot because he likes the heat emanating from the power cord.

Enamored With Setters All Of A Sudden

2008-10-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me well knows I am not that into purebred dogs, but that I have a definite soft spot for pitties. I love how friendly and happy they are. I also find that they tend to be pretty stable tempermentally, despite being overbred. And they are easy dogs to read, the untrustworthy pit bulls don't hide their fearfulness or aggressiveness, they are open books behaviorally.

Last year, I surprised myself by falling for a stunning male Belgian Malinois one of our vets rescued. His name was Travis and were my life more stable, I would have adopted him in a heartbeat. Malinois are often used as police dogs, and can be quite high strung, but Travis, in his rescuer's words, was "very sensible."

This weekend, on the beach in Bolinas, I found myself instantly smitten with an Irish setter youngster, all of 18 months. Ru was lean and beautiful, a running machine, but it was her personality and not her looks that did me in. Soft and so gentle, there wasn't a mean bone in her body. I asked to have my picture taken with her (below), which the owners thought was a little weird. (Later my birding instructor explained to me that most people want their photos taken with the beach in the background, a significant other or friend etc but not someone else's dog).

I've never paid much attention to setters as a breed, but come to think of it I've always been a big fan of Dr. Triathlete's English setter, Ferris (right below and top, me taking a break to hang out with Ferris-- don't ask me what it means that I have a million pictures of me in cages). Like Ru, not only is she beautiful (just look at that perfectly spotted face), but she has a winner personality. Gentle and easy going. She's well-trained too. And, best of all, like Ru she is a runner, and can even keep up with Dr. Triathlete on his long training runs, which would be too much for most dogs.

I will have to consider having a setter in my distant future. I think it would make me happy.

Sleep Deprived HT= Punchy HT: It's All Funny When I'm Overtired

2008-10-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

So there are several possible outcomes to me being overtired, as I have been all week.
1. I can become hypomanic and talk super fast (my friend Sunshine has the best description of this)
2. I can become overly emotional and cry at the slightest provocation or thought of something sad
3. I can become punchy and find everything completely hilarious

Today it has been a combination of #1 and #3. A bit embarrassing to say the least.

In my physiology class, we were discussing how the membrane potential of myocardial cells and nodal cells changes during an action potential. It turns out (and it makes intuitive sense if you stop to think that your heart never stops pumping) that the nodal cells (sinoatrial node ie pacemaker) have no resting Vm (membrane potential). This is due to something called the funny current (If) which is a constant background Na (sodium) current that is always inward.

When my professor said that it was called the funny current, I burst out laughing. No one else in the entire 70 person class laughed, and most of them turned to look at me. Then there was dead silence for a few seconds. The professor paused and said, "Well someone named it the funny current because they thought it was funny too." As if that person was as much of a weirdo as me. I definitely felt awkward.

How My Weekend Actually Turned Out: Wild But Not What I Planned

2008-10-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

So, my weekend did not go according to my plans. Flexibility is a wonderful thing. Balance and flexibility are what I strive to achieve these days, though I do not think it was a balanced weekend in any way unfortunately...

Friday I was supposed to go to San Francisco but I didn't. The person I was meeting up with bailed on me with no explanation and I had a last minute opportunity to go to a coyote release. Let's see-- art exhibit and concert vs seeing the release of six orphaned coyotes my friend C raised from pups? Not a very difficult decision.

I am in awe of C. She can handle wild animals better than anyone I know. Much, much better. Even so, catching six coyotes in a large enclosure had her in a sweat. (Does anyone else know of someone who can catch a half dozen coyotes or a half dozen foxes-- which can climb-- in less than fifteen minutes? I doubt it). Sadly, she'll probably never get the recognition or respect that she deserves because coyotes (and other predators) are not that popular, but she has my deepest admiration. Nevermind raising them from all of a pound to full grown without habituating them to humans. She's the expert-- from San Luis Obispo to San Francisco, she's the one that other rehabilitators send their coyotes to because she knows best. Mad props to you, C.

A coyote release is not the best place to get a picture of a coyote, so here is a gratuitous shot of a goodlooking coyote I saw in Point Reyes awhile back, followed by some shots of the area we released the coyotes in on Friday and the actual release (the coyotes are just blurry streaks).

We drove a long way to get the coyotes out of the city, where they are less likely to have problematic interactions with humans:

Looking out on the big, scary world before taking the plunge into new territory:

And here they are, heading for the hills:

After the coyote release I went for a long swim outdoors in the dark, studied a little and went to bed.

Saturday I got up early to go to Marin on a birding trip with my birding instructor and a group of her students. It was a beautiful day to be outside. The very first bird I saw was likely a golden eagle, perched on a fence by the side of the road as we were passing Palo Alto. We saw lots of other raptors and shorebirds but not that many passerines for reasons we don't entirely understand.

This is Bolinas Lagoon. In the bottom photo there are harbor seals in the foreground and brown pelicans behind them:

We ended the day at Hawk Hill, looking out over San Francisco. Beautiful, huh?

You'll never guess what I did Saturday night-- I went to work. It wasn't my plan, but I owed my friend Muscles a favor and he called it in, so I covered his shift for him. It's been a hard month for Muscles and he needed a break. I care about my co-workers and friends so very much, and so even though it wasn't my idea of the most fun way to spend my Saturday night (for example, in bed sleeping would have been much better), I did it for him.

I got off work around 3 am, and was up before 8 am, wide awake, so I did some studying, went to the farmer's market and then headed to Los Altos for a Wildlife Conservation Network fund raiser. Work was short several nurses due to illness so I got a call begging me to come in for the Sunday night shift. I had a pair of scrubs in the car, so I drove straight to work despite being tired and just wanting to do some studying and go to bed. I didn't have to go, but I don't like it when my co-workers are overwhelmed and it's not good for the patients either when we are short staffed.

So where was I at midnight last night? In surgery, sweating. I was off at midnight but at 11:15 Dr. Chief-of-Staff needed to take a cat with a foreign body GI obstruction to surgery and there was no one else signed off on anesthesia. It feels really good and flattering to be qualified to do the anesthesia and have the doctors' trust. On the other hand, I hadn't slept much the night before, am not familiar with all the new equipment in that hospital and hadn't done an anesthesia in five months so I felt a little trepidation about it (also I knew I had to be up early for school the next day...). Initially, it was a smooth anesthesia but then my monitors failed (no blood pressure readings, ack) and I had to move the patient partway through so the doctor had a better angle and it was a wee bit stressful. OK, I panicked and got Slow Feet to come in and help for a few minutes when she came on for her graveyard shift. But in the end it was fine and my patient had a smooth recovery, so I call that a success.

Two nights of five hours sleep in a row. It's time to go back to a more sustainable lifestyle.

I didn't do as much fun, new stuff as I wanted this weekend-- a Friday night with a long swim and going to work both Saturday and Sunday night is not breaking up my routine. But I did get to see my two mentors, C and my birding instructor, and any weekend where I get to spend time with two strong, independent women who are passionate about wildlife and their jobs is a good weekend in my book.

The Other Frida (Not Kahlo)

2008-10-03T16:56:00.000-07:00

LaMexicana, who introduced me to Kahlo's work, named her dog Frida after the artist. She says she has liked Kahlo's work for as long as she can remember, from her earliest days growing up in Mexico.

Frida (Not Kahlo) came into the emergency clinic with a fractured radius/ulna that her owners could not afford to repair. She was going to be euthanized or sent to the shelter, but LaMexicana, who has a big heart and a thing for small dogs, rescued her. She has been in a cast all summer. First Dr. Triathlon reduced the fracture and pinned it. But when the cast came off, Frida (Not Kahlo) re-fractured it, much to everyone's chagrin. The second time Frida (Not Kahlo) didn't have surgery, she's just been in a cast ever since. It's due to come off soon, hopefully she will not re-fracture it a third time! (Perhaps Kahlo is not the best namesake for an animal given all of the artist's bone problems...)

The bottom photo is of Pete hanging out with Frida (Not Kahlo) one day when LaMexicana came over to visit me. Pete is notoriously dog aggressive but gets along well with Frida (Not Kahlo), it is really very sweet.

Men Hitting On Me & The Male Perspective

2008-10-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last night a rather humorous exchange occurred between me and a stranger at the post office. (At least it was humorous to me, though I suspect I made him laugh too).

I went to check my mail after dark. I know it is not the brightest idea to check my PO box late at night because it is so deserted, though I have often gone after a shift at 2 or 3 am. Also my box is as far away from the door as possible so I'm essentially cornered there.

