Oreo is a Punk

My dog is a brat. You all knew this, but some of you like hearing about his brattiness and really, this was hilarious.

We just got up and first thing is always to take him out because he's getting older and the bladder, it gets full and hard to control after lots of sleep.

So, I toss on my jacket over my jammies and we go out the front door of the apartment, which leads to a sort of breezeway down the center of the building. One way goes to the parking lot, the other goes to the little patch of woods that our patio faces. We usually go toward the woods because it's more potty-friendly and closer.

So, he hops down off the cement to the woods, pees, and then makes a bee-line for our patio. And hops up on it. And goes to the sliding door. And then looks at me like I'm stupid.

And I (because I've given up seeming normal in public) say out loud:  "I can't let you in that door, it's locked." And I try to coax him off the porch and back to the front door. Nuh-uh. Will not move.

Finally, I pinned his leash under the chair on the patio, went in the front door, and opened the sliding glass door. Oreo trotted right in and waited for me to take off his harness and give him his treat.

I am very well trained.

Two unrelated but awesome things

Image by Stephen Rees via Flickr
Edit: Formatting on the quotes got super weird. Trying to fix that:

The first is this amazing article by Toni Bernhard, author of How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers (also amazing, by the way). Toni has a gift for explaining the common lived experience of people with chronic illness and their caretakers in a way that is clear, empathetic, and elegant without drifting too far into the "oh woe is me" or the "I will tough everything out and pretend everything is just fine." Definitely worth the read.
A few quotes in particular resonated with me:

Yes, it's okay to get sick or be in acute pain due to an injury or a surgical procedure, but then we're supposed to get better. Everyone expected that of me and I expected that of myself. For years, I felt embarrassed that I wasn't living up to the cultural norm

And:

Many of us believe that we've let our family and friends down.

And:

The dilemma of how to "present" to the world. Should we spruce ourselves up and risk people erroneously thinking we can participate fully in whatever they're doing?  

Also:

We're often misjudged by others if they see us looking nice or being active in any way. Healthy people tend to assume it's all or nothing: we're either sick or we're not; we're either in pain or we're not. And so, if they see us doing anything "normal," they assume we're 100% well. This has happened to me many times. Someone will see me at an espresso place with a friend and assume I've recovered, unaware that I came from the bed and will collapse on it after the visit. People aren't deliberately being insensitive. They just don't know.

And:

Caregivers face their own set of stressors. They must live with the frustration of not being able to make their loved ones better. They're suddenly thrown into the role of patient advocate in the medical system, a role for which they have no training or expertise. They often have to take over the running of the household. Caregivers see us at our worst, as we put on a good show for others (for me, this means running on adrenaline), only to collapse when we're in the privacy of our own homes or apartments.

On a lighter note, I enjoy watching jackasses get their comeuppance and boy has that happened with a vengeance with The Bloggess and a particularly clueless PR company (not the one that tried to recruit me to write for a "Mommy Blog" who had obviously not read much of anything here).
I sort of regret not being in Chicago anymore as I would have given serious consideration to dressing up like Beyonce the metal chicken and going to the PR company's offices downtown to tell them "Knock, knock, motherfuckers." Pretty sure that would have been the best bus ride EVAR.

Today is weird

Image via WikipediaToday has been weird even for me.

I decided to browse Craigslist for possible jobs. Wow, scary.
Apparently there are some locally made "adult" films.
And there was one job posting that just said "Pregnant Lady."

Someone said something about "penny wise" and I made a crack about Pennywise from It. Then a few minutes later, the Bad Astronomer tweeted this scary ass t-shirt. Serendipity is disturbing. I'm avoiding drains for the rest of the day.

Fast forward a bit and Oreo and Brownie were sharing the couch peacefully.

Then I decided I needed a nap.

My phone rang and it was someone who had heard we moved down here wanting to know if I'd be interested in teaching in the spring.
o.O

I managed to babble something comprehensible that was not "Hells yes, woman!" but conveyed that general sentiment. After we move into the apartment I'll go actually chat about it.

Then I got up to see Tom had tweeted about D'Iberville telling the early French colonists to breed buffalo, only I thought it said "breed with the buffalo" and I was truly impressed by the ignorance of basic biology back then.

So, now I have things to figure out:
- How do I teach sitting down (this will be weird for me)?
- Better management of dry mouth while lecturing because, seriously, the croaking is not cool
- Can I wear my Vibram Five-Fingers with business casual clothing because I really, really love them.
- Which eccentric professor do I emulate?

