Winter Storm Poetry

I thought I'd start the week off with some winter storm poetry. This poem, "The Snow Storm," is by Edna St. Vincent-Millay.

No hawk hangs over in this air:
The urgent snow is everywhere.
The wing adroiter than a sail
Must lean away from such a gale,
Abandoning its straight intent,
Or else expose tough ligament
And tender flesh to what before
Meant dampened feathers, nothing more.
Forceless upon our backs there fall
Infrequent flakes hexagonal,
Devised in many a curious style
To charm our safety for a while,
While close to earth like mice we go
Under the horizontal snow.
*

I love the last lines, if people are like mice, then the hawk, if not impaired by the storm might swoop down on them! The vulnerability of people in storms is like mice in the open being hunted by hawks. I also love the rhyme of the poem, the rhythm of the opening lines.

Vacation: Next Stop The Virgin Islands

I am incredibly lucky to be heading off for the Virgin Islands early tomorrow morning, courtesy of my mom. I am going camping with her and her best friend, who I will simply call SocialWorker.

Last time I had a week off with no studying was the second week in August, when I had finished my summer research but not yet started vet school (it was the week before vet school started). I flew back to California and went camping in the Sierras with SelfSufficientNurse, her husband and daughter, PrecociousKid. It was wonderful. Here are some photos from that trip to the Sierras:

Here's one of my favorite pictures, of PrecociousKid near our campsite:

And the sunsets were breathtakingly beautiful:



Although I will be gone for a week, I have scheduled several posts so my blog will still be active!

My Aunt's Cats: Silky And Pumpkin

Silky (top) is fourteen years old and spends a lot of time sleeping and cuddling with my aunt. He's been losing weight and has had a decreased appetite since his brother, Velvet, passed away this summer from liver cancer but has perked up quite a bit since Pumpkin's addition to the household. Silky developed a heart murmur around age eight but it is low grade and has not gotten any worse over the years. He is a very sweet older cat.

Pumpkin is my aunt's new cat, acquired to keep Silky company. He is a bit of a bruiser. I'd say he is a dominant cat. He was an alley cat, an unneutered tom, until he was taken in by a rescue group. Since he was neutered so late he has a big block head, which is rather handsome.

Pumpkin's had several nebulous veterinary problems. The rescue group reports he was sick for a long time while they had him, with what no one knows. He tested FIV/FeLV negative but I'm not sure if he was tested before or after his illness. If it was before I don't know how accurate it is. He was proclaimed healthy and adopted out, but when my aunt took him to the vet the day after she adopted him, he had a whopping heart murmur (which he still has, I'd say 3/6 or 4/6 but I can't determine PMI because he is wiggly and purrs a lot and I don't have much experience with that kind of thing). Pumpkin also has GI problems-- right now he is on i/d (bland diet) and doing fine but he doesn't do as well off of it and has had bouts of both vomiting and diarrhea. I'm eager for my aunt to perform a bunch of diagnostics and get to the bottom of it but she probably won't bring him in again until the spring if he continues to do well.

My First Day Of Break!

Above: Me, on Wednesday night, with a heart throb of a pit bull at Southside, the low-income veterinary clinic run by Cornell students once a month. (Yes, I went and saw cases the evening before my final exam. I think the clinical experience is more important than the few points I might be losing by not spending the night cramming). If I'm counting right, this is my fifth time at Southside (since I started going over the summer) and my third time seeing patients as a clinician. I'm starting to feel more comfortable wearing a white coat. I even think I look pretty professional!

Today is my first day of real break since November, when I finished block 1 (and that wasn't a fun long weekend since I was worried I hadn't passed). The holiday vacation in California was heavenly, but I still had schoolwork since it was mid-semester, and I worked several shifts, which while fun was also exhausting.

Today I have no work hanging over my head, no shifts and no place to be. I'm hanging out in Glastonbury, CT while my aunt works. Right now I'm at the local Barnes and Nobles to take advantage of their internet connection. I spent the morning reading a novel and writing some cards to friends. Then I headed out to the local Goodwill and picked up some nice dress shirts for my shifts in the hospital (I'm taking a class that consists of several shifts in the Community Practice Service during distributions and I have to dress up for it). I also really enjoy the hunt of thrift store shopping.

Tonight I'm going to chat with my aunt, read some more and maybe watch a movie. It's so nice to have a chance to relax.

Road Trip: Ithaca To Northampton

Disclaimer: As a vet student I must advise you to never drive with your pets loose in the car!


I finished my block 2 final this morning. Yeah! I'm now halfway through my first year of vet school.

This afternoon I took a road trip from Ithaca to Northampton, hitching a ride with my classmate SuperLesbian (from Northampton) and her cat, SuperLesbianCat (from Ithaca). In real life her name is not actually SuperLesbian, but she and her cat do have the same name.

SuperLesbianCat is very mellow and spent the entire car ride on either my lap or SuperLesbian's lap. She did remember to look first right and then left anytime we turned:

And she seemed to enjoy watching the scenery:

While difficult to capture from a moving car, here is a typical upstate New York barn and silo, albeit just after we crossed into Massachusetts:

And here is the view just outside of Northampton:

Haiku: Snowmelt

the snow starts to melt
little dimples form like on
toasted marshmellows

(Sorry to be laconic folks but I've got my block 2 final exam tomorrow)

Lindy And The Woodpecker, Update On The Cats

Both cats enjoy the bird feeder tremendously, but Lindy seems to have a particular penchant for woodpeckers. It started with the downy woodpecker that comes to the feeder, but now she is also completely mesmerized by and can't resist the red-bellied woodpecker (below).


Simon's preference is for the dark eyed juncos. (Which are black and white, unlike the dark eyed juncos on the West coast here they have no brown on them. Simon loves them though because they have a tendency to cling to the screen and he can put his face right up to them).

Here is Lindy, and then both cats, enjoying the feeder back in the fall when I first put it up:



And here's an older shot of Simon and Lindy (also known as Linders or Spinders or even Linders-Spinders) curled up together on my bed.

I became concerned about Lindy after I returned from winter break because she was spending a lot more time sleeping and barely playing at all (not even slapping at the woodpeckers!) I ran some blood work on her early this week and it indicated she is stable and has not deteriorated significantly in the degree of her renal failure (which is already classified as 'end-stage' but hasn't progressed in the last three years very much). YAY! She probably went through a bit of a slump because she got transiently more dehydrated than usual. I've got to make sure I get the full dose of fluids into her every night, and not just a partial dose. And maybe top her off on the weekends with an extra dose or two, just like one would with a leaky car:) It's all mechanics, elementary Watson.
In this shot, she seems practically offended that I would have the light on while she was trying to nap, I love how she covers her eyes with her paw!

Simon has been very cuddly since it got cold. He likes to nap in my lap while I study:

If I move him off my lap, he assumes all kinds of silly positions while still asleep:

Lindy can also be very affectionate. She doesn't like to cuddle, but she likes to nuzzle her face against mine, or less gently, head butt me. I tried to get a shot of her nuzzling me but it came out blurry. I did get a good one of her lying on my arm while I study though.