Friday, February 15
The last week or so has looked something like this:
Thursday: Have great inner debate with myself on whether it's OK to go up to Blacksburg, given that my brother is still covered in hives from learning he's allergic to penicillin (thank you, modern medicine) as well as not entirely recovered from the disease he was taking penicillin for in the first place and my parents are still in Belize. Allow Dan and the bro to convince me. About two hours later, get a call. One of the first-calf heifers is miscarrying her calf. I've had more experience with this than the bro but I'm an hour and a half away, so I have to walk him through the nasty, messy business of a mispresentation and disposing of a dead calf over the phone. Note to self: listen to the inner debate next time.
What a day from hell. Sorry, bro.
(On the other hand, I assumed on the phone that his girlfriend -- who used to work on the dairy -- would be there to support him. Turns out she wasn't. *sigh*)
Friday: Oh, hey, nothing much actually happened this day, except fallout from the dead calf. Jude -- the cow -- has milk, which means we won't have to sell her, but we do have to milk her.
Saturday: Deathmarch our way through work so we can get down to Greensboro in time to catch the end of What the Hell?! Con. Small, free, and mostly webcomic artists. It was a hoot. I spent entirely too long hanging out and talking to ursulav and Otter, who probably thought I was being clingy. But I was mostly just being introverted ("Argh! Crowds of people! Cannot relate to crowds! Fine one person! Maybe two people! Relate to THEM!") I was pretty tired.
But we had fun, and will probably try to bounce through it next year.
Sunday: Go down to the Biltmore House with my roleplaying buddies. Despite living in Asheville for three years, I'd never been to the Biltmore -- largely because tickets run, like, fifty bucks, and I was a starving student and cheap besides. But one of the buddies had free passes so we made it a road trip.
I will say this for the Biltmore: it's HUGE. With an order of huge on the side. Seriously, 175,000 square feet? 99 bedrooms? Indoor pool and gymnasium? What were these people thinking?
It's also a bizarre intersection of the old and the new which is well worth seeing. To show off his wealth, the guy who built the place had full electricity put in -- this is in 1895, by the way -- and there are toilets in all the bathrooms (all 40 of 'em). But no sinks. Why? Well, they didn't see a reason for sinks; there were servants to bring you your water in the mornings. And many of the rooms still had chamberpots, as some guests were hazy on the toilet concept.
Well worth seeing. Even if the 45-mile an hour winds made it all a bit more exciting -- and chillier -- than I would have liked, especially the driving.
Monday: Prepare madly for the return of The Parents on Tuesday. Discover that the girlfriend hasn't been helping my bro milk the cow either -- a really tedious chore, since one cow isn't enough to fire up the machines for, and Jude, like most first-calf heifers, has a serious case of IBTs (Itty Bitty Titties). There is a muscle between the thumb and forefinger that apparently never gets used for anything but handmilking; if you only milk by hand, say, once a year, it hurts like bloody blazes. Especially if you're trying to get a grip on IBTs. And bro's been doing it by himself for three days.
*headdesk* Me and my choices of time off.
(In defense of the girlfriend, she had a lot on her plate, and she didn't grow up with this shit. I know better and really should have canned my weekend plans. Bad Kat, no cookie).
So milking. Jude at least does not have IBSTs (Itty Bitty Sensitive Titties); in fact, aside from occasional lunges to get the chickens out of her feed, she's perfectly well-behaved and never picks up a foot.
But all seems well aside from that, so I go home with the reasonable expectation I can face my parents in the morning without needing the hara-kiri knives.
Tuesday-Thursday: Be SICK AS A FUCKING DOG.
....yeah. Best laid plans, and all. Dan was coughing when we went to bed, I assumed as a hangover from last week's cold. I was not expecting him to wake me up at five am due to the sheer amount of heat his body was putting out. I wasn't expecting to feel the beginnings of coughing and general illness myself by the next morning. I certainly wasn't expecting to get to work, sans Dan, so exhausted that there was basically nothing to do but help Jim milk, check in with the parents, and huddle miserably over the heater until I could gather my strength for the drive home.
Being laid up for three friggin' days wasn't in the game plan, either.
And to add insult to injury, the fever had me so addled that for the first day and a half I couldn't even read. I kept passing out. What a waste of perfectly good guilt-free lie-in-bed time, I tell you!
*sulks*
I'm better now. We'll go in to work tomorrow, if nothing else to keep me from going stir-crazy. But seriously. The interesting times, I can has less of them now?
