So Steve, my Grandad, is at is again. This time he hurt himself working out in the yard by straining some oh his back muscles. He went inside to take some of Grammy's pain pills. He popped them in his mouth and grabbed a cup on the counter to wash them down with. He had already drank half the cup when he realized he was drinking dish soap. He later told me he thought he was dying.
My other Grandad, Charles, also had his moment in the WTFuckery column this month. Both Grandads are diabetic, but Charles does not and never has handled his diabetes very well. He wrecked my Grandmother's car (again) because he was having a low blood sugar. A state trooper stopped to make sure he was OK. Well, when his sugar gets low Charles becomes a nasty SOB and gets completely belligerent. Even worse, he refuses to wear a medical alert bracelet so that people will realize he's diabetic in case he needs help. So he ended up getting belligerent with the state trooper and actually kicked him the balls. My 70-something year old grandfather, who is only 5-7, kicked a state trooper in the balls. Then the state trooper wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him, and then took him to the hospital.
And you people wonder where I get it from. I swear there's a WTF gene in my family.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Sanctuary: Week 1
This was my first week at my summer internship in a Wetlands Sanctuary near my house. It's the first time I've ever had a 8+ hour a day job and I have to say it's pretty tiring, but SO FUN.
Essentially my job for the summer is to help work on the Maryland Herp Atlas. The Herp Atlas is a survey that aims to measure what herps (snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, & salamanders) exist in Maryland, and approximately where they exist. The last data that MD has on what herps are where is from 1975, which is to say, extremely outdated. In a nutshell I get to run around the woods looking for critters.
As it was, my first day I saw a Snapping Turtle as I was driving in to the Sanctuary. I was 15 minutes early, but ended up sitting there by myself for a good 30 minutes because my new boss, Chris, was a little late. I just made friends with Richard, the old maintenance man, who apparently knows my uncle. Weird.
Day 1 consisted of my intro the Sanctuary and a tour around some of the trails. I learned the difference between American and Fowler's toads, which is cool because I thought toads were only a single species.
So the main differences are:
1. Fowler's Toads have more than 3 warts in each black spot
2. The ridge right behind the eye of the frog (it's about 90 degrees) nearly touches the eye on Fowler's Toads. On American Toads there's a wider gap.
3. American Toads have a very spotted belly
4. American Toads have large warts on their tibia.
I saw a bunch of skinks and got acquainted with the 3 three-legged captive Box Turtles that Sanctuary keeps out back. There are bunch of skinks around and Eastern Fence Lizards. I got to help set up mist nets for bird banding. We also checked some of the cover boards out in the Meadow and saw a Black Rat Snake.
Day 2: I got to go bird banding (and be there at 6:45am) with Chris and a bunch of volunteers. Sandy and Mike are the two guys in charge of the banding (for a project called MAPS); they are older gents and total BAMFs. The first thing I saw when I got to the Sanctuary were two Snapping Turtles digging nests/laying eggs. Then we set off. Seventeen mist nets, checking them once every 40 minutes or so. We checked them six times, walking seven miles in the process. We ended up catching:
a couple cardinals
Acadian Flycatcher
Red-eyed Vireo
Summer Tanager
Ovenbird
Swainsons Thrush
Veery
Common Yellowthroat
Wood Thrush
Downy Woodpecker.
We also heard a Prothonatary Warbler, saw a Bog Turtle, and caught a Wormsnake.
During our second round of checking nets, we realized that there was a fawn chillin' out right next to a tree we had been literally walking right next too. As soon as somebody said something, we scared her. She was so small that she wobbled about 20 feet away and nestled down in a downed branch.
So I took a picture and looked up that specific turtle by it's shell code and the picture I took of its plastron. This was turtle #262 with code L3R3R10.
Later in the day Chris and I started talking about what I wanted to research this summer. Every intern has to do a research project and I'm thinking about doing mine either on skinks or toads. In order to do research on skinks, you have to be able to catch them. If you've ever seen a skink or attempted to catch one, you know it's like trying to catch rainbows. Skinks are super shy and very skittish animals. One way to catch lizards in general is with a noose. Chris made me one so that I could go practice my noosing skills.
My practice noose is made with dental floss and a broken wooden pole from something or other. Very classy, truly. I then spent about an hour and a half down by the water looking for skinks to try and capture with my makeshift noose.
You creep up slowly and then VERY slowly bring the noose closer and closer to the skink and once you get the noose around it's neck, you pull up and enclose their neck in the noose. It doesn't hurt the lizard (very much, I don't think), and it certainly doesn't kill them. It just immobilizes them long enough for you to get your hands on one.
