Emma’s Fantabulous Blog

Yesterday’s shift at the Wildlife Center was tough for my heart.

I was assigned to clean one of the outdoor pens/cages for the “teenage” raccoons. The metal cage is circular and the mesh sides go up about 15 feet. The raccoons really enjoy climbing up and down the sides. Sometimes they fall, so there’s rubber matting on the floor to break their fall. When I clean the pen, you’re supposed to pick up all of the mats, so you can clean the floor and spray off each mat. So of course, during the short time period where all of the mats were stacked in one spot, one of the baby raccoons lost his grip and fell about 10 feet. It was terrible.

He was walking around but not using one of his front hands. Luckily, a senior volunteer was right there and picked him up to examine him and bring him down for one of the rehabilitators to take a look at. But the little guy was hurt and scared and he started screaming. I’m used to their grunts and their screams that they use when they’re fighting, but this was something entirely different. Just crazy, ear-piercing shrieking. It was horrible.

The vets are going to take a look at him and see if its a sprain or a broken bone. If its a sprain, they’ll just keep him confined to a small pen that he can’t climb in. However if its broken, he will get put down. Partially because they are such natural climbers and explorers that it would be hard to keep the hand totally immobilized. The other reason is that we’re over capacity for raccoons as it is, and it would be a resource drain that could be used for other, less thriving species.

So I’m really bumming about the little raccamundi. Apparently this sort of thing has happened before, but I just feel awful that it happened on my watch.

In other PAWS news, we just got in a Hummingbird that a lady had been feeding milk to… (rolls eyes). We also got in a bobcat! Luckily I’m not allowed to clean that guy’s cage…  “Just stick your head in there, Emma, and see if he’s still hungry.”

Fifi has recently become facinated with the ivy growing by the side of our house. I think she likes it because it makes her feel like Godzilla in the jungle.

Alrighty. So:

Borat. A comedy. Made in 2006. A “mock-umentary” in which actor/comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, pretending to be a TV personality from Kazakhstan, interviews unsuspecting Americans.

Basically, I want the past 2 hours of my life back. I found it shocking what Cohen would say and do infront of strangers, and I found it even more shocking what those strangers would say and do in response to Cohen. I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or smiling. I lean more towards not being amused and feeling rather uncomfortable.

I also really dislike the fact that the people who signed forms, agreeing to be filmed, didn’t know that they were signing away their rights to make any money off of a movie that they had screen time in. (Wikipedia source here.) I get that its all part of the “genre”, but I still think its horrible and knowing that people made asses out of themselves and haven’t gotten a dime out of the millions that have been made off of this film, makes watching it impossible for me to enjoy.

It seems like the kinda movie that a person would enjoy if they had a really weird sense of humor and/or hadn’t been around many ethnic groups other than their own.

But yeah. I generally enjoy offbeat movies, but this one was just not my cup of tea at all. Boo.

Next.

So Devon’s out of town with work and I have the house to myself… Well Fifi is here with me, but she’s working on a weapon of mass destruction or something. In a bunch of ways I’m bumming, but other things are kinda nice. The upsides are:

1. I’m not confined to sleeping on one side of the bed. I can have a limb in each corner!
2. I’m having red meat or pork for most of my dinners this week… And lots of condiments and vegetables!
3. I just went to Hollywood Video and rented 6 movies that I could never get Devon to watch with me. Instead of watching Action movies with scantily clad vampires and explosions, I get to watch: Running with Scissors, Borat, Blood Diamond, Accepted, Absolute Zero and Babel. I’ll be sure to post reviews. :
4. I don’t feel obligated to do any cleaning or laundry until a few hours before Devon is due to return.
5. I can hang out in sweatpants and not wash my hair. Fifi doesn’t mind it when I “dress down”.

That’s all I can think of for the time being.

I miss my man.

My current gym sneakers are covered in mud, raccoon waste and ground-up dog food. I think its time to get a new pair and keep the old pair to wear soley (like the pun?) at PAWS.

I went to a couple of malls and it seems like all of the women’s sneakers there are beigey and hideously ugly or they combine colors that should never even be in the same room… I mean, Seriously. Would you  be caught dead in THESE? Or THESE? I didn’t think so.

What I wouldn’t give for a shoe brand that lets you custom create your shoes!… Enter Nike.

