Noodle

Noodle, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

^ I wish I could as relaxed as Canoodle is right now.

My parents, grandma and great grandma are coming to dinner tonight. Despite my efforts, my house is still a bit of a mess. It's not terrible. Thomas and I have been tackling the kitchen off and on all weekend. Most of the dishes are clean.

It's mostly just STUFF. Stuff is everywhere. There are chargers here and there, onions on the table, the picnic basket fell onto the ground by the doorway, clean laundry on the chair ready to be put away, tons of dirty laundry in every room, kitty litter around the bathroom, the shower needs to be cleaned and the toilet should be scrubbed. Those are the dirtiest jobs ahead.

Between the heat and my headache (and the fact that Thomas is at work,) I keep having to motivate myself. The best way I have found is just telling myself. "Ok, for the next half hour don't clean. Just move things to where they belong." Even with that plan in mind I get sudden urges to grab the windex and sparkle up whatever area it was I was working in.

I am also expecting my wedding ring today <3 Thomas bought it for me. Here it is!! UPS said to expect it today. Sometime before 4pm??

*looks at the clock*

It is 3:50 now, I am going to go check as a break from cleaning.

Great Fun

turkeyvulture, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

I was able to make it to the volunteer orientation meeting. It was more of a tour than anything else. The actual volunteering won't begin for a while for me. We have a bunch more paperwork to fill out, fingerprints to get done and another "official" orientation meeting to complete before we can even ask about being volunteers.

But, the tour was priceless. Mary Crede, who is in charge of the volunteers, was very nice and let us all know many times that the work is dirty, physical and not very animal involved. That didn't seem to bobther anyone there.

We got a back-stage tour of the zoo and some more information about the animals that I didn't know. The ocelot, Ozzie, is a confirmed bachelor who enjoys his solitary existence. More often than not, he can be found sleeping in the highest hollow log. The red-tailed hawk was kept in an old-school style exhibit (meaning mostly concrete and bars) for 20 years. She was let into a new enclosure 2 weeks ago and, while it frightened her at first, she now loves the fact that she can be in the sun and she flies all of the time.

The bald eagle from the San Francisco zoo is in poor shape, when they got him years ago he was missing his right eye and his right wing is broken beyond repair. He cannot fly. The male mule deer was castrated too early by the vet students at Cal State Davis. They did it in the wrong season and now his body doesn't function like it should. His antlers should shed each year like most deers, but they don't. They are disfigured and occasionally bleed when they are hit. The male mule has lost 30 pounds this last week after his life-long mate passed away. They aren't too sure how he is going to come out of it.

We were introduced to one of the mountain lions. He was a beautiful cat that came back to the holding area at the call of his keeper (he was looking forward to food.) While he did hiss a lot, we were told he is one of the friendlier mountain lions you will find in captivity. Even as such, nobody ever enters the enclosures with them or the bears.

Speaking of the bears, I got to feed one! Sure, just some grapes and a bit of banana. But, how awesome! The bears are now some of my favorite animals at that zoo. After seeing all the character they have, wow.

We got to hear a little about each animal there. Some of it surprised me. Like, the turkey vultures are frightened of any people that attempt to get near them. I had always assumed carrion-eaters would have a little back-bone....but I guess that is why they eat the dead, right?

Sickness

Pony, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

Thomas and I have both been sick the past couple of days. Mostly very bad sore throats, coughing and a slight fever. It doesn't feel good. My energy has been zapped. Which is sad because tomorrow is the volunteer orientation at the zoo.

I'll go whether there is rain, hail or zombies....I just wish I had more energy for it. It's only 2 hours. When I went to the store, I got dizzy and had to sit for a while. Hopefully, that won't happen again. The zoo is small though. We get a backstage tour, they tell us what the various duties are and we talk about scheduling (I believe.)

My mom and grandma are coming up on monday for dinner. Thomas and I are going to make our favorite spanish rice recipe with enchiladas.

Unintelligent Public

Goat...Baaaaah, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

I recently had someone call to make reservations at our hotel. The conversation went as follows:

Myself: Thank you for calling Inns of America Suites, this is Allison, how can I help you?

Guest: Yes, I was just on your site and I was trying to make reservations. When I got to the payment section, it said it was not a secure site and I don't want to put my credit card in there.

Myself: But you are alright with providing your credit card number over the phone with me? Because I do need to have one to confirm your reservation.

Guest: Yeah, that's fine, I have it right here.

