Musings of a Lemming

[Ernest Lemmingway]

11 hours ago, worik said:

That's usually called "a fetish". ? Have you tried if it works for you?

I am not a lumberjack and I am not okay.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Guided Moose-le

 

I've been a bit preoccupied with my own concerns lately, so I didn't even notice two different problems. The first was that the bad weather had knocked out satellite service. Moose has gone for over a week without his pro wrestling and he's not happy. The other is we've got hunters again. Normally I'd be out there hunting the hunters to give them a taste of what it feels like to be shot at for sport. But without my fur in the winter I feel...naked. Even if I am wearing red and black flannel. So I got the bright idea of sending Moose after the hunters while he's in wrestling withdrawal. An angry alces (moose) can do a lot of damage.

 

What quickly became apparent was that he has no focus while he's angry. He ran through the hunters' camp once and into a tree. Moose is fine but the tree--a twenty-year-old pine--snapped in two. So I had to climb on Moose's head and guide him by the nubs where his antlers grow. I wasn't about to use a bit and bridle on him. Mostly because I don't have any that would fit a moose. I used chopsticks to communicate with taps.

 

I first guided Moose to a hunter with a gun loaded with accessories that cost more than my car. Despite things like laser range finders, high-powered scopes, and a reinforced barrel to fire high-powered rounds, the guy forgot to disable the safety. He's now a safety orange pancake who keeps groaning about "I almost had him."

 

The next one was a bow hunter. That's the thing about bows: you can't fire them up close as quickly as a gun. And if the pull is too low, you're not going to hurt a half-ton mass of muscle and raw fury. He got off one arrow that just bounced off of Moose before he was bent backwards at a ninety-degree angle. On the plus side he's saying he's never felt better.

 

Our next target was a guy using a .44 Magnum like Dirty Harry. We didn't even give him a chance to ask that inane question. We did feel lucky! And I've never seen a guy get a handgun that large shoved into his pie hole before, nor do I ever want to see it again. Talk about shooting your mouth off.

 

The final hunter was one of those hardcore survivalists who fashion their own hunting implements. In this case a wooden spear with a fire-hardened tip. Again, not the best weapon to use against a creature that outweighs you over five to one. Especially not one with the galaxy's third-most intelligent species acting as a guide. He telegraphed each of his thrusts and Moose was able to snap his spear in two within half a minute. What my maddened mate did next I couldn't watch. I've heard of having a stick up your ass but that was ridiculous!

 

As compensation for his efforts, and to forestall any further rampages, I ordered Moose several complete seasons of the WWF from the Eighties--so called "classic" wrestling. They ought to be here later today. Hopefully before Moose wakes up from the tranquilizers. We actually keep a dart gun around just in case this sort of thing happens. But today we felt the need to let the guy run wild. Meanwhile those hunters are going to have to tell the doctors a story they'll never believe. A moose and a lemming in flannel did that?

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Melissa convinced me to buy Wabbit and Bunnicula on YouTube to help me get over my leporiphobia. I'm now being forced to watch b...bunnies! If I'm not in the hospital from a heart attack on Monday, I'll consider that progress.

[worik]

She is planning in advance .... there is a certain date in appx. 2 months

[Ernest Lemmingway]

21 minutes ago, worik said:

She is planning in advance .... there is a certain date in appx. 2 months

Don't remind me. That's also when a certain lecherous lagomorph from my past makes her appearance.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Glen Gripes

 

Normally my posts are about the things I experience in the glen. But the past two weeks have seen so much trouble for the others it seems only fair I discuss their issues for a change.

