High Altitude

Most people who know me know that I have a slight obsession with Mount Everest. I don't want to climb it- I just want to know everything about it. I have one whole book shelf dedicated to my books about Mount Everest. I've rented every movie about Mount Everest that they have on Netflix. I'd take a trip to base camp, but I don't like the idea of intestinal infections you're likely to get when you fly into Kathmandu and make the trek to base camp. Nor do I really like the idea of trekking. I should have named the ducks Mallory and Irvine. I know all about HAPE and HACE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema and Cereberal Edema, respectively. You're only chance to survive is to descend as fast as possible.) I know the pros and cons of climbing the north and south faces and can tell you the identifying rock features of both. I could sound reasonably intelligent discussing the various companies that do trips to Mount Everest. A few years ago, I was having a sad day and was pushing my cart around Costco when I saw Outdoor Magazine with Mount Everest on the cover. My mood changed instantly and I grabbed it and ran to the check out line, only to have the checker tell me I couldn't buy it because they hadn't put the proper code or something. I was in a panic. I had to have that magazine right then. In 110 summer heat, I drove with my perishables to Barnes and Noble to grab the magazine. Even my sister now know about sherpas and can explain them to anyone who wants to know. I can't believe that when I was in London I missed out on going to the British Geographic Society where I could have seen Irvine's cane and other Mount Everest artifacts. Everest is my wallpaper on my computer not the pack of dogs.

So imagine my surprise when I walked out the door this afternoon and found that EDub is a climber. What the hell this duck is doing climbing in a bush? She then hopped out and went for a swim.

Operation Get Someone Else to Get the Mice had some technical issues this weekend. The "someone else" didn't arrive in a timely manner and so I still have mice. I've stopped putting food out, so when I walked outside this morning EDub ran towards me to eat. She also bit PDub, which makes me also think that she is also a girl and maybe she stopped eating the other food not because of the mice, but because EDub was being mean.

Within the next two weeks I should have ducklings or rotten eggs. It's an exciting time here at the Saratoga Animal Shelter.

Duck Down! Duck Down!

This morning when I pulled EDub off her eggs to count them I noticed that two had fallen through the chain link into the neighbor's yard. I'm not sure of their numbers, I'll have to check later after I go ask the neighbors if I can get in the yard to collect my duck eggs that have escaped.

Like me, PDub does not like mice. S/he is not eating out of the food, which means that I am providing amble nourriture for who knows how many mice. I gotta plan though. It involves me putting out the traps and someone else picking them up.

Birthday Challenge

I've decided to just write about my birthday challenge here instead on the birthday challenge site. It just seems easier. And surely it will involve the entire pack. (Which incidently now includes a family of mice that are eating from the duck food. I would have put out traps tonight for them, and I just didn't want to have to scream.)

Back to the BDC. My birthday challenge is relatively mild compared to the crazy shit people do. You can see all that here at www.birthdaychallenge.com. My plan is to complete all of my challenges within a 35 hour period (except the quilting.) And then have a party. My "training" has been slow because I've been sick so often. Then there is my arthritis which makes my leg go numb at least three times a day. Two weeks ago I decided to take a week off to see if maybe that might help with my arthritis, but that just made me irritable and even more unable to walk. I've ditched the do nothing therapy because that was worse than doing something.

So now I'm back to "training." 35 laps in the pool, child's play. 350 sit ups- no problem (a little at a time anyways- not all at once.) I'm not going to make the weight loss, because I've spent zero time working on that. Recently though, I'm considering trying a more holistic approach to my arthritis. Given that I can't hike any more, walk, run or stand up for long without my leg going numb and that I'm quite chunky right now, it only seems logical to make some kind of effort to lose some weight and see if that can help my arthritis. I'm trying to be inspired by The Food Revolution because he recommends a plant based diet. It's rather compelling. It goes along with all of the books that I ordered about eating, arthritis, and sciatica to see if by changing some of what I'm eating I'll be able to affect how I feel. I'm not sure about being a vegetarian though. I had chicken salad for dinner.

Shocking

This week a the Saratoga Animal Shelter:

I got my cell phone bill. I went way over my limit on text messaging increasing my cell phone bill by a bit. I've grounded myself because what am I 15? (Note: my plan is only 200 text messages because in a normal month I will use 50- a fact that made the guy at the AT&T store laugh at me.)

EDubs eggs are starting to smell. I think they are not going to be ducklings, but I'm going to wait another couple of weeks before I throw them out.