• Doc Brown
• Professor Trelawney
• Dumbledore
• Professor Farnsworth

I imagine that at some point I should figure out what I'm teaching...

This also nixes the idea I had floating in my head of dyeing the white parts of my hair purple...

And as I get ready to post this, Oreo and Brownie are sharing the couch again and sound asleep.

Who Arted?

Tom packed several framed photos and labelled the box appropriately.

 He also packed a box containing Oreo's worst nightmare.

So, yeah.  Packing continues.
I have a ton of course notes and articles from grad school that I can't bring myself to toss.  All of it thoroughly disorganized.  I really need to go through that stuff at some point and scan and organize.  If I had started grad school just a few years later I might not have quite so many handwritten notes.  But much of it is likely to be very useful if I start teaching again.
And then there are the papers I wrote.  Shudder.

Zoologically Improbable and/or Terrifying to Small Children

Zoologically Improbable and/or Terrifying to Small Children : funny

This was the inspiration for my latest online avatar thingie.

Haaaayyyy, y'all

Well, one of the photos in this line-up.

I think "taxiderpy" is my new favorite word. And should possibly become a category on Regretsy.

Fun with Hammers

Image via Wikipedia

What a hammer may look like

It's random tales from the field time again, children.  Gather round.

The last time I was in Sudan (2008) I got really, really sick.  Flu with complications.  Wound up leaving our excavation site for about a week to go back to the capital in Khartoum to see a doctor and get meds and junk.  Got to feeling slightly better, didn't want to come home to Chicago, so went back out to the site.  Before you yell at me for the stupid, bear in mind it was January.  No one in their right mind would go back to Chicago in January if they could avoid it.

Anyway we got back and I was still weak and woozy as all hell.  The day after I got back, the rest of the team went on a day trip to visit some other sites, some of which I had seen before.  Having just done the 8 or so hour journey from Khartoum the day before I was like "y'all have fun now,  don't fall in any tombs."

So it was me and our cook, Hashem left at the house.  As an aside, Hashem is a genius.  My god that man can cook.  He made fried chicken!  In a dirt kitchen!  With just two propane burners!  And soup!  He spoke almost no English, but so what.  He would wipe the floor with that Colonel dude from Kentucky.  If he ever for some reason wants to move the the US I will be at whatever government office necessary waving my cane around and yelling about how we need his awesome cooking for the good of the nation.

Anyway, I had stayed in bed a little late that day until I felt like getting up.  Then I staggered over to the dining room part of the house to see if there was tea left in any of the carafes and maybe some packaged cookies or something.  Hashem sees me and conveys very clearly that no, skinny foreign woman who looks like she may pass out at any moment, you are eating real food.  Off he goes.

I take a seat in one of the plastic chairs and hang out, sort of idly watching flies get caught on the fly-tapes we have hanging from the ceiling.  (Remember the fly tape, it's important later.)

Hashem all squinty because some genius
thought staring into the sun
for photos was a good idea

Hashem returns with enough food to feed like 8 people.  I express appropriate awe/gratitude and start eating hoping I can at least manage to force down enough not to offend him. It was good, I just still felt like ass.  He wanders off again, probably to mix his 87 herbs and spices for his magical, magical fried chicken.

There is suddenly this awful, loud buzzing noise.  Enough that I jumped up and away from the fluorescent light we had for use at night even though it wasn't turned on.  Then I look at one of the fly tapes.  A small bird appears to be stuck in it.  On closer inspection, it turns out to be some sort of gargantuan bumble bee.  I'm thinking "Chainsaw Bee" is a good name.  It's stuck to the fly tape, but is so heavy it's pulled the thing down almost to the tabletop.  And it's pissed and sounding even more like a chainsaw.  And skeezing me out, big time.  And shaking and jerking on the fly tape threatening to pull it down and/or release the lifeless but still disgusting bodies of its predecessors. 

Pretty sure
it was about the size of a Space Bee

So, after rescuing my plate of food from possible contamination by the chainsaw bee, I look around for a way to kill it.  I was wearing flipflops.  No way.  All the books available 1) belonged to me and 2) would have been ruined by Chainsaw Bee guts.  Other options included plastic chairs,  plastic tables, or either of 2 laptops.  There was also the option of yelling for Hashem, but I didn't know the Arabic for "the sickly crazy foreigner is a chickenshit and there is a huge fucking Chainsaw Bee up in here."

Then I spotted a hammer.  Score!

At first I tried smacking it with the hammer while it was still on the dangling fly paper.  In retrospect, this is probably the most obvious evidence that I was still pretty unwell, because even I would ordinarily recognize that as a bad idea.