Later we also came across a Bog Turtle poking its head out of the water and a Green Frog.
After lunch Chris and I drove to an old farm that the county had recently purchased to do some searching for the Atlas. It was a pretty untouched area with lots of life in it, but it was really hot (around 90 degrees) and most herps like it a bit cooler, so we didn't find much.
One awesome find was the Spotted Salamander we found hiding under a log. They're so chunky and cool lookin'.
Essentially my job for the summer is to help work on the Maryland Herp Atlas. The Herp Atlas is a survey that aims to measure what herps (snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, & salamanders) exist in Maryland, and approximately where they exist. The last data that MD has on what herps are where is from 1975, which is to say, extremely outdated. In a nutshell I get to run around the woods looking for critters.
As it was, my first day I saw a Snapping Turtle as I was driving in to the Sanctuary. I was 15 minutes early, but ended up sitting there by myself for a good 30 minutes because my new boss, Chris, was a little late. I just made friends with Richard, the old maintenance man, who apparently knows my uncle. Weird.
Day 1 consisted of my intro the Sanctuary and a tour around some of the trails. I learned the difference between American and Fowler's toads, which is cool because I thought toads were only a single species.
 |
| Fowler's Toad, dorsal view |
 |
| Fowler's Toad, ventral view |
1. Fowler's Toads have more than 3 warts in each black spot
2. The ridge right behind the eye of the frog (it's about 90 degrees) nearly touches the eye on Fowler's Toads. On American Toads there's a wider gap.
3. American Toads have a very spotted belly
4. American Toads have large warts on their tibia.
 |
| Eastern Fence Lizard |
 |
| Snapping Turtles |
a couple cardinals
Acadian Flycatcher
Red-eyed Vireo
Summer Tanager
Ovenbird
Swainsons Thrush
Veery
Common Yellowthroat
Wood Thrush
Downy Woodpecker.
 |
| Swainson's Thrush (see yellow eye ring?) |
 |
| Eastern Wormsnake |
During our second round of checking nets, we realized that there was a fawn chillin' out right next to a tree we had been literally walking right next too. As soon as somebody said something, we scared her. She was so small that she wobbled about 20 feet away and nestled down in a downed branch.
 |
| Fawn (right in the center) |
 |
| Red-bellied Turtle & Box Turtle |
On our last check of the nets we came across a Box Turtle and a Red-bellied Turtle. What Chris (aka new boss) calls Red-bellied Turtles are actually better known as Red-bellied Cooters. He sort of admitted that he's uncomfortable with using the word 'Cooter', which I found somewhat amusing. Chris is the Director of the Sanctuary and he's a nice guy, but definitely has a bumbly air about him.
Day 3: Saw a large Red-belly digging a nest as I walked into the office. We notched it's shell (turtles have ~24 scutes on their shell that the Sanctuary notches in a special code so that people can fill out reports when they see a specific turtle) and gave a quick demonstration to a 3rd grade school group that was visiting. While letting the Red-belly go I came across a Box Turtle in the Meadow. Chris is something of an expert on Box Turtles and most of the ones in the Sanctuary have notched shells. The cool thing about Box Turtles is that the color patterns on their plastrons (the bottom part of their shells) are unique to each turtle, like reptile zebras.
 |
| Box Turtle from the Meadow |
 |
| plastron of Box Turtle |
Later in the day Chris and I started talking about what I wanted to research this summer. Every intern has to do a research project and I'm thinking about doing mine either on skinks or toads. In order to do research on skinks, you have to be able to catch them. If you've ever seen a skink or attempted to catch one, you know it's like trying to catch rainbows. Skinks are super shy and very skittish animals. One way to catch lizards in general is with a noose. Chris made me one so that I could go practice my noosing skills.
My practice noose is made with dental floss and a broken wooden pole from something or other. Very classy, truly. I then spent about an hour and a half down by the water looking for skinks to try and capture with my makeshift noose.
You creep up slowly and then VERY slowly bring the noose closer and closer to the skink and once you get the noose around it's neck, you pull up and enclose their neck in the noose. It doesn't hurt the lizard (very much, I don't think), and it certainly doesn't kill them. It just immobilizes them long enough for you to get your hands on one.
 |
| Mud Turtle basking in the bog |
 |
| 5-lined Skink in forest (failed at catching this one) |
I attempted to catch six skinks. I failed every single time. Noosing is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Apparently it takes a lot of practice.
