The time -- she is a'flying

[insert typical "I can't believe it's been so long since I've blogged!"] Okay, so I've been pretty busy. Last week I was in San Fran with Miss Kate and Mr Gene. Much fun and vodka was had. We were blessed by extraordinary weather. Sunny and seventy. Isn't that bliss. And we had lots of yummy food (we serve both kinds of food -- Japanese and Korean). No, really, it's a joy to be in a place with excellent Asian food. Even the food court in the mall around the corner was excellent. Our last night, we went to a Japanese place and we thought we were so smart because there was a Japanese couple eating there. Turns out that they were tourists (maybe Kate has already blogged about this), marveling over the fact that we could use chopsticks. I'm sure I will talk more about this trip later -- like the Asian Art museum fun Kate and I had (how MANY Buddhas do you see in this picture? Where's Buddha? I'll enlighten you -- har-de-har -- it's too late, I'm being silly)

Oh, yeah, my paper(s) went well. I was especially happy with my last minute parody paper. Kate and Gene's guffaws bolstered my humor and emboldened and embiggened me. I only wish I had written it down. My paper, like others on the panel, came dangerously close at times to making sense. That's because none of us had read the silly Korvac sequence when it originally came out like some fanboys.

One amusing animal encounter to report. After the redeye back Monday night and fighting over the armrest with my new "friend" for six hours, I finally got back to the cold and to my car at Logan Express. As I walked up, I saw a little chipmunk go running under my car and up into the undercarriage. Why are these little creatures following me? I beeped the horn a couple times and drove away, praying that I was not carrying a little furry corpse across state lines. Good thing I was so tired and had to concentrate on the road so I wouldn't kill myself to worry about Chip and/or Dale.

In other news, I took the cadet bowling club to West Point this Sunday. It was a long day but we were triumphant! My little freshman whipped on the upperclass Army guys. I feel so proud. I told them I was going to find a trophy of a bear bowling to give to them (that's our mascot).

And in other good news, before I turn to the poor. My paper was accepted at Mechademia AND I'm teaching the graphic novel course in LA this summer (that's six long weeks on the West Coast, and, as Kate has pointed out to me, three weeks in the Valley, like totally fer sure). More on this later.

And in bad news, I took Boo boo to the vet for her yearly checkup and she has been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. This means daily medicine for the rest of her life, or surgery, or she could go radioactive for a couple days as they kill the bad cells. This may or may not have the side effect of superpowers. I think I'm opting for surgery. The vet assured me that he has done a lot of these (there are more cases diagnosed in humans and in cats lately and nobody knows why) so I'm hoping to have it done during one of the windows when I'm not traveling. First, she must get her medicine -- tuna-flavored liquid. I did not savor the idea of force-feeding a pill. Apparently, with this disease, she will get hyperactive (and overeat and lose weight -- go figure).

I think everybody is caught up now. I'm sure I'm forgetting a million things (like I saw Jill while I was in San Fran - which was great).

Ta ta for now.

Flying Squirrels Part Deux: the colony fights back

Okay, so this story is old but I figured I needed something amusing to write about. Last Friday, I helped out my friend and we were walking around the house when she kept noticing things out of place. Like "that bucket has been turned over," "that lamp has been unplugged," and "I remember I neatly piled the stack of papers." This quickly turned into several thoughts "ghosts" or a "break-in" (yes, we went for the less plausible one first). Shrugging, we turned to the work at hand when I noticed movement a few feet away. Out popped a little squirrel from under a chair. Not wanting to freak out my friend, I just said to her in a firm voice "here, you need to come with me" and we left the room, closing the door behind us.

A wee flying squirrel had returned to the scene of the crime. I ducked back in the room to get my purse, coat, and her cell phone. On my second foray, despite all the noises I made, it was scrambling across the table toward me. I quickly shut the door and started to laugh. My friend tells me after the fact that the squirrel wrangler (well, the trapper) had told her that this particular breed are very sociable, nosy creatures. They walk toward sound instead of away from it.

So, I took off since there was nothing else I could do. The wrangler showed up. My friend called me later to say that the critter had been easily captured. In fact, the wrangler walked up to it on the second floor and it climbed into his gloves -- I'm not kidding. He theorized that it had been left over from the previous invasions and since they had sealed up the house so well, the poor thing couldn't find its way out. When we arrived, it was like "thank God, maybe these people can give me directions! Why are they shutting the door? Why are they laughing at me?" All of the curtains on the windows had been slightly parted as the squirrel stared out to the nature it couldn't get to. I have named it "Emily Dickinson."

I also like to imagine the rest of the colony coming up with plans to spring their family member.

Sunday afternoon challenge (wild animal edition)

I help out a woman on the weekends, cleaning out her parent's house, but on this Sunday we had some excitement. Her father had put out mouse traps because something was keeping him up all weekend by scrambling through the walls. This did not make my friend happy because she doesn't want the wee beasties to get hurt (although she didn't mind if we had brought a cat in because that's somehow more natural). Anyway, I hear a racket coming from the basement. I open the door to the stairs and at the bottom I see a larger animal (bigger than a chipmunk but smaller than a squirrel) pulling around a tiny mousetrap.

I think we need a bigger trap....

So, now we are stuck with a live, caught creature on a Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend. I think about all the friends I could call who would be tough enough to take care of the critter, but then I decided that none of them would be up to the job (think Annie Hall and the lobster incident). After a quick "sit-down," we started calling pest control agencies. Nothing. Then I suggested that we call the non-emergency number for the police. The helpful person on that end gave us the number for animal control (I keep wanting to write "anime" -- God help me). No one at the animal control line but they gave us the number for the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection, I think). There, we got a live person who, at first, was reluctant to come out because they don't deal with creatures in traps. But thankfully, because we were clearly panicked, he came out. He easily found it and released it out the garage door (where it bolted for the woods). Apparently, it was a flying squirrel (see also here). I didn't get a close look at it nor did I watch what the DEP guy did, because I really didn't want to see the poor creature killed if it came to that.

I suggested to the father of my friend that he should have trapped and tamed it. Then he could spend afternoons launching it into the air like a paper airplane until it circled back.