My feeble swipes at it finally knocked Chainsaw Bee to the ground however.  Victory was to be mine!

There I am, crouched on the ground with a good-sized hammer in my hand, raised over my head prepared to strike with a no doubt manic/feverish gleam in my eye when Hashem comes back.  He stopped and blinked.  I waved my free hand feebly and gestured at Chainsaw Bee.  He sort of nodded.  And went away.

I smashed the fuck out of Chainsaw Bee.


I considered finding Hashem and trying to explain but, again, wasn't sure how to express "I'm stupid and there was a bee" in either Arabic or pantomime without making myself look even crazier.

Instead, I finished my brunch.

Chicago Tribune Fail

So there was a story on the Chicago Tribune about a pilot program trial thing for dementia patients in Illinois.  I hit the "like this on Facebook" button on and went on my merry way.
The I checked Facebook today and a friend had commented that the photo with the story was sort of priceless.

 

If you can't make it out, it's a photo of a building on fire.  That was a different Tribune story.

I am going to hell for laughing so hard at this.

Really delayed gifts involving scorpions

Late one night in Sudan I was getting ready to go to bed. I headed off to the latrine with my trusty headlamp turned on, pulled the plastic tarp nailed to some boards that we euphemistically referred to as a "door" open and had my heart stop for a few seconds. Camped out right next to the toilet paper (on the ground) was a scorpion. A big one. Probably of the deathstalker variety.  It was late and I had been and continued to be sick and weak, so I went in search of someone with sufficient upper body strength and testicular fortitude to kill the nasty thing with a shovel.

Eventually most of the team wound up hanging around the latrine to peek at the scorpion.  Finally Tom wanders by along with another male member of the team - Scott.  A debate ensues regarding whether we should kill the scorpion, chase it off, or catch it and release it somewhere else.  Mostly, I really need to pee and I was almost asleep on my feet so I finally snarled something to the effect of "get it the hell out of there so I can pee, dammit."

Scott went off to fetch a tin can and somehow got the scorpion into it.  I got Tom to stand guard outside the latrine while I used it as though that would somehow protect me from scorpions.  Then I went to bed. 
Meanwhile, Scott was showing off his new friend, "Pinchy."

Image by shovelingtom via Flickr

After a while, Scott took Pinchy off into the desert and let him go.  The villagers were less than pleased by Pinchy's reprieve - scorpions are serious business.  While a scorpion sting usually kills only the very young, old, or sick, the pain is supposed to be horrific and nearly maddening and often there isn't much that can be done but wait it out.  Thus, they kill the little bastards on sight. 



Anyway, several months later after we'd all come home and Tom and I wound up moving to a different apartment, Scott sent us a lovely housewarming gift and I decided he needed to have a memento to remind him of Pinchy and his 2 months in the Sudanese desert with a bunch of crazy people.
So, I crocheted a scorpion.  I think I borrowed the claw pattern from a free lobster pattern and made up the rest as I went along.  And found a can to put it in.  And then let it sit on my desk for a year because procrastination is cool or something.

So, after staring at it and thinking "hrm, I should put together the package of stuff for Scott and mail it" for the thousandth time today, I decided to actually, you know, do it.  Yay!
I made sure to document Pinchy too.

Re-enactment of discovering Pinchy in the latrine

Recreation of Pinchy's temporary home.

Pinchy, hanging out where he blends in like the sneaky little bastard he is.

Close-up.  He can smell your fear.

Totally Metal

I was looking through Ancient Egyptian Jewelry and stumbled on a photo of the mummy of Katebet (BM EA 6665).  Her mask and pectoral cover include her hands (made of wood).  Some of the fingers are broken off.  If you go take a look at her photo on the British Museum website  you can see that she is totally (almost) rocking some devil-horns.

This makes perfect sense, as she was a Chantress of Amun.  I bet she got crazy with the sistrum and was all dunn nuh nuh nuh nuh dunnnnuhnuh, Amun is the best!  Woo!

Tom has suggested she be renamed "Metal-amun" so start your letter-writing campaign to the British Museum now.  I'm sure they love getting crazy emails from random people - I know I did when I worked for a museum.  They may even have a Greatest Hits file.

Just go look at the photos

Massive Head Of Pharaoh Unearthed In Egypt : NPR

Damn, I wish I had seen this article before I posted the Reuters one. It has Amenhotep face-planted, which is far, far more hilarious.

I will give mad props to whoever comes up with the most inappropriate, yet hilarious description of that position.