 

Cecil and Dave, being "fully connected" Millennials, have begun to experience the very things that discourage me from using sociopathic media: stalking and hacking. It started simple enough with Cecil disagreeing with some SJW on Twitter and posting links to articles that disprove what they said. The next day they started receiving anonymous death threats via snail mail. No return address on the envelopes, which should have been a major warning sign to them and the post office. Soon after they started getting intrusions on their computers that they were quick to repel. Cecil was able to track the intrusions back to their origin point using an app he wrote "for just such an emergency." It turned out to be some college kid living in his parents' basement who clearly had no girlfriend if his porn collection is any indication. In retaliation, Dovahgerbil deleted his porn. Later that day there was a minor article about a young man being committed to a psychiatric hospital after having a nervous breakdown for no apparent reason.

 

Lipps's cabin is causing us all to lose sleep with all that noise, pollution, and the heat from the heavy equipment waking up the bears. A grumpy grizzly woken up from hibernation nearly two months early is is a scary thing. Still not as scary as the smell, though. But money talk and that quack has too much of it. He just paid the crew more and had Ted and his kin tranquilized by the rangers so they could put earplugs into their heads. Yeah, none of us are very happy with our resident ducktor.

 

Karma's a bitch, though. Not all of the broken souls released from those buried copies of Diz-knee Star Wars DVDs have moved on and they're apparently haunting his half-finished new cabin. An interior decorator was hired to stage a room for an advertisement and she put up tacky hunting and fishing trophies. First the deer trophy started laughing, then all of the furniture did. It was like a scene out of Evil Dead 2. She ran screaming from the place, leaving her digital cameras running to film the entire thing. We critters nearly posted it on YouTube but decided not to for two reasons. One, it could be construed as a rip-off of the movie I mentioned. Two, it could tip off Lipps. Frankly the guy doesn't play video games so he doesn't even know about this site or my Musings. Right now we want him to learn the hard way about his haunting problems after everything he's put us through.

 

Moose has been pretty calm ever since I got him those old WWF DVDs to tide him over when his satellite goes out. Aside from the fact his antlers are already growing back and he just won't leave them alone until the velvet sheds. That's still living skin and hair and it hurts to cut it up opening cans of bean dip and plastic tubs of hummus. I guess he got tired of cutting his hooves doing the same thing. Actually I prefer it this way; hooves can develop a powerful funk and I was tired to applying liquid bandage to the surrounding flesh. We all wish he'd also cut back on the tahini (sesame paste) as well, though. Sesame gives him gas.

 

As is the case every year, Millie, my ex-squirrel-friend, is calling me daily to make sure her tree is in good shape when she gets back from Brazil for the warmer months. Only this year she's been making thinly veiled threats towards Melissa. The tension when those two talk just over the phone--much less Skype or in real life--makes me nervous. They nearly came to blows when Millie left for the winter last year and time has clearly not cooled any tempers. I dare say it's made them worse. And when those two argue they always draw me into it. Often the issue is over who has rights to my nuts and I don't just mean my macadamias! ...There's also the pistachios and the cashews.

 

Dave has also been having some issues. A Chinese chef came here for a day trip and spotted him. Next thing we know he's being chased by a madman with an Asian cleaver better suited to cutting up vegetables than cutting up bones, including my fowl friend's neck. Now the guy is coming here every day in a vain attempt to catch the biggest chicken he's ever seen. I'm pretty sure the guy is Chinese-American because he's using all the cheesiest traps from the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, including various forms of the old baited box held up with a twig tied to a string. First off, Dave doesn't like corn on the cob unless it's slathered in butter and salted...which is hard to do with wings. Second, you don't upset a chicken with a grill; his beak left the guy needing five stitches in his gluteus maximus.

 

As for me, there's not much to report. Other than Melissa's attempts to inure me to b...b...bunnies has left me afraid of harmonicas that bring dead fish back to life and of some faceless Grim Rabbit with a carrot tied to a stick for a scythe. I've also been a bit antsy that the burrow is still above ground and I won't have time to turn it into a bunker before Easter gets here. Alton Brown's Dungeon Master has also been giving me grief because of the delay in giving him work and a place to stay. He's a creepy guy who desperately needs to see a dentist but I can't deny the quality of his work torturing rabbits...even if they've all been stuffed.