I walked in and there as a very large guy built like a bodybuilder with his back to me, filling out a form. He looked over his shoulder at me, looked me up and down, and went back to filling out the form. I checked my mail, and then walked out, half-keeping an eye on him. I noticed him look over his shoulder a second time, glancing at me, almost worriedly it seemed to me.

I couldn't figure it out. When I look a guy up and down in a deserted post office late at night, I am thinking, "Can I take him if he came at me?" and "Where is the nearest exit if I needed to bolt?" But if anyone was going to hurt anyone, he was going to hurt me. There is no way I was a threat to this man.

I stood at the door, chuckling to myself about his strange behavior, then asked him, "How come you looked over your shoulder at me like that twice? You look like you are worried about my presence but there is no way I could hurt you."

He laughed and said, "I looked twice because I think you are kind of cute."

I lauged too and said thanks and left. I told the story to my friend L this morning on the car ride to school (it's so nice to carpool :) and she said, "It's like a glimpse into someone else's mind."

I don't wish I were male, but it must be nice to be big and strong and not have to worry about someone assaulting you. I would really like that. I would run at night as much as I wanted and only look over my shoulder to check people out, not to calculate whether or not someone was a possible threat.
* * *
On a different note, I've been getting hit on a lot lately (only by men, of course, no one reads me as gay it seems). Mostly it is incredibly flattering to get the attention. Sometimes it is not so welcome. I've been talking back more lately though when I don't like it. I think I owe this to my time spent with Eagle Eyes this summer. When guys looked at her, she would often turn and say, "What are you looking at?" I remember the first time I ever did this-- I was carrying a bunch of mist net poles on my shoulder in 100 degree heat at noon and a young male worker in a hard hat was gaping at me with his mouth completely open. I looked at him, and said sharply, "What are you looking at, never seen a woman do physical labor before?" His buddies in hard hats all laughed at him and he turned his eyes away and mumbled, "Uh nothing." I felt ten feet taller.

The other day, this guy at the light rail station was looking at me very lasciviously without trying to disguise it and said something really crude about me being edible and I flipped him off. The minute I did it I regretted it because escalating a situation is rarely a good idea and for a minute I thought he was going to jump me. But I put some distance between us and stood my ground. When I got on the train, luckily he didn't follow.

The only way I can explain all the new attention is that I am really happy with my life, happy to be back near my friends, loving being in school, excited about my future and that people sense that. And the confidence, which causes me to speak my mind, often with humorous results.

I Have Been Looking Forward To This Weekend Since August.... Nearly There

2008-10-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ever since I noticed that Edie Carey was playing in San Francisco and that it coincided with the deadline for my applications, I have been looking forward to this weekend as an endpoint of sorts and also a reward. The light at the end of the tunnel. Something fun to keep me motivated in the bleak days of application drudgery.

Today I took the last of my three midterms. The weekend is around the corner. I'm excited, but also exhausted.

Here's my jam packed schedule:

Friday: Leave genetics section around 1:30. Head home for a swim. Then to San Francisco. Hit the SF MOMA to see the Chinese modern art exhibit. Picnic dinner in Dolores park. Edie Carey at Dolores Park Cafe.

Saturday: 7:30 am meet in Campbell for a birding trip to Stinson beach, Bolinas lagoon and Hawk hill (all in Marin). Saturday night possible release at wildlife center.

Sunday: Volunteer at private fundraising event for Wildlife Conservation Network in Los Altos.

Work is desperate for me to pick up a Friday and Saturday night shift but I don't see how I can fit it in. I have to sleep sometime. And I am going to have fun before it is back to the grindstone. (Not that I didn't have fun last weekend swimming every night, running into LaMexicana at the pool, and doing dinner with T, but it was a more subdued weekend than this one promises to be).

Kiss My Black And White Patootie By Kathryn DeMarco

2008-09-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

All summer while I was in DC, my favorite Kathryn DeMarco painting was hanging in Dr. Cool's living room (above). As a side note, you can probably tell from the photo that biking comes before TV watching in this household. Well, that's to be expected when you live with a triathlete and since I don't even own a TV that is fine by me. Here's a better shot of the collage below:

I love the look of intensity on the person's face, it almost borders on defiance. (The model was a guy, but I'm so good at imagining androgyny that in my mind it was always a woman). What first attracted me to the work as an animal lover was the two boys holding dogs, their images just struck a chord in my heart. I've blown them up so you can see below:

I also liked all the naked women at the top right hand corner of the collage. This was a sore point with my ex-husband, who being a bit of a prude objected to the nudity and in fact insisted in covering that portion of the collage with a long tendril of ivy that was hanging in the room. I found this humorous, though irritating, and informed Kathryn of it. Years later she told me that this story inspired her to try to work naked women into more pieces! So in the end it accomplished some good...

If you look closely, there are also cameras (yay photography), houses making up the shirt's seam, and a strange marble piece in the left hand corner that I like.

In fact every time I sit down and really look at the piece I see something new. The other day I was sitting on the couch relaxing when I realized there is a a half silhouette of a black naked woman in the bottom right hand corner that I'd never seen before! And less clear, but perhaps even another naked black figure just to the right of that. That's one reason I treasure this piece so much-- I never get tired of looking at it and seeing something new!

Lindy The Lovely Lady

2008-09-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

She's my butch girl, and if you notice she always has that front right paw out (must be right handed!). It's difficult to get a good picture of her because she is such a private, independent creature, and having started out feral she still tends to feel most comfortable coming out at night when the lighting is poor.

Friday Night Rituals

2008-09-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

For a long time Friday nights were the beginning of my work week. I'd pull into the parking lot at the emergency clinic a little before six o'clock feeling excited to start my week.

I missed my Friday night crew terribly while on the East coast this summer. There is almost nothing I'd rather be doing than working on a Friday night. It is such an awesome crew, they rock the kasbah. SelfSustainableNurse, Muscles, for a long time we had Sunshine, though now it is UpcomingSuperstar.

Tonight I took the night off. I think it is the first Friday night I haven't worked since returning to San Jose. I am exhausted and next week I have midterms and a lot of application deadlines.

So to relax and enjoy the evening I did what I used to do before I worked at the emergency clinic: I went swimming at my favorite outdoor pool.

As much as I love working, there is nothing quite like starting your swim at dusk and with every turn of your head to the side for a breath watching the sky go from blue to dark blue to black, then seeing the first star appear. It is magical to me.

I rejoice in being in the water. The silence, the solitude. Pulling with my arms, so unlike running, where my legs do most of the work. Feeling the power in my body, feeling my force change direction as I tuck and flip coming into the wall, my body coiling into a spring that explodes off the wall. Holding my breath for as long as possible, till I start to inhale underwater, getting water up my nose. The sting of water in my nose like biting into bitter herbs at Passover, both pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.

There is no place other than work I would rather be on a Friday night than outside in the water swimming laps. Perhaps the ocean would be just as nice. I do like the saltwater.

I came home to an empty house since Dr. Cool is on an overnight. For some reason, perhaps because I have been hanging around with someone Jewish lately or perhaps because the high holidays start this week, I decided to light Shabbat candles (I know, I know, the timing is wrong, it's supposed to be done at sundown and not when it is already pitch black). Being a minimalist I don't own candlesticks or candles, but I do have this tiny tin that a very nice, young Lubavitch woman in my biology class last winter gave to me. It says on it "Share The Light" and Fridaylight.org, and has been sitting in a box in the garage for months. Tonight I finally sliced open the shrink wrap, took out the matches and two tea lights and lit them while saying the appropriate blessing. Then I had a glass of wine, over which I also said a prayer.

It felt good to say the blessings and have the candles burning on the counter. I've been a little nostalgic for ritual lately.

Tonight was just about perfect. Swimming at my favorite pool feels like home. The candles are a tie to my childhood upbringing. Coming home to an empty house, knowing that no one will come over and that I am all alone makes me happy too. I know I'm different in this way, but I'm trying to learn to accept myself. If what makes me happy is a long swim and a night alone, then so be it for now.

Proposition 8: Gay Marriage In California

2008-09-24T20:43:00.001-07:00

I've tried hard to keep politics out of my blog. But I can no longer restrain myself. The following story is just too good.

