Amy’s Gripping Commentary

I rode about 50 miles to and from work on my bike in the last week since I started this little commuting project. Observed:

One catcall and one general holler
Two cheery guys with booze in paper sacks
One muskrat
No crashes (did almost fall off this morning and saw one person fall over with a clip incident)
Four trips before I even noticed a McDonald’s along the way
One chunk of broken TV on the giant bridge
Two wrong turns
Felt short in my compact car after riding so much perched on the bike
No near death experiences
Zero flats, hooray
Twenty-plus pounds of gear in my backpack!

Without my laptop, the backpack isn’t that heavy. Well, I guess it still is, but not so painful. I leave a lot of shower and clothing items in the locker room at work, but I do tend to overpack no matter how I’m traveling. I discovered the way in is 150 ft negative elevation change over the whole route, which means riding home is really hard work to recover that (not to mention the up and down of the bridge both ways right by work). That isn’t a huge change in elevation, but when you suddenly weigh 180 lbs with all that stuff on your back, you have knobby tires, and there’s a headwind, it can take almost an hour to go seven miles! I am ready to get a rack and/or panniers to help with the load. I can probably leave the heavy U-lock behind because no one is going to cut a cable lock at my security-controlled workplace populated with upstanding people. I hope to get a new cross strap for my Timbuk2 bag and just carry it messenger style like it was designed, instead of inside the backpack. I must learn to part with more things.

For Bike to Work Day this morning, almost thirty of us left from a bike shop in Irvington to ride together downtown. I was riding just behind the people in the video in the local paper’s sidebar coverage. Riders from 11 points in the city met at the circle for breakfast, press conferences, free bike parking… pretty much all of which I missed because our eastside group arrived late at the circle, and my coworkers were leaving together for our plantsites then.

The ride in: Michigan Street

Waiting forever for a train

It was a nice mix of people: racers on road bikes in team spandex, random people like me on mountain bikes, and regular joes in jeans on cruisers. I don’t think those groups mix a lot otherwise, but the point was to highlight bike commuting and riding in a group provides safety and camaraderie, even when you don’t know anyone else.

I liked this shot of my coworkers converging at corporate headquarters for a group picture (which I don’t have). I noticed a lot of them are carrying backpacks too so maybe we just need a lot of stuff at our jobs!

It was a gorgeous day today and I spent more time on the bike trail for scenery, but the ride home still hurt with all that crap on my back.

Today my hippie leanings came closer to full circle when I commuted to work on my bicycle. I thought about it a week or so ago when the cycling club at work was trying to attract interest in a charity ride and Bike to Work Day, which is next Friday the 16th. I figured it sounded like a good idea, what with my wish to lose the perpetual five extra pounds, my tree hugging (spewing fewer diesel fumes daily has to be a good idea, no matter how efficient my fuel mileage may be), and what the heck, why not set an example for other drivers who are feeling the fuel price pinch? It hasn’t hurt me yet, but I might need this backup transportation someday. Also I saw what I guess was a muskrat, which has to be a good sign for the day. Or something.

I happen to live at one end of an underused greenway (and parkway) that follows a meandering creek. The greenway and parkway are inefficient for cars with all the creek-following, but it makes for a pretty ride and the lack of cars is great for biking on the road. One does risk serious corporeal damage on the divided highway that makes up the rest of the route after the greenway ends (if Indianapolis would just finish the planned greenways I’d have one all the way to work, but I’m not holding my breath on that one), so on the advice of another bike commuter who has taken this route for years (and who was hit by a car last month), I just took the sidewalk in that area. The highway goes to the city dumps, industrial areas, and the airport, and there is so much debris-dropping large truck traffic that it’s the one area I’m uncomfortable taking the pavement. No one was on the sidewalks so it all worked out. Hey Indy, how about some bike lanes on Raymond?

