October 21, 2003aberrant [periphrastic]This started out an email. I think it turned into a journal entry... so with a few edits.... why type it all over again.
Fall? Where -did- fall go?
You're talking about pulling sweaters out of the closet.
We've still got 70 degree days. Sunny. Warm. The leaves are only considering turning. But a couple days ago? It smelled like winter. When I arrived at work in the morning I could smell a frost in the air. It was crisp and clean. Somewhere nearby someone had a wood fire burning overnight, and I could still catch the drifting smoke as it lazily coiled down the valley. They say we're going to have some pretty heavy storms this season, and the way the sky and earth just -felt- ... I believed them. I looked out over the hills behind the clinic and could see them covered with sparkling ice over iridescent snow. That's the one good thing about arriving at work when the sun is rising in the wintertime. The sun is barely tinting the horizon, the sky above is still night's black, but the snow and ice are just strong enough to catch those burgeoning rays to glow and glitter in ways to make faeries jealous. Then the lions started roaring and I began to think of savannas and deserts and there went -my- winter wonderland premonitions.
Nothing like the tawny golden imagery of a lion strolling through waist high grasses to melt your icecapped fantasies. No snow faeries for my runaway imagination, oh no, little thing flutters by then a big paw bats it out of the air. One pissed off faerie, I tellya. One pissed off Wolf, too, because reality suddenly set back in.
The clinic is next door to a place for animal actors. It uuuuused to be called Hollywood Animals, but I can't recall the name of the business that bought it. There's several lions, lionesses, tigers, wolves, kangaroo, camels, horses, oxen, cattle, steer, sheep..... and those are only the animals I can see from where their cages are on the compound. I'm sure there are many more. But bright and early, every morning at the same time, the lionesses start demanding their queenly breakfast at the top of their very capable lungs. Sometimes, when it's a still night, or the breeze is coming up the valley just right, I can hear them roaring - faintly - all the way up at my house several miles away. But there's nothing like it when they're only a couple hundred yards away.
Can sure wake you up if that caffiene isn't kicking in as planned.
Fall is good though. It's that interim season. It provides that period of clarity and rejuvenation between summer and winter, just as spring provides such when the season shifts back again. Now that I live in a house that actually retains heat... this winter may not be so bad. But fall is good. I haven't really had time to enjoy it, though.
Somehow I scheduled everything to happen all in the same month.
GayDays at the beginning of the month. I had an art show just last Sunday at a club in LA. Now I'm getting ready to take off on Thur to Crockett's wedding in Texas. I've never looked forward to and dreaded something so much in my life. Recently anyway. It's just that I'm not good at flying. Well. I'd probably be terrible at flying - but what I'm really not good at is trusting someone -else- flying the plane, much less the integrity of the plane itself. Forget terrorists. I'm the guy sitting there with white knuckles staring out the window at the wing, just because I know that the only reason it's staying on is because my eyes are gluing it to the fuselage. There's another guy on the other side of the plane doing the same thing. We're one of those uncoordinated teams that just pulls everything off beautifully.
It wouldn't be half as bad if I wasn't going alone. It's really the first time I've gone on a plane trip by myself. Previously, I've just realized, anywhere I've had to go that required actually getting onto a plane, I've always had at least my mother with me. Such trips have been either international family vacations, or when I was actually moving to California from Oklahoma. There's been one trip without, and that's when my wife and I flew to Singapore and the Phillipines to meet my mother and father so we could spend Christmas with my mother's family in Singapore. Anywhere I've actually gone by myself - I've been able to drive. I actually prefer the independance of driving somewhere. But there's no way I could take even more time off school and work to factor in the two-day drive one way... three most likely if it's just me. Then my wife would probably kill me for driving all the way to Texas by myself. Vegas was only one state over... Texas? That's halfway across the nation.
Odd, that. To know that someone loves you because they absolutely prohibit you from doing something. *L*
I got Crockett and his wife-to-be the coolest wedding gift, though. Back in college, I'm not even sure how this started but it was at some point my freshman year, my roommate and I suddenly popped off with rank. I think we were actually talking with one of his friends back home that was a die-hard Trekkie. But suddenly, my roommate became the Enemy Admiral. Our other roommate, who walked in just at that moment, was dubbed Leiutenant. Somehow, I was dubbed Commander in Chief - which was probably the most frightening of it all because that meant I was in charge of everybody else. As our circle of insanity grew (it -is- infectious) we soon had Sgt. Major (Sam Monster, just so we could yell S&M! S&M!) and then the Naked Ensign... Crockett. That name came about because everytime we'd go pick up Crockett for any meal (or anything, really), we'd knock on the door and he'd yell back "WAIT! I'M NAKED!" So, now that you have the background story, on with the current story...
