Poems from Borges

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida. En la próxima
trataría de cometer más errores. No intentaría ser tan
perfecto, me relajaría más. Sería más tonto de lo que
he sido, de hecho tomaría muy pocas cosas con seriedad.
Sería menos higiénico.
Correría más riesgos, haría más viajes, contemplaría
más atardeceres, subiría más montañas, nadaría más ríos.
Iría a más lugares adonde nunca he ido, comería más
helados y menos habas, tendría más problemas reales
y menos imaginarios.
Yo fui una de esas personas que vivió sensata y
prolíficamente cada minuto de su vida: claro que
tuve momentos de alegría.
Pero si pudiera volver atrás trataría de tener
solamente buenos momentos.
Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida
sólo de momentos; no te pierdas el ahora.
Yo era uno de esos que nunca iban a ninguna
parte sin un termómetro, una bolsa de agua
caliente, un paraguas y paracaídas; si pudiera
volver a vivir, viajaría más liviano.
Si pudiera volver a vivir comenzaría a andar
descalzo a principios de la primavera y seguiría
así hasta concluir el otoño.
Daría más vueltas en calesita, contemplaría más
amaneceres y jugaría más con los niños, si tuviera
otra vez la vida por delante.
Pero ya ven, tengo 85 años y sé que me estoy muriendo.

If I were able to live my life again,
next time I would try to make more mistakes.
I would not try to be so perfect. I would be more relaxed.
I would be much more foolish than I have been. In fact,
I would take very few things seriously.
I would be much less sanitary.
I would run more risks. I would take more trips,
I would contemplate more sunsets,
I would climb more mountains,
I would swim more rivers.
I would go to more places I have never visited.
I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans.
I would have more real problems, fewer imaginary ones.
I was one of these people who lived prudently
and prolifically every moment of his life.
Certainly I had moments of great happiness:
Don’t let the present slip away.
I was one of those who never went anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle,
an umbrella, and a parachute.
If I could live over again,
I would go barefoot, beginning
in early spring
and would continue so until the end of autumn.
I would take more turns on the merry-go-round.
I would watch more dawns
And play with more children,
if I once again had a life ahead of me.
But, you see, I am eighty-five,
and I know that I am dying.

overheard some funny kids

Exchange between a Mexican and Israeli kid:

Mexican: Are you Jewish?
Israeli: Yes.
Mexican: Wait a minute. Do you hate Hitler?
Israeli: Uh...
Mexican: I mean, like, if he were right here right now, all tied up, would you shoot him? Would you shoot him for what he did to your people?
Israeli: I don't know...
Mexican: I totally would! If he were messing with my kind like that? I'd be all like, "BANG, you stupid Hitler stay away from ma tacos!"

Attention

Attention all: I love Izze drink! So tasty! Favorite flavor so far: pomegranate.

http://www.izze.com/#products/izze

Animal Testing Free

Does anyone have a list of EASY TO FIND and AFFORDABLE products out there that aren't tested on animals? So far I've found White Rain, Nivea, and Organix. Burt's Bees was bought out by Clorox, so that's no longer on the table. I know there are a thousand companies out there that don't test on animals, but how many of those can I find at Walgreens or Copps?

1. Nivea
2. Organix
3. White Rain
4. ????

Thanks.

Mindful Eating

My boyfriend asked me why

I was staring at the cheese,

Why I smiled at the lettuce,

Why I relished breaking eggs.

My boyfriend asked me why

I took so long to make dinner,

And why I ate so slowly.

“Are you trying to get thinner?”

I explained it was no diet,

Nothing Oprah tried to sell me.

It was simply what was proper

When carving up a turkey.

It’s right to take some time, slow down,

And contemplate his life and death.

His meat I eat gives energy to these lungs,

So I offer him a thankful breath.

By cooking and eating slowly

And silently

It’s not to be weird or to be a bore.

It’s to take time to make my mind

Not see a just a leg of meat,

But so much more.

I continued:

On my cutting board I see the Sun.

That which holds us in orbit

At just the right distance

And fed these cucumbers I chop into pieces.

These greens to prepare require the Sun,

And I see that condition and existence are one.

Gently placing mushrooms in hot olive oil

I’m sautéing the world in a non-stick skillet

With a spoon made of stars,

Steam rises to my face,

Soaking it with volcanic vapors

From prehistoric Hawaiian islands.

The whole universe is working, right now,

To give me life.

I must remember the cosmos

That imbue this body and this brain with vitality;

They are staring right at me in this bowl of spaghetti.

I stare right back for a minute, drop all other things.

Even a cupcake is the remains of ancient kings;

I scatter the sprinkles on top

As delicately as I would their ashes on a tree.