I waited for a few lights and had to navigate security gates at work, but other than that it was a direct route of about seven miles. I predicted the one rude/dangerous thing a car did, turning in front of me with no signal, and I didn’t need my pepper spray for any dogs or thugs, so I’d say it was a success. I was in the showers at work within 45 minutes of leaving home.

Of course now I’m thinking of all the doodads I would like to buy for my bike, a Gary Fisher I purchased several years ago but I haven’t mountain biked in the last few years. I’ll probably go for Kevlar-belted commuter tires rather than the knobby ones I currently have, panniers to replace my backpack, and I need to finally learn how to change a flat. I had all the stuff to do it but now the tire levers are missing and I never have had a flat for practical experience. Would my roadside assistance come? They say as long as I have my cell phone I can be in any vehicle…

Bike to Work Day (and bike month) is observed all over the country. Indy has events planned for next Friday. Will I see any of you on Monument Circle for breakfast in spandex?

Michiana readers: your bike to work week is June 2-6 because you are pussies about May weather.

Yesterday at Petco, Pippen was so zonked he looked very dead.

This is for you, Matt.

David and I went out for sushi last night, and then Mike and Carla invited us out to the Chatterbox, the first time I’d been there. It was incredibly crowded for awhile but we eventually were able to sit down, thanks to Carla being on top of chasing down people who were leaving and generally being willing to talk to anyone (just ask Doreen). Carla found a footless army man in the bathroom and he did not burn.

After a few drinks, David went up between sets to talk to the pianist, “Doc” Virginia Jefferson, who had him play with her for a bit. He’s looking for a jazz teacher.

BTW, I got $22.37 for my recycled crowns. I won’t spend it all in one place.

Let’s just see how that title affects site searches. Edit: very badly, so I put a space in the title!

I usually get a new pair of slippers for Christmas. I wear them every day at home; I like to take off my shoes as soon as I’m in the door and get comfy, but the floor’s too dirty to go around without slippers. (It could be freshly swept and mopped and I still wouldn’t want to go around without footwear. Issue #1.) This year I asked for slippers from a different company than my usual brand since the old company started selling rabbit fur items and I didn’t want to patronize them. Somehow I still got multiple other gifts from that company, but that’s the way it goes.

Anyway, the new slipper place sent a catalog of supposedly comfy shoes and appliances, including items to wear to deal with bunions, corns, hammer toes, etc. I can’t speak to bunions and corns, but I do have a “mallet toe,” which is basically a toe that curves down sharply at the last joint. It’s similar to a hammer toe but a different joint is involved.

(That x-ray is not my feet. It was just a lot less gross looking than putting up a picture of actual feet. The middle toes are mallet toes.)

Seeing the appliances got me thinking about whether such an item would help me. But what does it help? Frankly, I am not bothered by 32 years of a mallet toe. Every once in awhile a new pair of shoes will cause a blister on top of it, but I wear very sensible shoes (I’m boring like that, Issue #2) and rarely have a problem. To read about mallet toes online, you’d think I ought to be hobbled and scheduling surgery.

Also, I hate feet (Issue #3). I think my brother used to torture me by putting his feet on me. I am forever grossed out by the image of my dad cutting his toenails on newspaper in the family room. My mom has this funky sideways toenail (which I may get someday too due to the same surgery I had on my toe) that just freaks me out. David can touch me with his feet sometimes, but only if I can’t see them nor feel the nails. And I better think they’re clean. It’s not necessarily better when he wears socks because I sense all the dirt and hair that must be on them from wandering the floors in our house or the day of sweat if they just exited work boots.

After reading about how treacherous mallet toes are, I wondered if the reason I only wear sensible, comfortable footwear is because my body knows if I picked heels and cute things I’d be in pain. See, I’m highly evolved, not lacking in fashion sense. Mallet toes are normally caused by bad footwear choices. Being lucky enough to be born with my toes all curled backwards against my feet and around each other and then wearing a bar between my shoes to straighten out legs and feet, I didn’t have the chance to screw up my toe via bad shoes. Mom says I was too crowded and I looked like I’d be crippled when I was born, but frankly I walk fine, ran track (poorly but I doubt it was related) and get around like anyone else. An orthopedist once found one leg longer than the other, but as long as I row starboard and not port, I’m not in pain. And I can even go port now and then.

