Ah, Victoria

I love going home.

I did, in fact, make it back to the island for Christmas and I was only 2 days late. I managed a full 6 days of family, friends, sushi, presents, ocean, dogs, sleep, and copious amounts of sugar. I came home 2 days ago and I'm feeling great.

So, Happy New Year all! I'm spending the night with the cats and a movie and I can't think of a better way to kick off 2009. Cheers!



(Darth Fiddler is a common sight in Victoria. Under the mask, he's actually a pretty cool guy. Too bad he can't actually play the damn fiddle.)

We gotta get out of this place.....

Well, I'm stuck.

I was supposed to fly out of PDX at 3pm today, but here I am, sitting in Rob's apartment. I can't get to the airport (they shut down MAX for most of today) and my flight has been canceled twice even if I could. I also can't get back to my apartment where my cats are. They should be fine because I left them a week's worth of food, 3 water bowls (in case Minnow digs all the water out of them like she usually does) a pot of water in the sink with the tap dripping into it and the heat on low.

The problem is, even though I know they should be just fine, I worry. I can't help but think about all the what ifs, and those what ifs are scary. Merlin isn't the healthiest creature around, what if he chooses now to get really sick? What if Minnow falls off something for the one billionth time, and this time actually hurts herself? What if, what if, what if....

I'm going to try to get out there tomorrow (multiple friends with Subarus, rock on!) and check on them, but otherwise I'll just have to sit here and quietly panic.

My current flight schedule has me leaving PDX at 6am on Tuesday (ewwwwwwww!) and arriving at YVR at 7am. Then, due to some absolutely stellar scheduling, I get to wait til 4:30pm to catch the island hopper back home. I felt kinda sorry for the Air Canada employee who had to tell me this because it was obvious he expected me to start yelling and screaming (which he'd probably already got a lot of that day). I told him it wasn't his fault, and really....how bad is it? I mean, it's not like I have to sit outside in the snow and wait for my plane. YVR isn't half bad, as airports go, and I have 3 knitting projects, a couple books, and goldfish crackers. I suspect I'll survive and it'll become just one more "do you remember when...?" tale I can drag out at Christmas time. I plan to stick near to the gate anyway, and if I'm really lucky, a seat will open up on an earlier flight. I'm actually far less concerned about the day waiting at YVR and more annoyed by having to be at PDX for 6am. I mean, really. I'll probably just not sleep and head out around 3am, because looking at the clock right now (2:30am) I think I'll have better luck with that. Mom, if you're reading this, be prepared to accept delivery of a slightly frozen zombie. I may or may not be coherent, but I'll do my best.

So, keep your fingers crossed for me. I really do want to go home!

Baby, it's cold outside

It's been hovering at about -5C today and while I love it, it does have some practical ramifications. The first is that here, like home, gets snow slightly differently from back east. The ground is rarely fully frozen so when the snow lands it usually melts and then refreezes, leaving a layer of ice under the powder. This doesn't matter too much when the temperature spikes right back up again like it often does, but when the temperature actually drops and stays dropped, the entire city gets coated in ice. So, driving is a bit treacherous, especially with all the idiots in SUV's who think 4 wheel drive makes them invincible (see previous post).

Anyway, this means that nobody is really going anywhere, and half the city has shut down. My appointment at PCC to get my travel signature so I can get back into the country was canceled because the campus is closed, and I'm starting to get a bit nervous about when I'll be able to get it. I've been emailing everyone there, so hopefully someone will figure out that they can't just forget about us.

Also, I am a brilliant person and left my cell phone at Rob's on Saturday. Normally he'd just drive it out to me, but he's stuck in town and I haven't fancied taking the bus, max, bus combo needed to get to his house and then just turn right back around and repeat.

Despite all of that though, the most pressing issue with the cold is my apartment. I'm living in an apartment that was built (cheaply) in the 70's, and it features very large single glazed windows with aluminum trim. In summer, I love them, but I was beginning to realize that I was going to end up spending the national debt in heating bills if I didn't do something about them. I walked over to Bi-mart this afternoon and picked up some plastic sheeting and sealed off all but the patio door. It's actually double glazed and I don't like the idea of sealing an exit, so I left it alone. I hadn't looked too closely at the windows since the cold snap so it was a bit of a shock when I went to put the plastic up that 3 of them were actually sealed closed with ice on the inside. Oops! No wonder it's been cold in here! Anyway, the apartment is looking a little less stylish, but hopefully it'll prevent Rob from keeling over from hypothermia when he finally does make it out here.

It's funny, this is the first time I've lived in a place where the insulation, or lack thereof, actually affected me. I have a feeling that whatever is in the walls is woefully insufficient, and my front door is a joke. Guess it's a good thing that I like the cold because to be honest, I hadn't thought the apartment all that uncomfortable, even with iced windows and the heat set at 60F (which it was definitely not achieving).

Nothing much else to report today. Being more or less housebound has meant a lot of knitting, cleaning and snuggling with cats. Minnow has a vet appointment for her rabies vaccine and to check her spine for alignment issues (being a tripod is bound to have some effect on her) so we'll get to brave the bus system tomorrow to get there. She likes traveling so I'll just wrap the carrier with towels to keep her warm and I'm sure she'll do just fine. She might bite the vet when we get there, but she'll be a total angel to every random person on the bus who wants to pet her. C'est la vie.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

What a great way to start my first week of vacation! Home got their snow last night and I stayed up til 3am watching the crystal clear and miserably snow-free sky and feeling jealous. I woke up again around 5am because the light had changed and looked out my window to see thick yellowish clouds which made me feel much better. Apparently it started falling just after 7am and sticking around 8am. I woke up at 10am to a nice thick coating and it's been snowing non-stop ever since.