That their works did not contribute to this snack,

There is no guarantee.

Before my first bite from a bowl of rice

I marvel for a moment.

I owe gratitude to countless beings

For each spoonful.

Trillions of organisms decayed

To bring forth fertile soil—

I eat their rotted corpses.

Millions of farmers toiled to master

The technique of growing rice—

I eat their sweat.

Businessmen manage the packaging and shipping

That brings rice to my grocery store—

I eat their college tuition.

With every grain I swallow,

I eat the precious universe.

I eat the sum of all that ever was.

So I take a spoonful and hold it on my tongue,

Breathing deep;

For there’s no greater crop

Than what the knowing stillness reaps.

He asked me then:

So if this rice you eat so tenderly

Is all the world to you,

Then what does that make me?

I answered:

In your eyes I see the Sun.

That which made the food grow

That you needed in your belly

To grow those long arms

With which you first held me.

This life of ours requires the Sun,

And I see that condition and existence are one.

by Christine Esche

Beautiful Writing from "Hold Love Strong"

My Aunt Rhonda was 17.  She was 5 foot 3 inches tall, 110 peanut-butter-brown pounds of a young woman, and the extreme of the lesson my mother was learning.  That is, she only knew loving herself through seeking, finding, and being hurt by men who did not love themselves nor comprehend the value of being someone cherished.

How did AIDS spread?  Where did crack come from?  What, who, if anything and anyone, was safe?  In Ever, brothers and sisters were fish and dying was the H, the 2, and the O of our lives.  So what did we do?  We did what anyone would do.  We breathed in dying and lived in dying as if dying and the baggage that came with dying were normal, like everywhere in the world mama stole from grandma and sold [herself] in the stairwell to get high.

Then [Nice] nodded once as if to bid us farewell and looked straight ahead, acted as if no one, nothing, not even he were there anymore.  He put the [prison] phone down on the table, rose from the seat, and balletically turning around he put his hands in his pockets and slowly walked away...I kept the phone pressed to my ear and listening to the fading drumbeat of Nice's footsteps on the concrete, I tried to shout his name, but instead I swallowed it, felt it lodge in the back of my throat like a sticky round stone until Nice was out of sight and his sound was gone and his name dropped in my gut, echoing, emanating until it became marrow.

"Hey," he said.  "You getting on or what?"  There was a jagged rock lodged in my throat, balanced on a precarious ledge.  I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight, saw red, and then I swallowed, opened my eyes , and said, "Go.  I'll get the next one," because if I didn't I would have climbed on the bus and looked at my mother out of the window and the rock in my throat would have plummeted, ripped a wound all the way to the soles of my feet instead of stopping in my stomach.

So Long. Farewell.

The vets next door had some kittens up for adoption.  Cuteness ensued.

We released the bears.  That was fun.

 

Then Meg and I had to clean all the bear poop from the bear cage.  That was not as fun.  Keep in mind we had been feeding 5 huge bowls of food to 7 bears for 4 months in this cage, and it had never been cleaned before this.

Then we released the eagles on route to Madison.  Here I am releasing a Red tailed hawk.

I left the center while we had some strange characters.  Here is a pet a friend of my boss couldn't care for during his vacation.  He had a familiar chirp.

The kittens.  Both with eyes open now, Black and White will soon go to a good home.

And of course, my boss and Meg.

Minocqua left me with some pretty scenes, cool experiences, a lot of knowledge about wildlife, different points of view, and a feeling that small towns can be pretty nice.  It sure beat the job I have now.  How I already miss that up nort' livin'.

Eagle Mania

I picked up this beauty yesterday:

We got another one in today with a broken and bloody wing. We had to kill him, though.

Well. One of the mice started convulsing and then died.  Then we tube fed the loon and we found him a half hour later face first in his bowl of minnows with barf in his mouth.  He's quite dead.

I pretty much became obsessed with Culver's Pumpkin Spice Malt.  It is the most amazing thing I have ever tasted.  Deciding that buying them at every cravetous whim was a waste of money and plastic cups, I found out how to make my own.  And it's delicious: http://www.ctlcolfax.com/maltrecipes.htm

A lady came by today and said, "I have some bear for you."

"What?"

"Some bear.  We shot a bear, skinned it, and are going to give it to you.  It's not full-grown.  Maybe 100 pounds"

"...okay."

So I had to carry an entire and whole skinned bear from her truck to our freezer.  At least they drained most of the blood.

We got in a very sad loon around 6pm.  He had fishing line wrapped all over his beak and tongue, we think he swallowed a hook, and we removed a hook and more line from his wing.  If he doesn't eat minnows on his own tonight we'll have to tube feed him somehow.  He's not even lifting up his lead by himself.