My dad tells me and my sister that he is a fan of Lady Gaga. This caused me and my sister to look at each other and respond, Dad, do you even know any of Lady Gaga's songs? He said yes, but couldn't name them. I think his favorite is Poker Face. As an aside, my dad refuses to use iTunes like any normal person and downloads one song at a time, so he has only about 100 songs in iTunes. These range from Smooth Jazz, to Classic Rock to the techno version of If I were a boy by Beyonce. He also told me he loves the BPM station on XM Radio. For those of you that don't have XM Radio, BPM is the techno house chanel. Oh yeah, the Big Guy is a fan of techno.

I saw a mouse out by the duck food. I screamed. I am considering training PDub to kill mice.

I decided I don't like my new camera because the pictures look like poor. Luckily, I'm going to be able to sell it to Yearbook who needs a camera for super small pictures and Jessica said they were going to buy the exact same camera.

Pam, who's teaching after school sewing, said she was going to call the animal shelters and see if they would want free pet beds. I said, "The Saratoga Animal Shelter wants free pet beds. I'll even give you the material."

While I was gone

Oh my pack of dogs. While I was gone to a wedding, Earl lost his collar. So this morning I went looking for it. I didn't find Earl's collar, but I did find a dead gopher in the middle of the yard. This produced screams on my part. Then more screams, then a few short screams and then I called for Bill who was getting ready in the house. He then had the choice of either screaming like a girl or manning up and scooping the dead gopher into the trash bag. He choose to be a man and I continued to scream like a little girl. I don't like dead things in my yard. Normally when I find dead things in the yard I follow this proven sequence of events: Scream. Call my dad (and hope he comes over and fixes it.) Scream some more when he says no. Call Pete and hope he can come over. Scream when that doesn't pan out. Scream as I get the trash can and shovel. Scream as I scoop up the dead animal. Scream as I throw it out. Bill's presence just reduced my reaction to screaming. This is why I need a husband. There was a nicely sized hole next to the dead gopher, so I would like to think that we got home last night in the middle of the burial service and that Randi and Earl were just preparing the soil to lay the dead gopher to rest. So gross.

EDub is on strike and has not laid any more eggs.

Behavior

There is some weird ass behavior happening right now at the Saratoga Animal Shelter. First, PDub is walking less and sort of doing this minimal flying and then crashing into the ground thing that makes me think that she has something wrong with her legs. Then, she let me pet her. I pulled EDub off the eggs long enough to mark them. Peggy said this way I'll know which ones are new should I want to do something with them. I ran back into the house to get the camera and EDub had covered up 1/2 of the eggs. Apparantly only some of them are special enough for covers. But by far, the strangest thing is that PDub came out from under the table and as soon as she saw EDub she sat down. EDub walked over bit her neck a few times and made some weird noises. This makes me wonder if perhaps EDub is a boy and he's been a little rough with PDub which is why she sits down when he comes near her. Either way, I've got numbered eggs and I pet both my ducks today. That is weird.

Conference

This weekend I was at a conference for the teacher's union in Costa Mesa. We were staying at the Westin South Coast Plaza. I was pretty excited about it. Nice room. Reasonable chance of meeting my Orange County Sugardaddy in order to become a Real Housewife of Orange County. I have always found the Westin's to be some high class hotels; however Westin South Coast Plaza- not so much. When I arrived I was given a "suite." Right. This is my friend Martha showing off the bed- a so called Murphy bed (note the strap holding the pillows to the bed.) I was not impressed because I had reserved a room with a king bed. After we laughed our asses off about how I might be sleeping and the bed could fold up, Martha called and pretended to me and got me changed to a room with two queen beds. It was better, but the shower head only came up to my chest. It reminded me of being in France. And not one of the parts that I really enjoyed.In the morning I went to two extremely boring sessions with stupid people in them. I hate stupid people and I hate stupid people who ask dumb personal questions. It makes me get rowdy. It makes me do things that get me moved to different tables when I'm at BTSA. It makes me want to poke myself in the eye with a pencil infected with botulism. Since I didn't even have a pencil in my pencil case, I knew I was in for a difficult two hours of self control. In the financial session one lady said "This would be good even in my personal life." This might sound like a reasonable comment since it was a financial workshop, but the discussion had just been about all checks should be signed by two people and you should have written rules for expenditures and reimbursement procedures. This is when I had had enough and wrote down that in my personal life I have a form that needs to be filled out in triplicate and submitted prior for all purchases and if over $200 dollars it has to be signed by a dog and a duck. This made everyone laugh and got us dirty looks from the stupid people. Then I worked on my board of directors cartoon to reduce my urge to tell the stupid people to shut up. Martha then went back to our PowerPoint printout and highlighted the no illegal activity in response to Earl's pot habit. Note the cartoon does not depict the approval of pot purchase. It wouldn't even be accepted as a friendly amendment.