 

Speaking of creepy, I haven't seen or heard from the jackalopes lately. That Chinese chef would wet himself at the idea of fresh rabbit...antelope hybrid things. Or they would turn him into take-out. Either way it gets the guy out of Dave's hair...er, comb.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Cougar Attacks!

 

Well, I've been living at Melissa's place for almost two months now and I've mostly, finally begun to get used to it. I've limited myself to three books in the bathroom, although they're all a thousand-plus pages long. What? I liked Shogun so I'm re-reading it. And I've mastered the art of sneaking food in the middle of the night. The hard part is finding the plug behind the fridge in the dark so the little light doesn't come on.

 

Things were settling into a nice, normal routine when a pair of cougars came to the glen. Not just any cougars, missionary cougars! Recent graduates of Brigham Young University, not surprisingly. They came here following the deer herds but stuck around when they saw how "sinful" the residents are. I think it was seeing Dave being chased by that crazy chef that convinced them we needed "saving." Cartoon-like antics are apparently not what "good Mormons" do. Honestly it was hard to take them seriously seeing as how they were dressed in white dress shirts and pressed black slacks, never once staining either as they gorily devoured a sick buck they'd taken down. It would have been silly if it wasn't such a visceral reminder of my status as "prey."

 

Their first targets were the squirrels. The ones who don't take an airliner to Brazil each fall like Millie does and so aren't flying squirrels. If you've never tried to talk to a squirrel during winter, they're ornery little tree rats during the cold months. First they pelted the cougars with nuts that had gone bad, then with jars of cheap peanut butter. Don't ask me where they got the PB because I have no clue, either. None of that deterred the missionary cougars, though. They just kept preaching about the Book of Mormon and the Prophet Brigham Young until the squirrels finally convinced them they were Catholic. That pretty much ended their efforts. And no, the squirrels aren't really Catholic; they're non-practicing Lutherans.

 

Next up was Dave as he ran and hid from that crazy Chinese-American chef. It's hard to hide when you have an LDS big cat suddenly appearing in your hollow log and asking you if you've heard the good news. It got so bad that I had to ride Moose like a horse and use a pitchfork as a lance, with my traditional war cry, "TABODI!" Unfortunately Moose slipped on an ice patch and I missed my target by several inches. I'm actually disappointed; the MEL was looking forward to Chinese food.

 

Cecil, the more eloquent of the duo, finally got them to back off of Dovahchicken by accepting a copy of the Book of Mormon and convincing them they'd give it a read. In reality he threw the thing into a recycling bin as soon as the cougars were out of sight. Like me, Cecil was baptized as a Mormon but turned away from the faith when he got older. And a Bishop was shamed into giving up his position for driving while drunk while another was getting high-fives for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old girl (true story, sickeningly). We're not sheep-like enough to ignore such hypocrisy in our religious leaders.

 

Their next target was me and Melissa. Like I said, I was baptized but lost all faith. Only I'm still registered as being a member and they hit me up for a donation; I really need to get myself excommunicated. Melissa, as a member of the galaxy's most intelligent species, is an atheist. She took it as a challenge and spent several hours talking with them. I hid inside as she wore them down with questions and quotations of scripture and science. Particularly Genesis 1:25 where Adam is given dominion over all animals; how did that figure into their worldview when humans had "divine right" to do with us critters whatever they felt like? In the end they were so confused that they just walked away with confused looks on their muzzles.

 

Their last target was Moose. As I've said before, Moose is Jewish. Reformed, I think, but only practices on holidays. And he's not the brightest bulb in the drawer. So their efforts were slowed by his inability to grasp what they were even talking about. When he asked them to explain why he would read a golden book while eating a piece of bread and drinking water ("good" Mormons don't drink...wine) for the third time they threw up their paws and walked away in defeat. Before they left they condemned us all to Hell and muttered about hitting a bar for a few stiff drinks.

