the second day the first post

In other words, I meant to write this yesterday.
Ah, yesterday. A MONDAY. A day of getting up early for class that you haven't been to in a week. A trial on any occasion.
Although, the Monday-ness was greatly increased for me. To start with, I woke up before my alarm went off because of a cramp. By the time I got to breakfast the cramp was so bad that I had to force myself to eat 3/4 of a muffin just so I could take some medicine. It hurt. It hurt so bad that I was getting nauseous. (That would be reason number 2 for my small breakfast).
I made it to my first class of the day, uncomfortably warm, with a stomach that was beginning to tie itself into nasty knots. By the time that the teacher came in, I was aware that I was not going to be able to sit through the class and had to ask to go to the health clinic.
I'm in college, so I'm aware that I didn't have to ask, but I happen to think its rude to just walk out of class- especially since I enjoy that class...
It took me longer than it should have to get to the clinic, there's construction blocking off the most direct route. I'd taken off my hoodie even though it was cold enough to see my breath at times- I was way too warm. I'd also caught a glimpse of my face.
If you know me, especially if you're my family, you probably know that my face is a pretty good indicator of how sick I feel. I'm not talking about expression, I'm talking about hue- I'm naturally pale, but my face tends to get nasty white when my stomach is doing its nausea bit.
I made it to the clinic without getting sick, showed my campus ID and sat down in their lobby- where I was sick in their trashcan. I figure that's what it was there for, since they have a lot of them in there.
They moved me to a back room until the Doctor could see me to tell me what I already knew- bad cramps were causing my nausea and the medicine that I'd taken earlier wasn't working at all. They gave me something else and had me lie down with a heating pad.
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up feeling much better, almost fine. I was also about 10 minutes late for my next class. Wheee.....
I'm fine today, and I was fine the rest of yesterday. It was just something different, so I figured that I'd talk about it.

Time that passes too tediously quick

If that title made sense to you, you may want to read it again.
This is a post about time, of which I have about twenty-four minutes to rant about until I leave for work.
So, I get to go home this weekend, but I leave Sunday morning. Today, and tomorrow, seem to be taking forever. Tomorrow twice as long as today, since it's not even here yet.
And yet- the time passed way too quickly this morning. I had two tests today- one of which I'm particularly upset about.
One of my English classes (I'm in two) had a test today. I spent much of last night studying. With the result being that when I took the test this morning, I'm fairly confident on my score on the multiple choice/ quotation identification section. The thing that has me twitchy was the essay. With thirty minutes left on the clock, I grabbed the essay prompt, selected one, and pulled quotes out of the books- yes, it would have gone much faster without the quotes, unfortunately they were required. Having pulled my quotes, I started to write.
I don't know if whoever is reading this has ever had to read my handwriting, so I'll just say it. My handwriting is pretty messy, especially if I'm in a hurry (this usually means taking notes or trying to capture a fleeting idea). But even my regular not-rushed writing can usually only be read by me without unreasonable difficulty. Anything I give to friends or family to read is usually rewritten with my taking express care to keep it legible.
This meant, since having an illegible essay would be worse than useless, I had to write a bit slower. I had finished my opening statement and was midway into the second paragraph when the teacher said we had five minutes. Nice writing flew out the window.
Even with the nice writing dying a silent death, I only managed to finish the paragraph I was working on and start the first half of the other. When the professor told us to finish our sentences, I abandoned all pretense of explaining my quotes and simply threw them out there.
So I had to turn in a paper that cuts off in the middle of the third/fourth paragraph, one which has no closing statement whatsoever.
I've never not finished an essay before.
I feel SO twitchy about it.

Captured!

