Karen’s Neighborhood

I'm crying hysterically right now because I just watched a video of pigs being inhumanely slaughtered... it's not so much about it being an animal, but pigs are as sensitive and smart as dogs... (i don't know if smart is saying much though for some dogs) and they were just dragging them into a room and when they saw their pig friends tied up and screaming... literally screaming, I'm not even kidding... on the ground, they started freaking out too. and all I could think about was my dogs. I don't know what to do. I am so torn. All of the research I did about factory farming and the books I have yet to finish reading (Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma, Peter Singer: Animal Liberation and The Way We Eat, Why Our Food Choices Matter)... I don't know if I can eat animals anymore... it's so sad. I know places like Whole Foods have huge long criteria that the farms must meet where they get their meat from... and they are raised humanely and slaughtered humanely... but even so... that's still eating another animal.

and honestly, in this day and age, it's completely unnecessary to eat meat... we do it for the taste...I do it for the taste, to please my palate... There are plenty of legumes that contain the protein of meat... it's not necessary... but so convenient... what do I do?? I'm so confused and so very sad I can't believe how much it hurt me inside to watch that.

and the thing is, I'm just one person, I'm just me.. even if I swear off meat, I won't really be saving any (many) animals...

I love meat... but I can't stop thinking about what I'm doing now. and i feel soooooo guilty. In one of the books, I think it was one of Peter Singer's books, he talks about giving a vegetarian who does it for moral reasons the chance to slaughter his own chicken so it's done humanely for sure.. and the vegetarian does it.. and eats the chicken with no problems!

I think it's the complete OPPOSITE for most people... if I had to kill my own food, I wouldn't be able to eat it... think about this: I love lobster... boiling them alive is inhumane... a humane way to kill them is by taking a very sharp knife and slicing them straight down right between the eyes... they don't even feel it.. but I know if I couldn't do it.. and if I did do it, I wouldn't be able to eat it. It'd be so much easier to just stick the lobster in the water, put the lid on and walk away until it's done cooking.

Out of sight, out of mind... I'd rather have someone else murder my animals for me.
but I'm starting to see the horror of it staring back at me from my plate every time my plate is filled with animal flesh... I should have never done my speech, ethics paper, and american government paper on this topic... I'll never feel the same way again

On the flip plus side, I do really honestly like tofu... so who knows... maybe I can do it

In the meantime, I highly urge you guys to check out these books... because they are good, not because I want you to feel the way I do.

I agree with Peter Singer. I want to meet the guy.

Not even out of my work clothes yet. I guess I should, I have a tendency to spill things on myself, and I have to work one more day in these clothes yet.

Done. Aaaaaaaaaah.

It's a loooong work day. I got off half an hour early today, and arrived home ten minutes short of twelve hours after I walked out the door this morning. I got to do Lead today, a bit more of a supervisory role. It was fine, I had someone to tag along after and show me the ropes. Not nearly as fun as spending the whole day with the animals.

I got to hang out a little with the seal and sealions at lunchtime, though. Got a couple of fun photos. Now if I only had the energy to do something with them and get them posted. I just had to post this photo I took today of of two females and one male cockatiel though. This one's for you, LaidOutInLavender! *giggles*

 

 

Ok, here are a couple of shots from lunchtime.  Stellar Sea Lion noses! hee!

 

 

 

Anyhow, that's about all for now. My top priority is study at the moment. Study my notes, study my presentations that I have written up. Get them typed up and onto cards to make it all easier for me to do a presentation. I'll probably do that whenever I wake up in the middle of the night tonight.

I missed Tuesday but I have a lot of love/hate/looking forward to right now sooooooo....

