Wind

At night the wind knocks on her windows, softly, insistently first, then frustrated banging full force. Let me iiiiiin. Let me iiiiiiiiiiin. The old oak tree a low groan. The window panes shudder in their frames, no match for the onslaught. Ice cold drafts slip in through the cracks, uninvited, unwelcome.

There's something oddly comforting about staying up late studying, Simon on her lap, space heater emitting a seeping warmth, tucked in her tiny study nook jutting out over the house entrance. Starless cloudy pitch black night, waves of wind pummeling the house.

Later, trying to fall asleep, she lies in bed listening, wistfully wishing the wind was a person, a Romeo serenading her from below. She drifts off into fantasy, arms wrapped tightly around her blanket

Snow Globe, Magic

She's living in a snow globe. Turn the world upside down and presto-- there's mesmerizing swirling white confetti. Shake. Repeat. Day after day. Confined in a bubble. Same old scenery. Stock snowman, fir tree, gingerbread house. She's dizzy from being upside down, blood rushing to her head.
*
When she is three her mom tells her that Santa Claus doesn't exist. Jewish girls don't get presents for Christmas. She spins the dreidel and lights candles, trying hard to remember the words to the blessing from night to night. She thinks her friends are silly, believing that someone comes down their chimney overnight, but she keeps the secret to herself for years, until they finally figure out the truth.

The magic ended for her then. Later, she put lost teeth under her pillow so the Tooth Fairy could come and take them, but only because she wanted the dollar bill that she got in return. Her parents took the first tooth and put it in a cup of Coke. In the morning it was gone, not even a trace left behind. She stopped begging to be allowed to drink soda.

She discovers magic in nature, never ceasing to find wonderment in the metamorphasis of tadpoles. Staring at the embryos in their clear eggs under her kiddie microscope, watching them change hour by hour, wiggling in their jelly sacs. Wriggling free, so tiny. The limbs popping out, one by one. First a bump by the head, then suddenly, arm, complete with tiny webbed fingers, perfect. She knows that once she was a tiny embryo, tries to imagine herself as a tadpole, so hard to believe without a shred of memory of her watery beginnings.

She's jealous of her friend's daughter, Grace, six years old. She believes in Santa Claus but finds the thought of him coming down her chimney scary, begs her parents to cover the chimney. When she finds a necklace of fairy dust under the tree with the inscription "Follow your dreams," she's elated. Her friend, Katie, miraculously, received the same present, Grace tells her with amazement. Grace's imagination knows no bounds. Her mom straps a horn to Snowfall's head and her horse is instantly transformed into unicorn. The magic permeates the little girl's richly imaginative world, and although it is too late for her, she basks in Grace's joy.

Desire

Desire flits in and out of view, like a yellow warbler hopping among shrubbery. Just when you think you have bright plumage in focus with your binoculars, it alights, disappearing into thick underbrush. Rare winter migrant, passing through, passing interest. Women, half-imagined, daydreams, as elusive as the rarest of warblers.

One winter a storm blew in a flock of red phalaropes. Reversed sexual dimorphism. Pelagic. Halophilic. She found out too late about their arrival, they were already gone. Imagined.

In sea horses, males carry pregnancy. Reproductive reversal. Pipehorses. She's seen the leafy sea dragon in aquariums, camouflaged, delicate fronds slowly undulating underwater. She longs to be that delicate, unearthly gossamer tendrils floating lazily, seductive as a siren.

Time To Buy A Shovel; The Black Market in Lab Notebooks

So I know I've been missing in action for awhile. There's nothing really that interesting to report. I'm surviving. Studying, writing poetry, the usual. SmileySuperLesbian called me tonight and she asked what I was up to and I said, "you know, just taking my nightly bath with Parham." There was an awkward silence until it clicked for her that I was referring to our immunology textbook. Yes, folks, that is how exciting my life is-- I spend my evenings in a hot bath reading my textbook. Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of immunology. It's OK. If Boron was my boyfriend (meaning I really liked physiology and spent a lot of time with my books) then Parham is a casual acquaintance.

In other news, winter seems to have arrived in force today. We had our first snow that stuck of the year. While some people think this is beautiful and exciting, I find it rather depressing. I firmly believed it was just going to stay late fall forever, well, at least until spring arrived. Denial is a wonderful thing and worked well right up until the point I looked outside and saw everything covered in white fluff. Yuck.

I've been an embarrassingly bad student this semester. Not only have I slept through class for the first time in my life, I also skipped a class for the first time in my academic career this week. I did this on the same day that another classmate of mine skipped for the first time in her life as well. There's a first time for everything. Almost as scintillating as reading immunology in the bathtub.

In more bizarre news, I managed to lose my lab notebook for the SECOND time this semester. The first time I left it at a computer desk in the library and it never showed back up. After that I left it in my car for awhile and just used my lab partner's. Then I decided to bring it into lab to try to pull my weight and thought it would be a good idea to leave it in the drawer at my lab bench so I wouldn't lose it again. Presto, it disappeared. Magic disappearing act. Or maybe someone is selling them on the black market... because just this evening my lab partner sent out an email asking if anyone had accidentally picked up her lab notebook-- yes, hers has also mysteriously disappeared into thin air. That makes a total of three missing lab notebooks. And yes, they're good reading, but NOT that good. Of course lab is 15% of our final so we will both need to replace them somehow. And then guard them with our lives as they are apparently a hot commodity.