Many foot things stand out in my life. The moon boots I had to wear because they were practical, per my Dad. And how relieved I was in 6th grade when my mom and I were in cahoots to buy new fashionable boots for me and stash them away as a Christmas gift so it would be too late to return them. The bread bags I had to wear in the moon boots because they leaked (I have met others subjected to this same punishment). The monster feet slippers with crashing sounds my high school roommate gave me. My frequent purchase of men’s shoes because my feet are too big (11) to find women’s shoes about 90% of the time. Once I found a pair of women’s size 10.5 hiking boots and they’re awesome. Nothing else fits as well and I’ve never seen that size again. Hence, the crying jags when I attempt to shoe shop. The jelly shoes that were popular when I was a kid and that I wasn’t allowed to have because they were bad for my feet (which led me to believe that all girls in jelly shoes had uncaring, ill-informed parents).

There you go. Feet and I are not friends. And if someone ever finds a very comfortable, semi-stylish, work-appropriate non-leather shoe in my size, please tell me. VERY comfortable is required. Lots of support. My feet hurt when I don’t wear tennies to work, and it’s hard to get away with those most days.

Strangely enough, two other local bloggers (Must Be Motherhood, Distracted by Something Shiny) talked about feet and shoes this week while I was drafting my post. Is it the time of year for robins to return (saw the first one yesterday) and feet topics?

This has been a really bad week and the hurt is still a little raw on this one.

My ongoing illness morphed into the flu a week ago, such that I didn’t leave bed for days. I managed to throw food at the rabbits a couple of times and finally had to call for help when I just couldn’t do it myself anymore. David, otherwise a terrible nurse because he’s so paranoid about catching the illness, went in to feed and clean the rabbits with Dawn’s phone coaching. He came to get me and said something was wrong with Annabelle.

My poor girl was limp on her side in the cage. I hadn’t been in there in just over a day. I cleaned her snotty nose so she could breathe better and tried to assess what was going on, but she was basically nonresponsive. Her breathing and heart rate steadied a little (I thought… who knows) after I cleaned her up a bit and supported her. We headed to the emergency clinic in a winter storm. David had to scrape tons of ice off the car while I huddled in it with Annabelle (and her pal Joey in the carrier in the backseat) trying to keep myself vertical. I was really sick.

The long drive to the bunny-safe, more humane emergency clinic in town in the terrible weather behind us, the technician whisked Annabelle away in the fleece bed in which I’d brought her. The vet told me he was surprised she lived through his quick exam. Her heart rate was half normal and her body temperature was not even registering on the thermometer (it measured down to 93, and normal for a bunny is about 102). She was in shock. He could try fluids/incubation to see if we could bring her back overnight, but I asked for euthanasia.

She fell asleep in my lap with the sedation and Joey climbed on her a couple of times. I still don’t know if I should have tried something. Would I have acted differently if I had been well? I would have found her illness much sooner in the day, I assume. I have a lot of bunny experience, but not with shock, and since the vet wasn’t a bunny expert (critical in many emergencies but maybe not in this one?) and acted like she could die at any moment, it made sense to help her be comfortable in this safe way.

One of my bunny vets did the necropsy the next morning. Annabelle had the most advanced liver disease she’d ever seen, as well as advanced kidney disease. Were these the cause of her mild incontinence and wobbliness now and then? Was she in shock because of the end stages of these diseases? Did I cause more problems by feeding her extra pellets since she didn’t keep weight on easily? It’s probably normal that her last bloodwork didn’t really signal the problem because rabbits with organ disease typically don’t show much in the chemistries until failure is imminent. But what might I have learned or done a few hours earlier had I not been sick?