At one point, I almost caught a Northern Watersnake in my noose, but another snake swam by and spooked the first snake. And then I stepped in the wrong place and almost fell into the bog, which would have totally sucked. As it was I submerged one of my boots and had to change into the spare sandals I kept in my car.
 |
| Spider from the sink |
Day 4: Chris had a meeting in Annapolis, so I spent the morning renumbering the mist nets and getting lost because they're not in order and there's no map to go by. One of the first things I saw was this giant ass spider chillin' out in the bathroom sink. Nearly had a heart attack because I just wasn't expecting it. I saw a bright red bird with black wings which I later found out was a Scarlet Tanager. Pretty distinct, that's for sure.
While I was renumbering a net particularly close to the water a Great Blue Heron flew right over my head while calling. Pretty cool stuff. I helped out on a nature walk with a school group (naming trees and stuff) and realized that it's kind of difficult to tell the difference between Maple and Sweet Gum leaves when I've never seen a sweet gum and they're both shaped like stars. Something to work on, I guess. One of the kids found a small Gartersnake in the roots of a tree, which was probably the coolest thing they'd ever seen.
 |
| Green Frog |
After lunch Chris and I drove to an old farm that the county had recently purchased to do some searching for the Atlas. It was a pretty untouched area with lots of life in it, but it was really hot (around 90 degrees) and most herps like it a bit cooler, so we didn't find much.
One awesome find was the Spotted Salamander we found hiding under a log. They're so chunky and cool lookin'.
 |
| Spotted Salamander (we put it on some moss for contrast) |
 |
| Gartersnake near roots of tree |
There hasn't been a Day 5 yet because Friday was a furlough day and tomorrow is Labor Day (Holla at my 4-day weekend!). I'm excited though, because the other two interns start on Tuesday. Weirdly enough they're BOTH named Holly. I hope they're cool.
In other news, my mosquito bite count for 4 days: 73. Ticks: 2. Even though I absolutely hate it, I think insect repellant might have to be a must.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Metalhead's 21st Birthday
I'm starting to write this at 1:53am on Saturday May 21st. Metalhead turned 21 tonight. And what a marvelous event it was.
Upon arriving at Chappies (da bar) she was immediately served a whiskey sour, a shot of gin (she loves gin) and a Long Island Iced Tea. Fifteen minutes later those were gone and she had another host of drinks including a Melon Ball, an amaretto something or other, and 2 beers. At around 12:25 all the alcohol finally hit her and she just got drunker from then on. Soon after this, she literally let out a primal scream loud enough for the ENTIRE BAR to stare at her like some sort of demon, and then she licked my arm.
In the course of an hour, Metalhead managed to lick, bite, grope, punch, and bitch slap me. She was super drunk (all is forgiven) but I will definitely have some hand prints in the morning. She also managed to stuff at least three handfulls of popcorn down the front of my shirt. Quite forcefully, I might add.
As she got drunker, I (and the rest of our friends who were there) took advantage of her borderline OCD to rearrange her three drinks that looked to be in volume order. She flipped a shit when she discovered that they weren't as she left them and said "NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!??? THEY NEED TO BE IN FUCKING RAINBOW ORDER!" We must have altered the order of her drinks about three times and every time got the same reaction. Metalhead response to nearly everything was "I WILL SHIT ON YOU (or IN YOUR BED)."
Another quote "I DON'T HEAR ANY WORDS YOU GUYSSSSS" after we had all been talking to her.
Even though she had to literally be coached through the last two drinks, I'm pretty impressed with the amount she was able to handle. No doubt, she was drunker than I've ever seen her and it was hilarious. ("You think I'm drunk as fuck? WAIT TILL I STAND UP!" - drunk Metalhead). The last drink definitely did her in though, as she ended up puking it up into about 5 beer glasses while still sitting at the table. She put all of these puke-infused glasses under the table. She giggled about leaving her puke under the table for at least 20 minutes, then spent the next 20 minutes super paranoid that Chappies will never let her come there again because she left puke under the table. Even though she did puke, I'm pretty damn impressed that she got the vast majority of it into those beer glasses. Better in there than on the floor.
On the walk home, Metalhead
-ran into a fire hydrant
-decided to start sprinting up the sidewalk, and I had to run after her to make sure she didn't die
-stopped to wait for everyone to catch up with us, and decided that it was "Sleep Time" and just lay down on the sidewalk.
-saw a firework somebody let off, stared up at it and said, "LIKE A BAWWWSS!"
-attempted to break down our front door and nearly fell on her face when she discovered it was actually unlocked
-ran upstairs and locked herself in her room, then unlocked it because our friend Jeff had to pee off her front porch
-tried to ride down the banister
-right after she said she was going to bed (I had just gone up to my room), I heard some doors slam and then I heard her scream "YEEAAAHHHH MANNNNN!!!!!!" off her front porch.
