Twenty-four hours of weather, coffee, and partial hibernation.

I have a lot I want to say about Christmas in Idaho, New Year's in Vegas, etc., but who has time for long, juicy descriptive posts?  No sir!  This blog is just to fill you in on a few happenings of the last 24 hours only.  They're not earth-shattering, but the are a bit interesting.

First, school started again yesterday.  I was mostly prepared, except for that moment just before second period when I realized I needed a hundred copies that I didn't have, and I needed them in ten minutes, ten minutes in which I was supposed to be teaching.  So I improvised.  "Since I gave you a test the first day back," I announced, "you can have five minutes to chat about your break and what you got for Christmas!"  Then I darted out of the room and down to the copy machine, proud of my teaching prowess.  I don't think I was fooling anyone, though.

Additionally, it was cold yesterday, so they turned the heat on at school.  Unfortunately, my classroom has no outside walls, and didn't need the heat.  I have a thermometer at my desk, and at one point during class yesterday it read 85 degrees.  The lowest it got was 78.  Ever sat in in hot car with a few bored teenagers for an hour or so?  Miserable, yes?  Try thirty-five of them.

Yesterday, as I often do, I ensconced myself in a booth of one of my regular coffee shops to grade papers.  That's right, I have regular coffee shops, plural.  About four or five of them.  Why?  Because I can't stand to grade papers the same place every day, which is why I'm grading them at coffee shops instead of at home, anyway.  I also rotate in some public libraries for variety.  I particularly like this coffee shop for two reasons: first, it ran a groupon in which they offered a voucher for 25 cups of coffee for $9.  That's about 50 hours worth of grading bribes to myself for only $9!  The second reason is that it has a secluded area that is specifically for studying, complete with booths, outlets, and signs requesting quiet.  Usually people at these booths are wearing large headphones and have papers and laptops spread out across the tables, and they look intent, serious, and like they wish they could get their coffee in an IV drip because their paper is due tomorrow.  But last night one table was taken up by an attractive man who proceeded to have a conversation on speaker phone in the study area, for more than an hour and a half.  The table across from him was occupied by a first date.  Why, I ask you, would you take your coffee date to sit in the study area?  The entire purpose of your going out for coffee was to be able to chat and get to know each other.  There are two other rooms in this coffee shop, ones without plain signs asking you to kindly shut up and let us get work done.  Why in heaven's name did you choose this one?  After an hour or so of listening to their date, every word clearly audible, I had to resist a strong urge to say something to them.  At first it was, "I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation, but this is the study area.  Could you please move to a different table?"  As their date went on however, the things I wanted to say changed to things like, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation.  Might I suggest, sir, that after forty-five minutes of talking about yourself, you switch topics?" and "Your discussion about gun control is interesting, even if your arguments are cliche; however, your main argument, which you have repeated at least ten times, has a blatant, glaring hole in it.  Let me fix it for you."

Finally, after the first date left, the only sound was the comparative quiet of the ongoing speaker phone conversation.  Besides, that wasn't in English, so it wasn't nearly as distracting.  When I finally got home, I went to bed nearly immediately.  Before snuggling in, however, I added an extra blanket and pulled on knee high wool socks.  The thermometer in Zhivie's tub read 60 degrees.  My room is on of the coldest in the house, but, being the veteran of many winters of being too cheap to turn up the heat, I am well equipped with wool socks and warm sweats and extra blankets.  Before I went to bed I lit some candles and turned on the lava lamp, both of which usually take the chill off of any room long enough to fall asleep.