The other day I was sitting studying in the kitchen when I heard a knock on the front door. I looked through the window and saw an Indian woman standing there. When I opened the door a rather interesting conversation ensued:

Me: "Good morning. How can I help you?"
Woman: "Hi. I'm one of your neighbors."
Pause...
(I'm thinking-- what could we possibly have done to disturb our neighbors? We don't play loud music...)
Woman (resuming): "Do you vote?"
Me: "Yes, always."
Woman: "I'd like to discuss Proposition 8 with you."
Me: "Proposition 8?" (Sorry folks, I don't know the issues by their proposition number)
Woman: "I'm for traditional marriage so I'm hoping you'll vote yes on it."
Me (flatly, without hesitation): "I'm a lesbian so I'm not very likely to vote in favor of having my rights taken away."

The woman turned and walked away. She didn't even have the guts to say, "I don't believe you should have rights because you are a sexual deviant." She just turned heel and left.

I stood there for a few seconds stunned, wondering why she felt compelled to go out and campaign in favor of repealing gay marriage. I don't think I'll ever understand.

Personally, marriage is the farthest thing from my mind these days. But I do feel strongly that it is discriminatory to grant rights to heterosexual couples and not homosexual ones. It is much more an ethical issue for me than a personal one. Still, should I someday want to get married again, I would like that right to be available.

To end this diatribe, I will post some beautiful photos of my friend K's wedding. She is dashingly good looking (and beaming too in this photo) and her wife is absolutely gorgeous. They got married last summer, and then again this summer, except this time it was legal. I'm so happy for them, and proud that my state recognizes their legal union.

Kyla

2008-09-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Dr. Cool's other cat, the princess.

Oscar

2008-09-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

One of Dr. Cool's cats, very vocal and very playful but perhaps a bit retarded too.

I Am Famous Thanks To The Author Of The New Tied Down Life

2008-09-19T14:26:00.001-07:00

Read all about it here. It does chafe a bit to be called the most traditional of the bunch, but I'm glad to be included in a group of people that is "approaching their lives in wonderful experimental ways." It feels good that my writing may in some small way influence others to re-examine how they live and whether it is consistent with their values, perhaps even to consider a more simple way of life.

I really admire the author of this blog. What she is attempting-- bringing her lifestyle more into line with her values-- is challenging for anyone. That is thinking about it at all with a newborn son is awesome. My friends constantly amaze me.

As far as I can tell, no one has actually mentioned The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs. It is a book that very much influenced my thinking and helped get me started on my journey. I know the author of TNTDL is aware of this book as her mom is part of a simple living group. For those of you that are curious about what the rest of us are talking about with living creatively in step with what we think is important and not just blindly going through the motions of a consumerist culture, check it out.

My Room And Time-Space Compression (For You EB:)

2008-09-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

In college my roommate was reading The Condition of Postmodernity by David Harvey for a class when she quoted a passage to me that I still remember ten years later:

Deeper questions of meaning and interpretation also arise. The greater the ephemerality, the more pressing the need to discover or manufacture some kind of eternal truth that might lie therein.

(This first statement is not that original. Bonnie Raitt sings it more lucidly and artistically in her song "Angel from Montgomery," which has always made my heart ache with its lyrics:

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold onto
To believe in this living
Is just a hard way to go)

Harvey then continues:

Rochberg-Halton, in a sample study of North Chicago residents in 1977, finds, for example, that the objects actually valued in the home were not the 'pecuniary trophies' of a materialist culture which acted as 'reliable indices of one's socio-economic class, age, gender, and so on,' but the artefacts that embodied 'ties to loved ones and kin, valued experiences and activities and memories of significant life events and people.' Photographs, particular objects (like a piano, a clock, a chair), and events (the playing of a record of a piece of music, the singing of a song) become the focus of a contemplative memory, and hence a generator of a sense of self that lies outside the sensory overloading of consumerist culture and fashion. The home becomes a private museum to guard against the ravages of time-space compression.

EB told me after reading this passage that I am a quintessential example of someone who decorates her room to ward off time-space compression and create a meaningful identity. And it was certainly true of me in college. My room was a piece of art-- my blankets strewn on the floor since I had no bed frame; my desk crafted from a hollowed out door and two filing cabinets since I could not afford to buy one; my only other furniture was two vintage chairs and a beat-up mirror bought cheap at a a garage sale around the corner.

On my desk sat a glass bowl containing burned twigs and paper, a symbolic cremation of my dead friend Alex. On my walls were stills from Sadie Benning's short film "Jollies," a copy of a photograph of a warped greyhound by Joseph Koudelka and a computer generated three dimensional depiction of the protein hemoglobin which has always fascinated me. The walls exuded me.

My room was not so much a reflection of my identity during my marriage when my husband basically forbid me from decorating as I pleased (I wanted to paint the famous quotation from Henry Beston's Outermost House about how wild animals are not inferior to humans but rather "other nations" on the wall of the guest bedroom which he did not approve of...)

When I left my marriage for months I possessed nothing, not even a bed or pillow. My room was barer than bare. I slept half the week in San Jose and half the week at my girlfriend's house deep in the Santa Cruz mountains. I was in shock, in transition, my identity not exactly shattered but in flux (I was going from being sickeningly settled to having my whole future up in the air).

When the girlfriend and I broke up, I finally found it in me to begin to put together a room that reflected me a little bit, hanging a series of over-sized bird postcards that my sister had picked up for me in Israel (the Griffon vulture being my favorite). I gradually added more touches that were me. On the bookshelves I bought sat a wooden canvasback duck that the Santa Clara Audubon society gave me as a gift; it reminds me how I can survive disaster because it makes me think of a time in my life when I was betrayed by a veterinarian I greatly admired and let go from a job in a shelter, losing as a result my training, my income, and jeopardizing my standing in the veterinary nursing program. I had watched canvasbacks at a marsh near the shelter on almost every lunch break so that duck became for me a symbol of my phoenix-like rise from the ashes of that particular calamity. I also put up photographs of blue herons I took as a teenager in the Netherlands and other momentos. The room was me. Then I decided to move to DC and the whole work of art got taken apart and put into boxes.

In DC this summer I had no room of my own, between sharing a room and living in a fully furnished and decorated house.

So now I get to re-construct my old room and in the process am forced to re-construct my identity once more. This time it is once again a rather minimalist room, as it was immediately following my divorce. Perhaps I am again lacking a firm identity, empty at the core, but I do not think that is what it means this time around. I think the ephemerality of my existence does not feel so pressing in a town where I have lived so many years and have many good friends. I also feel that my identity is more solid and does not need the buttressing supports of a room full of momentos to remind me who I am. The room definitely still reflects me-- the few books on the floor are absolutely me to a T, the paintings reflect my artistic tastes and the crow reminds me of Eagle Eyes and Corvid, who share my love for intelligent birds.

EB probably asked about the skeletons (wondering why they weren't being displayed) in her comment on my post where I first put up the first pictures of my room because of an event that happened a few summers ago that made a huge impression on her and D: I came to visit North Carolina and discovered some skeletons (quite literally) in my dad's attic from roadkill I had picked up, buried and let decompose as a kid (yes, even as a kid I begged my parents to pull over when we went by roadkill). I proceeded to jettison my clothes and pack the skeletons in lieu of my wardrobe. I returned to California with a suitcase of skeletons but no clothes. EB and D thought this was remarkable. I thought it was the obvious and logical solution when presented with a space crunch in packing.

So no skeletons, but perhaps in the future when I lead less of a spartan existence they may feature prominently on some wall or display case.

(EB it seems you have more and more free time on your hands judging by your prolific posts on your own blog as well increased commenting on mine so I thought I would write you something sufficiently intellectual that it would stimulate you while you are on maternity leave and home alone with the boy... hope it makes you smile with fond memories).

Poor Person's Dinner

2008-09-18T06:38:00.002-07:00

I had a bunch of farmer's market leftovers, sauteed eggplant, zuccini and bell peppers mainly, so I made pasta and threw them all in. I know some people go to the farmer's market with a list, but I just go and get what looks good (and is cheap/on sale/seconds) and then use it that week. I made this dish for the second time last night and it looks even yummier than the first. I'm thinking maybe substitute pesto sauce for marinara one of these days.

I Have Applications Coming Out Of My Ears

2008-09-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

I can calculate my GPA in my sleep at this point, and all kinds of variations on it. Total GPA, undergraduate GPA at primary institution, last 30 hours GPA, last 45 hours of course work GPA, GPA of required courses if you give me a list of the required courses...

L and I were laughing about this last night and the tediousness of the application process.

But can I calculate a recombination frequency or do any of my genetics homework? I've been ignoring my schoolwork for the sake of these darn applications. I'm going to tackle the genetics on the train to Menlo Park this morning, the round trip gives me an hour and a half of study time (one more nice thing about public transit). I guess the real test will be my genetics test on Monday. I'm not looking forward to that one.