Sadly, although she was pretty damn drunk she avoided all of my attempts to get her to be drunkenly social. At one point she wanted to text her sister but couldn't find her phone. Boyf had already told her he was turning his phone off. What a shame.
Although she sobered up a bit once we got home, she was still slurring her words and couldn't speak English half the time. No capitaleest peeg dawgs for her.
I'm sure I'll remember more stories as the day goes on.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Hoarding
Metalhead has insinuated that I am a hoarder. This is totally false. Hoarding is characterized by not being able to get rid of anything. I totally get rid of stuff. I just haven't cleaned out my stuff lately, thanks. :P
I know that I keep stuff that I really shouldn't, but mostly this stems from my environmental compulsion to never throw anything useful away. Mostly it's just me not wanting perfectly fine stuff to go sit in a landfill. I feel guilty when useful things sit in landfills.
Kelly is not so fortunate. My madre has what her counselor calls "an emotional attachment to stuff". She's pretty bad about keeping anything and everything that ever meant anything to her at all. I'm talking bikinis from high school, old Home & Garden magazines, and other various shit. Now, I keep a lot of stuff, but it's stuff that I intend to do something with or stuff that I actually use AND it's mostly contained in my room. Kelly just keeps stuff because she can't stand giving it up and not being able to control what happens after it leaves her possession. Plus her stuff is essentially the entire house.
Take, for example, when I decided to clean out our basement two years ago. We have lived in our house since 1998 and we now have more shit than we know what to do with, so it was about time that somebody tackled that hoarding den that is the lower floor. I came across a box full of Kelly's notebooks from middle, high school and community college. When I took them upstairs to throw them in the recycle bin she had an absolute fit and refused to let me do away with the damn things. I mean, these are notebooks full of writings my mom will never, ever use again. Do you think she knows anything about chemistry or the Latin class she took her freshman year of high school (and failed)? Hell no. Has she touched that box of notebooks in the last 10 years? Yeah right. That, ladies and gents, is a hoarder. Her reason for keeping them stemmed from the "poetry and journals" she wrote in them. Jesus mother, tearing out a couple of pages with your angsty teen diary entries is not that goddamn hard. There is no need to keep an entire notebook that is sucking up space in our already cramped basement so that you can save your stupid doodles. We ended up getting into an argument that-- I kid you not -- consisted of us performing tug of war with a notebook. My father was just sitting in the LayZBoy looking at us like we're nuts. This ended with the recycling of about half the notebooks, and keeping the rest.
Mike the bystander is not so innocent either, he of the can't-find-it-let's-go-buy-a-new-one mentality is another contributor to the household junk pile. There's a giant metal desk that has been sitting in our basement since at least 1999 that he brought home from work. It's still got the plastic on it and everything, but nobody has ever used it. Right now it's just a platform to put more stuff on. He also has this mental disease where he can't resist free stuff. WHY do we need four stress balls shaped like grapes? What about the three kinds of omelette makers? Or the rotisserie chicken cooker that we used once? He brings home so much crap that we don't need and will never use that it's not even funny. It's just a pain in my ass.
The most recent manifestation of this was when I cleaned out our cupboard. Since we moved into our house we've had a coffee maker in the corner of the kitchen. Mike is the only person who actually drinks coffee in the house and he never uses it. Why? Because he loves 7-Eleven coffee and is on a first-name basis with the people who work there. I've never seen him use this coffee maker. The only time it does see use is when we have guests over who want coffee, and even then only occasionally. Usually dad will just go out and get a large thing of coffee from Dunkin Donuts or something. So anyway, I took the coffee maker to the basement because nobody ever uses it and we need the counter space. I also sorted through all the mugs we had because nobody ever uses mugs either (except for hot chocolate) and we had about 50 for four people. I mean, you can only use one flipping mug at a time (and even still, double fisting hot chocolate will bring you to eight) and even with a bunch of guests that number is definitely excessive. So I took about 15 mugs to Goodwill. It took Kelly about three days to figure out something was a little off about the dishes cabinet, and then she didn't speak to me for three days she was so mad. This is the kind of shit I deal with.
