A blog about a girl who speaks her mind and talks about whatever she wants. So its a blog about everything, and absolutely nothing, all at the same time. . .
Profile
Name: Kami
Alias: Risawn
Location: Washington State, United States
An avid Snowboarder, rabid NRA supporter, Starving Artist, Military Junkie, anti-fru-fru Glorified Private that basically posts incoherant ramblings and things better left unsaid.
I keep getting myself set up on little projects. This week it appears that I just want to focus on getting my info on my harddrives organized. Last week I was ripping a bunch of old VHS home videos to digital and of course in December I was transferring my CDs to MP3s so I can listen to them on my iPod and my Zune.
Don't ask me why I bought a Zune, other then it was a great deal and I liked a digital player that I could watch movies on. My iPod is old and doesn't have that option.
I've also got a few projects artwise going on as well. I signed up for a few art exchanges to play around with, just to give myself a feel for doing it again.
Of course, I ran into a lot of old pictuers I hadn't seen in forever, including looking at a few off my recovered hard drive that I initially thought I had lost. Like this pic of my nephew Cody with Blaine.
I really miss having Ferrets, but I have to get my own place before I can get them again, and I have to be able to maintain them a little better, so I have to have my house more organized.
Which means I'll probably never own Ferrets again :( My house is a mess.
I think I just need something fuzzy and cute, like a dog or something.
In March we're planning a road trip down to Utah to see friends and family. It's been long overdue.
Meanwhile, I'm feeling pretty confident on where I will be at the end of this year, and it will include me having a real job that I can focus on, and not a retail gig that doesn't like employees confronting shoplifters. Next week I'm probably going to go to a temp agency and look for temp work just to get by for now until I know more about my deployment or if it's even going to happen.
So, due to the fact that I'm going to go on vacation next week with the family, and shortly thereafter I go to drill sergeant school for two months, there was a little problem with a couple of my pets.
My brother did not want to look after the ferrets. In fact, he's been saying for a few months now that the ferrets needed to go. It is his house, and though I kept them for as long as I could, I begrudgingly gave them up today, giving them back to the place I had adopted them from. They are in a good place, and I was told that they would likely be kept together. If it is at all possible, I would love to readopt them later, but I don't see that as happening so I can rest assured that my two little fuzzbutts will be in a good place.
And hopefully Blaine won't be eating anymore earplugs.
So long my little carpet sharks, you will be missed *sighs*
A few nights ago, my ferrets got out. And I didn't realize they were out until it was close to midnight.
Its one thing when the ferrets are just out of their cage, scampering about the house and leaving presents for you to clean up in the corners, but this was something entirely different.
They got outside. Yikes.
Anybody who has ever owned a ferret knows that these little furballs are not like cats and dogs. They are strictly an indoor animal with good reason. They have no concept of self preservation, that and coupled with the fact that they average about 20 hours of sleep a day and have most of their hunting instincts bred out of them, well, they wouldn't survive perhaps more then three days outside on their own. I don't know where they went or what they were doing, but I just know the two little dookers found themselves outside.
I had to be at work at 7 the next morning and had to get some sleep, but I couldn't just leave them outside so I went about looking for them. No such luck. I got a little bell and tried to call them, but they remained hidden.
My next option was to find something soft and cuddly and familiar and try to draw them back to the house with that. I have this little bed I got for them that I sat near the door on the flower bed, hoping they would find themselves back with that. I then left and went to the back, looking for them and calling them again. Then I went back to the front after a couple of minutes and sure enough, Blaine was in the bed, staring at me and wondering how it got there.
I picked him up, nuzzled him and put him back in the cage, hoping that Abby wouldn't be to far behind. However, Abby still hadn't come home.
I put the carrier in the backyard with a familiar blanket in it and searched around the house some more. Still no sign of Abby, and now it was nearing 130 and I had to get to bed. So I left the door slightly ajar and fell to sleep next to the couch, hoping she would find her way home during the night and nuzzle me with her cold wet nose like she's prone to doing.
I woke myself up at 430 with the thought that I needed to check on Abby. The sun was just starting to rise, but there was still no sign of her. I checked the back and didn't see her there either. If she wasn't coming home, I didn't know what was expected of me so I went ahead and closed the door and started to fall asleep on the couch.
The scratching on the door got my attention, and not five minutes after I closed it, Abby had found her way home.
Stinky ferrets. I don't know what kind of adventures they had that night, but Abby was outside for six hours. I can only imagine that she found some place soft and cuddly and fell asleep.
I'll be sure they don't get out unsupervised again.