 

Sinners one, preachy predators zilch.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Just a quick update from the LoversLab Lemming.

 

The concrete for my burrow's underground dungeon has finally cured enough that the workers are finally back at it. They should be lowering my burrow back into place and covering it with dirt again in another three weeks. Actually furnishing the thing is my job, but that will have to wait as I prepare for the Esther Bunny. I considered having Alton Brown's Dungeon Master start work a week early but he's still helping record a new episode of Good Eats. We're going to have to work a schedule around him being re-hired for that show.

 

Lipps is having some issues getting back to the glen. He didn't even stop and think how his blushing bride would get here since she's a human, not a duck. The cheapskate is trying to convince her to fly coach while she's demanding business class or better. Really, the guy can afford it! And it would be good for his health to take an airliner this year. The duck hunters are out in force already despite the fact it's not yet duck season. I guess the itch to shoot at helpless critters is pretty bad.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

I think I'll be taking a break from the site for a while. There's too much politicking, bickering, and negativity going on here. Inte and Kimy fighting over some misunderstanding with POP, the division over Epic, the kerfuffle over Articles 11 and 13 in the EU, it's too much! The lemming is now sad. ?

[worik]

11 minutes ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

The lemming is now sad. ?

⛅ Take a walk around the glen, have a tea ? and enjoy a bit of RL

We'll be waiting here until you return.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Easter Prep

 

My burrow has finally been put back into place now that my dungeon is complete. That's why I haven't posted for so long; I've been busy getting everything put back into place. And I've been a bit busy getting Dungeon Master settled. Creepy dude, definitely needs to see a dentist, but he knows how to handle the bad little b...bunnies. Especially this time of year when the Esther Bunny makes her appearances. He also promised he'd bring some of his own implements like a press and a shredder. It turns out he meant a tortilla press and a Cuisinart! That's what I get for hiring someone who used to star in a cooking show.

 

Thing has also proven to be less of a help than I'd anticipated. Understand that Thing is a hand, just a hand! I think he's the grandson of Thing from The Addams Family. Somehow he can be frying a steak one moment, then holding a bottle of B-2 out of a cupboard the next. Surely he should be able to hand me a packet of seeds I left in the burrow, right? Wrong. His "handiness" is apparently limited to the kitchen. I asked him to hand me a screwdriver and he gave me a cocktail of vodka and OJ. How he did that I don't know; I don't have orange juice in the burrow. Poor guy must not have gotten out much because he doesn't know a garden spade from a hand rake. There's going to be a lot of manual training with him if he's going to be my farmhand.

 

Melissa isn't being much help right now, either. She saw those Easter eggs the Esther Bunny left and wants to use them as decoration! The rabbit who bullied me since I was a child and then treated me like her own private toy when I was a teenager is leaving me "presents" like she does every year and my girlfriend wants to remind me of those horrors?! It's enough to make me crawl back inside my shell.

 

She's also not keen on helping me install the items in my dungeon. Using them, sure. But the actual grunt work of bolting manacles to the walls or hauling a cage into place? No, she'd rather let me handle that. Meanwhile the Dungeon Master is busy with chat rooms or building devices to extract oil from anything from seeds to hunters. I'm really having some second thoughts about him. I just hope he catches the Esther Bunny and gives her a taste of her own medicine. Maybe I'll have an Easter dinner of hasenpfeffer if he does.

 

Ooh. That's assuming she doesn't like her treatment in the dungeon. Esther was always a super-freak.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Youth is Wasted on the Young

 

I've finally overcome all those hurdles to getting into community college to learn a new trade and begun school last week. It's hard enough to go back as an adult when the majority of the other students are all barely out of high school, but going back as an adult lemming? Those kids clearly have no idea how the world works if they're confused by the sight of a critter in a human rig. They'll learn rather quickly that it's we animals who do the real work that makes society run and humans just take all the credit. Which is actually a good thing whenever something goes wrong. Humans take all the credit, yes, but they also take all the blame. Actually, that's a problem sometimes when the same incompetent animals keep getting hired; just look at those rats who run BP. Or the turkeys who run the US government.

