zoological

I was at the dentist a few weeks ago.  Our (now ex) dentist is quite chatty.  He was asking about what each of our kids is doing these days, knowing that we are a family of nerds/engineers with Meego being the latest to pursue a nerd degree.

He commented, "engineering is one of those majors where you can get a good job with just a bachelor's degree".  Then he went on to say,

"there wasn't a whole lot I could do with my bachelor's in zoology"

With that, the assistant perked up.

"You have a bachelor's in ZOOLOGY??"

Dentist immediately responded, "okay, what do you think that is?"  He had obviously had similar reactions before.

"Uhm...", the assistant replied, "Zoo... keeper?"

"No", he went on to humorously explain for what seemed the umpteenth time, "zoology is biology without the plants".

It's a very common pre-med/dentistry major, but people assume he really wanted to be a zookeeper.

I'm thinking of it now because I felt like a bit of a zookeeper this past week, helping our animals adjust to their new surroundings. 

We're having a new dog run delivered today - any minute in fact.  That will be nice for the dogs as we don't like to just let them out to run willy nilly around the backyard without one of us out there with them.  With that and the cold temperatures, they've been indoors more than they're used to.



Penny was due for a checkup and shots, so I found us a new vet and took her there on Wednesday.  She's such a drama queen.

When we got back, Merlin seemed sad that we'd had some sort of adventure without him.  I got out his harness and put it on him, and that seemed to make him feel better even though we didn't go anywhere.  He's so easy to please.



The cat, on the other hand, is chomping to go outside.  We weren't planning on letting him out for a good while since we moved, but in the meantime, we've learned that cats aren't allowed to EVER go outside within these city limits.  Well, unless he's contained within the yard (fat chance).  I think one of the main reasons he goes out is to get out and explore beyond his own yard.  Cat leash?  HA!

But he seems to be dealing with it, mixing it up with the dogs when he feels like a good scrap.

In the middle of all this change, Christmas is next week?!?!  

I haven't done a whole lot in that regard. I don't think we'll get a tree since we're in a rental, but I feel I should throw up some lights, something.  And gifts?  Is it too late to shop?  How about the old candle standby?

SOURCE

comfy?

I'm realizing that I'm quite comfortable with change, actually often crave it.  Moving has been a nice experience in that regard.  I'm liking the smaller house in the smaller city and exploring new places, and it's good to get out of old ruts and see things with fresh eyes.

It's got me considering some things that make me uncomfortable, though.  In  no particular order...

Loud people
I had to go to a UPS store to return our old internet modem/ router.  One of the customer service people was so LOUD.  He was a young guy - early 20s I'd say - and just filled the whole place with his loudness.  Why?  I don't know.  He was friendly and competent, but my god.  On a similar note,

Long Stories
Don't get me wrong, I love to read anecdotes - on blogs or memoirs or wherever.  Listening to them, though?  Not so much.  You ever have someone just go on and on with some narrative, including irrelevant details,  without coming up for air?  I even get uncomfortable when I see someone else being subjected to another just droning on.   Also similarly,

Giving lots of details
I guess since I don't like listening to people's long drawn out tales, I'm typically very succinct when speaking.  I wonder if it's typical of people who blog to not be overly chatty?   A conversation should not be a monologue, and I like listening to responses and wait to be asked for more detail.
Also, as a tutor, I've been trained that, "the student should do 75% or more of the talking", so I ask a lot of questions while tuting.  Students learn to not expect a lecture.  On that note,

Guilt
Well I think guilt, by definition, is uncomfortable, but it's something I've been thinking of recently.  One thing about moving is that Magnum's sister is the sole point of contact in Colorado Springs for her and Magnum's mom and stepdad.  They're in their 80s and living in a senior living community with their needs quite well taken care of, but they do need assistance once in a while.  SIL and her husband already do a lot for them, and I was feeling like we should shoulder more of that load... and then we moved.  Times like this, I could stand to speak up  more (see above).