In a lengthy press conference yesterday President Bush vowed to take decisive action against terrorist ferrets who are allegedly plotting major attacks against the nation's living room carpet. "We will not rest," the President declared emphatically, "until these evil-doers are brought to justice. These little rascals could be hiding anywhere -- under the sofa, in the hamper, even in our kitchen cabinets, if Condi left them open. But know this: they are on the run."
I think I need to update on the ferrets, since I haven't posted any pictures of them recently.
They are alive and well, and continue to amuse us. If we aren't sure where the ferrets are when we let them out of the cage, it never fails to check the pajama drawer and find them curled up in a pair of my pants. Feisty littl ferrets, they have become quite enduring.
My nephew Cody loves the ferrets. He often times will get on his hands and knees and pretend to be one, including the curling up in a ball under a pile of blankets or what not. The ferrets put up with him, which is one of the reasons why I find them so loveable. You can just pester them and they go about their business without a care in the world. We have come to an understanding with the ferrets. You pick them up, pet them and cuddle them for about a minute or two and put them back on the ground where they will bound on their merry way. A few minutes later they'll be back again to see what you're up to and you can pick them up and pester them again.
This was Blaine a few weeks ago, right after I picked him up from the vet for ear plug removal. The look on my face translates to "I just spent close to $500 bailing this little furball out of the vet". Yes, I have learned the financial burdons of the ferret the hard way. It put quite a damper on my bank account. Good news is, Blaine is recovering very well.
I've had dogs and I've never spent as much money on them as I've done on this little fuzzbutt.
Abby is currently really fluffy, fat and cute. Blaine's been kind of scruffy and skinny on account of not being able to digest anything (though since he's been recovering his been catching up). I've been wanting to take them out into the snow to see what they would do, however the previous snow falls Blaine hasn't been well enough to go out and play. Since his fur has finally regrown on his belly, I thought this last snow would be ok to take them out.
I took them out one at a time, as two ferrets outside, even in harnesses is a handful. Abby didn't want to play. She hunkered next to the door shivering as if to say "let me back in!" So I didn't make her play for very long.
Blaine, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the powdery white stuff. He immediately started bounding through it and trying to burrow in it, just checking it out and having a fun ferret time. I walked him around a bit and just observed him explore in the snow. He does a lot better in the harness then Abby does, I let him go where he wants to go for the most part, but when he starts heading in a direction where I don't like him heading, I only have to apply a little force to the lead and he'll come bounding back.
Pipe cleaner tail!
< One of the funny things about Abby is her thieving skills, right under your nose. Her favorite things to steal seem to be pens with rubber grips. For the most part, I don't mind, as she generally hides them under my dresser or in the bottom drawer of my bed. I think its a game of wills between me and her.
Specifically with my Wacom Drawing Tablet Stylus. If I think I've misplaced it, I just have to let her sniff it out and sure enough, she'll find it. To her its not an expensive tool, its another Ferret toy. And she'll try to steal it right out of my hands. This is bar none her favorite thing to steal.
I call Abby the Slinky Rat, because she actually has rat like features for a ferret. She's the more active and playful one, and she's also the one that dooks more. She tends to give ferret kisses too. She'll lick your ear, your nose, your eyebrow or whatever.
Blaine's pretty silent, he doesn't say a whole lot (but he does snore!). Blaine's the ankle biter (literally!). He will nip at your bare feet if you have them available, which is why I've learned to always wear socks when the ferret is out. He'll tunnel up my pantleg sometimes and if he reaches bare skin, he'll nip my calf. I've also had him rub up against my bare back and latch onto a piece of skin showing. It doesn't feel very good when he does that. When he does play, he likes to playbite.
He also eats earplugs. So I consider earplugs to be forbidden anywhere a ferret can get to them. I'm not going to have another one of those removed from a ferret gut if I can help it.
Ok, I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, I promise. I've just been. . . busy, that's all. Busy doing a whole lot of nothing.
Coupled with working retail during the holidays. Yep, THAT was fun.
So, a quick rundown of my life in the last three weeks.
Blaine had a un X-rayable ear plug in his stomach, which caused him to lose a half a pound in about three weeks, which is a lot for a ferret. I finally took him to see a vet again (foregoing the emergency routine and scheduling an appointment this time) and a little Boriam and Xrays confirmed that there was something in there.
Surgery was necessary to save the ferret. These are turning into some expensive pets. *sighs* Blaine is recovering well. But he's looking a bit scruffy and his shaved belly is kind of interesting. Abby, meanwhile, is really fat and fluffy now.
I am now floating around my store, working a lot in music lately, which I find interesting that I'm progressively becoming a music associate. The elusive Tech N9ne and Nickelback Cds that our system says are in our store that I cannot find do plague me however.