Love:
Whole freaking Foods
Naps
Puppies
Songs from Wicked
"Brave" by Idina Menzel
May
Tzatziki sauce
Cucumber water
Did I mention Whole Foods?
Coffee
my new Callaway hat
My new "normal job" hours

Hate:
Writing speeches
Writing papers
Thinking about finals
it's cold
my personal trainer being on vacation :(

Looking forward to OMG:
Door County next weekend!!
FINALS BEING OVER
PA Bachelorette party 23rd
PA Huge Ass Nikki Style party May 24th
Frey fam "bridal shower cookout" May 25th
Assembling invites and sending by June 1st HOLY SHIT
Wicked June 7th!!
Greater Matty Open June 14th!!
Bridal shower June 28th
Bridal shower #2 June 29th
4 day weekend for 4th of July
Diane's 21st birthday!
Bachelor/Bachelorette party hellaciousness (combined lmao it's going to be crazy!) August 2nd
State Fair August 2-10th! (wowow we should take the bus to state fair!! haha how country)
Erika, Kristen and Rachel coming on August 14th
Rehearsal dinner at Minooka park on August 15th
WEDDING August 16th!
TORTOLA, BVI August 30th!

and then life calms back down... damn

I don't think I've ever actually woken up excited to go to work before. Until today.

Last night I was pretty tired and went to bed early. Weeks ago I had made a promise to help a fellow Etsy CT Team member help put up her canopy at a fair. It was just over half an hour from home, and I must admit I was groaning a fair bit yesterday morning at the prospect of going... especially since the fair people had generously offered me my own space there, so I was staying all day, but the weather looked abysmal. I knew it was going to be a bit of a miserable day.

It was. A bit. It was cold, but managed to not rain! Cathleen McLain, who I was helping out with setup, was an absolute joy to spend the day with. Again, I wish she lived closer so we could spend more time together. Her jewelry is utterly incredible. Incredible, INCREDIBLE!!! Seriously, go and have a look at it. It's just amazing, and so well made. She's got wonderful necklaces with pendants that detach and become brooches. I loved those! Almost made me want to wear jewelry again. With Cathleen's company, the day was a joy and went really fast. I had about thirty people come by my photography despite the cold, and made enough sales to make the day worthwhile. I got some great feedback on my selling technique too.

I have wondered if after a while I might be bored with my new  job. After all, I'll be telling the same people about the same animals over and over. At the fair yesterday, I realized I do that with my photos all the time. I never ever tire of engaging people to be excited about nature. It's so wonderful.

So, after going to bed early, I was up at four am all excited. I went back to bed after a little while. I feel a little tired, but the rain outside is contributing to that.

Well, I had better get going. I am in my khakis with my work boots on. If I don't see y'all again it's probably because I have moved in to live with the beluga whales, and I'm pretty sure they don't have internet! :P 

 

Any suggestions for REALLY, REALLY sore muscles?? 2 days in a row with my personal trainer and I am defeated. Today it's my legs, because that's what we did yesterday, and tomorrow will be my upper body :( Not looking forward to be a complete sore mess.

We have so many cats around this place. At least six that I have seen, three that come around regularly. One comes and sits at the back door and begs for food. She will come in, but hates setting foot on the carpet. I was almost tempted to adopt her, I am pretty sure she's pregnant, and she was so dirty I thought she must be a stray. Last night she came over sparkly clean and smelling of shampoo and got no food from me. Poor thing. Another cat sits sentry duty on the compost heap. He can be seduced to the back door with a spoonful of tuna, but won't let me come near  him otherwise. Today my Love alerted me to the fact that this cat was trotting across the lawn with a snake in his mouth. Of course I grabbed my camera and walked carefully towards him, he dropped the snake on the lawn and took off.

The snake was pretty quiet at first. Traumatized. So I had a bit of time to work on getting shots. This is one of the last ones. He's starting to get alert, warmed up in the sun, and he's ready to get away from this big black shiny thing sticking right in his face. He started flicking his tongue rapidly, but unfortunately just as I was changing my camera settings for rapid shooting to try and catch it, he suddenly darted away from me and into the forsythia.