Many of you will remember that Annabelle had one eye due to being shot in the other one just before she was found and brought into rescue. She still had the pellet lodged in her head all this time, and despite the ongoing URI issues she faced, none of that factored into her final illness according to the vet.

Joey is doing well, hanging out in the same fleece bed where Annabelle spent her last night. It’s so hard to lose these guys when they are so happy and healthy one day and then they crash the next.

I have never been considered a shiny-happy, uplifting person to be around. I’m known for sarcasm and associated with the phrase Get Over It. But goodness, I hope I don’t come across as whiny. I’m sure there are some days that I do, no doubt about it. Still, there’s a blog I keep going back to because this poor, poor person just has so many annoying relatives and bad things happening to her and she just keeps making excuses about how it’s never her fault, her life is unfair, she surely couldn’t do anything to improve her lot, and when things get better she’ll do x and y and never complain…. then good things happen and guess what? She complains. I can’t stop reading it because I wonder how hypocritical the next post will sound. Ok, now I’m sounding bitter. I guess I’m just glad I’m not around this person, say, at work, because I think she’d drive me crazy! I don’t think this blogger reads here so if you’re all paranoid or something, don’t be. Most blogs I find either funny/entertaining/interesting/educational or just realize I don’t have a lot in common with the person but it’s their life so hey, blog what you want. I rarely visit I Can Has Cheezburger either but I see why it has a following.

Ah, the internet. One of the best inventions ever. Why is watching other people whine or fight with each other so entertaining? When my grouplist readings lapse as I get busy, I sometimes stop back in only when I get an announcement that it’s back on moderation due to some controversy. That’s a great time to get caught up!

Meanwhile, if you work in a cubicle and have a computer and coworkers around, this video will make you laugh. Note the Lundberg guy. My favorite part is the CRT on the copy machine because the guy can’t get his document to print.
Bad Day at the Office
My work week has been pretty intense, but so far my laptop has cooperated, so I’ll let it live.

And pet sterilization is now the law in Los Angeles!

Now I shall whine: I have had a sinus infection for over a week, and I’m tired of the reverse-sneeze-sounding (you’ll know what it is if you have a dog) attempts to get the green strings to either be in my nasal area or in my throat but not stretched in a gooey line to be in both places at the same time. I can actually pluck them out like a slimy noodle. Gross, huh?

So, any guesses on how much I’ll get for cashing in my old crowns? (Hint: you are looking at three to four thousand dollars of work, and my guess is dividing that by 100 will be close.)

And here’s the evidence of the long restoration:

Scene of the crimes (looks like it was impression day based on the pink goo in the gun)

Taking measurements with molds (you should have seen the crazy contraption I wore on my head when they adjusted my bite)

Rare footage of the prepped front teeth. This was in May, and I wore resin fakes for several months while the rest of the teeth were prepped and then permanent crowns were made. I think the lowers in front may have been already shaved in this picture in prep for veneers… I don’t even recognize my old teeth anymore.

And finally, in the little bathroom next to the clinic, someone had made repairs in the wall with a rather janky patch. Sometime after this helpful graffiti, it was more properly repaired. The clinic is on IU’s Indy campus, and the whole place has the flavor of state university rather than traditional dentist. (One place I looked when deciding how to do this project had LCD screens on articulated arms at each dental chair so you could watch cable while waiting and be sold dental procedures with video explanations.) I appreciate that state school dollars aren’t being wasted on decor (or drywall patches, apparently). Maybe some money will be freed up now that the basketball coach is gone.