 

My first two courses have nothing to do with lab work or even science. One is a course on how to properly write papers and reports. The other is on computer use. I wish I could test out of both but that's not an option. So I'm forced to sit there and listen to the teachers drone on about two things I've been doing for most of my life. The sad part is, the majority of the other students in both classes actually need these lessons. Most of them have never even heard of DOS or know how to keep a paper succinct. Or what "succinct" even means.

 

Thankfully it's just three hours a day, four days a week, because I still have a job to do. Which is helping arrogant bucks work a legacy system that's only slightly younger than they are. They're learning the hard way that their elders are still relevant. It must grate their egos even more to work under a small, fuzzy critter they could squish with one hand.

 

After a day of working for a company that's still trying to replace outdated hardware and software and doesn't have any other people familiar with the old systems, followed by three more hours of attending school with yet more people who are still too young to know better, I return home to friends who still act like children. Cecil and Dave were playing Dovahkiin versus the evil Hist trees who drove the An-Xileel faction of the Argonians to slaughter the Dunmer of Morrowind, Ted is still asleep in his den, Melissa is turning my burrow into an Easter display that would be gaudy even at Nordstrom's with Thing's help, and two others are still in Brazil until the weather finally warms up here. It's gotten to the point I'm hanging out with Dungeon Master because I feel so alienated from everyone else. Or rather, because I'm still installing things in the dungeon without help.

 

I still wish DM would see a dentist, though.

 

I know that age is a state of mind. So when people ask my age I say, "nucking futs." Which must mean "older and grumpier than most of my peers." I used to joke I was born a decade too late because I loved the TV, movies, and music Eighties but loathed the Nineties in their entirety. Now I say it because I feel like I'm a decade older than I am. Blah! I'm middle-aged and I'm not even forty yet! I should still have three more years of energy before I'm over the hill!

 

Then I go to work and school and see what young people are like today and thank Dog I'm not young anymore! Being connected to everything continually through smart devices? Using sociopathic media to communicate with people I see every day? Call me old-fashioned but I prefer to talk to people face to face, I don't like my gadgets thinking for me, and I'd rather not hear every piece of bad news in the world the moment it gets published or posted or whatever. I'm getting old, damn it, and I can't stand being in constant communication with everyone.

 

I can't wait for Ted E. Bear to wake up ...Er, wake up and have a bath first. I need someone I can discuss fine literature, philosophy, and the genius of Monty Python with. Besides Melissa, whom I dare not disagree with lest she do very bad things to me in the night. I've tried hanging with Moose and watching wrestling, but there's not enough beer in the world that could make me enjoy guys in bad costumes beating the fake tar out of each other.

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a blueberry pie to eat. Mostly back to blue, but still pink in a couple of areas.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Bear-ly Awake and My Ex-Squirrel Friend

 

I hate it when Easter is slated to come in late-April. I just want to hunker down and wait out the holiday of the b...bunnies even as Ted is waking up from hibernation and is eager to start discussing the implications of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on string theory. Only he wasn't quite fully awake. It's sort of like seeing a happy drunk...if said drunk had the strength of a grizzly. And the smell of one, too. It's hard to say what's stronger, really. There's a wide creek not far from his den but he kept walking into trees whenever he tries to head there. If he wasn't still half-asleep he'd have been in a bad mood from all the lumps on his head.

 

Donning a gas mask, I finally helped guide him where he needed to go. The icy water did a better job than a cup of coffee. And this is a bear that takes grooming very seriously when he's recovered from his winter's sleep. After he got the worst of the grime off he returned to his own den and hit that shower he had installed. He must have a water heater the size of a room because he spent an hour in there lathering, rinsing, and repeating. If you're wondering how a grizzly can use a shower, just remember that Ted is smarter than the average bear.