Isn't he gorgeous??? :D

"The person I delivered pizza to today is dead"

weird eh? True story. One day in the middle of a blizzard, I had to work... I delivered a HUGE order to these guys and that very same day, 3 hours later, one stabbed the other and he died... good thing I wasn't there for the stabbing... but I guess I did serve him his last meal??

Ok, maybe it's just me, but I must have a bit of premonition for destruction.

I called Nick last night from work and asked him what he wanted for dinner. "I dunno" was the response I got. I then asked him "what about................ yummy BBQ and chili?! do you want to go to the Silver Spur?"

"no... i don't feel like going anywhere"
so I responded "Ok well I guess you don't get dinner" (sarcasm) and hung up. We ended up making stuffed shells. Well, I made the stuffed shells, he just enjoyed them.

LO AND BEHOLD... this morning at 2:20AM, the Silver Spur burnt down to the ground.
Silly Nick. That restaurant had the best Chili I've ever had in my entire life and because your whiny ass didn't want to go anywhere, now you'll NEVER get to try it.

RIP Silver Spur
you were tasty
and now your meat is definitely bbq'd

Dagnabit, my create page is frozen half way through an entry. I think I have to accept that it is lost. Of course I can't cut and paste it (can't see any text right now) so I think I have to start this long winded entry again. I hate that.

I woke up with the dawn this morning. Just as my Love was going to bed. He can't work on rainy days, so he knew he would have a holiday today. I went back for a bit of a cuddle until he fell asleep, and woke up just before the alarm -  got dressed in my job interview clothes, met my new boss (job #2) to get some paperwork for the job. Came home and finished getting ready for my job interview today (job #3).

I feel like I have had a lazy time of it lately (hence the 0 mph of the title) but when I look at it, I have done a ton this month: applied for a lot of jobs, interviewed for three, moved 2000 miles and set up house in a new place, learned my way around a new state, prepared and sold photographs at a sale, turned an overgrown bamboo patch into a garden, got a chicken coop partly ready for some chooks,

I left home with an hour and forty minutes to spare, got lost briefly, arrived twenty five minutes early for my interview at the aquarium. The salt air of the ocean and the brief glimpse of the Atlantic I got while crossing the Thames made my heart sing. I lovelovelove the sea!

The interview went wonderfully. I loved the staff, and they loved me. Only two things bothered me. The pay was several dollars less an hour than I had it in my head that it was (and the ad is gone off of their website, so I can't verify it) and "part time" equals three or four full days a week. I was allowed to choose to only do three, but that means three full days and three half days of work every week. I came home deciding that I didn't think I could do it. At current gas prices and using our jeep I would pay my first two hours of work for gas. Combined with travel time, my day would be an eleven hour working day. I started thinking about volunteering instead, and combining it with job #2 - get Patty an internship there and supervise her.

Then I got home and downloaded my photos. And I felt again that feeling I have when I stand outside that Beluga whale enclosure. Home. Heaven. Just... wow. Look at the whale. Ohmy. I think I must have been a Beluga in a past life.

 Still, I wrote an entire vox entry when I got home about how I felt torn,  but it just wasn't practical to do this job. I never finished the entry. It was finished, but somehow I felt terribly tired when it came to the end, and never pressed send. I went and laid down on the bed and had a nap. I woke up dreaming about the job, and in my dream I was enjoying it so much!

 

Then the phone rang. It was Chris from the aquarium. They loved me. They are willing to work around my other work needs. At this point I still have to do three days a week, but after a month or so I can perhaps ask to switch to being on call for up to two days a week instead. I actually like the lottery of being on call.

 

My Love is very happy about all of this. He's already looking for another car for me to drive down there. That will cut the gas a lot from the jeep. It also means we don't have to juggle car usage for our respective jobs anymore. Good! 

So - I start on Sunday. My other job might start next week also, but more likely it will be a week later. I am so glad I really got in and got things done around here. Life is about to start really moving!

I can't pass up this opportunity. Chances sometimes only come around once in life.

Carpe carp-um, I say: sieze the fish!!!

... would be no fun with an explanation.