My Room Is Full Of Naked Women And I Love It (Ok, Ok, I Should Clarify-- Full Of Paintings Of Naked Women)

2008-09-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated on how my room is coming along in awhile. I've been back in San Jose almost a month now, and the decorations have changed a bit. The painting I bought in NC this summer has arrived and I also received a truly lovely painting as a gift from Monkeybutt. This means that when I enter the room the first thing I see is two nude women. Makes me smile. And I love good artwork.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a really good shot of Kathryn DeMarco's painting "Sour Grapes" due to the lighting. But I am working on it. For the record, the only reason her painting is not hanging over my head is that it is much heavier than Monkeybutt's angel and in an earthquake I would rather have an angel fall on me:)

The room has gotten a bit messier as you can see. This is what is on the floor:

Actually the slight clutter doesn't bother me. These three books represent my three passions-- wild birds, particularly those in California (and especially the yellow billed magpie, which is featured on the cover); my personal growth and development (achieved with the help of a wise teacher, my friends and lots of reading on the topic, such as this The Art of Loving book that I took from my grandmother's possessions after she died last winter); and finally, medicine, represented by the rather plain Review of Medical Physiology.

Of course, as usual, I only made the bed for the photos. This is what it looks like the rest of the time:

T Agrees: It's All About How You Choose To Spend Your Time...

2008-09-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

You have to choose because you can't do everything. Or so says my friend T, qualifying her statement by adding, "At least I can't do everything."

And I can't either.

But I am working harder than ever before in my life to achieve some balance. Even though I have mountains of schoolwork, I went hiking with T in the Quicksilver hills behind my place this morning. It was a perfect fall morning. We were both surprised by how few people were on the trails on such a sublime day. I'm actually continually surprised by how few people make it out to these trails. It is a mystery to both T and I why anyone would prefer to walk on the streets or be inside, say at the mall. All I can do is recall that people are different, a fundamental truism that is somehow easy to overlook.

I'm behind on my work a little, but it would be sad not to experience this fall outdoors, especially as it may well be my last in San Jose for years to come or forever.

More and more, I realize that when I choose work over spending time with my friends and outdoors I keep myself from growing as a person. Work will always be waiting for me, and that is where I am headed now...

Proofread Me!-- Many Thanks To My Parents

2008-09-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

I will take this opportunity to publicly thank my parents and family for their support the past few weeks while I have been madly writing and re-writing essays.

If a baby robin is insistent on being fed every few minutes, I have literally been just as insistent the past few days on my parents and family proofreading my essays. Their feedback has been invaluable, and just knowing that there are no horrible glaring errors that I did not catch myself is priceless.

Thank you all!

A Passion For Life/The Study Of Life/Biology

2008-09-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

This week in my animal biology lab we covered embryology (OK, I know there is no way to cover all of embryology in one three hour lab but this is an introductory class, people). As you may remember from my post on robin embryology, this is one of my all-time favorite subjects. I was in heaven. There were slides of chicken embryos-- it is amazing the drastic changes a chicken embryo undergoes from 24 to 48 hours of development. There was a cross-section of a fetal pig. A jar containing developing chickens from day two after fertilization to just before hatching. Models of morulas, blastulas, you name it. Drawings depicting comparative anatomy of developing embryos of fish, reptiles, birds and mammals (as you would guess, they all start out looking basically the same). Pictures of human fetal development. A smorgasbord of random items relating to embryology and fetal development.

I gushed with enthusiasm. When I got to examine the 24 hour chicken embryo under the microscope I asked if other people at my table wanted to see the bright pink structure with the obvious primitive streak. No one did. I kind of strong-armed them into looking, saying, "When else in your life are you going to get to see a chicken embryo? This might be your only chance!" So they looked, but they didn't share my amazement.

Thank goodness for my friend L. She gets it. The next day she was telling me excitedly about her histology class and how a cross-section of a human lip looks like a Van Gogh painting under the microscope because of all the swirls. Histology is so aesthetically pleasing. As she raved about the microscopic structure of the human lip, I listened raptly, happily realizing yet again that I was not the only one to become enraptured and absorbed by the beauty of biology.

I'm grateful I have this passion for life, the study of life and biology. I can't imagine being numb to the world, there is so much that just amazes me.

Western Birds

2008-09-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

Since returning to California I have seen many of my favorite birds. The first pissed off sounding calls of a Western scrub jay were music to my ears. On a hike last weekend in the hills behind my place, called Quicksilver, I also saw Stellar's jays and Acorn woodpeckers.

This week, walking to the store to buy gum, I heard the high pitched twitter of bushtits and looked up to see the tiny birds flitting around in the tree in front of me. Joy.

Seeing these species is like seeing old friends.

Tiny Houses In The New York Times

2008-09-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

Check out today's NYT article called "The Next Little Thing?"

Love it!

Juggling As Fast As I Can

2008-09-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I have felt like I am constantly juggling and straining every sense not to drop a ball.

When I arrived back in CA, I had to juggle moving in, work, trying to get into classes, doctor's appointments, social engagements. Doesn't sound like much but it was tricky and at one point I double booked a doctor appointment and meeting with the chair of the biology department at SJSU (that was partly through my own fault of leaving my planner in NC, thanks to EB&D for sending it to me).

Now it is juggling school, applications, cooking, friends and work.

Tonight I am home alone again with the dogs, studying and cooking, Henry Ate playing in the background. I've never been the world's best multi-tasker (ask anyone at the emergency clinic-- I love anesthesia so much partly because it affords me the luxury of focusing all my energy on one task instead of trying to care for eighteen patients at once). So cooking and studying together is in of itself a bit of a challenge. Luckily I have my computer and textbooks next to the range so I can hear and see the products of my steaming and sauteeing. And they didn't turn out badly either. I must say I am pretty proud of myself for cooking my Swiss chard and broccoli while studying so I have food for the rest of the week and weekend. Go me. I can juggle!

The Importance Of Membrane Channels-- Previously Totally Underestimated By Me

2008-09-08T19:10:00.001-07:00

I guess if I had stopped to think about it for a few minutes I would have maybe realized the extreme importance of membrane channels. It's not like I didn't have an awesome biochem course to drive all that stuff home. But if I didn't get it back then, both mammalian physiology and genetics have brought it into stark definition for me this week.

In genetics today we learned that a mutation in a gene called cystic fibrosis trans-membrane conductance regulator (CFTR) is responsible for the disease cystic fibrosis. The mutated gene produces a trans-membrane channel protein that does not allow chloride ions to pass out of the cell. This causes a build-up of chloride ions within the cell (changing the cell membrane's electrochemical gradient) which in turn causes the thick mucus that is characteristic of cystic fibrosis and wreaks havoc on the respiratory system and interferes with the normal function of the GI tract.

I could have told you that preventing chloride ions from exiting the cell as they normally do would have a major impact on an organism, but I wouldn't have predicted it would affect the quality of the mucus (nor do I understand even now exactly why that is the case). Thought provoking stuff. Never underestimate an electrochemical gradient. Electronics (due to the charge on ions), it'll come back to bite you every time.

At the end of the chapter on the electrophysiology of the cell membrane, my mammalian physio book makes reference to Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, in which a mutated gene causes a defect in the protein connexin 32 that makes up the gap junction between Schwann cell membranes. As a result, the axon is compromised and affected individuals suffer from progressive peripheral nerve degeneration. This example seems more logical, although I'm not sure how a defective gap junction interferes with the myelin insulation around the nerve, which is what my book seems to indicate.

Lots to ponder...

New Music From South Africa

2008-09-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier of my newfound interest in South Africa given the time my family spent there during and after WWII. Today I received in the mail two CDs I have been long anticipating. I am currently listening to "Just" off Henry Ate's "96-03 The Singles." Wow, her voice tugs on my heart, and the lyrics...

lately i've been thinking what if i was wrong
and the world never meant you and i to belong
we'd have wasted so much time building castles in the sky
only to watch them all fall down
would it be all of our dreams so well suited to you and i
could only be half acquired would it still be worthwhile?

if i could just understand this
i might then try forgiveness
know that i will, each time i feel
you'll be by, you'll be by, you'll be by my side
in the end we'll still be friends
ain't it shocking how your sympathetic world amends
and in time you'll realize
i'm not what i seem inside
i go wild, i go wild, i go wild

Also got The Dalom Kids And Splash collection featuring a song I have been addicted to since college ("Cellular") thanks to a mix tape made for me by the lovely Molecule. (Yes, I am an old fart, I went to school back when we made mix tapes instead of burning CDs). FYI, I was introduced to Henry Ate by the same rad woman who took me out in Jacksonville, FL and treated me to dinner and then a night at a gay nightclub. Not only lots of fun and a great dancer, she also has rockin' taste in music. Thanks, chica!