We also got in 2 baby Deer mice.  They are just opening their eyes and are fully furred, so very cute!

I picked up a bald eagle today from about an hour out of town. He has a shoulder problem but he's young so here's hoping he makes it okay.

We got in a baby deer the other day.  It was only days old, and very, very skinny, maybe only 5 or 6 pounds.  I tried to bottle feed it but he wouldn't take any.  Unfortunately, he died.

We also got in a white porcupine.  He's not albino, just a genetic freak.  Everyone is raving about him.  He's a local celebrity by now.  He'll be released this week.

Updates

Our Bald eagle that we've been tube feeding the past two weeks just died an hour ago.

I got to use a flame thrower to clean a cage.

We released the loon.

Our turtle is dying.

...correction: dead.

...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Ryan and I did not win the annual Minocqua Wife Carrying Competition, but we did finish, and I wasn't dropped. Good job, Ryan!

I ran through water and sand with 140 pounds on my back and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

We are still tubing the Bald eagle. He is still throwing up, smelling bad, and being really sad overall. But we've started to force feed him some venison. Let's hope he can keep it down.

All the baby mice died and we released 6 deer, 3 coyotes, 4 Great Horned owls, 1 fox, and 1 squirrel, so the center is getting pretty empty. We've had a couple new additions, but nothing that requires too much work. We spent a lot of time these last 2 days cleaning all these cages of mouse and rat parts, caked-on poop, pellets, and feathers. Gross.

fox release

We got a new loon who was caught in fishing hooks and line. He will call back to you if you whistle like a loon. We have to feed him over 100 minnows a day just to keep him quiet. He has quite the healthy appetite.

loon!

We also got a raccoon that we think may have distemper, but hope it doesn't. The thing about raccoons is that they are these balls of disease, basically. 86% of raccoons around here carry a roundworm called Baylisascaris that can easily transfer to any mammal, including us humans. If you come into contact with raccoon feces, you have a good chance of contracting or spreading the worms to other mammals. Eventually, these worms burrow through our systems looking for raccoon parts and end up burrowing into our eyes (making us blind) and, eventually, our brain (making us dead). Since baby raccoons require so much handling, we are not allowed to rehab baby raccoons for this reason. Adults, however, we do rehab, but have to be extra-super-for realz-careful with everything raccoon-related. We need to put their food and water bowls in boiling water every day (the worm eggs are only killed by being burned) and use doctor's gloves when going into their cages. Just more things for me imagine crawling on and within me while I lay awake in bed.

But it's so cute

There is definitely something alive in my room...

Oh, God. It's scurrying.

My Favorite

We euthanized my favorite patient today, the Barred owl.

a quick and painless death

He was a cool bird. They have the most piercing eyes, in my opinion.

"furry" legs and feet

We got a Bald eagle in yesterday. He's pretty sad, kinda lethargic, and ungodly stinky. When you open his room a terrible funk hits you like a red-hot bowling ball to the face. We've had to tube him 2 times a day. He bit me. Now my finger smells too, and it's bleeding.


Last night Meg and I had to tube him all by ourselves. I picked him up without problem and the tubing went well, but right at the end he threw up about a fourth of what we gave him. Our boss said that was common for dehydrated birds, so no worries.


So far he's not improving, but as long as he doesn't have West Nile virus or die from a lack of will to live he should be releasable, since he only has a slight shoulder luxation.

sad

Well, Look What The Cat Dragged In...During Ma Supper!

These Deer Mice are really great. The best thing about them is you have to feed them at 8AM, 11AM, 2PM, 5PM, and 8PM, drop by drop, slowly, so as to not kill them. But that barely tops the fact that you need to rub their genitals with a warm, wet towel after feeding them so that they'll go to the bathroom. This is cool too: you can tell if you've fed them enough by looking through their transparent skin and organs and look to see how much milk has entered their bellies. Oh, and usually they die before they get to grow up and get fur and eyes and stuff. So it's all worth it, really.

We have 2 out of 5 left. Stay strong, little survivors.

Updates

So that animal was not a baby mole. It was an adult shrew. Oops.

One of the hummingbirds died.

My sad little chipmunk has died.

One of our Red tailed hawks broke his thumb so we had to put him in bandages and a small cage.

We also lost some more birds who only stayed the night - they either died or Mark put them down.

Bur all our squirrels are doing just fine, and we got another baby one.

Mole-y Mole-y!

We got a baby mole today. But he died on the exam table.


We also got a finch, but he died over night.


The chipmunk ain't doing so hot. He's pretty sad.