I woke up around three or four to a strange sound.  Zhivie was moving.  Her internal clock has switched to winter mode these days, and she hasn't voluntarily come out of her substrate burrow in almost a month.  Every few days I dig her out, wake her up, and set her in front of some food.  She looks at me resentfully, and then eats some food before returning to sleep.  So to wake up to her rooting around in the middle of the night was disconcerting.  As I lay there I realized that, lava lamp not withstanding, it was cold in my room.  Too cold.  My clever tortoise's internal clock had woken her up to tell her to burrow deeper into the ground, where the cold air wouldn't reach.  In the wild, a Russian tortoise burrow can reach six feet deep.  But Zhivie isn't in the wild.  This comes with perks, like daily fresh vegetables, no parasites, no predators, and no being run over by cars, trucks, tanks, etc.  However, one major bummer in this case, is that she only gets 8 inches of substrate.  No six foot burrow.  I dragged myself out of my warm bed and checked the temperature as she scrabbled against the rubber floor of her tub.  50 degrees, rather cold for a cold blooded animal.  So I turned on a light and dug out the small space heater my sister had given me for my birthday.  When my alarm when off this morning, my room was back up to 60 degrees, and Zhivie had stopped trying to dig to China.

Apparently the heat had gone out in our house last night.  I had just assumed it was really cold outside, and that my room with its two outside walls was just unlucky.  As I hit snooze repeatedly, I was woken up by Randy, my wonderful, considerate landlord/housemate who's usually never awake before ten.  It was six a.m., and he was opening my door to stick in a much better space heater and apologize for the cold.

But don't worry, I won't freeze.  It's a balmy 80 degrees in my classroom.  Again.

Dear Dysfunctional Roommate

First, I hope you don't read my blog.  Second, let me be frank.  We haven't known each other long, since you only moved in a month ago and have generally been gone as your life seems to fall apart in a new away every day.  I sympathize, empathize as much as I am able, even though at least half of this seems to be self-created.  However, your indecision, impulsive decisions, deciding that you're moving out, that you're not moving out, that you're moving out this week, or that you're moving out next month is affecting more than just yourself.  And I don't just mean Randy, our other roommate/landlord, who is listing and unlisting your possibly empty bedroom.

I'm talking about your cat.  Your dear, sweet, annoying cat you have for some reason named Muumu.  Last week, when you didn't come home for three days, I texted you to ask if you were ok.  You asked me to feed your cat.  That's the only time you've mentioned it, despite being gone five out of the last seven days, again.  So I continue to feed your cat.  I even bought more cat food when you ran out.  I pet your cat, and I chase it off the furniture and counters for you.

Let me make myself clear: I do this not because I am thrilled to have a cat in my house.  I do this because there is a cat in my house, its owner is neglecting it, and I'm not coldhearted enough to let an animal suffer from neglect in my own home.  I am growing increasingly worried.  I'm worried that the longer this goes on, the less comfortable I get with the idea of Muumu being ok with you when you do finally move out.  Not only that, but you have mentioned giving her away once or twice.  Basically, I am increasingly convinced that you are unable to adequately care for your cat.  Your dear, sweet, annoying cat that is the most talkative damn cat I've ever met.

I'm worried that since I am already taking care of your cat, loving your cat for you, and apparently more concerned for your cat than you are, I would be the natural choice to take care of your cat.  But I do not want your cat.  There are plenty of reasons that I got a tortoise instead of a cat.  The biggest is that I'm gone a lot, and I don't think my lifestyle is stable enough for one.  But apparently, neither are you.

So please, I implore you, come home, stabilize yourself, and take care of Muumu.  Because if you're gone another week, I'm going to have to learn how to clean out a litter box.

Miss E.

Made My Day

If you look through the pictures, you could swear that turtle is smirking.

Escaped tortoise impounded after stroll through neighborhood.

It's My Turn to Ramble about My Pet! Finally!

After almost four weeks with Zhivanna, I can wholeheartedly proclaim that I am completely in love with her. Currently she's basking on an impromptu log I rigged up out of a rolled up rug, a towel, and some shoes so that she could eat breakfast and bask in the living room while I checked my email.  Now she's venturing off, peering over at me frequently to see if I'm going to bother her.