I can't wait to listen to these all the way through...

1 AM In The ER

2008-09-05T01:39:00.000-07:00

Adult bobcat female brought in by animal control, presumably hit by a car. Physical exam (done under heavy sedation) showed no fractures or external injuries. Head trauma difficult to assess, not too obtunded when awake, hissing and spitting as is normal. She will be released this morning if all goes according to plan.

Dr. Cool did an amazing job with this one. Really understood that as a wild animal this bobcat was terrified of us. Sedated it quickly and effectively. Then joked to me, "So I'm thinking IV catheter, mannitol, hypertonic saline, maybe nasal insufflation and oh yeah, keep the head elevated at 20 degrees at all times." Right, doctor! No problem! Thank goodness he gets that working with a wild animal is a completely different ball game than treating domestic animals. Way to go Dr. Cool.

Third Fortune Cookie Of The Summer

2008-09-05T01:34:00.000-07:00

"You will make many changes before settling down happily."

Sounds good to me:)

Tidbits From Mammalian Physiology And Life: Kiss And Run

2008-09-03T21:35:00.001-07:00

I learned in mammalian physiology the other day that kiss and run is when a vesicle within a cell fuses with the cell membrane then immediately reconstitutes itself/reforms as before. Momentary exocytosis. Back in college (heck, let's be honest, even past college 'cause I was a slow learner) I thought kiss and run meant something entirely different. Who knew?

I also learned that the microvilli lining the intestine are not just there to increase the surface area and thus speed absorption. No siree. Their movement serves to mix up the contents of the intestines with membrane bound enzymes-- in short, they play an active role in bringing nutrients to the extracellular face. I feel duped... all these years of biology and no one told me that! This class is good, I tell you.

In other news, thank my lucky stars, I got into all the classes I really needed. I am going to very sadly drop Vertebrate Histology as mind-blowingly beautiful as it is because I don't want to spend every minute from now until December stressed out and studying. Balance, people, is my new middle name (OK, try not to laugh so hard). But I do want time to run, swim and have a bit of a social life. And sleep, oh yeah, what's that?

I'm writing now while baking my Amish friendship bread starter mix. It was easy peasy. And truly a friendship bread. I got the starter from the nurse at the hospital next door. I asked my Friday night partner in crime, SelfSustainableNurse, to bring me three eggs from her chickens and she did. I got bread loaf pans from Slow Feet, and some of the more esoteric ingredients missing from my and Dr. Cool's bare bones kitchen from L. Thanks all, you will be rewarded with bread and starter mixes :) I was briefly worried I had ruined the bread by substituting olive oil for what I assume was vegetable oil (the recipe just says oil and we didn't have anything but olive oil) but the internet assures me this is no disaster so I'm not too worried, just curious to see what it tastes like.

Night y'all. More later.

Spots

2008-09-03T02:46:00.000-07:00

This is the other dog in the house, all pooped out on a hot day. She doesn't like the camera much so I had to photograph her at a time she didn't want to get up and move.

Still Having Fun While Working A Ton

2008-08-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

School has hit me full swing and I somehow ended up with FIVE shifts at the emergency clinic this week despite intending to only pick up two (I must practice saying no in the mirror and then also make sure I never owe anyone any favors... ah well, it's a lost cause and I enjoy the work and the people too much to do more than complain a little).

But I'm determined not to become a recluse. Thursday night I went out to say goodbye to The Brazilian Dancer, a co-worker I have known for several years. This is her below, and as a disclaimer I did not take this photo:

She is a fearless, extremely competent nurse, upbeat, funny and one of the best dancers I know. Unfortunately, just as I arrive back in the Bay area she takes off for Brazil for a month, but she'll be back. Joining me was LaMexicana and her sister and sister's boyfriend. It made for a fun evening. I had my first sake bomb. Hit the sack close to midnight. Genetics quiz 8:30 am. Who needs sleep? (Oh yeah, Melissa thinks it is important and there have been some interesting studies on it in the news recently...)

Saturday morning before I sat down to study, I took a few hours to go downtown and check out the San Jose Tapestry Arts Festival. I've lived in San Jose for seven years now and have never been, though I know lots of people who have and loved it. Since I have a feeling this may be my last year in San Jose I want to see everything local that I can. Also, since the San Jose State campus is downtown I have gotten more acquainted and interested in the goings-on there in the past week than in the entire preceding seven years.

The festival was OK. It is primarily a bunch of art vendors, and since I had no intention of buying anything I just looked. I liked the photography the best.

Then it's back to the books.

For breaks, I've done some cooking. I sauteed enough farmer's market vegetables to leave a plate for Dr. Cool in the fridge. I also got gifted a starter mix for Amish friendship bread by the head nurse at the adjacent specialty hospital (we took nursing classes together back in 2002/2003, kind of cool). How many recipes have ten days of instructions, where mostly you just "mush the bag"-- now that is my kind of cooking!

Meet Pete-- My Study Companion For The Evening

2008-08-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

Dr. Cool is on an overnight shift and I'm home studying with the dogs. Pete is mostly sleeping but when I get up to dance to Dalom Kids and Spash's song "Cellular" he joins me. (C'mon no one else takes study breaks to dance when home alone? I hate hate hate sitting still). He's actually very good company, that Peter.

I think I've always liked this kind of dog. Here I am on the beach in Baddeck, Nova Scotia in the summer of 2002-- long before I was in the veterinary field-- with a little pittie puppy I just picked up:

Kind of looks like Pete, huh, but perhaps with a bit less bulldog in the mix (or whatever it is that makes Peter so monstrously huge).

And yes, I am guilty as charged of selectively editing my past so that it makes for a more cohesive story in the present, but don't all people do that whether or not they are aware of it?

Terminal Differentiation (i.e. Life Decisions)

2008-08-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going to quote Thumbscrews here. I don't know her personally, but she is a very eloquent writer and I have her permission to quote her blog.

It's damned unfair, isn't it... how constricted we are by a single lifetime, by a strictly linear timeline? We get no do-overs. You can be resuscitated a thousand times in a video game. You can switch jobs, phone companies, fabric softeners. You can exchange your burger for a BLT. But every "choice" is a single stitch in a contiguous whole. It's a vast lumpy sweater knit from a single thread, and knit only once. You can vary the pattern at any time, but you can never pick up missed stitches. You can't look back on your deathbed and say, "Oh f*ck it... I'm going to unravel this thing and make an afghan instead.

For some of us the very finality of our choices is paralyzing. Thumbscrews goes on to write:

It's a rough state of affairs, particularly for the philosophical and fickle. Failure to choose leads to aimlessness and stagnation... But it's so frustrating, feeling as though choosing one route means barricading a thousand others.

I've given a lot of thought over recent years to my career (much more thought than I initially gave to my past relationships, and suffered as a result of that). I don't want to have to choose one path at the cost of others. I know EB found herself in a similar conundrum during and just out of college, but by now she and my other friends seem comfortably settled in their lives, graduate degrees framed above the fireplace, while I am still deliberating.

I've gotten frustrated with myself for not making a final decision. Family members have gotten frustrated with me too, saying, "Just do something, it doesn't matter which of the choices you pick."

It's been agonizing. So when I settled on applying to graduate school in ecology and got accepted to a nearby university, it seemed like a g-dsend. I was nervous of course, dreading what I call "terminal differentiation" (which is something I picked up in a biology class, meaning when a cell becomes so specialized it can no longer be anything else; the cell loses the ability to change course, reverse direction, perform another function in the body-- the term appealed to me because it sounds so harsh, which is how I feel about specialization). But I knew I couldn't stay a pluripotent stem cell forever, that to succeed I would have to differentiate, so I packed up my things and moved to Washington, DC for the summer to begin my new life.

As is often the case, life did not go as planned. It turned out that this particular avenue of research was not a good fit for me. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the fact that I would need to go back to square one, start over again with my career search. Perhaps that is not entirely the case. I was graciously given the option yesterday to defer graduate school for a year while I explore my options both within and outside of that department.

I've already enrolled in one class at a local state school. Once again, I have a panoply of choices before me. This time around I feel less paralyzed, more certain of my course. Things could change, but I have priorities now and I am working on meeting them.