Adding to the time travel list

1.  If someone invents a time machine and I go back to ancient Egypt, scribes better watch out. I will be pimp-slapping every last one of those bastards.
2.  Claim Europe.
3.  Print this out and take a copy to Charles Darwin.  For the lulz.

Why I hate snakes

They cheat.

From here
Incidentally, I'm realizing what a good thing it is I never had decent internet coverage in the field.  If I'd been able to read about scary, deadly creatures that inhabited the very areas where I was working I'd have behaved way stupidly.  Entertainingly so, perhaps, but way stupidly.  Like, keeping a broom by my cot to sweep the area for snakes and scorpions before putting my feet on the floor stupidly.

Also, does anyone else think that snake in the picture has an accent?

Why the world is really going to end in 2012

Because the capuchins (the monkeys, not the friars) are coming for us.  For serious.
The following video was posted on Cute Overload today:


Watching the whole thing is awesome.   Much of it is squee-worthy, or at least was to me and I have to give the videographer mad props for not frightening off the monkeys by squeeing is paroxysms of delight when watching the monkeys.  However, if you don't watch the whole thing, at least watch from about 3:30 onward.

Yeah.  Little buggers are all about some dropping big heavy things from heights.  On purpose.  At enemies.

"Yeah, fine, whatever, the live in South America, in the jungle, so what?" you say.

Well, then, watch this:


Oh yeah, we're screwed.  It's only a matter of time before the ones in the wild learn to drive and fly planes.  Then they'll meet up with all the "domesticated" helper monkeys.  And then...well, my friends, then those of us with a plan will be safe and sound and the rest of the world will devolve into utter, capuchin-controlled chaos.

Happy Halloween!

Yet more evidence that I am a ferret: this is totally how I play guitar

Video: Ferret Vs. Guitar @ Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

Warning: Little known threat to farmers and yarn aficionados

Dracullama
Originally uploaded by Tapir Girl

The dracullama. Wings. Fangs. Fear.

My neurologists?

Comics - Explosm.net: "
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net"

angry teddybear

angry teddybear
Originally uploaded by Speckerna

If the bloody stump, cast, and victoriously raised firearm weren't enough, the excellent addition of the angry eyebrows should tell you that this bear means business.

Excellent. /Monty Burns

Crafty Cripple Commune*

So, I was talking to some friends who also happen to be fellow crafters and chronically ill peeps, online today and someone mentioned how they wished we were neighbors.  So, of course, I decided we needed to all live in a commune.
My initial suggestions were ramps everywhere, conveniently placed nap spots, cabana boys (I should add in girls, for those so inclined), lots of fiber bearing animals, and high explosives.  (Gotta have high explosives - it's a commune, isn't it?)

Other suggested additions:
- Unlimited pain meds and topicals that actually work.
- Top quality medical care with doctors who aren't douchebags, possibly provided in exchange for knitted/crocheted goods

And things I've come up with since:
- lots of gardens
- wireless heating pads
- a moat and 10,000 gerbils oops, that's for something else
- an enormous library


And we've already decided to demand really expensive, high quality yarn for the FBI standoff.

In vaguely related news, I've discovered I might be psychic.  I was re-reading a rather snarky autobiographical sketch I wrote a few years ago and it had the following line:

She hopes to propose a dissertation concerning redacted to protect, uh, someone, assuming that this dissertation topic doesn’t go the way the last one did – with a whimper, a bang, the theft of several expensive books, random threats, and a whiff of gin and over-priced men’s cologne.

Well, the gin turned out to be moonshine.  And no one stole books this time.  And none of the men involved wore cologne (though some of them really probably should.)  Otherwise, yeah, pretty much what happened.

So, in that vein:

She hopes to legally acquire several million dollars in the near future along with the deed to a beautiful ranch in Wyoming.  And for a friend to become a rich and successful healthcare worker.  Oh, and she still wants a pony.  And a shotgun.

*What?  It's alliterative!  That beats out offensiveness.

Word of the Day

Nugatory  

My husband introduced me to this word when he found it in the petitions to the Supreme Court regarding firearms restrictions in the city of Chicago.  (You can get PDFs of both petitions there - Chicago's lawyers decided to use the word "nugatory" and the reply seems to find that, uh, interesting.  I'm not discussing the case here, just pointing out the word.)

I thought it had something to do with nougat, creamy, tasty nougat before I was given any context.

We both hoped it had something to do with The Nuge because the use involved guns. I was thinking along the lines of:  "That action was so deeply stupid, trashy, and ignorant as to be nugatory." Alas, no.