15-hour workday fun

We were welcoming a basically work-free nighttime schedule, as the only "baby" left was this one little squirrel who took 10 minutes to feed at 8pm.

The baby flying squirrel

But then the flood came. I answered the first phone call at 6pm.

"I found a baby squirrel, what should I do?"

I call my boss and he says to have it brought in. Of course, these people aren't willing to bring it. They have to work the next day and they are from, God bless it, Rhinelander, which is a whole whopping 30 minutes away. So they make me call about 10 volunteers, asking them if they will pick up this squirrel on a Saturday night. Finally someone agrees.

10 minutes later I get another call. It's another baby squirrel. I say bring it in. Of course, they just can't tonight and can't I come get it? As if we're some sort of ambulance service. So here I go again (of course not remembering which volunteer drivers I had already called that night) trying to find a driver. Someone takes the job.


I hang up the phone and before I even lift my hand from the receiver it rings again. It's the police. A woman, they tell me, is going to be bringing in a woodpecker.

"Okay."

So this woman and her two little girls come in with this plastic bag. The woodpecker is inside it. I quickly bring it to the exam room and shut the door. As I try to get it out of the bag it lets out a death cry. Those poor children probably thought I was torturing it. It wouldn't stop screaming and I just put it in a cage since I was alone in the center and couldn't examine a bird on my own quite yet. I call the other intern and tell her to come back to the center asap because I'm waiting for squirrels and don't know what to do with this woodpecker. We try to examine the bird, but she is very feisty. We drop her about 6 times and finally determine that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this animal. Sure enough, she could fly and we released her the next morning.

I get another call around 8:30pm. A woman has found a chipmunk in the road who is acting funny. She agrees to bring it to the center. A half hour later she calls back and says she can't get him into the blanket because he is too squirmy.

"Fine. I'll come get him."

She tells me she's on Highway D and I trust I can find that. She assures me she was only 15 minutes from Minocqua, but it takes at least a half hour to get to her. I take the chipmunk and drive him back. We give him some steroids. He acts strangely, stumbling, losing his balance, falling over, dozing in and out. We suspect he was hit by a car. He is still not doing so hot today. And, he has a huge bug living inside his belly. We pull it out. It is the size of his foot:


The last squirrel comes around 9:45pm. He is just a baby so we feed him some water and electrolytes, put them on a heating pad, and then head up to bed around 10:30pm.

They all survived the night!

We got an adult squirrel today who was not as fun to behold as the baby squirrels the night before. His face was bloody, there was blood in his mouth, he kept tipping over. We don't know what happened to him, but he has survived the day and is looking better and better as the day goes by.

getting ready for food

We spent at least one hour today listening to children's songs about moose and bears and looking up youtube videos of of hammer dulcimers, at my boss' request.

"My paw's bigger than your paw!"

In between the dancing, youtubing, moose impressions, and receiving and catching new animals, we still fed the usual patients. I fed the Great-horned owls:

The hummingbirds:


And many others. Three more days of work and then I go to Madison for a couple days off. I'm pretty stoked about sleeping in.

Odds and Ends

We've released some animals: a loon, a hawk, a Barred owl, a deer mouse, and a squirrel.

Go, little Deer Mouse. Go!

We've also killed some animals: a hawk and a nighthawk.

We are feeding the Great-horned owl real food now instead of tubing him. When I go to give him his mice every morning her greets me with a very grateful expression:



I've been filling up the Bald Eagles' water tub lately, which requires me to sit with the hose in their cage for about 10 minutes at a time. They don't like it very much and those that can fly circle around me the whole time, and those that can't fly jump and run around, complaining vocally.

Hali and her 4 "adopted children"


The young Bald Eagles


Hali and a youngling who can't fly well

I've also been feeding the barred owl a lot lately. He's one of my favorites.

yum


"What, no ketchup? "

I went to a lumberjack show on my day off in neighboring Woodruff. You know a place doesn't have much to do when they boast that their main attraction is a huge penny:

"Woodruff Wisconsin: Home of the World's Largest Penny"

But it was really fun. Even more fun than the display of a huge penny.



I'm on day 2 of my 7-day-long work stretch. I'm already exhausted, but am really, really (really) going to try to get 9 hours of sleep tonight at least so I can be awake for 5 more days or work, work, and work.

At least there is rumor of fresh doughnuts tomorrow morning (!).

Also, I am psyched about Monday. Hnue Yang starts work, which means extra hands and less work for everyone. Also, we are starting at 8am instead of 7:30am. An extra half hour of sleep will go miles.

Gone!

The Chimney Swift has been released! No more birds to force feed every hour!