Since Crockett is the first one of us to get married after college and this whole Rank thing, Sam and I figured he deserved a promotion. Crockett being our resident soap opera when we lived together, this actually settling down thing deserved some major recognition. I was actually going to get the little dubloon things from Pirates of the Caribbean engraved at Disneyland - because we all had a past causing mayhem at D-land, too - but they weren't doing that anymore. So I went to antique stores and hunted down old medals. I could find a lot of military ones, but since Crockett and Nat didn't actually earn them I didn't think it appropriate... since we all have military history in our families. But I found the coolest medals - one for women's fencing, 1952, and another for .22 sharpshooting from the NRA, circa 1960 I think. I found a really cool shadowbox type of frame, too, and it's big enough to put both the medals, the pin (one of Mickey and Minnie Mouse cutting a wedding cake, since the other Disney thing didn't work out, heh), and a plaque commemorating it all. Crocket's getting promoted to the Naked General. And since we can't be without a Naked Ensign, Nat's getting signed up whether it's liked or not.
It's silly and cheesy.... but a lot more sentimental than some crystal vase or set of towels or whatever else was on the damn giftlist at some store that I probably couldn't afford to breath in, anyway. So I'm really pleased with it... if.... anxious as fuck about the plane ride.
That's actually why I was a half hour early to work this morning. I'm so tired yet can't sleep so when my alarm went off I thought I had -already- hit sleep, and now I was irreparably late. So literally sprung out of bed in sheer panic mode and was at work not even 20 minutes later.... feeling like a complete fucking idiot because I looked at the clock in the truck and realized exactly what time it was. Figured at that point I might as well just go in early. Paid off, I suppose. I'd been taking care of this cat since Sunday. It was attacked by a dog and there for observation. Got to the clinic in BAD shape. Core temp was 96 (normal for a cat is 100.5-102.5), hind end wasn't moving, blah blah blah. Over the past couple of days I had worked and medicated and cared this cat into holding a temp of 101, eating off my fingers, rumbly purring when I opened up her cage and so on. Since the owner visited yesteday, Twinkie decides she's going to die overnight. I don't blame her, she was in a lot of pain, but I seriously didn't need to walk in on a dead cat first thing in the morning. Especially because I'm not one to just give up and assume the cat was gone for good. She was on a heating pad so still warm (ew, I know)... so I couldn't be 100% sure this cat was beyond saving even if I was already fairly certain by other signs. So I spend the first 20 min of my day doing CPR on this cat. Before I clock in. Before I even get into scrubs. She didn't revive, I figured she wouldn't, but I wasn't going to NOT try, yknow?
Ugh. It's one thing to have an animal put down. It's another to have one die on you. I know I did everything I could. Last thing I ever expected on the day I start my vacation is an actual reason to NEED a vacation.
That was countered with an amusing conversation with Beth once I got home and online... assuring her that the Pup was right, pudding and oreos were indeed a good breakfast, as long as waffles and bananas were included to result in a happy monkey face waffle blue plate special. Or something like that.
d: Add to that her trying to convince me that pudding and oreos is a good breakfast... *L*
G: It is.... if you like pudding and oreos.
d: She does, and I'm glad she can't read. *LMAO*
d: cuz then I'd get "my wolf says I can!"
G: It's a way better dessert, though.
G: See? Wolf says have breakfast, THEN have that for dessert. It's better that way.
d: Yeah - and she's got waffles in there! *L*she says put the pudding ON the waffles! "*gigglegiggle*that'd be REALLY funny!"
G: Only if you make sure to eat the waffles, and then get some sorta fruit to dip into the pudding, too.
d: "NANAS!" gleefully grabbed.*shakes head* I fear getting you two in the same room together you know. *LOL*
G: Hey, banana waffles? Not that shabby a breakfast.
G: So what if yo're replacing maple syrup with pudding.
G: Less calories in the damn pudding anyway.
d: *LOL* nope, not to bad, but I can just SEE and HEAR the conversations. *chuckels*
Specially as papa got the sugar free kind this time. *chuckles*
G: yep, was about to say some were sugar free, too (then had to repsond to damon so never hit send)
G: and just because I'm cluless on some things doesn't mean I'm completely daft on child management.
G: Betcha I could get some milk or OJ into the mix, too
d: I never said you were darlin. *L* I just know you both so well, it'd be you and mini-you rummaging around in the kitchen while I just chuckle... *L*
G: but it's a balanced breakfast!
d: *L* Yup...
G: yea, it'd be waffles, covered in pudding as a glue, bananas cut up to make the slices into a happy face... and if she still insists on oreos, one broken in half to make ears for a happy monkey face and voilah! breakfast.
d: *LMAO*
d: Perfect *grin*
Dammit, it's the little things that count. Posted by Wolf at October 21, 2003 12:39 PM
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