Christmas was nice. I'll post about it in its own post.
There has been snow on and off again, but the mountains have been open for nearly a month now. And I haven't gone snowboarding once. . .
I think I can attribute this to having nobody to go with me. *sighs again*
So I'm a member of this LJ community called FerretAttitude. The moderators asked as a courtesy that people do not edit their posts mostly to help reference later.
So a girl gets on and asks a question about ferret foods and how to prevent her ferret from tipping over the food bowl. And people gave her the answer.
Feeling that she got the answer she needed, she edited her post to say that she had the question answered.
In light of this, the mods asked her politely to not do this in the future, so people can reference the post and know what it said. Maybe three people actually made this suggestion.
And what does she do? She freaks out. She starts cursing everyone in the community and leaves, but not before posting a picture of a fat guy whacking off about thirty times.
I took my ferrets to their first visit to the vet today. They did fairly well for Ferrets, and they appear to be pretty healthy. They weren't to fond of the rabies shots however.
Since I already had them out of the house, I decided to take them to the pet store (I needed to pick up some things) and brought them along. Abby does not stay in her harness, and I found out that unless its on him prety tight, Blaine will slide out of his so I had myself an interesting situation where I kept Abby perched on my shoulder (which she does pretty good at for a while if you can keep an eye on her) and attempted to do some shopping.
I have decided for future endeavors that if I take a ferret out again, I'll only take one with me. Double trouble is just to much to handle in a public place.
Meanwhile, the easiest time to take pictures of the little furballs is if you wipe them out enough that they pass out. I've been leaving them out for longer periods lately.
Its actually taken me a couple of weeks to get used to the little carpet sharks, I was thinking maybe it was a mistake getting the two of them, but they've kind of settled into the place and I've gotten used to them. I've also gotten to know their little quirks so they aren't as overwhelming when they are out anymore. Like, make sure you put some newspapers down in the one corner because they'll ALWAYS go there. Also, have lots of air freshener on hand.
In fact, I'm glad I got the two because they often will keep each other company so I'll work on something and let them run amok.
And I can even get a picture of them now, though they still look around every which direction.
I often put Abby on my shoulders, and she'll usually be pretty good about staying perched up there for a few seconds (Blaine finds a way off as soon as you put him up there) but she also has a tendency to sniff your ear. Its kind of ticklish.
If you want to pose with Blaine, you have to hold him the old fashioned way.
I've got ferret leashes for them both and one of these days if there is something going on downtown I'm half tempted to take one of them with me and keep them in a backpack.
I'm still adapting to the Ferrets. I may have mentioned that I've never owned ferrets before and they do take some getting used to. But once you have their quirks down, they are quite amusing.
One thing that always brings a few laughs is to keep them a bit pent up in their cage all day and then block off a room and let them at it. It may take them a little bit to wind up, especially if they just woke up, but give them about ten to fifteen minutes and they'll be poinging off the walls.
Literally
I created a YouTube account. Anyway, one day Abby started to go straight into Ferret Boing mode and I got a bad capture on video.
I think I'll be using this feature more in the future. Hopefully with better footage.
Trying to photograph a ferret is like trying to snuggle with one. Both are damn near impossible. With an attention span all of 3 seconds, you might catch their attention with a camera for a few seconds and its on to something else. They aren't that cuddly either. They wiggle out of your grasp soon after you pick them up, because something more interesting has just caught their attention. Probably something shiney.
I've learned that its kind of hard to take pictures of Ferrets. They really don't stand still long enough for you to grab that kodak moment.
I've been researching getting a ferret for the last few months, and I finally got my area ferret proofed enough to go get a couple. I thought it would be a good idea to get a couple of ferrets because that way they always have each other.
Even with all my research, I may have been a little over my head with these little guys.
I don't know if I'll rename them or not, but in case I don't, this is Abby and Blaine. They have been together for a while and since I wanted to get a pair, I decided it would be better if I got ones that have been together for a while. They look a lot alike, especially in pictures. Their coloring is almost identical. Just Blaine is bigger then Abby.
I'll work on trying to get a couple pictures where I don't feel like I have to crop myself out because I look like a freakin' idiot.
This is Abby. She's a sweet girl, but I have to pay particular close attention to her because she can get to places Blaine can't go.
And Blaine. Like I mentioned before, he's bigger then Abby. And a bit fatter. But he still has that Ferret Boing Factor.
Kiki off of Sluggy Freelance. Yep. That's exactly how Ferrets act.
I went to the shelter today looking at dogs. It sort of came down to three.