Myself: Do you mind if I ask where you got our phone number?

Guest: Oh, on your website.

It's a Gamble

Diced, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

We have an employee at work who has performed poorly since she has arrived. There have been numerous complaints about her by co-workers and we find mistakes from her all of the time.

While my Assistant General Manager was on vacation, we had someone who came to me with a verbal complaint. I took notes so that I could go over it with my AGM when she returned. Some of the things on the list were "Seems uncaring, talks on the phone?, may come to work hung-over, drawer shortages, reservation mistakes..." etc. After I had talked about it, I thought I disposed of it. I guess I didn't

The employee found the list and called me to say she was "hurt by it." I claimed I had no idea about the note and I wouldn't until I saw it and spoke to my AGM about it. I am sure she didn't believe me, saying she thought it looked like my handwriting. Now, I couldn't tell her those wee not my opinions. The person making the complaint wanted it to be confidential. I couldn't tell her we plan on firing her within the next week. I couldn't say I knew about it but couldn't talk to her....it obviously had to do with her.

It's bugging me a lot. I know it was my mistake that the note was not fully disposed of. I am trying to prevent another mistake from occuring on my part.

Although, part of me has said, "She makes your job SO much harder, she doesn't communicate with you and (besides leaving the note out) you have done nothing wrong. Also, she will be gone soon and all from her own doing." Money missing from the cash drawer on her shift, failing to follow procedure, unresponsible behavior at work, talking on her cell phone at the front desk....I could go on.

As soon as I was off the phone with her, I called my AGM and told her the story on her voice message. I will confess to mistakingly allowing her to see the note. I don't believe I did anything else wrong.

I just still feel like crap.

Frigg'n Kitty

Frigg, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

Thomas has to take these classes that are being offered by the state for his field. They take up a large part of our saturdays together. Which is a little sad, Saturdays being the only day that we both have off work. Normally our Saturdays consist of a trip to the local zoo, Boomers, a movie or the like.

We might still try and have a private bonfire, just the two of us, a fire and some s'mores.

Only two more weekends and we will be free!

I'm hitting trouble with my college. When I had applied for admission, it was during the spring intersession. Nobody could sign up for summer yet. So, when the summer term did become available, I went to look for classes and found that I was being rejected! Since I had not applied for the summer term and I had not actually attended classes for spring, I need to re-apply. The application process takes a couple of weeks.

So, while I wait, I figured I would look at the classes and try to pick out the ones that I could take.

Well, since I visited the counselor, I have a better idea of which classes exactly I need to take. None of the pnes I know I need are available to me right now during the summer sessions. Either because the course is not offered in summer or because I haven't finished the assessment tests for math and english.

I am guessing that is what I need to do next. Come Monday, I should be signed up for both math and english assessment tests. I need to get studying in math.

Spices

Last night Thomas got the urge to make some home-made mexican rice. He loves mexican rice but the last time he tried it home-made his mom had done it up. She ruined it! He was a bit skittish about trying it himself because of this.....but the need for good mexican rice over came that and so last night we started.

He went to the store and got all of the ingredients for the rice and some home-made chicken enchiladas. Once he came hom we got to work on it. I was in charge of browning the rice in olive oil while he put together the enchilada sauce. The chicken was boiling on it's own. We decided that didn't need as much attention.

We both discovered that we love the smell of cumen.

As the spices were stirred and heated, we began drooling. It smelled wonderful already (and, the morning after, our kitchen still smells wonderful!) Getting the enchiladas read in the pan was much harder so we resorted to layering the ingredients, like my cousin, Tiera, does. That worked fine.

Everything came out and tasted amazing. We stuffed ourselves. It was worth every bit of work put into it. The only problem being that I doubt I could eat mexican rice from places like El Pollo Loco again.

Mountain Lion

mountainlion, originally uploaded by Lostfiniel.

I've talked to the college counselor. There is a lot of work ahead. We have to "fix" some of my old, bad grades I got at Palomar and I have to take a lot of classes before I even begin to think about transferring to a four year. (Which, by the way, will be Cal State Fullerton.) But, I have picked out my degree. A Bachelor's in Biology with a concentration in Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation Biology.

To tell you the truth, I am one of the last people I thought would be taking classes in conservation. Case in point, one of my favorite non-fictional books is "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Lomberg. But, I'm actually looking forward to it.

It will be interesting being in a field where conservation is such a major issue. I wonder how many people go into animal care with the kind of attitude I do?