Clutter
It's not news here that I dislike clutter.  Moving is great for getting rid of clutter, but also a great way to expose it all.  Downsizing just makes it seem even bigger.  My anxiety has been triggered this past month 😱.  Seriously, I've had no desire to watch Marie Kondo's Netflix show, although I'm a fan.  Just watching the trailer with the "befores" gave me the shakes.  But on the contrary,

Silence
I don't like loud or incessant talking, but a little background chatter is nice.  I'm typing this at the public library because I'm not good at being a homebody.  And lastly,

Forgetting to get confirmation
I took my commuter bicycle to a nearby shop yesterday for a tune-up.  The shop gets great reviews, is close to where we live, and the staff person was very friendly.  So I dropped the bike off after giving my name and contact info, then left with no copy of any work order or anything.  He typed stuff into the shop computer and said it should be ready today or tomorrow, but I've got nuthin' to show for it or prove that it's my bicycle.  The shop is smaller and much less busy than the one I was used to, not surprisingly.  I always got a copy of any work orders at the last place, and didn't really think of it this time.  Hopefully, Ariel and I will be reunited.  Fingers crossed.

What's something that makes you uncomfortable?  I'm listening.

-----------------------------------------
Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:
5. List 7 things that make you uncomfortable

15 minutes, mostly flat

No, that title is not a description of my sex life... or at least it's not intended to be *ahem*

As mentioned, we've moved.  We're in a smaller house in a smaller town and liking it.  Everything seems so much closer and easier to get to - shopping, dining, entertainment, recreation, etc.  Also, as I'd noted during our previous visits, Fort Collins is super duper bicycle commuter friendly with miles and miles of designated trails, buffered bike paths, and the like. 

Looking on google maps for bike routes to various places yields the same result nearly every time:  "15 minutes, mostly flat". 

That big snow from Thanksgiving week, however, has thrown a bit of a wrench in the bike commuting.  There are still lots of snow drifts and icy patches about, and my bike hasn't budged since it was unloaded from the moving truck.  I've seen a few die-hards out and about, though.

Most of our stuff is unpacked and arranged, and we feel like mostly civilized people again.  So what's in all the other boxes??

I guess I could open them and find out?  Give me strength, Marie Kondo.

here for a quickie

Okay, we are in the midst of moving.  Today. 

Magnum texted me that the truck with all our worldly possessions has left the old house and is on its way to the new.  Napolion the cat and I drove up yesterday.  Napolion whined the whole way, but mostly when an Ed Sheeran song came on the radio.  And if you listen to pop radio, you know that happens a lot. 

Napolion, wondering what the hell happened

We came up a day ahead to get some things lined up and assure that someone would be here when the truck arrives.  Magnum is following with the pooches.  I'd hoped to get our internet hooked up by last night, but do things ever go so smoothly? 

There is a community college campus about a mile from our new place, so that's where I am right now - feeding two of my addictions:  caffeine and internet.

Anyway, here's the summary:

• We've moved to Fort Collins, CO
• We have a 6-month lease on a rental house
• Our house in Colorado Springs will go on the market in a coupla weeks.  Want it?
• We'll start shopping for a house after we sell

We first visited Fort Collins when we helped Wolfgang move here about 2 years ago.  He really likes the place.  Then Meego decided to attend the university here, so we have subsequently visited a few more times, and we like the feel here.  Colorado Springs has gotten so sprawled out.

We were planning to downsize anyway, thinking we'd get a smaller house in Colorado Springs, but Magnum was able to arrange to work remotely at his job, so that opened things up for us.  Most of my tuting is online already. 

Anyhoo, here we are, about 100 miles north of where we used to live, fingers crossed that our internet gets humming soon.  I have tutee appointments next week, but more importantly, I've got blogs to read and shows to stream!

I mean, I was fine in a sleeping bag on a pad on the floor with the cat last night, but no internet? 

Barbarian.

augers at dawn

The good news is, our fence is in the process of being fixed / replaced.  The bad news is that it came down in the first place.

In our housing development, we all have these crappy wooden fences, as seen in the background of this recent pic from Thanksgiving day:

The fences or portions of them need replacing quite regularly.  We had a big old wind storm on Friday night. Max gusts of about 80 mph.  The entire north length of our fence - the one in the pic - didn't survive.

We share that side of fence with the neighbors to our north.  I went out Saturday morning to assess the carnage and found the neighbor and one of his adolescent kids out there taking down measurements and looking very industrious.