 

Millie returned this week as well and the sparks were flying the moment she got back. Two women fighting over a guy, especially when one of those women is a possessive, obsessive, and scary rodent, and the other is your girlfriend, is scary! People may make jokes about "cat fights," but a "mouse and squirrel fight" is nothing to laugh at. Millie may have had the advantage in size but Melissa is one of the galaxy's most intelligent species. She just squeaked by in the knockdown, drag-out brawl that ensued.

 

Fortunately Ted was there and helped break things up in the end. He even acted as a neutral mediator the following day when tempers had cooled a bit. Millie has never accepted that I broke up with her because she was always after my nuts. Many, many times I'd wake up in the middle of the night and catch her trying to eat them. Or begging me for them in public. And that was back before the local warehouse stores opened up and things like pistachios and cashews were relatively expensive! Melissa, however, has a broader palate and doesn't beg in public for them. Even if I'm not carrying anything I don't normally have. And she doesn't get so insanely jealous if I talk to other women for any reason.

 

Yes, Millie is n...not well in the head.

 

I owe Ted for his help with this. I'll hit the store on Monday, after Easter is over, and get him some honey. I just have to remember not to get the type that comes in the plastic bears. He has issues squeezing the gooey insides out of another ursine.

 

If you're wondering about Thing and Dungeon Master, they had to go to Georgia to film a new episode of Good Eats for half the week. Thing is actually learning the art of gardening quite quickly. He's turning into a farmhand with a real green thumb. As for DM, he spends most of his time in chat rooms and on Twitter when he's not inventing sadistic devices of torture or digging a moat around the burrow. Why he wants to add a moat I didn't ask; I'm too afraid to. But I remember something about Alton Brown punishing him for using his credit card to buy a mechanized meat swisher that cost fifteen-hundred by having him skim the scum off his moat. Only for DM to bring out a fun-straw and act happy.

 

After big bad b...b...bunnies are gone, I've got hunters to take care of as well. It's duck season, not rabbit season, unfortunately.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

I hope everyone is having a happy Easter. I wish I could say the same but there are some very real life reasons I'm not. If you don't want to hear, I've hidden it in the spoiler.

Spoiler

I got a call from my father around six-thirty local time. My mother, a flight attendant trained to know the warning signs in case of emergencies with passengers, was rushed to the ER when she recognized she was having a heart attack. The doctor said she was mere hours from death and if she'd taken pain relievers and ignored the angina, she would have died. As is she has a splint in the primary artery feeding into both chambers of her heart and will survive. No word on what specifically caused it. Last I heard she was going to be moved out of ICU for overnight observation and testing. Meanwhile I'm stuck dog-sitting my parents' toy poodle who has severe separation anxieties.

 

The sick thing is, she eats right, exercises, takes supplements for her health, basically everything you can do right because she still works and is exposed to Dog-knows-what on a daily basis. So she was definitely not in the "high risk" category.

 

UPDATE: The doctors identified her adhering to the Keto Diet (low-carb, high-protein, high-fat) as the culprit. It was too many LDL-rich foods and not enough high-HDL ones. She had a high buildup of bad (LDL--low-density lipoproteins) cholesterol in her arteries and not enough good (HDL--high-density) cholesterol to return the bad back to the liver. The biology is more complex than that but that's the basic gist. And she'll be turning 64 in June, so age also played a part.

 

Still, if anyone knows someone who's on the Keto Diet, take this as a warning. Not enough fiber or mono- and polyunsaturated fats in it, way too many saturated ones and processed foods for a 63-year-old woman.

 

[Psalam]

Quote

16 hours ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

I hope everyone is having a happy Easter. I wish I could say the same but there are some very real life reasons I'm not. If you don't want to hear, I've hidden it in the spoiler.