It finally happened! It really ought to be Fruit Bat posting this, since she's the one who puts so much effort into the local cats, but she's got homework and I've got time.
Mama kitty, the feral cat we've known for about two years now has been caught!
I'm not sure I ever really thought it would happen- this is the cat who snuck into the trap, ate the bait, and got back out without tripping it. This is the cat who would run whenever she saw us when we first met her.
This is also the cat that Fruit Bat has been working tirelessly to build trust with.
And boy did it pay off.
FB's been feeding the cats all year, and recently she's been sitting outside with them while she fed them, and made good progress. Zant, Mama kitty's son, not only lets her pet him now, but wants her to pet him. Fine distinction, that, but one that anybody who's ever owned a cat will recognize. Recently, Mama's been acting more friendly toward FB- allowing herself to be petted and such. FB decided to pull out the old trick from Operation Cat-in-bag of last year, with which we caught Mama's three kittens Solstice, Saul and Midnight. She decided to train Mama/Zant to eat in the pet carrier.
Yesterday she set it out, only putting the food in it close to the door, since I do believe it was only the second consecutive day that she was working with it. Mama-kitty put her head in to eat- her body blocking Zant, who pouted.
Due to this interaction however, the can of food got pushed to the back of the carrier, and Mama stepped all the way in. FB slowly closed the door, so slowly that Mama didn't notice until it was latched, and freaked out.
Ordinarily, when we catch a cat, we take it to a local vet to get them neutered/spayed. And Mama will be getting spayed- but right now she's about a week away from having kittens. FB has a coworker who will be looking after Mama while we wait for the birth- cursed dorm and its no pet rules!
Its exciting to finally see that she's been caught, but its also bizarre. From day one, August 2008, we've seen Mama-kitty around campus. Now she's not here... At least she'll be returning here once she's spayed though. Zant misses his mom.
The father of this batch of kittens is a cat we've named Capricorn, after the villain from Corneilia Funkle's INKHEART book. This is because Capricorn is really NOT a pretty cat, or even a nice one. He was smacking Mama around when he was "flirting" with her. Jerk. FB's REAL interested in getting him neutered. Especially since she went to all the trouble of getting the males in this area neutered in hopes of preventing any more kittens.

So far the cat-colony over here consists of:
Mama-kitty: female (captured, pending spay). Mother of Midna, Zant, Solstice, Saul, Midnight, and four other kittens.
Abel: male, neutered. Father of Midna, Zant. Possible father of Solstice, Saul and Midnight.
Zant: male, neutered. Brother of Midna. At least half-brother of Solstice, Saul and Midnight.
Trowa: new male. Unneutered. Shy. No known relation to other cats.

Valentine's Day

Yes, it is once again V-day, or as I learned to call it in high school- S.A.D. (Single's awareness day.)
Fruit bat got me some valentine's day chocolate, so I got her some at the last minute last night... >.<;
Getting up this morning, I had one real goal. Pancakes. Every year on valentines day we have pancakes in my family- pancakes cut in the shape of hearts. I got to the cafeteria just in time, and grabbed a couple of plain pancakes. It took some doing with a fork- but I managed to cut them into the shapes of hearts before actually working on eating them.
Since I'd gotten up for breakfast I had a lot of time to kill before I had to leave for church- so I went online to my home church's page and got started on one of my pastor's sermons. It felt like a slice of home to hear a familiar voice.
Church itself was pretty good- the pastor told us the story of Saint Valentine- which I had never heard.
Apparently, Valentine was a priest in the Roman empire, particularly noted for encouraging young people to get married and serve Christ together in a partnership. At this period of time though, Rome was getting ready for a war, and hadn't been having much luck in recruiting new soldiers- older men didn't want to leave their wives, and younger men wanted to get married. So the emperor made a decree that there were to be no new marriages. Valentine opposed this, and continued to marry people in secret- eventually he was discovered and imprisoned. The emperor went to meet with him, and was so impressed by Valentine that he offered to pardon the man and absolve him of his crimes, if he would only renounce his Christian faith and become a pagan minister of the Roman deities. Valentine refused, and was executed some few days after.
Before the execution however, his guard had discerned that Valentine was a wise man, and had been bringing his daughter, Julia, to learn from him. The day of his execution, Valentine gave a letter to Julia, thanking her for having been such a good student, and signed, "Your Valentine."
I thought it was interesting anyway.