By the end of the day on Saturday, neighbor man and two boys had popped in 4 new posts, and by Sunday, they had a couple more posts and several slats replaced.   It seems they saw the downed fence as a wonderful bonding opportunity.  Well, I'm certainly not one to interfere with a bonding opportunity!  We did provide some cement for the posts, but other than that, they've literally done all the heavy lifting and provided all materials.  We'll cover a good portion of the moolah.

In the meantime, I've been putting up a few fresh coats of paint inside our house, and today, some guys came and installed new carpeting in three bedrooms. 

Paint fumes + new carpet fumes = I'm probably high right now.

cold turkey

Happy day after Thanksgiving to all my American blogger friends who partake!

It was nice to take a little break from the relocating activities with some food and family time.  As I mentioned, Magnum's sister and her husband hosted Thanksgiving for the third year in a row.  They are both very good cooks and have a newly remodeled kitchen, so everything was plentiful and yummo.  Chaco, Wolfgang, and Meego all made the trip, too.

Roads are still a mess since our snowstorm earlier this week.  It hasn't warmed up enough to melt the snow and ice, so getting around is an adventure.  With that in mind, the annual Turkey Trot 5K must go on!

I always sign up, because it's a charity run. They were very good about updating us on the course conditions leading up to the race.
In a word, conditions were crappy, but 2400 of my closest friends and I decided, "eh, what the hell"

It was a chilly mid-20 degrees at the start and foggy.  The course was messy/ icy/ slushy, and I don't think anyone was out there to break any records.  Participation is usually around 5,000, but I wasn't surprised at the relatively low turnout.


It was actually quite fun.  It usually is anyway, but with the sloppy conditions, the "lust for winning" was greatly diminished, and we all just slogged through thinking of how silly it seemed.  I  noticed this girl's hoodie message while perusing race photos.  Where does one get such a hoodie?

I ended up 2nd place for the old ladies.  Nancy beats me every year.  She's 59 years old!  But Nancy and I both beat some young whippersnappers, and all things considered - "Ack! Slush! It's in my mouth!" - I'm happy with my stats:

So here we are, black Friday.  No shopping for us as the packing and cleaning continues, but yesterday was fun, plus MY oven is clean 😌

what's cookin'?

We've got snow, yes we do!  We've got snow, how 'bout you?  *points*

Okay, it's Colorado. It snowed.  Not really news, but sheesh, there's so much of it.  I think we got about 10 inches at our house.  It felt like more when I shoveled it, but I did have "help" from these two.

Poor Penny, she's so short, when she first went out to the ladies room, all I could see was her head and shoulders.  Didn't seem to phase her, though.

Chaco, who lives a little north and west of Denver, sent this pic from his place, saying, "and it's still snowing!"

Then I got this pic from Meego in Fort Collins:

It's actually rather pretty for those who don't need to go anywhere.  And... I might be a little annoyed that these college boys have better patio furniture than we do.

In a way, it's good to be shut in because it's been good help in getting our house ready to vacate.  Magnum's sis is hosting Thanksgiving again this year, and I'm thankful that I don't have to cook anything.  We're responsible for booze.

With that in mind, my task for today is to clean the oven.  It's a self-cleaning oven, but to be honest, I plan to just scrub it with some Dawn dish soap.  Self-cleaning ovens freak me out a bit.  Ours is the type that uses high heat - like 1000 degrees F - to burn everything up.

I had a self-cleaning oven in one of my college apartments.  I recall coming home one night from my retail job to find firetrucks leaving the parking lot and our oven sitting outside on the grass.  What the...? 

My roommate had tried the self-cleaning mode. 

As I recall, I don't think there was any actual fire.  Just lots and lots of smoke and fumes.  The firefighters were nice enough to loan us a fan. 

As I was pondering a good cleaning for our oven, I paused at the various precautionary notes in the owner's manual and my online research - research that didn't make me want to use self-cleaning mode.  One note stated that the fumes can be specifically harmful to birds, so remove pet birds before cleaning.  I don't have any pet birds but, yeah,  no.

Anyone reading ever used the oven self-cleaning feature?  Any stories to tell?