Thanks-Giving In June

Every now and then something happens that really brings home how lucky I am.

Last night volunteering at the low-income clinic in Ithaca was one of those experiences. I realized how much I have. And it made me wonder unanswerable questions like, "Why them and not me? Why do I have so much and other so little? Why is it that some people are born into families with resources and others not?" And the biggest one of all, the underlying mystery, "Why isn't life fair?"

Everyone who comes to that clinic is indigent. Struggling to make ends meet and care for their pets.

It was clear how much every single client loved his or her pet. Many of them waited for hours in the heat to be seen.

It was also clear how much many of these people were struggling, unable to afford anything more than the most basic care for their pets. (Though some found ways. It makes me think of a time, years ago in the emergency clinic, when a young women came in with a chihuahua with head trauma and pawned her wedding ring in order to pay the bill).

It was both uplifting and heartbreaking. I felt good being there, yet I wanted to be able to do more.

The best part for me was how much the kids wanted to be involved with their pets' care and how they told me all kinds of things about their pets and lives, eager for my attention.

Back in San Francisco, a veterinarian named Dr Ilana Struble formed an organization to provide veterinary care for homeless people's pets called Vet SOS. In an article from SFgate, Struble says:

"I see it as my responsibility, because trying to take better care of their pets is often their biggest incentive to get off the streets."

"As a vet, I understand the human-animal bond. These animals are emotional support and a catalyst for human interaction, especially for those who might avoid interacting with anyone. With all the drugs, violence and stress of being homeless, we've seen that people living on the streets with pet companions fare better."

Struble received the Bay area Jefferson award for her work. As if that isn't enough, Struble is also involved in LGVMA, the lesbian and gay veterinary medical association (also, I believe, based out of San Francisco). Her partner, Michelle McAnanama, works in the human medical field.
LGVMA offers a student scholarship for veterinary students who demonstrate:

• Recognition of the importance of the human-animal bond
• Commitment to improving the environment of and level of veterinary care in all communities, including (but not limited to) lesbian and gay pet owners and pet owners with immunosuppressive conditions including HIV/AIDS
• Commitment to improving the educational environment of veterinary students and to advancing equality among all groups of veterinarians
• Outstanding community and/or university service
• Commitment to the role of veterinary medicine in public health programs and issues of public policy

For years I thought on and off about volunteering for VetSOS but never got around to it. It's never too late, maybe next time I am back in the Bay area for an extended amount of time.

I'm glad that both Cornell and LGVMA encourages students to give back to their communities.

What's Next For Our Heroine?

In part I of this series, we challenge our heroine's fortitude by making her undergo surgery less than a month before she moves across the country.

In part II of this series, we have our heroine and her two cats, accompanied by the noble Coyote, move from the West coast to the East coast. As if this feat is not gargantuan enough, we also have her change her name the same week, so that when she arrives in her new town she has to answer to a different name (though still familiar).

In part III of this series, Hermit Thrush tackles the Ithaca housing challenge, heading up the 2009 Spring Housing Reconnaissance Mission for her trio of roommates, which she wins by in fact finding a house meeting a laundry list of requirements in under one week (though she fails the more challenging time frame of finding housing within 48 hours of landing on the East coast, but we'll give her an A for effort there as she did tour five houses within 48 hours of arrival).

In part IV of this series, HT settles into her summer home frat house and becomes acquainted with her lab group and summer research project.

What next? Well, I'm wondering the same thing. It's been a whirlwind month. This will be my first full weekend in Ithaca (barring a crisis). I'm looking forward to the farmer's market.

Tomorrow I get to go to go my first clinic associated with Cornell-- I'm thrilled. Students are supposed to wear a white coat and bring a stethoscope and watch with a second hand. Sounds so, gulp, PROFESSIONAL:)

Updates From The Lab Front

It's been a long time since I did molecular biology. Half my lifetime ago to be precise (now I suppose that dates me if I also disclose that happened to be when I was in high school).

I'd forgotten some of its quirks and charms. For example, how there is a certain step when extracting DNA when the addition of one reagent causes all the cellular non-DNA junk to precipitate-- I always thought back in high school that it looked rather like egg drop soup at that stage of the protocol.

The plus side is that now, unlike when I was in high school, there are KITS, yes kits, for doing DNA extraction. Where were these kits when I needed them? Where were they back when I had headaches from all the chloroform I was inhaling from extracting DNA from Pleurotus ostreatus?
(I have a penchant for Latin names, I think I could remember the Latin name of just about anything once I've seen it... )

The pleasure of being older and wiser is that most of it actually makes sense to me. It is unbelievable how much more interesting something is when it makes sense.

For example, in high school, someone in my lab once told me what PCR stood for. Without any background whatsoever, it sounded to me like "Preliminary Chain Reaction." That was my mind trying to make sense of nonsense-- I knew it was a reaction we did before something else. What it really stands for is Polymerase Chain Reaction. I didn't even know what a polymerase was back then, let alone a primer or a restriction digest etc. Now the things I worry about are how is real time PCR different from quantitative PCR and is my polymerase likely to have a high error rate...

Stay tuned for my trials and tribulations with Western blots...

Thanks MossMan!

Tonight I was lucky enough to once again spend the evening in the presence of EB and Ianite, this time joined by the rest of their family and another friend.