Things I have learned about my tortoise:  She's curious and undaunted. Wandering is what she likes best.  I almost wish I had a bigger apartment so she had more room.  She is nearly always in motion.  Sometimes she does laps of a room, circling the perimeter, stopping to sniff anything interesting or squeeze herself under something too small for her. I've watched her investigate every corner of my apartment, constantly seeking out a challenge.  If there are three ways to get over, through, or around something, she will pick the smallest opening or the hardest climb.  Although she'll pause and pretend she's not there when you're looking at her, if you're just sitting there, she'll climb over your feet and inspect your toes closely to see if your red toenails smell like anything edible.  When I let her out to roam around, she doesn't hide in a corner and attempt to escape like many reptiles/hampsters/guinea pigs when you let them out.  So I can let her out to have free run of the apartment when I'm home, checking only occasionally to make sure I have a general idea of where she is.

She also thoroughly explores the apartment looking for things to climb.  And boy howdy, can an Agrionemys horsfieldii climb.  I saw this picture on the internet:

Picture Source

And I had noticed Zhivie's penchant for summitting whatever she could.  Anything she thinks there might be a slim possibility she could climb, and she'll spend fifteen minutes trying.  She purposely crawls over shoes, piles of clothes, pillows, and anything else in her path.  However, I didn't believe she could really climb as well as the picture above made it look, until a few days ago when she was in my bedroom and proceeded to climb a nearly vertical yoga mat.  I hadn't seen her in a while, so I went to check on her.  At first I couldn't find her, but that's because she was several feet higher than I'm used to looking.  I have evidence:

No wonder they chose turtles for ninja mutants.  

She hung out on top of that mat for ten minutes, climbing up a little, down a little, to the side, trying to find a way to get higher.  I finally took her down and put her back in her enclosure because I was leaving the apartment.

I've also learned that tortoises are smart.  If she knows I'm taking her outside on the grass, or to wander around my apartment, she hardly struggles at all when I carry her.  She knows me.  She reacts differently to me than to anyone else who comes over.  She doesn't draw back when I reach for her to pick her up or to scratch her head unless I startle her.  If I come over to her enclosure, as soon as she sees me she get as close to me as she can, climb as high as she can, and then reach her neck up expectantly, "asking" to come out and wander.

And as far as pets go, she's pretty dang convenient.  If I'm gone all day, all she needs is to have clean water and some veggies left out for her, and I can be gone from sunrise to sunset.  If I'm home, she'll spend hours wandering around the apartment, stopping every once and a while to check on me.  Her breed is from the semi-arid regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan, northeast Iran, Northern China, etc.  Because of this, Russian tortoises will wait to go to the bathroom until they know there's more water available.  This means she usually pees or poops or both when she's either eating or drinking.  So, instead of needing to change her entire substrate, all I have do is wash the dish.  And even when she does pee or poop on the carpet (It's happened.), it takes about 30 seconds to clean up.

All in all, I'm very glad she's mine.  I look forward to having her for decades to come.

Also, turtle yawns are adorable.

Zhivana

Meet Zhivana, the beautiful little Russian tortoise that I brought home yesterday.  After years of pet cravings, long debates with myself and other people over whether or not I had a kitten/puppy/furry creature appropriate lifestyle, and wandering through the pet store multiple times in the same day for at least half an hour each, I have finally taken the plunge.  Zhivana is mellow enough to not mind if she sits in her enclosure all day while I'm gone, but social enough to like exploring and having her head scratched.

A bigger and better enclosure is in the works in the next few months, but apparently Rubbermaid has an unwitting monopoly on temporary reptile housing.  Seriously.  Ask the most reputable tortoise forums on the internet, ask pet shop owners.  Rubbermaid is where your reptiles live until you build them elaborate homes.

So far she is still getting used to her new home, so I've tried not to stress her out much, but here are a few pictures.  So far her favorite foods are romaine lettuce and green peppers.  She'll eat carrots when the rest is gone.  The largest she'll grow is about 8-10" and she could live 25 years with proper care.

Her nickname is Zhivie.