Cheap and Delicious for the Single Vegetarian

How have I been vegetarian for years, and not known about President's Choice Vegetarian Chili in a can? Being in school, I barely have time to cook, and it's a lot of work for just me - so I am always on the lookout for cheap, yummy and veggie friendly options and stumbled upon this. There's not just veggies and tomato sauce in here either - there's soy protein in this little bad boy! It's not frozen, which is nice, and heats up in a whopping three minutes. I top it with a bit of shredded cheese, and add a couple of pieces of crusty bread on the side for dipping, and there you go - all food groups, covered! For $1.49 a meal! And it tastes great, leaves me full and gives me back one hour+ in my day. Thank you Loblaws.

Siroons is killing me.

Last Friday, after my week of kennel duty madness, I got home ready to sink into the couch, pour myself a of glass of wine, and pat myself on the back for getting through it all. The driving back and forth, the socializing with twenty year olds, working at the dog school, trying to get midterms studied for and pulled off was just exhausting. All of it. I had eaten dinner at my parents house, adding to the exhaustion. Walk in the front door, and there's Siris, wagging her tail. With a big giant mass sticking out of the right side of her head.

I freaked out. She looked like she was packing a golf ball in her cheek. Her jaw or teeth or something were making a weird grinding noise. She looked ridiculously, hopelessly asymmetrical. So I worried all night, hoped it was just an allergic reaction, and the next morning called the vet. They squeezed me in and told me likely not an allergy since it's not bilateral. Which I should have known but was in denial about it. They told me possible tooth abscess or mass or salivary gland infection. So they sent off hematology (blood work) and histology (tissue work) and I worried about how I would afford it all. Blah.

Today I got a call that it's a "submandibular granuloma", that they think we can treat with anti-biotics. They said usually caused by a foreign object getting in there and a resulting infection. So, that's good news. The antibiotics they gave me when I took her in seem to be working, I can still feel the hard mass, but the swelling is barely noticeable. She's on FOURTEEN pills a day now, between these and the ones for a skin infection she's had forever. My old girl is slowing down so much. I am terrified of losing her. She just limps along beside or behind me, tail still wagging, ears still looking goofy. I wish she could talk to me so much. She whimpers at the cat, and sticks to me like a shadow. She is trying to pretend to herself that she's not getting old. But she is getting old. Sniff.

I sure hope she stays healthy and strong - I can't imagine my life without her. Taking her back for a re-check tomorrow and they might add another antibiotic. Yikes. We're going UP from fourteen pills a day.

The mutters appreciates any good vibes from cyberspace.
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*edit* I just clicked on the photo to enlarge it so you can read my annotation, and noticed that in the background you can see Senor Snuggles peaking out at Siris from the dining room, plotting, and his eyes both hit the flash so that he looks like a demon cat. Awesome.

Oh, the maturity!

Some neighbourhood prankster who thinks he's oh-so-clever has been defacing all the No Exit signs in my area. (Yeah, I said "he".) Not exactly sure what this genius is trying to tell the good people of Forest Hill, but I for one am getting sick of seeing his handiwork every time I take the mutters out for a walk.

Damnit! (Roommate Search Continues...)

So I finally met someone decent who came to look at the apartment. After the crazy religious medical student lady came a couple of completely trashy flakey ladies, who both thought the room was too small for all of their stuff. And I was kind of losing hope and getting broker by the second, after them. But next came a pretty cool girl who came to look at it. She asked me what my pot policy was, pretty much. She had a cat that she wanted to bring with her. She had furniture that would fill my areas of furniture emptyness/weakness. It was all so delightfully easy. But moving your single cat into a home where there's a cat and a dog - well, that's a big change, and not something to take lightly. So today I got an email from her saying she wanted to find somewhere that her cat would be the only pet. Boooourns.

Back to the drawing board, I guess. I have another girl with a diabetic cat in the horizon somewhere. She's out of town on business this week so hopefully she gets in touch when she gets back and doesn't flake out all Craigslist-style. So many flakes. Free advertising sucks. Toronto Cat Rescue posts on there sometimes and now that I'm their Volunteer Coordinator, I get to deal with my fair share of Craigslist crazies.

Anyways, cross your fingers for me that woman-with-diabetic-cat is not a flake, and falls in love with us and with the apartment.

Also, think good thoughts for me making the drive out to good old King City this week. No ice-patches. No snow. No freezing rain. Think safe and uneventful. Three weeks to reading break.

Heart Shaped Dog Biscuits

We're doing a dog treat bake-sale at school, where the funds go to the animals, so this weekend I began my foray into homemade dog treat baking. These ones are to combat doggie-breath and have mint, parsley and activated charcoal in them to accomplish this. To my surprise, they actually came out okay. Siris got to eat the imperfect ones, and she loved em.

2 cups brown rice flour

1 tbsp activated charcoal

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 egg

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup chopped mint

Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Mix flour and charcoal. Add oil and egg. Mix. Add milk. Mix. Add mint and parsley. Mix. Drop onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Voila! Done! Store in sealed container in the fridge for maximum freshness!

I tried to roll my dough and use cookie cutters, which happened with only moderate success, but each batch is looking better. Happy early Valentines Day, doggies!

Fun times in the Vet Tech program

This week in one of my labs, one of my professors devised a game called she dubbed 'Basophil Boot Camp'. She distributed cards to the class - a blue card for "Basophil", and a red one for "Not A Basophil". And then we spent a good half an hour going through a powerpoint presentation she'd prepared - we'd all look at an image and then have five seconds to hold up a card depending on what we thought of the leukocyte on the slide. Basophil or Not A Basophil?

Cell identification - exciting stuff. When most of the class got the answer right, our professor would break out into a huge grin and say "Yaaaaaaaaaay! That's right! That IS a basophil!" and we thought she might explode with happiness. She loves her cells, all right. Her level of enthusiasm...? A little over the top, perhaps since we are talking about white blood cells here, but good for her for making it fun.

Anyway, this is an example of how I spend my days at school, and what I'm learning.

In the last week in addition to surviving 'Basophil Bootcamp' I also:

• Gave an IM and a subcutaneous injection to a Beagle cadaver.
• Manually and automatically processed an x-ray
• Correctly identified round worm eggs in a fecal float

Cooooool.