Ever wonder what $83 dollars could buy you?

After sleeping on my problem last night, I decided I better get up early and take the cat to the vet to have the fish hook removed. After calling them and telling them my current situation, they told me to bring her right in. And of course in the first couple minutes of the 20 minute trip, she takes a dump in the little carrier I had her in. There goes the new car smell. She did not like the car ride one bit, she made noises I've never heard a cat make. Anyways, once I got there I stressed to them several times that she isn't a very domestic cat and that I've never picked her up, etc. So once I'm in the back with the vet and her assistant, they open the door and the cat leaped out of the box and goes nuts. Jumping on the windowsill, bouncing off the chairs and the tables. There is shit flying off of her from the accident in the car, artificial plants are being knocked around, magazines and other papers are flying everywhere, it was a mess. She freaked, and so did the vet assistant. Two comments I remember them saying were "maybe we should have suited up in case she hurts us" and "we are probably going to have to sedate her for this." It was at that point I told them to call me when they were done. So after a couple of hours, I paid the $83 to take her home. She was still pretty groggy when I got her home so I left her in the cat cage for about a hour until I had to leave. When I opened the cage, she was seriously dragging her rear half around the floor with her front paws in an attempt to get the hell away from me. I kept the garage closed and let her be until I came back a few hours later. When I did come back, she ran as fast as she could to get out of the garage. She didn't come back for most of the night and I was actually getting a little concerned that something would have her for dinner when she was so defenseless. But after a good short rain, she showed back up in the garage soaking wet. It has been a bad day to be a cat.

You're not going to believe this.....

Last fall I had two little kittens show up at my house. I housed and fed them over the winter and I named them Ruff and Tuff. Tuff for the most part is gone, but Ruff is pretty much around all the time and has won the tittle of my "garage cat." I've pretty much adopted her. Anyways, coming home late tonight I was in a hurry to take the trash out and start to head toward bed. As I'm petting her, she has this black thing hanging out of her mouth, which I thought was dirt or something. She kept trying to rub up against me which she normally doesn't do. So as I look closer, she has a fish hook stuck in her mouth with a piece of fishing string attached to it. Of course several things pop into my head all at once. First being, how in the hell am I going to get this out. I've never picked her up and I am unable to think of any safe way of doing this. We do it for people all the time at work when people come in with hooks in various places. It is actually quite simple. But to do it on a cat, a wild cat at that (good rhyme there), I don't think I could do it. Second the cost of a vet bill popped into my head. Who knows how much something like that would run, I'm sure they would have to knock her out somehow. And I have no idea how I would be able to trap this cat to be able to take it to the vet. What a hassle that will be. Third, the thought of how this whole situation happened. Obviously she has been hanging around someone else's garage or something. Could you imagine the sight of someone going outside to find a cat dragging their fishing pole through the yard in an attempt to get away. Somehow they were able to get close enough to cut the line. Probably by reeling her in and thus pushing the hook deeper into her skin. So after some thought, I decided I would go out in the garage and dress in some type of protective clothing and try to take it out myself. I figured I would put on my snow pants (good and thick) and my big heavy winter gloves and see what I could do. Mind you it is in the 60s tonight (I know, thats nothing compared to out west and the south), but it didn't sound appealing to me at all. So I decided to peak into the garage and get a better look before I put my armor on. Ruff wasn't there. I checked a while later and she still wasn't there. Great, now what. So after thinking about it longer, I decided, what could it hurt to leave it in for a day or so. I have a bunch of little cousins coming over tomorrow, I'm sure they would get a kick out of it. I really don't have much time to run to the vet anyways. And maybe, just maybe, somehow it will come out on its own. I actually feel sorry for the little cat. I bet that is painful. Or maybe its not, hard telling. But if I were to leave it in for a day, is that some type of animal cruelty or is it just optimism that it will come out somehow? Ugh.