OK, that's all folks. Two weeks till finals and then I'm free for six whole weeks!

Memorizing The Phonebook: Diseases And Names

Glasser's dz= Haemophilus parasuis gm neg bacillus, facultative anaerobe
Fowl cholera= Pasteurella multocida sp gallicida gm neg coccobacillus, facultative anaerobe
Sleepy foal dz= Navel ill= Actinobacillus equuli gm neg coccobacillus, facultative anaerobe
Plague (Bubonic, Pneumonic, Septicemic)= Yersinia pestis, gm neg coccobacillus, facultative anaerobe
Tularemia= Francisella tularensis, gm neg bacillus, aerobic
Glanders= Burkholderia mallei, gm neg bacillus, aerobic
Fowl spirochetosis= Borrelia anserina
Lyme dz= Borrelia burgdorferi, gm neg spirochete microaerophilic
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever= Rickettsia rickettsi, gm neg coccobacillus
Q Fever (stands for Query Fever since etiologic agent was unknown)= gm neg obl intracellular coccobacillus
African Heartwater Disease= Ehrlichia ruminatum, stains gm neg
Salmon Poisoning Disease= Salmon poisoning= Neorickettsia helminthoeca
Potomoc Horse Fever= Neorickettsia risticii, stains gm neg
Anthrax= Bacillus anthracis, gm pos strict aerobic spore forming bacillus
Avian Leukosis, simple retrovirus two copies single stranded genome
Ovine Pulmonary Adenomatosis (Jaagsiekta), simple retrovirus two copies single stranded genome
Feline Leukemia virus, simple retrovirus (number one cause of death by infectious agent in cats)
Feline Sarcoma virus (FeSV), simple retrovirus
Bovine Leukemia Virus, simple retrovirus-- lymphocytosis, Bovine Sarcoma Virus may arise
Equine viral arteritis
Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus
Lactate Dehydrogenase Elevating Virus
Simian Hemorrhagic Fever Virus
Cowpox Virus
Lumpy Skin Dz Of Cattle
Ovine Range Fever (ORF)
Bovine Papular Stomatitis
Swine Pox
Myxomatosis Of Rabbits
Ectromelia
Goat And Sheep Pox
Fowlpox
African Swine Fever

Saved By The Mouse

I've been falling asleep in class lately. A lot. For the first time in my academic career. It's like the dam has broken.

This morning I drifted in and out of epidemiology and was barely paying attention in my bacteriology lecture. The professor was talking about some disease where pustules formed and then popped when two of my classmates in the corner interrupted her mid-sentence with their shrieking. At first I, and the rest of the class, assumed they were horrified by the image of the pustules popping. But this must be like the 50th disease we've learned about with vesicular lesions that rupture. When they could regain their speech, they said, breathlessly, "MOUSE!" We all looked. There was a little grey mouse with giant black eyes scurrying back under the podium. Our professor was terribly embarrassed-- we are in the midst of our AVMA re-accreditation process. With as much dignity as she could muster she sputtered, "Well, it IS that time of year."

The class turned into a circus, with the mouse periodically racing out from under the podium, across the floor, into someone's backpack, then back to the safety of the podium, all the while with our professor chasing it with an empty coffee can and three or four students scrambling on the floor while it madly deftly darted between them all.

Eventually one of my classmates caught it barehanded and banished it from the building. We joked we would time how long it took the mouse to re-enter the classroom but we didn't see it again.

Thank goodness for the mouse, at least I was awake for the rest of the lecture.

It's late. I spent the evening studying bacteria. I remember one of my vet tech professors saying that large animal disease have the coolest names. So very true. I can now tell you the etiological agent of African Heartwater disease is Ehrlichia ruminatum. I won't go into Blackwater and Black Leg. Can you imagine telling someone, "I'm sorry m'am, but I believe your dog has Black Leg!"

I've accumulated even more esoteric trivia useful only for cocktail parties than in previous classes. (Did I mention how hyenas give birth through their clitorises-- remind me if not to do so-- that was 3b). For example, anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) used to be seen mainly in people who worked with sheep-- it was called wool-sorter's disease. Nowdays it is seen most commonly in drumming circles. Yes, imported African drums are sometimes made with hides carrying anthrax spores (no, the tanning process does not kill the spores) which are then dislodged and aerosolized by drumming. So think twice before you get a drum from Africa. Of course, I have one hanging in my room as I write (courtesy of my landlady). Don't worry, I've been careful not to move it in the slightest! :)

A Good Bird Day

Yesterday I snapped this shot of the local red tail while filling up at the gas station. I like the way the diagonal lines turned out but I don't think it is completely in focus which is frustrating.

I also saw a pileated woodpecker in my backyard yesterday but wasn't fast enough to get a picture! I saw a flash of a large black bird with white on the underside of its wings and immediately knew it was a pileated. Then I heard its call, very similar to a Northern flicker. I took off into the woods after it and was able to get it in sight for a brief few minutes. It was a good bird day:)