CD finished

"I have a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell!" - with apologies to Saturday Night Live.

I've disappeared from the blog world for a little more than a week so I could put on the finishing touches to my new instrumental CD "More Cowbell". I think these songs are the best ones this amateur musician has ever made. I am really happy with the songs. No vocals because I can't sing but I did the drums, bass, electric and acoustic guitars, piano, organ, and synthesizers. My favorites are "Fill Your Hand", "Big Red Boogie", "Harvest", and "Moonlight". It is a learning experience for me and I am pushing my meager talents to the limit with each new song. As I make more tunes I think they will continue to evolve and become more interesting and complex. The experience is very rewarding and I am having a ball with it. For these songs I used several keyboards, my old Gibson Invader, Gibson SG, Gibson ES-335, Reverend Slingshot Custom, Fender American Fat Strat, and acoustic guitars by Martin and Blueridge. I also used some synth programs on the computer for drums and strings. Recording and mixing was done on my home computer with help from Fender Blues Deluxe
and Martin acoustic amplifiers as well as various microphones and effect boxes.

If you would like to listen to the new CD, it is located HERE.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback or rating vote on the site.

Gabriella Is Doing Great!

We met Gabriella's foster mom when she took her back to the vet to have her stitches removed. She has decided to keep Gabriella permanently! I was very impressed by her empathy and caring nature so I am certain that Gabriella has found a terrific home. Gabriella is already a lap cat and is somewhat spoiled. She has doubled her weight and looks very healthy. When I took her for petting she cried for her mom until I returned her. Gabriella had no fear of the vet's room, exploring and sniffing around. She is a very fortunate kitty to have found such a loving family.

Elvira Strikes Again

Those of you who occasionally drop by my modest little blog know of the ball of kinetic energy we call our kitten Elvira. So far I've seen her toss cat food cans out of the cabinet so she could be fed, offer me a ball in trade for some treats, and I've even seen her dive into the bathtub while my wife was in there. (The screams could be heard a mile away!) Last night I went into the kitchen to rinse out my bowl after eating some vanilla ice cream when I spied a furtive black urchin doing something I had to look twice at to convince myself what I was seeing. I went back into the living room and said, "Honey, after you got us both ice cream what did you do with the carton?" She immediately grasped the significance of the question and ran into the kitchen to behold our little Elvira. She had knocked the ice cream carton off of the counter, dragged it to a corner of the room where she wouldn't be bothered, and had her head and a good portion of her body buried inside the container. We pulled the now-white Elvira out of the carton and spent the next half hour cleaning her up. Gotta love her!

Spider On Our Fig Tree

I came in from my last day at school today and found a couple of these green lynx spiders on our little fig tree. They are fascinating spiders as they hunt prey on the leaves and do not build nests. They rarely bite humans and this girl didn't seem at all perturbed at my closeup photography. The female cares for the hatchlings while they are small. Kind of cute, isn't she?

Why I Am A Vegetarian

Today is another school end of the year luncheon at a local seafood restaurant. As a vegetarian I haven't been to one of those luncheons in years because the only thing I can eat is salad and a baked potato. People are always asking me why I am a vegetarian. I turned to the dark side about 25 years ago. I'm not even sure myself of the honest answer to that question but here are the reasons I give:

1) 29 years of dissecting animals in classes for future medical staff has dulled my enthusiasm for meat.
2) The health benefits are great. I weigh 177 pounds now and am 6'2'' tall. My weight is stable and I lost 23 pounds since becoming a vegetarian. My cholesterol and triglyceride values are low in spite of the fact that high cholesterol values run in my family.
3) I love animals and have a lot of empathy for them. I am the type who rescues turtles from the road. The people at my rescue/adoption group Goliath and Bebe's World call me Dr. Doolittle because I can communicate with cats on a level that is almost spooky.

Vegetarian fare is so much better today than when I started out as a vegetarian. A lot of the processed foods tasted like cardboard then. Now I eat a wide variety of sandwiches, soups, stews, and soy strips that you would have a hard time distinguishing from chicken and fish. The food is very flavorful and I get more protein, vitamins, and minerals and much less fat than I would get on a regular meat diet.

I don't try to convert others to vegetarianism because I have always hated those preachy types. I do recommend it for anyone who wants to change their lifestyle. It really isn't hard to change. Check out some of the vegetarian foods on the market. The only drawback is that I miss those end of the year banquets my school puts out. I just refuse to sit there eating a salad.

Good News

Well, things have worked out much better than I dared to hope for with my schedule for next year. Another teacher was very unhappy to be teaching Biology so when she asked if I would be willing to swap courses with her I said yes. I just got the revised schedule and I am now teaching Anatomy Honors, Biology Honors, and Biology! I am back in my area of expertise now so even with 3 preps I am very happy with it. I know the students will get my best now. The end of the year is not a good time to make decisions about the future since I am exhausted so I am going to wait until the end of summer to decide whether to teach past next year. If I do it will be because I am still enjoying teaching and not for the money. Money has never been a primary issue with me. As long as I can get by financially and keep the furkids up in the luxury they are accustomed to that is enough for me. I may stay in the profession an extra year or so if I think I can still give a good education to the kids and inspire them. I will just take it a year at a time now. The physical demands will probably be what will eventually force me to call it quits.