Watching Ian play yesterday and today, I feel sad realizing that I can no longer entertain myself for an entire afternoon by waving around a brochure, banging a pan (luckily I am so fanatic about my Amish bread that I already acquired a loaf pan from some donations lying around so that Ian had something to bang during his brief stay in my room...) or chewing on a wooden spatula.

It reminds me of a time at work when LaMexicana and NurseYoungSuperStar were watching their puppies frolic on the floor, and NurseYoungSuperStar commented to LaMexicana--"Let's roll around on the floor and bite at each other's necks!" a comment that made us all feel a bit sad because it made us realize that we have lost the capacity to have fun anywhere, anytime, just by playing, the way puppies do-- in their ability to attain pure, uncomplicated enjoyment of the moment, animals often surpass us humans. It is a similar phenomenon with Ian (and children in general, like puppies)-- he has the ability to have fun and adventures exploring objects (mainly cooking utensils and pans it seems) that no longer hold much novelty for me.

I went to Syracuse ostensibly to collect some more of the boxes that I shipped there from San Jose. (Of course I really went to see EB and Ian again, the boxes could wait:)

I brought back five boxes, two of which were too heavy for me to carry (I've got to get rid of more paper...). That is where MossMan came in to save the day (or night as it may be). He helped me unload all the boxes at the Ithaca end. This is a guy I've never met before, but on the strength of the connection through EB's brother CobHouseBuilder and his friend ExperimentalCookingDaycareWonderwoman, Mossman came to help me out. A big shout out from the internet Mossman, CobHouseBuilder and ExperimentalCookingDaycareWonderwoman. I couldn't have done it without you.

It was a fun evening, with only a few real moments of nostalgia. Seeing Ian in the tarantula shirt that I bought for him on one of my thrift store expeditions to the Salvation Army in Gilroy with SelfSustainableNurse and PK made me sad. So did seeing Ian's pajamas, which I purchased at a thrift store in Menlo Park that Dr Perceptive recommended to me this fall. It's funny that the little reminders of home are in Ian's clothes-- I remember buying them so clearly, the day, who I was with, the deadline of leaving hanging over my head. And now, here, on the other side, those same clothes appear in a completely different setting, linking me back to my old home.

Fun With Ianite And EB

Today I saw my friend EB and her son Ian for the first time in almost a year! It is hard to believe it has really been that long since we talk frequently and I have furnished a large quantity of Ian's wardrobe with dog themed outfits (check out these photos and these too).

Last time I saw Ian, he looked like this (taken last August, see Baby, Baby):


EB and I visited a nearby winery, where we tasted enough wine to make me giddy (that's six sips folks, yup I'm a lightweight if there ever was one:) We then went out onto the balcony overlooking the vineyards and tried to explain to the even more tipsy folks out there how we were related-- we're not! First off, they thought Ian was my son because we were both wearing blue shirts (this logic makes perfect sense to EB but not to me). They also think Ian looks like me-- however, I maintain he looks much more like EB than me and even more like his dad, D. Even funnier, they were convinced EB and I are sisters. They could not believe that we were actually college roommates.

EB was my first official visitor in Ithaca. I think it was more delightful to see her than I could possibly have conveyed. Let's just put it this way-- for the two and a half hours that she was here I forgot that it was grey, drizzling and that I am 3,000 miles away from what feels like home. I was that happy. So thanks EB, with all my heart. And if anyone else wants to visit, my door is open.

Summer Reading-- Suggestions?-- And Recommendations

The summer before vet school is like the end of a good Indian summer as a kid, those precious last few lazy, slow, hot weeks at the end of August before the regimen of school is imposed on one once again. (Note, I use Indian summer to denote the hot days at the end of the summer, the southern meaning of the term. From Wikipedia-- "In some regions, such as the southeastern United States, Indian summer is colloquially used to describe the hottest times of the year, typically in late July or August.")

So the question arises, what to read? I don't have much on my reading list at the moment. I've been wanting to read (or more accurately, to finish) J.M. Coetzee's _The Lives of Animals_ for awhile. But there's not much else that I've been waiting to read. So feel free to recommend some things to me. And in return I'll offer up a few of my own recommendations in various veins...

Fiction About Principles Of Math/Physics:
Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott
The Time and Space of Uncle Albert by Russell Stannard
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

Popular Science Writing About Genetics and Wildlife Conservation:
*Tears of the Cheetah: The Genetic Secrets of Our Animal Ancestors by Stephen J. O'Brien
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathon Weiner

Native Plants/Indian Life in the Bay area:
Gardening with a Wild Heart: Restoring California's Native Landscapes At Home by Judith Larner Lowry
*The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area by Malcolm Margolin and Michael Harney

Psychotherapy/Psychiatry/Neuroscience:
*Love's Executioner & Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison
*The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge

Southern History:
*Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story by Timothy B. Tyson

Poetic Prose in Fiction Writing:
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
The Blue of Her Body by Sara Greenslit
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

Lesbian Fiction:
Aquamarine by Carol Anshaw

** They are all great books, but the ones with an asterik next to them are RIVETING, at least in my opinion.

I Found A Place To Live For The School Year

The single biggest stress my first week at Cornell has been housing. It is the first week of June. My roommates and I have to have someplace to live by August first. Less than two months. So every night after work I've been driving around looking at houses. I finally found 'the one.' It is perfect-- close to the vet school, quiet, big backyard, wood floors and, best of all, fully furnished (none of us own any furniture)!!! Woo-hoo. Finally.

Here are some pictures of what my drive in and back to the vet school will look like (all 1.7 miles of it:)