You go to Nike’s website and choose a base shoe style out of about 50 options. You can customize the color on everything from the sole, to the shoelaces, to the “swoosh” logo. There’s even a special option to add custom text to the backs or tongues. The best part is that your custom shoes don’t cost anything more than what you’d pay for that model at your local Footlocker, or whatever.

These are my fantastic super-awesome goth and pink shoes. If you check out the “view options” at the bottom, click on the “+” sign and check out the custom text that I’m having put on my shoes. 

So I think I lose some punk rock points for buying Nike’s, but come on! This is soo cool!!!!! It’s about time that a footwear company came up with something like this!

White & Nerdy

By Wierd Al Yankovic.
This cover/video totally cracks me up. I guess I’m a geek. Whoopsie.

Currently my cell phone/lifeline is a black RAZR V3. Its very goth. And while I like goth things, I prefer things with a bit of sparkle and/or color to them. Plus black RAZRs are getting a bit passe as every 12 year old and their mom has one… (Which is another rant entirely, as I don’t think 12 year olds need cell phones let alone ones that cost a weeks minimum wage paycheck.)

Anyways. So I’m wandering through Alderwood mall with Devon this evening and a glittery phone cover kiosk catches my eye. They had covers for RAZRs with every image imaginable. Confederate flags, Playboy bunnies, Duck Hunting motifs, Ferarri logos, Disney Characters…. And of course Glitter!!!!!

So my phone now sparkles exactly like this:

My phone is super fabulous! Devon is embarrassed by it.

Last night I was chatting with Devon in the kitchen, talking about how we had spent the day. I look down and realize that I’m using my finger to eat peanut butter directly out of the jar… And that I totally hadn’t noticed that I was doing so until my 2nd taste.

Wow. WTF. That’s all I can say.

Today was my 4th shift at the Wildlife Center. As usual I’m totally and completely exhausted.

Apparently, Wildlife and 4th of July fireworks don’t get along so well. The Center has 3 baby skunks that were being housed inside because they were still little guys. However, last night the fireworks were freaking the baby skunkys out and they kept spraying and stinking up the building, so they ended up getting moved into an outdoor enclosure.

On a sad note, I was cleaning the outdoor aviaries with the Steller’s Jays and came across a little guy who ws laying on his back, with his feet up in the air & missing a good portion of his tail feathers. Eventually he was able to stand up and walk around a little bit. I let the Wildlife Rehabilitator know that there was something wrong and then continued cleaning his area. Then, I found a used bottle rocket. I dunno if the bird was hit by it, or maybe the jay just freaked out flew into the mesh netting when the rocket landed in his enclosure.

Personally, I’m not too impressed by some of the P.A.W.S neighbors. You’d figure that if you lived next to a wildlife rehabilitation center you’d try to not shoot off fireworks towards it. Also, today a neighbor was blaring their radio so loudly while I was cleaning some of the cages it was almost like I was listening to my own iPod. I mean, come on guys! Way to be a total a**hole and look super white trash. Sickly barn owls definitely don’t want to listen to your crappy music. (Also, I hate saying this, since I don’t have a real job, but I’ll say it anyways. It’s 11am on a Wednesday – Get a damn job!) It just reaffirms my poor opinion of the general public.

Anyways. On a positive note: Some of the orphaned baby mallards got released in the last week. The baby raccoons are growing (and breeding, apparently) like weeds.  The seal pups are learning how to catch their own live fish. The skunk scent glands are definitely working well.

Alrighty. I’m going to go curl up and snuggle my lizard.

On Saturday, Devon and I rode his Ducati down to Alki Beach in West Seattle with some of our friends.

Who knew that there was an actual beach in Seattle? It looks across Puget Sound towards downtown Seattle.. You can see the Space Needle in one direction and the Olympic Mountains in the other. There was a girls’ beach volleyball tournament going on while we were there. Lots of people sunbathing and everything… A real beach!

Oh! Also, Alki beach has its own mini Statue of Liberty… Kind of like the one I saw in Tokyo. Weird.

We got tasty snacks at the Alki Bakery and people watched for a while. We watched a guy *cough* tool *cough* drive up in a Ferrari and try to parallel park. It was terribly awkward. I think most guys who drive cars like that are trying way too hard to make up for something that they’re lacking: in personality or other regards.

Anyways. It was a really nice day. Nice to ride the motorcycle. (even if the highway is scary) Nice to discover a new place. Nice to hang out with friends.

I totally want to go back and bring my swimsuit some day this summer.

(Thanks to Ariss on Flickr for the photo)