Mixed Results For Next Year

I just got my tentative schedule for next year. The great news is that I am not scheduled to teach Chemistry! That is such a relief to me. The not-so-great news is that I have to move all my stuff to another room and I am slated for 4 preps. They have me teaching Biology I, Biology I Honors, Physical Science, and Anatomy/Physiology Honors. It's quite an assortment but considering the fact that our school is downsizing and we lost 4 science teachers I am not surprised at having to cover several subjects. I have taught all of these in the past and know I can handle it. The hardest part will probably be motivating the standard level classes. I hope they can be inspired to learn. Sometimes you get a standard group that is extremely low academically with a large percentage who are retaking the course. Memories of my "class from Hell" I taught a couple of years ago still send shivers down my spine. I will hope for the best and maybe I will be pleasantly surprised in that regard. Overall I feel I can deal with the schedule.

Addendum - They made a mistake about the room assignment number. I will apparently get to keep my room! Things are looking up.

Good news about the kitten Gabriella. The foster family who took her in fell in love with her and decided to adopt her! They say that Gabriella has quickly become an extreme "lap cat" who loves to snuggle. It's the first time the little gal has ever had a family who cared about her so she is really enjoying herself.

Migraine Time

What a bummer. Friday afternoon a migraine suddenly hit me full force. I had to cancel going to the graduation ceremony, grab a Maxalt pill, some naproxen, caffeine, and go to bed. I feel better today but still have the lingering afteraffects of it. I think it was probably brought on by a combination of stress from the year's teaching. the stress of being assigned Chemistry next year, and the off-and-on air conditioning problems in my room this week. I hope I will be able to get through next week without much more stress and a little cool air and everything should go well. I have a ton of packing to do in the room since I will probably be relocated to another room for next year. My neighbor has already come over and claimed my nice Biology room for herself.

Photo of Gabriella

Here is the Gabriella I told about in the previous post. She came through the surgery fine. They amputated about half of her tail. She has never been handled before and is obviously pretty overwhelmed. My wife met her foster parent at the vet and took this photo. I think my student and her folks will actually wind up keeping Gabriella forever but the fostering will be a trial period. The foster mom really seemed to care about Gabriella and was very concerned about providing a wonderful indoor home for her. It's always so great when stories like this one has a happy ending!

Gabriella

I got a call from one of our deans this morning with an "interesting" problem. It seems that a student arrived at school and heard a cat crying under the engine hood. When he opened the hood a kitten sprang out and ran under another car. The dean and other staff members spent the next hour chasing this cat around the parking lot before finally catching it. They knew I did volunteer animal rescue work so he called me for assistance instead of our local "kill" animal shelter (thank goodness!).

I was teaching a class at the time so I called my wife and asked her to take off work and come get the cat. When class was over I hurried down and brought the kitten back to my room to evaluate it. The poor little gray tabby was scared to death and obviously had never been held by a human before. I immediately discovered the cat had a badly broken tail and was in pain so I put it back in the box quickly and put in towels and water. I didn't want to cause any further pain or panic so I couldn't find out the sex then. The cat calmed down a little bit after awhile and the wife came in about an hour to pick it up.

I told my wife to spare no expense since the cat may have other injuries so she took the little one to our personal vet, Dr. Russell, a great cat vet here. I called Karen later for an update. It seems that the cat is a female and about 5 weeks old. One of my students, Gabe, requested we name it after him. Since the kitten turned out to be a "she" we are calling her Gabriella. She weighs 1.1 pounds. Gabriella is in surgery now to amputate about a quarter of her tail. She was dewormed as well. Other than that she seems to be in good health. They will keep her overnight and we get her back tomorrow. I am not certain what we will do next. Several teachers at school have shown an interest in adopting Gabriella. She needs to be worked with a lot. She will also need vaccines and a spay. We are working with our rescue group Goliath and Bebe's World to find a foster parent and we will adopt her out to a good home that will keep her indoors as soon as she is ready. My group and their vet will give the necessary vaccinations and spay. I would take her myself but with 9 cats and a bunny in a mobile home we are maxed out. With her rough start in life I feel that I owe her a wonderful home so I will be very picky about selecting the home she will eventually be adopted to. She certainly deserves a little happiness after what she went through. We are waiving the adoption fee if we find a great home for Gabriella. I'll post photos soon.

Velvet and Beau

Boy, this has been the season for cat stories! I guess you write what you know about so here goes. This lookalike couple are Velvet on the left and his son Beau on the right. When our sweet Daddy Cat died at 17 we were crushed. After several months we went looking for a cat to get in honor of him. I knew we could never replace our old guy but I thought the act of rescuing a cat would be a good thing. This was the first time we went to Goliath and Bebe's World, the group we volunteer for now. Here we found a very sad, passive cat called Black Velvet. We petted him and he just put his head under my arm in terror. He hated the cage. We had never even thought about adopting a second cat but Lisa offered both cats in the cage for the same price. She said that they were bonded father and son and that black cats were not going well due to the fact many people were superstitious about them. After a short deliberation we said yes to both. I am so glad we did. Watching Velvet and his son Beau cuddle at home is one of the sweetest things you could see. Velvet is still somewhat shy but now he loves petting and will hop up and lie on the arm of my chair. Beau is a party animal who enjoys playing with Elvira and Luvie.

They came off of the streets and were gathered in by a local "cat hoarder" who had 50 cats. This woman had to move in with her daughter and the rescue group had to find a home for all 50 cats. I know where 2 of them are.