Let me tell you about the time I won jewelry because of my guinea pigs. There was this contest on the radio that I used to hear on my way to work in Culver, IN, ca. late nineties. I worked in a barn-turned-lab with a host of interesting characters, where we made antibiotics and had old mustard gas out in the back forty sheds. Everyone needs a job like that when they’re just out of college. Nowhere else I’ve worked have I gotten drunk IN the company break room WITH the general manager. Anyway, a local grocery store, Martin’s (remarked by more than one of my outta town boyfriends {not that I’ve had very many} to be the blood-dripping or vampire grocery store because of the way the letters look; the blood thing ties in in a minute–you’ll see!), sponsored the radio contest. The DJ would ask a question that would require one to look at that week’s Martin’s grocery ad to find the price of a certain sale item. If you called in with the price, you won something.

Well, the question was about the price of parsley. Now, I had guinea pigs, and for as long as I’d had pigs, parsley was free at Martin’s with any other produce purchase. I buy a hell of a lot of parsley these days for rabbits and I sure wish we had that deal around here. (I did get an amazing deal on parsley this week: check out this single bunch that was selling for 89¢!)

My dad, the only person I know who looks out for even better deals than I do, was all about the free parsley when I was a kid and our pigs sure ate a lot of it. So I called in on my way to work (I can’t believe I had a cell phone then–I bet it was that bag phone) and won a gift certificate to a jewelry store in downtown Mishawaka. I think I may have gotten a bracelet with it, or perhaps I never redeemed it. Anyway, that’s the last contest I remember winning. The other significant one I remember was betting against the Cubs and the Pirates won so my brother had to clean the guinea pig cages, but that predated the parsley contest by several years.

So earlier this week I won a $25 gift card at Hope for the Hopeless because I gave blood in January. Then tonight I found out I also won the blood-donation contest at Manic Mommy’s blog! (Watch the video at the end of the post to see all the names pulled.) There were 33 entries (4.125 gallons!) and several prizes, and somehow I won the biggest one! I swear I don’t know these people–I don’t even know where they live–but karma or something has it in for me in a good way these days. This comes on the heels of several financial windfalls of sorts (I did deserve/earn some of the others), but then February always seems lucky since my birthday, tax returns, raises and bonuses, and paying off the holiday bills while simultaneously not having as many expenses because it’s too cold to go do anything all happen about the same time.

Do you ever have lucky spells? I do. I don’t want to believe in spells of luck, but I do feel like I have them. I also have bad luck spells (I think the last one was a car wreck, two tires blown out by potholes, and some major home repair happening at the same time), but I notice/appreciate the good luck more. They do seem to come in threes, like the fabled deaths-at-the-same-time, but maybe it takes that many in a row for anyone to notice something as a trend. I don’t know what defines a statistical trend but I bet three in a row isn’t enough. We usually go by a run of seven at work, but I suppose it’s case by case, depends on the number of data points, and the limits/standard deviation.

ANYWAY.

I thought I’d take a Publisher’s Clearing House winner picture (in other words, sitting right here at my desk without combing my hair or getting out of my sweats covered in bunny fur) with my dog, who I thanked in my acceptance speech over at Manic Mommy’s comments, and the pictures turned out like a photo booth event! They are not unlike the one I posted in my Yahoo! Personals ad years ago that netted me a few losers and then finally David. My ad was titled Good Speller Seeks Same. He must’ve been one because he didn’t even have a picture on his ad and I went out with him anyway.

So, as I told Manic Mommy I’d do, I plan to give most of the winnings to the bunny rescue. But I really like this shirt that is part of the prize! I might drown in it, though.

It occurred to me that I’ve donated blood in Muncie, South Bend, Seymour, and Indianapolis (those are all Indiana towns, you visitors), as well as Massachusetts and Florida. I really get around!

Have you donated blood lately?

Adding this the next day:
Lest my goofiness over winning and all cloud the big picture, I do have to remember there are real people out there being helped. Sure, I think of accident victims and the acute need for blood. But this woman, Billie, has a serious illness and has blood components delivered to her body every month, which have been pooled from thousands of people! Such medical intervention is amazing to me and makes a single donation seem so small.

I truly am lucky that I am healthy and that the people close to me are too.

Another installment of Amy Downloads Camera Phone Pictures!