It wasn't a cat

Really, it wasn't. I'm sort of just throwing this out here, since I haven't posted in forever, so expect this to be fairly rambling in nature. (As if any of my other posts AREN'T rambling.)
I'm sure you know this, but Fruit Bat catches cats on campus (alliteration for the win!) and gets them spayed/neutered before re-releasing them. Well, last night, she set out her trap once again, and we managed to convince ourselves to leave it out all night.
She often worries that someone will find and steal the trap- as she's had it happen before. I haven't had it happen before, and can't imagine what someone would want with it, so I don't worry so much. The result of leaving overnight though, was that we needed to check on it this morning and put it away.
In the trap, was not a cat, as rarely happens. It was not even empty, as OFTEN happens. It was full, of the only marsupial native to North America.
Yeah. We caught a possum.
There are two which hang around this area that we've seen for sure, a big one and a little one. (Thus we automatically assume that the large one is the mother and the smaller one the infant.) Fortunately for us, we'd caught the smaller of the two. The tricky part was letting it out- opossums have a heck of a lot of teeth, and are carriers of rabies.
Needless to say, neither of us wanted to get bit. Unfortunately, once Fruit Bat got the trap door open, the kooky critter didn't want to leave. Oh, it was definitely scared and upset- it kept growling and hissing at Fruit Bat, but leaving the cage seemed like a bad idea.
So, we made it a non-option. We weren't going to be late for class. It WAS going to get out. We found a stick and wedged it so that the trap door wouldn't close, then Fruit Bat upended the cage. It took some shaking- the darn thing had wound it's tail through the bars to avoid being forced out, but she finally got it out of the cage. Shortly after, it disappeared into the bushes.
Such fun times- at 7:30 in the morning.
On other notes of this already out of tune post, Fruit Bat's fallen prey to the same inclination I got around this time last year, and has purchased some dirt and a pot- though it's a hanging pot, as the fate of my pot last year was to be tipped over off of the paltry windowsill (none of the seeds I planted so much as sprouted after that.) It's a decent sized pot, and its distance from the window lets me hope that any sprouts we acquire will be unable to plaster themselves against the glass- and therefore die at the first hint of cold weather. Yes, that's what happened to my sprouts last year.
We have quite a few things planted in this pot though, and I can only imagine the battle that will ensue in this soil. First off, FB's reason for getting the pot is that she's had a horseradish-bulb for a while now and was starting to worry that it was going to die if she didn't plant it. Secondly, there's my ill-fated balsam of yesteryear. I'm trying not to hope, but I so want to see flowers that I helped grow.
My family is a little strange- both of my grandmothers had wonderful green thumbs, but my mother is lucky to manage to keep her plants alive. I'm afraid that this will be the case with me as well... I must do research on hardy plants!
The third thing in the pot (besides the dirt) is Lavender, which Fruit Bat grows from time to time. We only planted it last night, so it'll be about a week before I can expect anything to happen.
*frets*

Cold Shower

Yes, the two words that dictate an awful experience in the hygiene department. I’ve been annoyed all day by the simple fact that the water has been cold. Thus, I have not been able to take a shower, until just now. While I was typing up the first two sentences I had the shower running just to see if the water would warm up. I wasn’t very hopeful since earlier today I ran the water for 45mins to see if it would EVER warm up for me. It never did but randomly, just now, the water was hot. It’s still hot too. I don’t understand it. I complained once and they sent a plumber to our dorm. I really hadn’t expected them to follow through with my complaint since last time it took about a week before anyone came.

Vul avoided the plumber and left me to talk to him. I’m like my mom in the respect that if I’m paying an absurd amount for something and it’s not in tip-top shape I’ll make them fix it. I’m a tad nicer though and not nearly as scary. That only occurs if it involves family, friend, or animal safety.

Anyways, the plumber explained that when there isn’t water running thorugh the pipes that the water gets cold. Duh, something we all know but here’s the stupid part. Whatever genious built the plumbing made it so that the water comes into each dorm from separate pipes and are all heated in certain places throughout the building. So, when a lot of people are gone, say on Christmas break, and there’s not a lot of water flowing through all the pipes, the water is cold.

I still don’t quite understand it but regardless, since there aren’t enough people taking showers, flushing the toilet, or washing their hands or faces, etc. the water to my dorm and any other poor unfortunate person who had to stay here is cold. At random times though the water will be warm/scalding hot which makes me wonder if the plumber was wrong and if there isn’t some hidden switch somewhere that merely needs to be flipped. Oh well, I shall take note of the time and see if the water it hot again tomorrow night at the same time. I’m going with the theory that it’s on a timer now. I’ll soon discover if I’m correct and I really hope I am.

Earlier during my third attempt at running the water for half an hour:

Talking aloud to myself: “Nope, the sink is cold. Now let’s go see what the shower says...cuz’ the shower can talk...”

I think I need some people time. LOL

The Rogue

I’m very disappointed in Momma kitty. I woke up late, dressed, and moseyed down the hall and stairwell, out to my truck to feed her and Zant like I do every morning. After giving them food I was permitted to pet Zant. He didn’t mind either! Momma even let me pet her and leaned into my hand until she realized that I was touching her. She leapt away from me and gave me her best offended look. It was amusing though. She liked being petted.

The disappointment came later when I pulled into the parking lot after my trip to the store to get some Kleenex. A rogue male cat was hanging out with her, and Zant was acting very skittish. I hopped out of my truck glanced at Momma who was crying for more cat food and then back at the male cat. “I don’t approve.” I told her pulling some food from the back of my truck. I expected the male to run off, and wanted him too, but he didn’t. Instead, he watched me give her and Zant food. I wouldn’t mind if he hung around IF Momma kitty was spayed but she’s not.

Unfortunately, I have not seen Momma kitty since he showed up today. Zant is acting cautious and freaked out now that he’s on his own. I’m not pleased and I have no idea when I’ll see Momma kitty but I know that when I do she’ll be pregnant, again. I plan on using this to my advantage though. I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve and I will trap her and get her fixed 0ne way or another.