  Hide contents

I got a call from my father around six-thirty local time. My mother, a flight attendant trained to know the warning signs in case of emergencies with passengers, was rushed to the ER when she recognized she was having a heart attack. The doctor said she was mere hours from death and if she'd taken pain relievers and ignored the angina, she would have died. As is she has a splint in the primary artery feeding into both chambers of her heart and will survive. No word on what specifically caused it. Last I heard she was going to be moved out of ICU for overnight observation and testing. Meanwhile I'm stuck dog-sitting my parents' toy poodle who has severe separation anxieties.

 

The sick thing is, she eats right, exercises, takes supplements for her health, basically everything you can do right because she still works and is exposed to Dog-knows-what on a daily basis. So she was definitely not in the "high risk" category.

 

UPDATE: The doctors identified her adhering to the Keto Diet (low-carb, high-protein, high-fat) as the culprit. It was too many LDL-rich foods and not enough high-HDL ones. She had a high buildup of bad (LDL--low-density lipoproteins) cholesterol in her arteries and not enough good (HDL--high-density) cholesterol to return the bad back to the liver. The biology is more complex than that but that's the basic gist. And she'll be turning 64 in June, so age also played a part.

 

Still, if anyone knows someone who's on the Keto Diet, take this as a warning. Not enough fiber or mono- and polyunsaturated fats in it, way too many saturated ones and processed foods for a 63-year-old woman.

 

 

I'll tell my wife, the nurse, but I don't think she'll change.

 

I'm glad to hear that she's doing better though.

 

Spoiler

If I understood you correctly she has a "stent" placed in her main coronary artery which is what supplies the blood flow (read oxygen) for the two ventricles (pumping chambers of the heart).

 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Spoiler

 

Yes. That's it. I'm not well versed in cardiology or medical terms. My lab tech courses to date are the two "practical" courses the syllabus demands and I'm still not up to the "S" section of my medical dictionary (still working through "L"). The doctor also dumbed down his explanation greatly, treating me and my father (a man who worked in hospitals for fifteen years in the bio-clinical engineering dept.) like idiots.  It was that last bit that irks us both.

 

Thanks for the kind words. She's still in ICU until early tomorrow morning but they expect her to make a full recovery in a few months. She was lucky, IMO.

 

The problem with the "Keto Diet" is that it relies on unsafe methods, especially the "ultra-low carb" part. Ketosis diets are fine if people balance them properly. Some carbs are necessary for basic brain function (sugars are literally fuel for our pink and gray matter). And not all carbs are bad just as not all fats are bad. Complex carbohydrates, balanced with insoluble fiber, will not invalidate a ketosis-based diet. Fruits are an excellent example of how to get both.

 

I haven't heard back yet, but I'd bet dollars to donuts my mother was also suffering from fairly mild ketoacidosis as well. She was complaining of most of the symptoms the day before and keto diets are proven to induce such when improperly followed. I've suffered similarly when I'm unable to eat (hypoglycemic; hormone imbalances) and under stress. That's the very reason I said that work as a systems engineer is "killing me." I wasn't being facetious.

[Psalam]

Quote

1 minute ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

Yes. That's it. I'm not well versed in cardiology or medical terms. My lab tech courses to date are the two "practical" courses the syllabus demands and I'm still not up to the "S" section of my medical dictionary (still working through "L"). The doctor also dumbed down his explanation greatly, treating me and my father (a man who worked in hospitals for fifteen years in the bio-clinical engineering dept.) like idiots.  It was that last bit that irks us both.

 

Thanks for the kind words. She's still in ICU until early tomorrow morning but they expect her to make a full recovery in a few months. She was lucky, IMO.

 

The problem with the "Keto Diet" is that it relies on unsafe methods, especially the "ultra-low carb" part. Ketosis diets are fine if people balance them properly. Some carbs are necessary for basic brain function (sugars are literally fuel for our pink and gray matter). And not all carbs are bad just as not all fats are bad. Complex carbohydrates, balanced with insoluble fiber, will not invalidate a ketosis-based diet. Fruits are an excellent example of how to get both.