I once spoke to a counselor who strongly encouraged me to abandon my paradigm of terminal differentiation. She herself had gotten a PhD in genetics and then gone on to medical school at a later age (in a different country from the one she got her PhD in no less!). I suppose this is true, but when one is 30, like me, time feels more limited. It's not that my next career move has to be my absolute last, it's just that I want it to work well for me. I'm chasing that elusive post-modern dream of being happy at one's work rather than just being grateful to have a job and food on the table. I'm even optimistic that given all the thought and exploration I've given it, that I may find such a thing. EB and D certainly did (and not in academics either shockingly) so I know it is out there.

A Room Of One's Own

2008-08-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

My family wants to see pictures of my room, so here they are. Simon is happy to model for the photo shoot, somehow wiggling his way into almost every photo. (Aah Simon, my feral heart wrapped in brown tabby fur. His summer caretaker told me he never crawled under the covers at her house because she made the bed every day. A little OCD? Just kidding, I know I'm messy but I made the bed for the photos).

The trick to living in a room 100 sq ft (perhaps smaller) is that everything serves two functions. The bed has storage underneath it-- if you look closely you can see the drawers built into the frame (though at the moment only one of the three drawers contains any possessions). The small wooden table/desk on wheels at the end of the bed doubles as a filing cabinet:

The closet has the litterbox. In the corner to the left, outside the closet, my hiking backpack (i.e. the only piece of luggage I own) and sleeping bag are resting against the wall. If you are wondering about the bag of fluids hanging in the closet, well that is because I give subcutaneous fluids to my chronic renal failure kitty, Lindy, every day.

So far the only artwork on my wall is this piece which I picked up at the Eastern farmer's market in Washington, DC. My friends Eagle Eyes and Corvid own the same piece and I like to look at it and think of how they admire crows too. (Hi Eagle Eyes! Hi Corvid!)

I feed Simon on a place mat so that he doesn't make a mess with his wet food on the hardwood floor. With my perverse sense of humor, I choose to feed him on a parasite place mat that I picked up at a conference in San Francisco a few years back. Somehow no one else seems to think this is as funny or clever as I do but I don't know why that is.

Lindy is a more private creature and often prefers to have her meals served under the wooden table/filing cabinet. The white stuff on the bamboo mat is clay litter she has tracked to her hiding spot. Cutting down on my cats tracking litter out of the litterbox and into the room is one of my biggest challenges, but with enough rugs and bath mats in the closet, most of the litter seems to stay in there and I can just wash the mats periodically.

Those of you who know me well may have noticed there are no books in the room. My much cherished collection of poetry and a few California field guides are stored in boxes in the garage. I may unpack them (how long can I go without reading Audre Lord or consulting Adrienne Rich, not to mention deriving inspiration from Simon Armitage and Yehudah Amichai?) at some point but for the moment I like the room bare. The two or three books I am currently reading are tucked in one of the drawers under the bed along with a few CDs and some chargers for my computer, camera and phone. That's about it folks.

The Struggle For Less

2008-08-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

When I got back from the East coast, I stared in disbelief at the boxes of stuff I had in Dr. Cool's garage. I couldn't believe how much stuff there was. I actually got rid of most of my possessions the previous year, after my divorce was final, but I still have a lot of things. And the surprising thing is that I didn't miss any of it while I was in DC for four months.

This revelation has prompted me to get rid of more things. I want to pare down my possessions to the bare minimum so that I don't have to cart around so much stuff when I move. And also because I fundamentally believe in living simply-- it just makes my life easier overall, and I have found I am happier with less. Yes, my new motto is less is more.

I have a few good role models. Dr. Perceptive can fit everything she owns in her sweet new Prius so that when she moves all she has to do is load up the car and drive. Amazing, huh? Now that is something to aspire to. I know that for awhile, before he bought the house, Dr. Cool could pull off the same feat. Ditto for Dr. Writer before she married her wife. How do they do it? Dr. Cool had no bed. Dr. Writer would sell her furniture on craigslist and then buy new stuff wherever she moved. Dr. Perceptive's furniture is all full of air so that it compresses down to almost nothing.

There is quite a bit of stuff I'm not willing to part with. Sentimental things. I have a bunch of paintings stored at my mom's house in NC (thanks mom) and a few things at my dad's too. I don't want to get rid of my photographs, though Corvid solved that dilemma for herself by scanning them all into her computer and storing them there. (I might do the same but I will still probably send the originals to one of my parents to store-- I'm bad about trashing photos). I've gotten rid of most of my books. What I've kept is my poetry collection (for which I won an award in college as it contains several out of print books) and a few guides to birds and butterflies of the Bay area.

Right now I'm focusing on eliminating clothes I haven't worn recently. Then I will get around to my other possessions. I might solve the problem quite underhandedly-- by sending more stuff to NC to store out of the way there.

The other half of the equation is resisting buying more stuff. I live with the best model of all in this regard, Dr. Cool. When I moved into his house last March, he had almost no possessions. For the one month I was there, I cooked my meals (which at that time in my life mostly consisted of boiling water) in my camping pots. There was no shower curtain, so I only took baths. Etc. When I arrived back in San Jose last week, I expected that there would be more stuff in his house. Most people start to accumulate things quite rapidly once they live in a large space and feel more settled. Not Dr. Cool. The only knife in the kitchen is still the one my dad sent me last spring. There are no measuring cups or a teaspoon or tablespoon. It's bare bones. I commented on how impressed I was that not a thing had changed. He shot back, "What did you expect-- a plasma TV and leather couch?" Well, not exactly. So for the time being I've been cooking by estimating the amount of ingredient, and it hasn't gone too badly. Meanwhile, every time I go to a thrift store I take a look for some measuring devices. Other than that, I think I can survive with not much more.

Taking The Train: For Ember & The Planet

2008-08-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

I took the train again yesterday to Menlo Park. It is quite a relaxing ride and it went without any hitches this time. I have always liked the Menlo Park train station building (above), it is quaint, as if it were out of another day and age. I feel happy getting off the train there.

I've also been taking the light rail around San Jose. I am quite enjoying taking more public transportation. I've never liked driving all that much. Plus being on foot I discover so much more-- yesterday I bought a dress for $2.50 in the thrift store on the street over from where I live (half price on a dress already reduced in price, sometimes I impress myself). Although I'd driven past that thrift store for over five years, I'd never set foot in it until last week. Being in a car is just so removed from the feel of a neighborhood, from the stores, the people, the pulse of a place. I like being in the thick of it, and public transit is good for that.

So I'm committed now-- I bought a ten ride ticket that expires in October so I have to make another nine trips in the next two months on Caltrain. I'm looking forward to it.

Histology: Who Knew It Would Be So Beautiful?

2008-08-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday morning hanging out with my friend L, and got the chance to sit in on a histology class. I had asked L beforehand why she wanted to take a class called Vertebrate Histology. She said because of the pretty colors. I laughed dismissively and said, "Really? Someone as brilliant as you wants to take a class because of pretty colors???"

I have to admit publicly I was 100% wrong. Not since I first came across fractals in my high school math class have I been so astonished and pleased by the aesthetics of a subject in a scientific field. Just like fractals, there was a psychedelic quality to the images. I was just plain blown away by the beauty of the slides I saw. Who knew a cross-section of the trachea would be so stunning? All that detail-- the hot pink of the epithelial cells lining the trachea, the brilliant blue of the basement membrane (that's the stain binding to the carbohydrates FYI). A cross-section of the eye was a close second as my favorite. The lens a hot pink orb, the cornea even thinner than L and I had imagined (you can see why cats get such nasty corneal ulcers, there isn't much there to start with).

By far our favorite stain was Mallory-Azan. L commented, "Mallory-Azan stain wins over everyone else for sheer aesthetics."

There are so many things I am grateful to my friend L for introducing me to-- too many to name. But I am especially grateful this week for her sharing her love of the microscope and introducing me to histology. Incredible.

This Just In-- Crows Remember Individual Faces

2008-08-26T14:01:00.001-07:00

When I was in Seattle a little over a week ago, I couldn't help remember and think often of the University of Washington, which is home to one of the more famous corvid researchers in the world, John Marzluff. I think anyone who is interested in corvids is familiar with his name. I've read his work, but have never met him.

I was struck by the large number of crows in Seattle, a bit like the huge number of ravens in Marin though I don't know if there is any quantitative proof that the numbers are denser in Seattle than other cities. I took a lot of pictures of crows, including the one above at the farmer's market eating peanuts. J humored me as she is not a crow fan (she's close to perfect, but she does have that one crippling shortcoming-- just kidding J!)