Walt removes stuffing from yet another toy. (There was another casualty later that night.)

I’m king of the world! (He fell asleep on top of the pigloo later.)

Ah, Valentine’s Day… Hug’s and Kissess for everyone. Love, Kroger

I made jacket potatoes stuffed with sauteed garlic and baby portobello mushrooms, tofu, and the insides of the potatoes… then happened to heat up a fake chicken breast thing (also made from mycoprotein: a whole fungus meal!), resulting in a strangely symmetrical plate. David had seared ahi tuna, the more normal plate in the background. Note our OSB-topped coffee table.

Miffi grabbed all the carrots when I was trying to give her only the green tops.

Last week was one of extremes. Work sucked ass (even at home every night on my laptop, pager, and cell phone), but then had high points as we solved issues and I had good financial news, including finding out that I’m done paying for my teeth (for you newcomers, that’s 26 crowns and a bunch of ancillary work). My birthday was one of the sucky work days, then spent visiting David’s mom as she came home from the hospital without an appendix, then trying a new-to-us Iraqi restaurant that disappointed. After the good financial news (good enough that I still did this after having car repairs and dog grooming expenses that same day), we went to R Bistro for a really nice $$$ dinner. We haven’t been out to a place with a fancy chef in a long time and it was really wonderful. I’ve never had butternut squash, spinach, and goat cheese with Buerre blanc before.

Now completing a tiring weekend by snacking on real parmesan (not going to attempt the long/real spelling) and red wine… mmm.

Oh! And I won one of the bloody contests! Of course the award was a gift card to a steakhouse, so she’s adjusting it a bit. Anyway, lots of people gave blood during Melissa and Manic Mommy‘s contests, which is really the point. My entry was a January donation.

I’d say the week ended on an up note!

has devolved into my perusing blogs (but accidental new ones, since I don’t have bookmarks for blogs on this computer), while David plays a submarine game where he is so sidetracked by his dog licking his forehead and beer and the Scrabble game and general conversation and a glitch in the sound card that he doesn’t even notice the enemy until it attacks him for several seconds. He’s now entering the Sea of Japan.

Amy, on the sub game: Pausing is not real life
David: When you’re drunk, it simulates soberness

Meanwhile, even on the fourth rum-n-Coke, I still spelled dalliers and quandry. And then rime, which David did not believe was real. Then I took a couple of turns for him.

David is now talking about his por-tee-doh tubes.

I have been fascinated by the Google street view today. We found our house (and the neighbor taking out his trash). It’s bizarre that someone drove around and photographed every street in town. Try it at http://maps.google.com/, typing in your address of interest. If the street is outlined in blue, you’ll be able to see photo-travels of every house along the way (and any pedestrians and cars and such who were out at the time).

And I just happened upon this depressing article, which reminded me:

an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production

livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation

2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days

if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens

In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Can anyone tell I’ve also been reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The China Study?

I shall go sleep it off now.

(One of my favorite movie quotes)

This post will be gross. But before it gets gross (you can read the first part KNH), some of you will recall that Nicole and I stash a Support Our Troops yellow ribbon magnet on each other’s cars to embarrass the other in front of other drivers (we find the magnets silly). My latest application was to her mailbox, which she kept forgetting to remove since she only saw it when she left the driveway in her car. But her husband took over and redecorated with Ainsley as model:

Now we really can’t put it on each other’s cars because, well, someone might think we were calling the troops poopieheads and involve us in a road rage incident, and I’ve had enough of that this week. (BTW, David uses that term a lot, and I just verified that is his preferred spelling.) (I love the word antecedent and I hope everyone understood mine in that last note.)

Shortly after the appearance of Support Our Poops, David and I had an argument about poop, and we have relatively frequent discussions about poop, and then I saw a funny and informative blog post about poop. Plus, I am CONSTANTLY talking about rabbit poop with other bunny folks because it’s an incredibly useful way to assess their health. So naturally, it became a blog topic. (Those easily grossed out should go away now. It’s not that bad, and I won’t post any photos from my bathroom or anything, but I know some folks really hate bodily excretion discussions.)