It's funny, I've always felt like slightly less than a true Canadian because of the lack of snow in Victoria. Some sort of Canadian Lite because we get all excited over our measly little 2 inch drifts and the city shuts down. After seeing how Portland reacts to snow though, I'm feeling just the tiniest bit superior, and perhaps a little more Canadian afterall. I guess, even in lotus land, there are enough transplants from back east to infuse everything with a little more sanity and common sense. Here, most of the transplants seem to be from California, and they out and out panic at the first sign of white stuff falling from the sky.

The news station this morning had 5 hours of continuous "Winter Storm Coverage" complete with reporters live on location throughout the city to check in and tell everyone how things looked from their angle. People were encouraged to send in their photos of the snow and the weather crew was giving updates every 10 minutes. Best of all though were the shots from the traffic cams which really highlighted just how unprepared Portlanders are for this weather. ODOT issued a warning to all drivers and has made chains or studs mandatory if you want to get on a highway, but they can't force common sense on people.




This video is actually from 2004, but it was taken in downtown Portland, just near PGE park. I haven't seen anything quite that spectacular on the traffic cams yet, but the day is young! I have faith in the ability of overconfident SUV drivers to provide us all with yet another horrifying video.

I got my final marks back this morning for all my classes. I got A's in both intro to vet tech and medical terminology (I would have been embarrassed if I hadn't, she practically gives them away), a B in animal science, and...a C in A&P. I'm not happy about it, or proud of it, but I won't complain too much. I passed, and in the end, that's all the really counts. As long as I pass, I get to go on to the next term and learn from my mistakes so I can get a better grade. And in the meantime, I can stop panicking and just relax.

So, I'm spending a wonderful day on my couch facing the window so I can watch the snow. We're up to about 3 inches now and no sign of stopping yet. I have tea, a blanket, a good book, and strategically placed cats - one on my feet, one tucked in to my neck. Life is pretty darn good.

Homesick (warning, graphic picture)

I've been homesick a few times since I moved, but it's hit me pretty badly today. I've been watching the Canadian news for days, trying to get as much information as I could on the political situation, but I still feel like I'm living in a vacuum. Nobody down here knows about what's going on at home, and most wouldn't really care even if they did. I've tried to explain it to several of my classmates and I don't think they really understand. CNN finally posted an article on it today, but it's buried on a back page. Their top headlines instead include such items as "Has Palin snubbed Oprah?", "Dog saved after chasing critter into pipe", and "The most annoying holiday song is...".

I can always call home and talk to friends or family about it, try to get some perspective that way, but it's so hard to get a real sense of what's going on without being there. I guess I'm just feeling very isolated, and very much like I wish I were back home for this.



On a happier note, I had my last breed ID today. I got all the breeds right and only lost 2 points on the short answer (Flemish Giant rabbits are upwards of 13lbs, not 12lbs, and Tennessee, as in Tennessee Walker, has two e's on the end....ugh). We had a review session in place of lab and got a bit of prep on what we should be focusing on for the final. I stayed after class to talk with her about my grade, just to see where I'm at and found out I'm sitting at a 92.16%. Rock on! I thought I was holding a high B, so to know that I'm actually just scraping an A is good news. If I do well on the final I may even get to keep it.

As of today I am done with quizzes! I have 2 homework assignments left though. One is an easy extra credit for medical terminology that I've already finished, and the other is an as yet unknown homework assignment from A&P that she refused to give us yesterday, saying we could have it Friday. Great, thanks.

Yesterday's A&P lab was BRAAAAAIIIINS. Alona, Arisa and I did a fantastic job of lobotomizing our sheep's brain and we had a good time too. Did you know that preserved brains bounce quite well? And that the dura mater looks like a little like a hat, and the cerebellum like cauliflower?


In this photo, you can clearly see the cerebrum, 1st ventricle, rostral and caudal colliculi, thalamus, hypothalamus, cerebellum, pons, medulla oblongata, and the 3rd ventricle. The pituitary is missing (it got ripped off when the adipose pads behind the eyes were removed) and the pineal gland is too small to see clearly.

Now I just need to remember all of that by Wednesday.

School life has been uh...interesting lately as well. Over thanksgiving, one of the second year students let 3 dogs out in the play yard together. We normally only let out two at a time to prevent dogs ganging up on eachother, but it might have been ok had two of those dogs not been unneutered. I don't know what this student was thinking. As far as I was aware, we all knew better than that, especially since those particular dogs growl and bark at the mere sight of eachother.

Chester took the worst of it and he looks like a mess. His ears, head, and throat are pretty badly torn up and in all honesty he's lucky to be alive. Still, he's been up to his own mischief as well since a rumour that had been floating around was finally confirmed this week. One of our unspayed females went into heat a few weeks ago and Chester managed to climb the chain link part of his run and get into her run. We're still waiting for Bryn to get far enough into term that we can confirm pregnancy, but it seems likely.

The last incident was Monday evening. One of the girls who works at a local clinic came into school Tuesday morning with the news that Hero, a 9 month old shepherd cross, was in serious condition at her hospital. One of the PCC staff (not one of the tech program staff) had been taking him home in the evenings to give him a break from kennel life. She'd made the unfortunate decision of keeping his food stored under her sink, right next to the draino. Hero, being the puppy that he is, got into the cabinet and ate a large quantity of draino.

We got word today that he's going to be ok, despite a horribly burned mouth and a badly damaged esophageal sphincter. I saw him briefly today and he looks terrible, but at least he's alive. He's on a liquid diet until he can heal and there's been a temporary suspension of any off-campus activities for the dogs. Several students had planned to take dogs home for the Christmas holidays so we're waiting for an announcement to tell us if that is still on.

So....as Mom said, I think we've had our three. No more bad stuff for a while, please and thank you.