But maybe my constant attention to the crows around us made an impression on her after all because today she sent me these articles: "Friend Or Foe, Crows Never Forget A Face," and "UW Professor Learns Crows Don't Forget A Face." Pretty cool stuff. I suspected robins recognized Eagle Eyes and I this summer, but whether they would remember us months later I don't have an inkling. I bet all kinds of birds recognize human faces to varying degrees, though I wouldn't be surprised if crows are better at it than other species.

Thanks J for the heads up on this research :)

Meet Marble

2008-08-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

This is Marble. She is belongs to J's family and currently resides with J in Seattle, WA. Marble is 19 years old. That means I've known her my whole life, since I was eleven to be precise. I remember Marble hunting in the acres and acres of woods around J's family's house in NC. Marble and their two other cats, Blackberry and Raspberry, were my first lessons in cats catching mice and wildlife. I remember being horrified that these creatures I admired so much were such ruthless killers, and not only that, they played with their prey before they ate it! Growing up can be rough, the world is not always a pretty place. Marble brought back those troubling memories, and many more happy ones of running around in the woods with J, bushwhacking and playing. Sometimes old friends don't just come in human form. These days Marble has an indoor only existence in Seattle (which may partly account for her longevity). I am glad I got a chance to see her again.

What I've Been Up To: Back At Work

2008-08-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

A few people have commented on the dearth of posts lately. Sorry, folks, I don't have a regular internet connection at La Casa de Doctor Cool so it is tough to post sometimes.

Friday night I had my first shift back at the emergency clinic. The photo above was actually taken last spring by a friendly animal control officer. Far from feeling like being in jail, I was elated to be back at the clinic and very touched by the warm welcome I got from MonkeyButt and others. Thanks y'all.

Saturday morning I didn't get to sleep till around 5 am but I was up and awake at 10 am. I headed over to the Wildlife Center Silicon Valley for a class on behavior. I always learn a few really interesting tidbits on top of the overarching ideas. This time what I gleaned was that when stellar's jays spot several birds feeding on a really good food source, like peanuts, they will make the alarm call of a red tail hawk (or was it red shoulder?) in order to scare off the other birds. Quite clever those corvids.

Saturday night I got the heck out of Dodge, more on that below.

Sunday morning I headed to the Princeton Plaza farmer's market, then I wrote part of an essay I really needed to start.

Sunday afternoon I headed over to the Los Gatos Wild Bird Center for a display of local Bay area photographer's work depicting birds and other wildlife. My favorite photographs were a series done over several years of an Anna's hummingbird nest in the backyard of one of the photographers. You can check out some of her work at this website, though she hasn't updated it recently so my favorite hummingbird photos aren't on here.

Sunday evening a friend and I headed down to Monterey for dinner at one of my all time favorite restaurants, Stokes. I love the atmosphere of old town Monterey, the restaurant is in a 171 year old adobe house in the historic district. Plus the food is good, and it is all line-caught or humanely raised or locally grown. The best dish there is definitely the heirloom tomato pizza. It's only available for a little longer, once there are no more locally available heirloom tomatoes that is it until next summer. It is my goal while living in the Bay area to have heirloom tomato pizza at least once every summer, so I was happy to achieve that and to get to spend time with one of my favorite people in the world too.

Right now I'm chilling out at one of my other friend's houses taking advantage of her wireless connection after a long day. Here's the view when I parked in the driveway at dusk-- the house overlooks beautiful Almaden valley:

Gilroy Ranch: A Saturday Night Spent In The Garden Of Eden

2008-08-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening I got an invitation from Dr. Perceptive to hang out with her at a friend's ranch in Gilroy, where she was watching 15 horses, 3 cows, 5 dogs, 3 cats and 3 chickens. I jumped at the chance to get out of San Jose for the night and spend some time in the country. It turned out to be nothing less than paradise. It even had that pungent garlickey odor that is so characteristic of Gilroy and that I love.

I've known Dr. Perceptive since I started at the emergency clinic; she, Dr. Cool Fool and I all started together two summers ago. In a strange twist of events, she rented my room at Dr. Cool Fool's when I left over the summer and vacated it just days before I got back.

Here is her extremely well trained saddlebred horse, Jasmine:

And here is her equally impressively trained hot dog, Jaden:

And Jaden's friend, the good-looking border collie exhibiting the breed's typical intensity:

And the most intimidating pack member, the big red Rhodesian:

Dr. Perceptive helped deliver this calf:

Then there was the garden, which photos can't really do justice:

All kinds of leafy greens and different varieties of tomatoes, apples, peaches, artichokes, squash, bell peppers, hot peppers, carrots, corn, grapes, sunflowers, and so much more. Ever seen an artichoke flower?

Not only was there plenty of delicious fresh food from the garden, we also made a late night trip to San Juan Bautista for cheese enchiladas and chile relleno, plus a walk around the mission square. I felt like I was transported back in time, and I felt my spirits soar with a break from my more mundane life in San Jose.

I Got My Cats Back

2008-08-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

I think Simon gets a bit grumpy when I take too many pictures.

This is Simon just waking up. Sometimes when I come into the room I can't find him at first because he likes to sleep under the covers.

A Night Out: Frida Kahlo At SFMOMA

2008-08-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Francisco with my friend LaMexicana (that's her work nickname, though Dog Whisperer would be more accurate in my opinion because she has the best touch with canines of anyone I have ever met-- fearless, this one). It turns out that Kahlo has been one of LaMexicana's favorite artists for as long as she can remember, and she even named the dog that she rescued last spring Frida after the artist.

I admit, with embarrassment, that I did not know who Frida Kahlo was before this week. I immediately recognized her work though because it has been incorporated into so much of the art that I see around San Jose. She is legendary, which has perhaps distorted an accurate portrayal of her life and art-- for one critique, read this piece, "The Trouble With Frida Kahlo."

The pieces that were most powerful for me were the ones that were the most emotionally charged-- "A Few Small Nips," "Henry Ford Hospital," "Suicide of Dorothy Hale," and "The Two Fridas." Less charged but still close to home for me are the quieter "Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and The United States" and "My Grandparents, My Parents and I." I also really like "Me and My Parrots" because it reminds me of so much of the Mexican folk art I have seen.

Interestingly, the most disturbing, most emotionally charged pieces were not for sale in the museum gift shop as posters or postcards. LaMexicana's favorite piece is "A Few Small Nips," which she desperately wanted to buy, but she had to settle for a reproduction of "The Two Fridas" instead. I think it is telling that the museum has chosen to sanitize and de-sensationalize Kahlo's work in this way. Actually, I think it is really a shame because her genius was in turning emotion into image-- the pain, the detail and even the surrealistic aspect (maybe due to the drugs she was often prescribed). Or is it just that people who are not emergency room nurses cannot stomach that much blood and gore? I think not. In her essay, "The Trouble With Frida Kahlo," Stephanie Mencimer notes that "Among all the Kahlo tchotchkes now on sale at the NMWA gift shop, only her self-portraits adorn the fridge magnets, not "My Birth," or "A Few Small Nips." So others have noted this incongruity as well. Is it because Kahlo is a woman, or as Mencimer argues, does it have to do with depicting a wholesome image of Kahlo? Neither seem to fully explain the phenomenon to me.

In "A Few Small Nips" I think the rawness, anguish and rage probably speaks to anyone who has had their heart badly broken. Kahlo painted this after discovering her husband, Diego Rivera, was having an affair with her sister. The title is a quotation from a man who was being tried for murdering his wife and said in his defense that he only gave her "a few small nips." The frame of the painting is spattered in blood and gouged, which has a strong visual effect, as if the emotions cannot be contained and will spill out onto the viewer.

The only other piece on exhibit in which the painting spills over onto the frame is the "Suicide of Dorothy Hale," which I found so disturbing I had trouble even looking at it. Although it preceded the event by years, I cannot but help thinking of the images of people jumping from the World Trade towers on Sept 11, 2001 when I see that picture.

"Henry Ford Hospital" is unusual because it is the first painting I have seen depicting the aftermath of a miscarriage. The details remind me a bit of one of my all time favorite artists, Hieronymus Bosch. The autoclave is an especially striking detail for me since it is a piece of medical equipment that is so often overlooked, but so critical.

