There’s Always Time for a Story or Two

I broke my blogging streak yesterday, but I just didn’t have the brain power to do it. My brain was too feeble to put together even my usual simple sentences. I’m still dealing with this virus today, but I have more energy, so I’m gonna say I’m on the mend. (Yes, I know there’s a new COVID strain, and yes, I will get the booster because I’m at risk due to my advanced age.)

It’s story time, nature observation time, life update time, or whatever. First, I’m cheered every time I go outside these days, because some of my favorite sounds are back, Barn Swallows and White-eyed Vireos. I’ll be tired of them eventually, but right now, those songs convince me it’s spring.

I’m looking forward to seeing hummingbirds soon, because our red yucca are starting to bloom. These are good signs when all the grass is brown and crunchy.

Second is another tale of rural living. Yesterday I didn’t feed the horses their supplements, and neither did Kathleen due to recovering from her recent issue. Today I felt up to it, and marched into the tack room (which smells good because it’s the WOMEN’S room and we can turn on the Scentsy diffuser. I digress.

It came time to give Dusty his two scoops of bran powder, and when I reached into the bin, the bran moved. I guess the lid on this bin needs to be very securely attached. Yep. A mouse. One of the little ones. I tried to scoop it out and that’s when the whole dang bin began to move. More than one mouse. They started to try to fling themselves out, as they do. I did not want them in the tack room!

So I bravely dragged the bin outside, grateful that the bran stuff isn’t very heavy. I did my best to encourage exiting by angling the bin downward, but of course the rodents tried to climb up or bury themselves in the bran. My goal was for zero mice to crawl up my arms. I succeeded! In the end, SIX mice scampered away. I hope something eats them.

How did six of them get in the bin? There’s not any mouse poop around since Kathleen cleaned the room. Maybe they were in there when the bran was put in? Mystery. Even AI can’t solve that one. I do assure you, though, that I put the lid back on very tightly.

Later, Kathleen helpfully offered up the theory that if they’d kept eating the bran they’d have gotten all swollen and died. Eww. Now that’s in my head.

So, to change the subject, I want to share how happy I am with a work development. Today I was meeting with a colleague on my new project and we got to talking about our previous lives. And talking. And laughing. And blathering away in geeky grad student language about our original fields of study, linguistics and folklore. At some point we were practically giddy about how much we have in common. And some of it is pretty niche far left cultural stuff that you usually don’t get to talk to random coworkers about.

Then she told me the other woman running the project I’ve been brought in on is secretly a cultural anthropologist. I’d never have guessed.

I’m quite thrilled to have gotten to know someone just as weird as me who speaks the same quasi-intellectual language I used to speak. Sometimes I do miss aspects of my earlier years, and learning is one of them. My new friend and I both admitted we could stay in grad school the rest of our lives. I’d just keep getting Master’s degrees to go with all my interests!

I guess today was not all bad. It was quite interesting and satisfying. Hope yours was, too.