Since I've been in college, I've actually gotten much much better about not keeping useless things. I would say about 60% of my stuff is books or clothes, and since my friend Tiedye is about the same size as me (just shorter, with bigger gazongas) I give her all of my clothes that I don't wear anymore, and take anything she doesn't want to goodwill. I would probably also attribute it to reading No Impact Man, which is a book that was made into a documentary. It's about a guy who lives in NYC who tries to live a no impact life with his wife and daughter for a year. It's super funny, and it made me realize that my house had all this stuff sitting around that no one was using. My general rule is that if it's been sitting around for a year and no one has used it, get it the hell outta here. Except then it sets off WWIII with Kelly. Whatever. I'll probably be moving out in a few years anyway.
I know that I keep stuff that I really shouldn't, but mostly this stems from my environmental compulsion to never throw anything useful away. Mostly it's just me not wanting perfectly fine stuff to go sit in a landfill. I feel guilty when useful things sit in landfills.
Kelly is not so fortunate. My madre has what her counselor calls "an emotional attachment to stuff". She's pretty bad about keeping anything and everything that ever meant anything to her at all. I'm talking bikinis from high school, old Home & Garden magazines, and other various shit. Now, I keep a lot of stuff, but it's stuff that I intend to do something with or stuff that I actually use AND it's mostly contained in my room. Kelly just keeps stuff because she can't stand giving it up and not being able to control what happens after it leaves her possession. Plus her stuff is essentially the entire house.
Take, for example, when I decided to clean out our basement two years ago. We have lived in our house since 1998 and we now have more shit than we know what to do with, so it was about time that somebody tackled that hoarding den that is the lower floor. I came across a box full of Kelly's notebooks from middle, high school and community college. When I took them upstairs to throw them in the recycle bin she had an absolute fit and refused to let me do away with the damn things. I mean, these are notebooks full of writings my mom will never, ever use again. Do you think she knows anything about chemistry or the Latin class she took her freshman year of high school (and failed)? Hell no. Has she touched that box of notebooks in the last 10 years? Yeah right. That, ladies and gents, is a hoarder. Her reason for keeping them stemmed from the "poetry and journals" she wrote in them. Jesus mother, tearing out a couple of pages with your angsty teen diary entries is not that goddamn hard. There is no need to keep an entire notebook that is sucking up space in our already cramped basement so that you can save your stupid doodles. We ended up getting into an argument that-- I kid you not -- consisted of us performing tug of war with a notebook. My father was just sitting in the LayZBoy looking at us like we're nuts. This ended with the recycling of about half the notebooks, and keeping the rest.
Mike the bystander is not so innocent either, he of the can't-find-it-let's-go-buy-a-new-one mentality is another contributor to the household junk pile. There's a giant metal desk that has been sitting in our basement since at least 1999 that he brought home from work. It's still got the plastic on it and everything, but nobody has ever used it. Right now it's just a platform to put more stuff on. He also has this mental disease where he can't resist free stuff. WHY do we need four stress balls shaped like grapes? What about the three kinds of omelette makers? Or the rotisserie chicken cooker that we used once? He brings home so much crap that we don't need and will never use that it's not even funny. It's just a pain in my ass.
The most recent manifestation of this was when I cleaned out our cupboard. Since we moved into our house we've had a coffee maker in the corner of the kitchen. Mike is the only person who actually drinks coffee in the house and he never uses it. Why? Because he loves 7-Eleven coffee and is on a first-name basis with the people who work there. I've never seen him use this coffee maker. The only time it does see use is when we have guests over who want coffee, and even then only occasionally. Usually dad will just go out and get a large thing of coffee from Dunkin Donuts or something. So anyway, I took the coffee maker to the basement because nobody ever uses it and we need the counter space. I also sorted through all the mugs we had because nobody ever uses mugs either (except for hot chocolate) and we had about 50 for four people. I mean, you can only use one flipping mug at a time (and even still, double fisting hot chocolate will bring you to eight) and even with a bunch of guests that number is definitely excessive. So I took about 15 mugs to Goodwill. It took Kelly about three days to figure out something was a little off about the dishes cabinet, and then she didn't speak to me for three days she was so mad. This is the kind of shit I deal with.
Since I've been in college, I've actually gotten much much better about not keeping useless things. I would say about 60% of my stuff is books or clothes, and since my friend Tiedye is about the same size as me (just shorter, with bigger gazongas) I give her all of my clothes that I don't wear anymore, and take anything she doesn't want to goodwill. I would probably also attribute it to reading No Impact Man, which is a book that was made into a documentary. It's about a guy who lives in NYC who tries to live a no impact life with his wife and daughter for a year. It's super funny, and it made me realize that my house had all this stuff sitting around that no one was using. My general rule is that if it's been sitting around for a year and no one has used it, get it the hell outta here. Except then it sets off WWIII with Kelly. Whatever. I'll probably be moving out in a few years anyway.
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