"My Grandparents, My Parents and I" speaks to the universal divisions in any family, more striking in Kahlo's perhaps because her father was of European Jewish origin and her mother Mexican. I think there is a divide in every family. For me it is the German half and the American Ashkenazi half. I always knew which set of grandparents were calling me in college because my roommate EB would say, "It's the ones with the accent," or "it's the ones without the accent." Two halves to me.

I like "Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and The United States" because I have often felt pulled between two countries, growing up in Europe and The US. I have always liked the song "Pines" by the Israeli group Achinoam Nini Gil Dor because it captures that feeling: "Oh my darling, I have grown with you/but my roots are on both sides of the sea"-- and this painting captures the emotions in that song for me in a visual form.

Not only did LaMexicana and I get to see Kahlo's paintings and photos of her, we also took advantage of the related Kahlo film series and got to see the Mexican film "Aventurera." This film about a bourgeois young woman turned cabaret dancer had enough twists to the plot to keep anyone on the edge of their seat.

I'm grateful I got to see this exhibit and that I got to spend an evening in a city. San Francisco is no that far-- I really want to try to make it there more often, because in the past it might as well have been another planet for all the times I visited. I might even try to go back next weekend and see the double feature of films related to the Kahlo exhibit showing then.

Living In A Small Space

2008-08-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

Good news that I haven't shared publicly: I have a place to live. My old landlord, Dr. Cool (aka Dr. Fool) has a room available in his stunning Spanish style house. This is wonderful for me because not only did I really enjoy living with him before but I can have my cats with me and all my stuff is stored in his garage so it's not like I have to move it far!

The down side is that once again, I will be living in a tiny space, 10 feet by 10 feet to be precise. I have lived in a room this size or smaller for the past year.

There are some things that I really like about living in a space this small-- I love the fact that there is practically no cleaning or dusting (how I hate cleaning). I also like that it has forced me to pare down my possessions and prevents me from buying new things (I certainly think twice before buying anything now).

But it is certainly a challenge to fit everything I need to live into a 100 sq foot room. And I feel bad for my cats being cooped up, although I am going to try to let them out into the rest of the house from time to time.

It is interesting to me that both my sister and I live in what some people consider impossibly small spaces-- this year she will be living in a 300 sq ft apartment in New York city with her husband and in the winter she is expecting a baby. More than one person has told me they think she or I (or the both of us) is just plain nuts. However it is understandable that these people find this incomprehensible since most of them live in much, much larger spaces (like over 2000 sq ft for one person or over 3000 sq ft for two people). You would think the trend these days would be for people to live in smaller and smaller spaces, as the human population continues to grow and there is less and less space available on the planet, however, when I was in DC this summer there was clearly a trend among the upper class to re-model to build bigger and bigger, hence the new term McMansions.

For years I have been interested in simple living and so I have read with great interest articles on living in small spaces. Below are some of the articles I have found interesting over the years.

The first article that really sparked my interest was in SFgate last summer and features a 250 ft sq foot Pacifica house that looks quite appealing in the photos. I think what really stood out to me is that to make the space look larger, the owner did away with baseboard and molding. The idea of changing the rules like that, shirking convention on something as standard as baseboard, really excited me even as it shocked me a little. I thought the thinking that went into making a space that small work was really cool. Re-reading this article a year later, it now catches my eye that the owner added a garage the same size as the house to reduce clutter in the house (kind of cheating, huh? At least it makes pulling off the feat of living in such a small house less impressive, though the effort and planning is still remarkable.)

Then this summer, while staying with my aunt K, she pointed out an article in her local paper, The Courant, that caught her attention and that she thought might interest me, which it did. It is a story about the ambitious project of a first year student at Yale's prestigious, top-ranked School of Forestry and Environmental Studies to build her own 144 sq ft portable, sustainable house for less than $14,000. I was proud as a California resident to see that this student-builder had gotten the idea for such a small house from a California company, Tumbleweed Tiny House Co, based in Sebastopol.

A quick search on the internet turned up some other interesting articles. There was one in The Washington Post about a guy living in a 187 sq ft condo, and although there are no photos, there are lots of tips on living in small spaces. And there was another one in The Washington Post about a couple living in a 416 sq ft studio in Washington DC, and the challenges that living in such a small space places on relationship.

Seeing I was really getting into my research, my aunt also dug up a link to a TV show called Small Space, Big Style in case I can find time to watch it someday. Thanks, aunt K.

It's a big subject. Everything I've written seems almost conventional when compared with EB's little brother's plan to build a cob house in NC. Now, that sounds really interesting! I hope someday to visit and see it and get a chance to talk to this idealistic, motivated young man myself. Perhaps one day I will buy a piece of property in a forest and live in my own cob house. After living in such small rooms for years, it might not even seem cramped anymore. In the meantime, I will try to post some pictures of my room and a post on some of my solutions to making the space work, as soon as I find time.

Mix It Up: Not Your Regular PB&J

2008-08-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

Garlic jelly and peanut butter sandwich. Yes, that is what I am eating for lunch. Thanks aunt K for the jelly, it is a treat. I think garlic jelly is really quite fitting as I live next door to the garlic capitol of the world (Gilroy), though this particular garlic was grown in Connecticut, where the jelly was made near my aunt's house.

According to one of the articles I posted on the therapeutic benefits of blogging, you are not supposed to blog about what you are eating for lunch (There's even a book titled "No One Cares What You Had For Lunch"). Oh man, I am in trouble. I have so much fun coming up with wacky sandwiches to keep lunch interesting.

Breakfast With T: Crepes, Conversation And The Backyard's Plentiful Bounty

2008-08-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with my friend T. We've known each other for years because for a long time we lived on the same street and would often casually drop in on each other. She says she misses this and I do too!

I share a lot in common with T-- when I met her she had been working in the largest animal shelter on the West coast. Now she is an EMT. In fact, yesterday when I came over around seven, she had been up since 4 am due to a call she received on her overnight. I was grateful she kept our planned breakfast despite clearly being tired.

Like me, T loves animals, and has an interest in anatomy. When we are driving down the road together and see roadkill, we exchange a look that says, "Shall we go for it?" We've been known to skin dead animals and T knows how to cure the hide to make beautiful wall hangings. T also likes to check on roadkill and make sure it isn't still alive and just concussed. It is from this practice that my ex and I acquired our cat Oliver Twist, a cat she rescued from the side of the road late one night in Alviso, who remained with my ex after the break-up. I also learned from T that most roadkill lying on the side of the road died from a fractured skull, since with other injuries the animals often make it off the roadway.

T is thoughtful and cares about the environment. It is she who first put the seed in my head that installing solar panels and going off the grid might be a better use of money than remodeling the kitchen say. And in fact, just before my marriage ended, my ex did get solar power thanks to my advocating for it.

We might be similar in some ways, but T is a much, much better cook than me. And she likes to cook when I come over. She says cooking for me is fun because I'm not picky and so she can experiment with new recipes without worrying as much about the outcome. For my part, I'm eternally grateful when anyone cooks for me, and I find her food very tasty.

Yesterday she wanted to try out a new crepe recipe. I ran home (I still only live a few minutes away) and got the remaining blackberries that I picked along Lake Washington in Seattle with J. T cut up some apples from her backyard and sauteed them with some jam. So we had crepes with wild blackberries, apples, and some peach jam made from peaches in her backyard. One thing I love about T is that she is not wasteful with food and eats what her backyard offers instead of letting it rot. Here is a shot of her overburdened apple tree in the early morning:

And below are some apples in the process of being turned into apple jam:

After breakfast we had a long talk, about everything from interracial relationships to careers in medicine. Before I left T let me gather a bag of tomatoes, apples and peaches from her backyard that would otherwise go to waste. Crepes, conversation and free food, does it get any better? Thank you T!

The Future Of This Blog And A Big Thank You

2008-08-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Several people have asked me about the future of this blog now that I am safely back in San Jose. The answer is that I plan to continue blogging. (That should come as no surprise to those of you who read the previous post). I might at some point change the location or title of the blog, but I will inform my readers first. The only thing that would make me disappear at this point from the blogosphere would be a stalker.

That being said, I am finding it challenging to keep my entries interesting. Life here seems more routine, more staid. There are no gorgeous bird photos, fewer travel adventures. It's hard to upload photos at all at the moment because I don't have regular access to wireless internet access so I have to take the photos off my computer and carry them with me to upload them.

But for everyone who has enjoyed reading about my adventures, I will try to do my best to keep you posted on my life even as it becomes more boring and probably more hectic, leaving me less time to blog.

Now is the time for me to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who posts comments, emails me privately, or tells me in person they've enjoyed my photos or reading my writing. It means the world to me that you care.