Argh.

Caramel chewed through the water bottle at 1:30am. I'm getting worried-- Merlyn and the girls are too old to be going without water for long periods of time, and I can't replace the fricking fifteen-dollar water bottles multiple times per month, and a bowl just isn't sanitary for them. Juggler, I think I'll need to grab that acrylic sleeve from you and see if that helps. I'm almost wishing I knew of a good home for Caramel at this point. *sigh* He's prolly got the rest of them trained to it anyhow.

So there I was at 1:30 am, and I was really angry. I did all the things I needed to do-- scooped out the sludgy mewspaper-with-rat-waste from the bottom of the cage (the bottle had been full), replaced it with clean newspaper after a wipe-down, experimented with plugging the hole in the bottle, found a clean bowl, filled it with water, tried to prop the bowl somewhere it wouldn't get 1) peed or pooped in from above or 2) knocked over when they put weight on the edges to drink from it. At the back of my head, though, was the terrifying thought: I wish it was just Caramel, cause then he'd go thirsty for awhile and he'd be trained that actions have consequences.

Now, I'd never act on that, because it's both erroneous and mean. Erroneous, because the kind of things that understand consequences in a chain like that are called adult humans, mostly, and don't get owned by people and especially don't get kept in a cage as pets. Mean, because if something can't understand that sort of thing, punishing them for it is a gratuitous act of vengeance. Somehow, it made me angrier because I've played with them so much over the last two days.

I hate it when I feel like that, though. I know it's normal, once in awhile, but I have a very uncomfortable relationship with my own anger. Bah. Any ideas on how to get water to the babies without them having anything chewable within bite-range either inside or outside the cage? (the water bottles rest outside the cage along the bars. I'd had the closest piece to the bars taped-and-plasticked off so they couldn't chew it, and so they just chewed the next-closest spot, near the bottom of the bottle).

In other news, and much more pleasant news, I watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with my roommates and Juggler last night. It was a pretty awesome movie. What does it say about me that I found it romantic? That and Secretary. Oh, well. Fun movie, anyhow.

Today I go to work for a bit, to make $$, which will be nice.

Nothing much is happening in my life, as you can guess, since I've been lying around sick a lot. Notice the lack of entertaining Greenie-bits?

Hah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4144782.stm

So, this means that poly is holding on to unhealthy relationships for too long? :>

I Wonder...

How many other people have been looking at maps.google.com sattelite photos of the 'old' NO and trying to compare them to the current news pics?

Haha.

CNN has stopped trying to recruit me for the US army with ads that tell me I'll 'be a man' 'get free schooling in whatever I want' and 'be able to look my dad in the eye' if I join the army before it'll let me watch news clips.

I have the strongest urge to repost that newyorker army parody recruiting link, but it's only been two weeks.

The story about the college kids who drove in with forged press passes and evacuated seven people is pretty awesome.

Seen Somewhere

These tenses--past, present and future--are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind is the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future. Past is that which is no longer before you. Future is that which is not yet before you. And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past.... If you don't cling to the past...because clinging to the past is absolute stupidity. It is no longer there, so you are crying for spilled milk. What is gone is gone! And don't cling to the present because that is also going and soon it will be past. Don't cling to the future--hopes, imaginations, plans for tomorrow--because tomorrow will become today, will become yesterday. Everything is going to become yesterday. Everything is going to go out of your hands. Clinging will simply create misery. You will have to let go.
- Osho The Great Zen Master Ta Hui Chapter 10

Points for idiosyncratic translation which includes slightly-archaic colloquialisms, points for meaning.

Oh, Frick.

Cue an episode. :P I need to figure out some distraction.

Also: need to spend less time around people who are less-than-gentle to other people behind their backs. There's been a lot of badmouthing in all arenas, personal to roommate to big-disaster-political, and if I don't keep it out of my personal space then I can't deal with it in any of the other places.

Financial worried + abbreviated sleep due to rats + stuffed up nose don't help (how'd it get from my throat to my nose, anyhow?).

Distraction, distraction. I saw Elvis driving a double-decker British tourbus today. He was 'young Elvis' dressed in blue and rhinestones.

I realised the skytrain stations along the milennium line play recorded predatory bird noises(?) or something to keep away other birds, that's why that birdsound happens at fixed intervals and also why they have no bird-spikes up.

I realised I'm attracted to people who look like they could have looked like Kynnin when he was 16, but with better fashion sense. I never act on this attraction, as they scare me as well.

Bah.

I feel like I've failed at being human this week.

Conversation

Wow, so here's an exchange from okcupid.

Mostly people are like, 'duh, permaculture, uh, that's like peyote and shit, right'? So this was awesome.

I'm constantly surprising myself by how much I know on this topic.

You'll likely wanna go to East is East close to Broadway and Macdonald if you do the organic meat thing as your lj suggests, it's a very nice indian-style all-organic restaurant with mindblowing shakes. I haven't been there since they renovated, but I can't imagine the food's changed much.

You should likely hit up the trout lake farmer's market too, just cause it's entertaining. It's Saturday morning, in trout lake park, which is... uh, searchable on google, I guess.

I'm entertained by the Canticle and Eternal Sunshine stuff in your profile. Good choices.

Why do I like permaculture? Mostly because it's realistic and.. um, obvious, I guess, to me? It ties in very strongly with my sense of how the world works. In natural systems, things tie together and build on each other with a great deal of efficiency. It seems at least mildly ridiculous to ignore the lessons those systems can teach us, and to instead reduce everything to its simplest, least efficient components simply because we think we understand what's going on better. That almost seems to be a way of avoiding thinking that there's anything bigger or more complicated than humans out there, which is almost sacriligious as a thought to me, too. ;P

I don't know anything about biomass fuel production. I *do* know that pretty much the single most important thing in an ecosystem is its biomass (which is sort of the buffer for all the changes and cycles occurring, it allows these things to soak up variations without catastrophe) and so if biomass fuel involved destroying large quantities of biomass somehow it'd be iffy. If it involved re-cycling biomass, I can't see why it couldn't be done-- it would just be more complicated, as that biomass in the system is quite important, so you'd need to make up for it being gone somehow.

Wah, this just got long. Anyhow, I'd love to chat more on this. I'm currently sick, or I'd be a little better at thinking of placed to go/things to do. You're going to Wreck Beach, right?

Greenie




=====censoreddude wrote=====
Okay, Permaculture caught my interest..

But first, I'm in Vancouver until Saturday, any suggestions for things to do/see/eat?

So, why do you like permaculture? And do you think it's compatible with biomass fuel production? Since I grew up on a farm in Iowa, I've recently gotten fascinated with the idea of using biomass for providing energy for automobiles and such. There's probably a lot more I could say than I feel like typeing into an okcupid message at the moment. Let me know if you want to hear more.

Later.

Mmm.

Some talk with Devon and some talk with Juggler later, and I feel refreshed mentally. Now to keep the bad stuff out.