This is Bo. Bo almost came home with me today. I had it all set out to adopt him and take him with me until it was pointed out that any dog I adopted would be an outdoor dog only, they wouldn't let me adopt this specific dog. He is really sweet however, he does need a good brush, and right now his bark is gone but overall he seemed like a good companion. Unfortunately, he is a German Shephard mix, and my mother has an aversion to German Shephards (on account of getting attacked by one) so that did make me kind of leary of him, but he did not appear in the least bit aggressive.
Alas, Bo did not come home with me.
This is Cosmo, another sweet dog that looked like I could bond with. One of the reasons why I chose Bo over Cosmo is because Cosmo does Bark. And Chew. And dig. But according to his paperwork, that was likely something I could work with. He is pretty cute, and really sweet. However, he didn't really like being left alone. And being a pure outdoor dog, I don't want him to get depressed and bark a lot.
Poonsa has been at the shelter for over a year, and when I looked at her, she seemed really mellow and low key. However my concern (as I'm going to be using this dog as a running buddy) that she seemed a little stiff when she walked. The poor thing is ready to come home with somebody, and I thought she was quite cute. She appears to be part rottweiler, and despite their reputation, I've known rottweilers that were practically lap dogs where the only threat of them is if they lick you to death.
There are two other animal shelters that I'll likely take a look at, as well as a Basset Rescue. We love bassets, and would make an exception for the outdoor only rule if I managed to talk my brother into adopting one with me (they're indoor dogs). He's always wanted to get a Basset and name it Rigamortis (don't ask).
Meanwhile, coming home without Bo with me did make me double think about the whole 'owning a dog' thing, as I'm not sure how long I'll be living here and I don't know what my living arrangements will be in the not to distant future, and I would hate to adopt a dog only to find myself having to give 'em up when I was forced back into the whole apartment spiel one day.
I would still love to get a Ferret. Maybe two. The brother is actually open to this suggestion, however I couldn't take it running with me. I have read up on Ferrets, did some research and I think I could handle a ferret if I chose to get one or two. If I had a choice in the ferret I adopted, I would either get a traditional female ferret with a mask and name her Kiki, or get an albino male and name him Draco. After Harry Potter. For some reason, I also thought Maximillion would make a good Ferret name.
Maximillion would make a good dog name too. If I got a new dog, chances are I'd rename him Max. Unless it was a she of course.
Well, it took me long enough, but I finally got my computer into the shop. They say I'll get it back in 45 days, but maybe as soon as 2 to 3 weeks. I'm ok with that, got everything backed up and now I have to depend on Pyro, my old Desk top that is on its last leg. But I think it will be ok. I just have to go easy on the old thing. Like I need to go easy on those USB ports on my laptop.
Currently, I have a goal in mind. Just one goal I'm working on accomplishing, outside the going back to school. This is kind of a short term goal, but in accomplishing this goal, I have to make a few steps to get there. And its the journey to the goal that is important.
That goal? I'm going to get a Ferret.
You may look at this and say to yourself, 'huh?' Well, I want a ferret. But a ferret is a high maintenance pet. You have to be prepared to take care of them or they are apt to stink up your place. I don't want my ferret getting all stinky.
What's more, while currenly living with the parents once more, they have told me that I cannot own an animal while I'm here (and expect it to live here at least). Which gives me an incentive to get out of here. But even if I do get out of here, I've got this enormous clutter problem I need to deal with. See, being an artistic type, I tend to hang onto a lot of things. Like clutter. Anything really. I've got an enourmous amount of crap.
Ferrets don't do well with clutter. In fact, they tend to make it worse. Which gives me an incentive to get organized.
Whether or not I ever end up owning a ferret is the big question. I might not. But my goal is to try to get to a point where I can own one with no problems.
It was one of those things where you don't want to eat it, you want to save it and everything, you know? But the thing about Chocolate is it doesn't get better with age, like wine or some other alcoholic beverage that I don't know anything about. Especially since I think it was sat next to a heater on the flight home from Kosovo. Damn that Swiss Chocolate going bad! Swiss Chocolate is a rare pleasantry that can't go bad!
What's more, this is a sin times 3. Three bars of swiss chocolate. Oh the Shame!
In other news, I found that I can discover the finer points of military life when I'm discussing the military with an inquiring mind who wants to know. I got into the topic of discussing my European Vacation and military life in Kosovo (the finer parts) and got into a good conversation about it. I did mention my main peeve with the reserves, (the inability to decide on whether or not I am going to be deployed) but I think overall the military is getting a lot better at this. I think a soldier knows they will be deployed somewhere like a year in advanced now.
This will all be changed once we wage war on North Korea.
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