I know spring is coming because...

Oh. Dear. God.

The deer legs are starting to thaw.

Pants don't lie

This morning I tried on a pair of pants I hadn't worn in awhile.

I could just get them up over my hips.

zipper and button....didn't even think about trying.

Ouch.

I can justify it by reminding myself that I bought them when I was super skinny, due to poor eating and running around a hockey rink sized restaurant for work.

But that doesn't make me feel any better.

I still don't eat very well. I dislike cooking for one, have been know to eat peanut butter dipped in chocolate chips for dinner (what? everybody doesn't do that?).

Delicious...yes.

Healthy...um...no.

And now instead of run pitchers of beer for my dollars I sit and read papers, or if I'm feeling frisky, I stand while doing lab work.

I was never one to track the numbers on a scale, I in fact don't even own one!

But the pants don't lie. Clearly I've been sitting on my (now fat) ass for far too long.

Bikini season is comming. Must get prepared.

Yikes.

Phantom Stink

For the last 2 days about 2 or 3 times a day I smell the unmistakable stench of dog poop.

I immediately pop up from whatever I am doing and do a sniff test around the entire house.

Either my prediction was right and I have indeed lost my mind, or one of my charges has gas.

Nothing like dog poop farts to round out a relaxing evening at home.

Baby Names

I have always been interested in what people choose to name their children.

These babies will have to carry this moniker throughout their lives from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Some names just don't lend themselves to small children ie: Frank or Pearl. Some names are hard to take seriously as adults ie: Apple (sorry Gweneth but its a weird name) or Jessie.

I know a lot goes into naming children pressure from Grandparents and parents or the mother/father of the child in question. My own mother fell to the pressure of my Paternal Grandfather in naming me which accounts for Lillian being on my birth certificate when my Mom just wanted Lily. She did however stand up to the pressure to add Marie into the mix, as both my grandmothers and all my cousins on my father's side include Marie as at least one of their middle names. (She later folder and gave my younger sister Marie as a middle name.)

My Mother generally finds that my peers are naming their children odd things: Anara, Amelie, Marli, Lourdes, Clementine, Tashi, Axel, and Boston.

Ok I'll giver her Clementine...poor little girl her parents call her Clemy...

However I am sure she will approve of the potential name of one of my friends is choosing to name her daughter when she arrives in June.

Lily.

I do not know how she and her husband came to chose my name for their first born. We are not near close enough for this to be a tribute to me. But we are close enough that she had to think of me when it came up in the choosing process.

I am not certain as to how I feel about this...

But I am certain that I have no opinion here.

Lost my Mind

Last night I discovered that I might have lost my mind.

My dear friend PhD and family left on an amazing adventure to Portugal. Mr and Mrs PhD are taking the entire family and PhD’s boyfriend on an all expenses paid trip. Its going to be amazing, much more memorable then a standard all inclusive trip to the Dominican.

Between them this family owns 5 dogs.

I agreed to watch 4 of them for 2 weeks.

4 dogs.

2 weeks.

1 girl.

That 1 girl is me by the way. Me, who is having trouble keeping her plant alive. I’m really hoping that at the end of this 2 week period, all 5 of us are alive and well.

The dogs are:

Taj: 5 year old Black Lab that is certain that every meal is will be his last and is under the impression that the faster he eats the greater the possibility is that he will get more. He is wrong.

Barrett: 4 year old Golden Retriever that suffers intimacy issues and is only happy if he’s breathing on you.

Tika and Sophie: 6 month old beagles who have unending energy.

Upon arriving at the house (I am of course moving in to Mr and Mrs PhD’s as these dogs would destroy my shoebox attic apartment) the place was a zoo. The four dogs, who had been confined to a small area of the house, began running around, wrestling, jumping, barking, chewing. I let them outside as quickly as possible. And that when I learned something about training hunting dogs...

Out by the back door are 2 chewed up, frozen deer legs.

Deer legs.

Gross.

Of course the dogs desperately want to bring them indoors. Yech.

Thank God it’s still winter and they are frozen. As much as I want spring to come early it can wait to be above zero for the next 2 weeks. I do not want to deal with thawed deer limbs.

The second thing I learned is that while the dogs can run around outside for more then a half hour and bark like crazy to get back in…this does not mean that they did their “business.”

How do I know this?

While enjoying Desperate Housewives, I fancied some wine. Entering the kitchen I smelled a unpleasant odour.

Poop.

There was poop on the floor by the door.

I quickly ushered all the dogs back outside and dealt with the mess. I know based on its size that it was not as might be expected one of the puppies, but one of the full grown dogs.

Unlike my childhood dog who would look guilty before you knew she’d done something none of these dogs seemed even slightly ashamed.

So in my first evening of dogsitting I had dealt with a disremembered deer and poop.

Today I’m exhausted, as I do not sleep well in other peoples beds, nor am I accustomed to the sounds dogs make in the night. I am especially not used to having a large Golden Retriever climb into bed with me in the middle of night. In my sleepy daze I could not muster a very commanding “Down” so up he stayed.

Tonight I get to do it all again. If I haven't already lost my mind...I expect that sometime over the next two weeks I will.

Balls on the Floor

I am feeling suffocated under the pressure of school. I am constantly wondering if I made the right decision to go back. The pro and con list seems to be overwhelming filled with cons. These cons are only of the short term variety as in:

• Utter lack of money
• Constant pressure to preform
• Squelching of personal life and free time
• Mini panic attacks experienced on a daily basis
• Fear of failure
• Overwhelming worry of disappointing those that have put potentially misguided faith in my abilities as an academic.
• My extremely inappropriate way in which I handle stress...stay in bed and hope it goes away - yes I know this never works but some days getting out of bed is the hardest thing I do.
• General nausea
  

The pros, well they seem either a long way off of very small in comparison:

• I am not living in the middle of nowhere working at a job with limited potential for advancement
  
• Higher paying fulfilling job (potentially)
  

Nonetheless the paralyzing fear that in actually I am not smart enough for this program is constantly on my heels. Add the fact that my Teaching Assistantship is for a class of which I have very limited prior knowledge of and that knowledge is 4 years old leaves me feeling unprepared to pass judgment and award grades to students.

I have too many balls in the air. Too many balls means balls on floor not balls in the air.

Self Control? I don't have it.

Lumberjack brought me dinner last night.

Despite my best efforts at ensuring I would behave myself...I did not.

Hairy legs and all.

More of the same...

Lumberjack called again. I was out and missed the call. He'll be working about 40mins from my town this week and wants to take me for dinner.

I haven't called back.

I don't yet know what I'll say. The obvious answer is to gently turn him down. But this is the first guy to have peaked my interest this much in almost 3 years. The last guy was my Ex Accountant, who is, by the way, getting married this coming October. Is that not something to wonder about? Or should I have already gathered enough evidence from our previous experiences to know how this round will end? Or as a graduate student should I just take free dinners as they are offered? (Can I be that nonchalant about possibly leading a guy on...?)

This guy is a friend of my very good friends. Another couple in the group just got engaged (which for me could possibly mean attending a wedding with not just one, but two exes...gulp). I won't be able to stand it if they both won't talk to me....

I'm gonna sleep on it.