I've been shocked....literally

So last night at work we got a little bored. As you may have heard, a Bored Sarah is a Bad Sarah. For whatever reason, we decided to start messing around with the crash cart. That led to hooking the defibrillator pads up to me, which than we decided what could it hurt if I got shocked with 1 joule. Considering we just shocked a lady with 300 joules to get her out of V-Tach, 1 joule did not sound like much at all. So, I sat on the bed and the apprehension was probably the worst because of not knowing what to expect. It shocked me. It was probably one of the craziest things I've ever done. I had the pads on my lower chest so it wouldn't affect my heart....to much. It basically felt like someone just squeezed you, really really tight. It pretty much knocked the wind out of me. The doctor was present the entire time, basically just to laugh at us. It was hilarious, it still cracks me up. Why would we do such a stupid thing? It has been almost 5 hours now and I still feel so weird. I feel a little sore, like someone kicked me. And it seems like I notice the presence of my heart a little more than I normally do. Probably because I'm paying attention to whether or not it is still ticking.... Good times!

Where have I been?

Well, some of you may or may not have noticed, but I've been gone. After my six days of work, I packed up and headed out camping. I go where I've always gone camping, the upper peninsula. I usually don't have any type of agenda, I just get in the car and go. This trip I ended up first west of Marquette and than all the way west into the Porcupine Mountains.

The first night I stopped at a campground where I was 1 of 3 tents in the entire campground. Out of 110. Pretty sad I thought. I got a spot right next to the playground so I had an endless stream of children running by. Kids are absolutely the greatest. They just crack me up, so simple minded and innocent. I did pretty much freeze that night. The temps dipped down into the 40s and I was very envious of my trailer neighbors and their furnaces going off every couple of hours.

My first day of hiking I spent more than a hour driving around trying to find the Black River Falls. The directions I got out of a book did not match up at all with what I had on my county map. And all the street signs aren't real names or anything like I'm used to. Instead they are all numbers and letters (PS2, PD3, PPR, PU4, etc). Eventually I did cross the Black River and found signs pointing in the direction of the falls. After another 15 minutes of two track dirt roads, the road ends with a trail to the falls. I was surprised to actually find another car in the parking lot. On my way down the steep trail, there were 2 ladies trying to carry some camping equipment down the hill. I offered to help since I was headed that direction. We made small talk and whatever and I went on my way as they started to set up camp. After I finished taking my pictures I headed back up the trail to find them barbecuing hot dogs. I talked to them some more and they offered me some food. Normally I would pass it up, but it smelled so good, I was so hungry and I had no idea how far from any place to eat, so I decided to chow down with them. After I graciously thanked them for their hospitality, they told me to come back later that night for lots of beer. I laughed and told them I would probably never be able to find this place again.So after my free lunch, I headed further north to Canyon Falls. Basically it is a canyon that has been whittled by some very fast moving water. You can walk down along the canyon and the river for miles. There were quite a few people there, so I don't know why I was so startled when this nice boy started asking me about my camera. I stopped what I was doing and talked to him for awhile about photography and all the falls in the area. He was there with a bunch of friends but he wanted to take me even further north to Houghton to see Hungarian Falls. He was cute and I liked his accent, so I'm surprised I said no. But I really couldn't work going any further north into my trip.
So after that stop, I did go to a couple of more waterfalls, including my favorite Bond Falls. I would definitely say it out does Tahquamenon Falls. It was pretty spectacular.
The campground I stumbled across for the night had the most helpful energetic camp ranger I think I've ever met. I was headed to the Porcupine Mountains the next day and really had no idea where to start as far as that was concerned. He said he has been trying to get into that headquarters for years now and so he knows everything and anything about the place. He was a wealth of knowledge. I spent probably a hour talking to him. When I stumbled out of my tent at 730 the next morning, I don't think I even had my tent zipped back up when he popped around the corner asking if I had decided what I would be doing in the Porkies that day.

I don't know what it is about traveling alone, but people treat you so much more different. Feeding you. Wanting to take you different places. I can't say that any of that would have happened if I had been there with a group of friends or whatever. That and I think that the Upper Peninsula just houses more friendlier, down to earth people.