Poop discussions
David describes his bathroom activities to me in relative detail, and I know all about his elaborate preparations with coffee and his after-pooping habits (which I will not go into here, but there are products involved). I generally do not share my pooping details (nor do I fart purposely and musically in his presence, which seems to be exclusively a guy thing), but I do have a sympathetic ear on the occasions when I am not feeling well and my bathroom habits have been a little off.

Also, yesterday David sang Poop-a-Jacques to the tune of Frère Jacques. He gets really excited about pooping, I’m telling you.

Poop argument
I never had a toilet bowl problem at my old house, but now seem to at David’s. My theory is that all my toilets at my house are round bowls, and therefore the water is deeper and closer to the front of the bowl. David’s toilet, which he chose when he gutted the bathroom and did not ask my opinion on toilet shape, which is definitely a preference for round bowls, is oval, and so more exposed bowl is at the front, and the water is toward the back. So now when I have my perfect vegetarian poop each day (more on vegetarian poop and what makes it perfect below), it sometimes hits drier areas of the oval bowl. Most times it does not, but the point here is that David insists I scrub the toilet bowl of any evidence immediately following dropping the kids (usually just kid in my case) off at the pool. This is to be done with a toilet brush that sits in a stainless steel thingie next to the commode.

This request totally grossed me out. First of all, the guy doesn’t own toilet cleaner. He just keeps scrubbing until visually clean and that’s it. So I know the toilet brush is disgusting, even though it doesn’t appear that way and even though every toilet brush is disgusting. It’s just that the ones that did their scrubbing in Sno-Bol or Soft Scrub or Lysol Gel or what have you seem less gross upon re-use.

Secondly, if you let the offending smear (ok, that was kinda gross) sit for, say, ten minutes, the next flush will take away the evidence. It’s like soaking a dish in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher. But he didn’t want to see my evidence (and I guess I can understand that), while I would rather wait ten minutes and try the hands-off approach. Meanwhile, if his toilet bowl were rounder, all my perfect number fours would hit deeply and I doubt I’d ever have to scrub.

Perfect number four poop
I really can’t do this discussion justice after the previously-mentioned excellent post at A Veg*n for Dinner, but I would like to use the Bristol Poo Chart, which I didn’t know existed until she introduced it:

The idea is that a vegetarian diet, full of fiber and veggies and lacking constipating meat, generally results in perfect number four poops, and such poops should be the goal. Apparently we can tell a lot about a person’s health by looking at their poop, in the same way I assess rabbits, but the main difference is that a rabbit creates something like 300 pellets (or “data points”) a day and I generally produce one or two. It’s much faster to jump to statistically significant conclusions with rabbit poop (or fecal pellets, not to be confused with cecotropes, and frankly I can go on all day about rabbit poop. Should you want to know more, check out Rabbit References).

My latest news from the bathroom is that while I was pooping last night, a tornado came through town, and I had to rush downstairs with the animals. This led to another argument about the toilet needing scrubbing but I figured a tornado was a pretty good excuse.

And then Casper went outside and ate some poopsicles.

Poor Casper was napping on the floor next to the couch when I spilled my wine everywhere. She had it on her back too.

I joined the YMCA recently and they have TWO misspellings on their signs. Should I find a different gym?

I had fourteen teeth installed today. I actually feel pretty good (nine injections, ya know) except that my jaw hurts from the 4.5 hours in the chair, having to hold my mouth open the whole time or clench tightly to seat the crowns and allow the cement to cure. My back doesn’t feel that great either after being in the chair that long. And that’s the most money I’ve spent in one day since I bought my car.

We saw the newish Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tonight. I hope I don’t have Johnny Depp-Willy Wonka teeth now!