Thursday: Have great inner debate with myself on whether it's OK to go up to Blacksburg, given that my brother is still covered in hives from learning he's allergic to penicillin (thank you, modern medicine) as well as not entirely recovered from the disease he was taking penicillin for in the first place and my parents are still in Belize. Allow Dan and the bro to convince me. About two hours later, get a call. One of the first-calf heifers is miscarrying her calf. I've had more experience with this than the bro but I'm an hour and a half away, so I have to walk him through the nasty, messy business of a mispresentation and disposing of a dead calf over the phone. Note to self: listen to the inner debate next time.
What a day from hell. Sorry, bro.
(On the other hand, I assumed on the phone that his girlfriend -- who used to work on the dairy -- would be there to support him. Turns out she wasn't. *sigh*)
Friday: Oh, hey, nothing much actually happened this day, except fallout from the dead calf. Jude -- the cow -- has milk, which means we won't have to sell her, but we do have to milk her.
Saturday: Deathmarch our way through work so we can get down to Greensboro in time to catch the end of What the Hell?! Con. Small, free, and mostly webcomic artists. It was a hoot. I spent entirely too long hanging out and talking to ursulav and Otter, who probably thought I was being clingy. But I was mostly just being introverted ("Argh! Crowds of people! Cannot relate to crowds! Fine one person! Maybe two people! Relate to THEM!") I was pretty tired.
But we had fun, and will probably try to bounce through it next year.
Sunday: Go down to the Biltmore House with my roleplaying buddies. Despite living in Asheville for three years, I'd never been to the Biltmore -- largely because tickets run, like, fifty bucks, and I was a starving student and cheap besides. But one of the buddies had free passes so we made it a road trip.
I will say this for the Biltmore: it's HUGE. With an order of huge on the side. Seriously, 175,000 square feet? 99 bedrooms? Indoor pool and gymnasium? What were these people thinking?
It's also a bizarre intersection of the old and the new which is well worth seeing. To show off his wealth, the guy who built the place had full electricity put in -- this is in 1895, by the way -- and there are toilets in all the bathrooms (all 40 of 'em). But no sinks. Why? Well, they didn't see a reason for sinks; there were servants to bring you your water in the mornings. And many of the rooms still had chamberpots, as some guests were hazy on the toilet concept.
Well worth seeing. Even if the 45-mile an hour winds made it all a bit more exciting -- and chillier -- than I would have liked, especially the driving.
Monday: Prepare madly for the return of The Parents on Tuesday. Discover that the girlfriend hasn't been helping my bro milk the cow either -- a really tedious chore, since one cow isn't enough to fire up the machines for, and Jude, like most first-calf heifers, has a serious case of IBTs (Itty Bitty Titties). There is a muscle between the thumb and forefinger that apparently never gets used for anything but handmilking; if you only milk by hand, say, once a year, it hurts like bloody blazes. Especially if you're trying to get a grip on IBTs. And bro's been doing it by himself for three days.
*headdesk* Me and my choices of time off.
(In defense of the girlfriend, she had a lot on her plate, and she didn't grow up with this shit. I know better and really should have canned my weekend plans. Bad Kat, no cookie).
So milking. Jude at least does not have IBSTs (Itty Bitty Sensitive Titties); in fact, aside from occasional lunges to get the chickens out of her feed, she's perfectly well-behaved and never picks up a foot.
But all seems well aside from that, so I go home with the reasonable expectation I can face my parents in the morning without needing the hara-kiri knives.
Tuesday-Thursday: Be SICK AS A FUCKING DOG.
....yeah. Best laid plans, and all. Dan was coughing when we went to bed, I assumed as a hangover from last week's cold. I was not expecting him to wake me up at five am due to the sheer amount of heat his body was putting out. I wasn't expecting to feel the beginnings of coughing and general illness myself by the next morning. I certainly wasn't expecting to get to work, sans Dan, so exhausted that there was basically nothing to do but help Jim milk, check in with the parents, and huddle miserably over the heater until I could gather my strength for the drive home.
Being laid up for three friggin' days wasn't in the game plan, either.
And to add insult to injury, the fever had me so addled that for the first day and a half I couldn't even read. I kept passing out. What a waste of perfectly good guilt-free lie-in-bed time, I tell you!
*sulks*
I'm better now. We'll go in to work tomorrow, if nothing else to keep me from going stir-crazy. But seriously. The interesting times, I can has less of them now?
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