So my third day of the trip included four waterfalls and even a trip into another time zone! The day included my second favorite falls, Sandstone Falls. The most spectacular thing about it is the huge rocks that surround the falls. These four falls were so remote and the trails were so difficult, that I seriously did not see anyone on any of these trails.I met up with some friends to camp with and explore the Porcupine Mountains that evening. I wasn't able to do as much hiking as I had planned due to the lack of energy and ambitions. But we did get some hiking in. I went to both the lowest point and the highest point of the mountains. It was pretty awesome. And there were a ton of backpackers out in the woods. Something that I would consider doing if I knew what the hell to do. There were even a pack of probably 6 or 7 young female backpackers. I was impressed!
On my way back across the Mackinac Bridge, I decided that I would pay for the cars toll behind me. Kind of like a pay it forward type deal. So I told the lady, she just said "okay," nothing else. I wondered why she responded like that. I wondered if people do this more frequently than I would have thought, so she didn't think it was a big deal. Or I also wondered if she may have pocketed the money. I tried to watch the car behind me when I pulled out. They sped up on their way out of the toll booth, but I don't know if they were trying to catch up or if they just drove fast. When they did make it up near me, they didn't look over at me or anything like I would have expected, but than they got stuck behind me in road construction. I would like to think that they were on vacation and that their last impression of the upper peninsula would be what mine was, there are some really nice people that live up there.

Getting to know my neighbors....

Let me first tell you how dangerous tubing is with certain individuals. When people have the need for speed and they are amused by being as mean as possible to get someone to fall off the tube, it hurts. Especially the next day. Of course the stellar sunburn I got does not help matters at all. But I have so many bruises on my legs and arms from tubing yesterday, I feel like someone beat the shit out of me. But what is even more fun is drunk tubing. Endless laughs!

So my weekend neighbors have been up for the past week or so. They come and go like I do, so we've never really talked, just waved on our way to wherever. They have a bunch of little girls who have been out in the woods at night screaming endlessly. I want to go hide in the woods and give them a real scare. I came home tonight with groceries and had been in and out of the house several times. While I'm gathering the rest of the bags in my hand, I turn around and here is a girl (maybe 11 or 12) standing not even 2 feet away from me. I'm all the way in the garage so I don't know how she so quietly snuck up on me (maybe she is part Indian), but she startled me. And I think I swore. Actually I'm sure I did. She was asking about the kittens who I was lucky to get rid of 2 days ago. Apparently she had been going into my garage and taking them outside to play with. I wondered in the back of my head how sometimes they would get outside. But she almost cried when I told her I got rid of them. Her dad (whose name I don't remember due to my lack of active listening skills) came over and I made small talk with him briefly. I assumed since it was almost 10pm and the kittens were no longer around that the little girl would follow her dad home. Wrong. She starts following me around in the garage and outside. I would take stuff inside and she would wait in the garage until I came back out. She even offered to help me, which I thought was sweet, but just go home already!

Yes, she did finally leave. And now I am a step ahead on getting to know my neighbors!

I guess I'm getting old...

I spent the Fourth of July at a friends cabin. There were a bunch of little kids there that entertained me as much as I entertained them. I spent a ton of time in the water tubing with the kids and spent probably a hour teeter tottering with a 3 year old 30 pound child. Someone taught her to say, "keep it moving lady." It was pretty much like doing a hour worth of squats. I'm pretty sore today. I also hung out with them and we did completely mindless activities. We fed the ducks, threw sticks into the lake and played catch with a beach ball. Sure I act like them, but my body isn't as young as it used to be.

The Five Degrees of Kevin Bacon

For lack of things to talk about, I am 5 people away from Kevin Bacon, here's how:

I picked up a hitchhiker last fall whose
daughter went to Interlochen Academy
who met John Travolta who
was in Look Whose Talking with Kristie Alley
who was in She's Having a Baby with Kevin Bacon!

And here is another:

I know a Mike
whose son went out with a girl
who was at a party and met Alyssa Milano (from Who's the Boss)
who appeared on The Tonight Show
where Kevin Bacon also appeared

How lucky am I? Yup, you don't have to say it, you're jealous!