While at the dental school, some of the departments had decorated:

My brother finally sent me pictures of his injury. He lost an argument with second base around Memorial Day and only recently is off crutches. He broke his lower leg in multiple places. This is him put back together, but you should see all the metal plates and screws in the xrays! He had a big nasty thing like that on both sides.

This is for KNH:

Today is World Diabetes Day. I make insulin and have been proud of my job for the five years I’ve been doing it.

When I was a child, I remember visiting Aunt Annie just a couple of times. I remember she was very fat and “they” said she had diabetes, though I didn’t know what it was.

Then I worked at a church camp in my teens. For a week or two each summer, the campers were all diabetics, rather than the usual congregational crowd. That was when we would sneak glucose tabs as snacks. Two of my fellow camp staffers were diabetic, including one of my best friends, Carlos.

Diabetes hasn’t really touched my life so personally lately, though some of my coworkers are diabetic. But every day I have my hand in the process; I worked in a lab here for several years, testing insulin, and now I support that lab in an office role. I’m glad I don’t need insulin but also glad that we can provide it for lots of people and that my company is involved in efforts like World Diabetes Day.

From the International Diabetes Federation:

The global diabetes epidemic has devastating human, social and economic effects. The largest costs of diabetes worldwide are its devastating effects on families and national economies.

Impact on families and people with diabetes

Diabetes is expected to cause 3.8 million deaths worldwide in 2007, about 6% of total global mortality, about the same as HIV/AIDS. Using World Health Organization (WHO) figures on years of life lost per person dying of diabetes, this translates into more than 25 million years of life lost each year.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that the equivalent of an additional 23 million years of life are lost to the disability and to reduced quality of life caused by the preventable complications of diabetes.

People living with diabetes and their families feel the impact of diabetes most directly. They feel the often crushing expenses of diabetes treatments as costs are not subsidized, and family income is frequently reduced when diabetes interferes with work.

It is often the case that caring for diabetes steals valuable time from education, paid work and leisure. In many countries, individuals and families fear and experience the disability, reduced quality of life, and the lost years of life that untreated diabetes brings.

People with diabetes face the near certainty, in many countries the stark reality, of premature death.
Type 1 diabetes is particularly costly in terms of mortality in poor countries, where many children die because access to life-saving insulin is not subsidized by governments (who instead tax it heavily), and is often not available at any price.
Studies recently carried out in Zambia, Mali and Mozambique highlight a stark reality: a person requiring insulin for survival in Zambia will live an average of 11 years; a person in Mali can expect to live for 30 months; in Mozambique a person requiring insulin will be dead within 12 months.
In the poorest countries, people with diabetes and their families bear almost the entire cost of whatever medical care they can afford.
In Latin America, families pay 40-60% of diabetes care costs out of their own pockets.
In India, for example, the poorest people with diabetes spend an average of 25% of their income on private care. Most of this money is used to stay alive by avoiding fatally high blood sugar levels.

Americans take for granted access to insulin; we also eat McDonald’s and sit on the couch and cause our own diabetic demise. Just think if you lived in a place that didn’t have insulin, syringes, or glucose testing available to you.

You can sponsor a child with diabetes to provide access to life-saving medicine and supplies at www.lifeforachild.org.

After closing Bella’s adoption, Baxter is the new bunny in foster care at that Petco. He and his brother Dexter were abandoned in their cage on the side of the road. People are scum. But the bunnies are still sweet!

Meanwhile, I’ve been sick and missed work yesterday, though I did make it to the polls. It’s a fun sinus thing with a bit of intestinal stuff thrown in for good measure. Is that flu?

While I was gone, someone wrote a comment on my cubicle whiteboard about fried rabbit.

And Casper is thrilled that the weather has turned colder so she can search for poopsicles in the yard. I can barely tear her away!

Oh, and I’ve joined Blogging from the Cubicle (not that I ever would) and Liberal Bloggers on NaBloPoMo. I avoided the group for people who like walruses (there are three members!).