The best part of the conference was that there was Starbucks coffee in the room.

When I got back today Randi and Earl had taken the canine shampoo out of the garage and put it on the deck. Did they decide to take a shower in the rain while I was gone? I'd like to think so. EDub was sitting on 13 eggs. In fact, I had to lift EDub up to count the eggs and she only got off them long enough for a brief swim and dinner break.

Why I always ask for the king bed.

One is the loneliest number

PDub is so pathetic now. She just sit under the table- alone while EDub sits on her twelve eggs.

A dozen

After consulting with all of my fowl experts, I now know this:

0. In my excitement I did not properly count- there are actually 11 eggs.
1. EDub did not lay 11 eggs yesterday. She can only lay one egg a day. This means that she either was laying eggs 11 days ago or PDub is also laying eggs.
2. Without knowing for certain whether or not PDub is laying eggs, I can not know 100% if these eggs have been fertilized.
3. I can put them in water and see if they float or
4. Hold them up to a light to see if they have ducks in them
5. I should not try to eat these eggs because they may have been sitting out for 11 days.
6. Since EDub and PDub have not been seen getting frisky, I can somewhat assume that PDub is also a girl.
7. If EDub and PDub have been doing the nasty, but keeping it private I could have 11 ducklings within the next 28 days.
8. EDub and PDub could decide to just lay eggs in the middle of the grass. It's not even Easter!

Eggs!!!

I walked outside this morning because EDub has been spending some time in the bush and this is what I saw! I thought maybe she just got cold. I frantically started calling everyone to find out what to do and Peggy told me calm down. She says they only lay one egg a day, but I think it's impossible because EDub has only been hanging around the bush for a few days!!


I don't think I could be more excited if I had a baby myself. EDub is a GIRL.

Revelation

I discovered today that my stalker has stalked other teachers. I thought I was special.

Animé

Since before Christmas I have been stalked by this 10th grader who wants to start an animé club after school. He is insistent about an animé club. If I'm out walking around, he'll catch me and ask me when animé can start. He has it all figured out...how they can watch the animé. "I'll need an external hard drive only, my friend will bring a computer, don't worry, 'my friend' has a girlfriend and I know that he wouldn't look at anything bad. I'll download all of the episodes and preview them for content before hand. I know at least 7-8 people who will come to animé club." When I asked about whether or not they might read the animé he reminded me that manga is very different and those kids could sit in a different part of the classroom if they wanted to come to animé club. Last week he waited for me in the library so he could talk to me about animé, which was when I told the principal that we had to make a decision about animé club because I didn't want to be stalked anymore. I was then given the directive to "meet with these kids and figure out what they want to do."

I'm not against animé for any reason. The club poses some copyright and content issues since nearly every site is blocked by the county server and students would have to download the episodes, "I assure you Ms. Thompson, everything is legal" and bring them in on their computer to watch. Students, being students don't quite get that just because you download it doesn't mean you aren't necessarily breaking copyright laws. There's also the question of the content, since it seems a bit fishy, as we're just downloading stuff and who knows what could be on there. Nevertheless, my stalker showed up today with 5 of his bestest buddies to watch animé. He had downloaded it to a computer (all legally of course, previewed for content as promised on said friend with girlfriend's porn free computer) but we had technical difficulites which forced everyone in animé to blink with wide eyes, we had the discussion about ratings for animé. One young man explained to me that Japanese animé has different ratings than in the USA, like how here PG "means parental guidance." (Really, he said it as if I didn't know. They also told me when and where to click on the computer as if I'm 500 years old.) He then explained to me the Japanese word "p ______ku" (I've forgotten it already, and I should not have) because as he explained, it is the Japanese words specific for panty shot. At this point my exact thoughts in my head were "do not laugh, do not laugh, do not laugh." I considered recording the conversation and giving the reason that the principal was going to require it, but I was trying too hard to not laugh to get that worked out. Then I told my stalker that I was going to go talk to the principal. He wanted to go with me. I politely declined because I like this principal too much to get him a stalker too.

In the end, I did not figure out how we are going to deal with the copyright/content issues, but I did realize that I do not get animé or its point, nor am I interested in exploring it further. I will not be hosting animé club in my room. I am glad to know that Japanese has a name for panty shot. That seems quite useful. Tomorrow I'm going to try to find the Japanese expression for "hiding from my stalker."

Upon inspection

After looking at my video of the ducks Stephen said they both look like females. This is good news. The only question now will be what will I do with all of the eggs.