Gross but cool

This is an interesting article article describing doctors who have done fecal transplants to cure some very difficult cases. Hooray for good microbes!

Just stop it already

So sayeth the FDA: "Giving animals antibiotics in order to increase food production is a threat to public health and should be stopped."

It's getting better all the time

As the months pass since I left grad school, I feel like I am gradually becoming myself again. I didn't even realize I wasn't myself until I started to recover. It's like crawling out of quicksand, waking from a coma, emerging from fog, recovering from amnesia, escaping from a mental institution, ...

Things that are better:
- I have money in my savings account for the first time in an embarrassing number of years unless you count the $6.29 that was in there for the embarrassing number of years
- I have adequate health insurance, dental insurance, and vision insurance
- I have an actual retirement account with actual money in it, not a lot of money yet, but real money, not just wishful money
- After I pay my bills at the end of the month, there is some money left over
- I work with people who appear to genuinely value my input
- I am stretching my mind and abilities at work
- The smiles of people I work with are not masking dissatisfaction and disillusionment
- My managers seem to care that I am happy, satisfied, and successful
- I not only get to do research, but my the results of my work make a difference in the real world
- There are bunnies that hop around at work
- Hummingbirds and squirrels visit the tree outside my window
- I saw a baby lizard today
- The geese are going to have gosling soon (goose parades!)

Still, I miss my mental Micky when I'm not in Portland...

Achooo

Now that I have my very first big girl job that comes complete with health insurance, I decided to see an allergist to get tested and see what it is that I am allergic to. Two I was not surprised about: grass and dust. Two I was surprised about: dogs and cats! Hmmm... kitty and ben... I guess I'll just have to suffer! I am going to start getting allergy shots, though.

Small town girl

For the past, ummm, many years, I have lived in a medium-sized city. Before that, I had only lived in towns, the largest of which had a population around 100,000 (to the best of my recollection). Not only that, but I had lived in the South, where you say "Hey" to ALL people you pass on the street. Upon arriving in Portland, I quickly learned that speaking to people you pass on the street in a city causes them distress and it's best to say nothing, and at most give a non-threatening, tight-lipped smile that says "I'm not going to mug you, I just like your {dog, hat, bike, coat, whatever}." I watched the local news and learned that I needed to lock my door and not sleep with the windows open. I learned that there were dangerous parts of town that shouldn't be walked at night, especially not alone. I learned from experience to wear a guarded look on my face at bus stops so that I wasn't targeted by whatever crazy person was nearby.

Now, I find myself back in a town, population about 80,000. Foolishly, I brought all my city paranoia with me. I got an apartment that was not on the ground floor in case I wanted to open my windows. When I went jogging, I was quite cautious about where I ran. Over time, I have realized that I am probably the most scary thing here. I have slowly started to relax back into a small town girl, saying "Hey" and smiling at strangers. Boy, have I missed small town girl.

Green rolling hills

I went on a jog today in sunny California and took a couple of pictures I thought I would share to make you jealous.


Pretty, pretty. Today was about 60 degrees and just gorgeous. Of course, in the summer, those hills will be straw colored and it will be over 100 degrees...

Sunny California

Last Sunday, almost exactly one week ago (I left my house at 9:00 AM) I left Portland to go work in California. I'm working in the East Bay, and the drive was supposed to take 11 hours. I had never taken my car (94 Taurus wagon) on a long road trip, so I was a little nervous. Also, I hadn't ever traveled between Oregon and California in the winter and wasn't sure if there wouldn't be hazardous road conditions at the highest elevations. I didn't want to be the next news story about the person who took a wrong turn and ended up in the Oregon wilderness, possibly rescued, or possibly and tragically found frozen. Seriously, this happens multiple times every winter. Once you leave a town or city in Oregon, you are in the wilderness.

The first hitch occurred on Saturday. I opened my car's hood in an attempt to check fluids, etc. I checked my oil and added a little. Then I added some washer fluid. That is the extent of my automotive savvy, so I was prepared to stop there, when I glanced over at my battery. There was a bunch of fluff on top of it. Huh? How did that get there? Then I thought, I wonder if an animal was trying to build a nest in my car? I took a stick and poked the fluff and to my surprise, uncovered a nest of dead baby mice! (They could be rats, but I prefer to think of them as mice, thank you.)


Poor little guys. I don't drive very much, so I don't know when they were born. They also aren't very decomposed so I must have recently killed them. Mick helped me decide if the fluff had come from some important car component. We determined that it had not and that it was safe for me to make the trip.

I managed to get out the door by 9:00 AM on Sunday and was on the road with a full tank of gas. I made great time, because there were hardly any other people on the road. About 10:00 AM, I realized that I had forgotten crucial items: my I-9 identification documents! I knew that the organization I am working for would not let me start working without proper identification, so I turned around to go back home. Meanwhile, I called Mick to see if the documents could be overnighted. He called FedEx, who wanted $173 to get me the documents by Monday. Yikes! That was just too much money, so I drove all the way back home, picked up the documents and headed back out. Sigh. By this time, 11:00 AM, there were more people on the road. RVs were driving in the fast lane on hills, dummies were sitting in the passing lane matching the speed of the slow lane, etc. So, I added more than 2 hours onto my trip by having to go back...

After this snafu, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, except that I drank more coffee than I have ever drunk before in order to stay alert on my now 13+ hour drive. After getting out of the mountains in the north, the roads in CA are fairly straight, and speed limits are over 70, so driving was fairly easy and fast. I arrived a little after 10:00 PM, unloaded a few necessities from my car, and was done. Thankfully, my start date was Tuesday and I had Monday to recover from the stress of Sunday.

So, compared to Portland, probably everywhere is relatively sunny. Still, having only been here a week, I am constantly amazed that the sun is shining. There have actually been a couple of cloudy days and I did see evidence of precipitation on the ground, but really, the difference is amazing. Today, in JANUARY, it's sunny and supposed to be 63. I could get used to this! The only thing that casts a shadow over every day is that I miss Mick... He's busy in Portland with his many entrepreneurial endeavors and we'll have to settle for being together on weekends for the time being. Someone please invent teleportation so that I can work here and be in Portland for dinner. Beam me home, Scotty.