 

I haven't heard back yet, but I'd bet dollars to donuts my mother was also suffering from fairly mild ketoacidosis as well. She was complaining of most of the symptoms the day before and keto diets are proven to induce such when improperly followed. I've suffered similarly when I'm unable to eat (hypoglycemic; hormone imbalances) and under stress. That's the very reason I said that work as a systems engineer is "killing me." I wasn't being facetious.

 

I don't want to sidetrack your thread. I come here for your witty comments and am happy to shut up or just move to PMs whenever you feel I've become a nuisance. Further, I have no desire to get into a war over the advantages and disadvantages of the Keto diet. There are some things that I would like to point out so I'll put them in a spoiler again.

 

Spoiler

It is virtually impossible for someone who is not a Type I (juvenile) diabetic to go into ketoacidosis. 

 

A Keto diet would take a LONG time to develop the kind of plaque that would require a stent. It may have played a role in precipitating her event but, in that case, she was a time bomb waiting to happen. 

 

Keto diets are VERY useful in some people. The risks of a high fat diet are small compared to the risks of obesity. People who lose significant amounts of weight with a Keto diet, and can keep it off, with a keto diet, should do so. However, it is not right for everyone or even a majority of people. Assuming that you consume a significant amount of protein with your keto diet (which is recommended) your body can convert that to carbohydrate which, you correctly pointed out, is absolutely necessary for good health. However, you do NOT have to consume those carbohydrates for your body to have them (fats, on the other hand, can not be converted).

 

Finally, I agree wholeheartedly with you assessment that she has been very lucky. Make sure she keeps aspirin around the house in the future (along with the other meds that her cardiologist will give her) to use if she experiences something similar in the future. 325 mg of aspirin is the second step (after calling her emergency number; 911 in the US) for anyone who has her problem.

 

[worik]

39 minutes ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

The doctor also dumbed down his explanation greatly, treating me and my father (a man who worked in hospitals for fifteen years in the bio-clinical engineering dept.) like idiots.  It was that last bit that irks us both.

Different decade, different part of the world, other part of parents... same story .

Just want to wish you and your family the best! ?

 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

25 minutes ago, Psalam said:

<snip>

Points taken. I'm not a doctor and working from limited information. My opinions are also biased, obviously.

 

Now let's get back to the madness! After everything that's happened, I could stand to lose myself in a little insanity.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

The Critters Strike Back

 

I've traded in my old .30-06 for a compound crossbow. It's easier to load, nearly silent, and doesn't leave the ears ringing when you can't get plugs the proper size. Yes, it's harder to aim when you're only six inches and your friend's antlers can't accommodate it as neatly as a rifle barrel. But the pros outweigh the cons. And you can't really poison a bullet. Nothing lethal, just the extract from Moose's magic mushrooms. The same things that reindeer munch and trip out on. I think they're in Skyrim, too...

 

Spoiler

 

We all got a chance to see this new strategy in action just recently. A hunting party of no less than six. All of them armed with shiny new guns and accessories that hadn't even been taken out of their boxes yet. This was going to be easy pickings. So much so we waited, raiding their camp and stealing all their food in the middle of the night. Now, the old rocks-in-cans-on-strings trap works if your prey can't see in the dark, doesn't have access to sharp instruments, and doesn't have the same manual dexterity as the hairless apes. Unfortunately for them we have all those things. The only thing we left behind was the vile, domestic three-two beer sold in grocery stores in this state. Really. A "beer" with a proof of six-point-four. Do humans actually drink that stuff?

 

While they snoozed, we had ourselves an impromptu grill party to celebrate the coming hunt. Although Ted nearly lost it when he discovered the honey they were carrying was the kind sold in the plastic bears. He does not like the symbolism of squeezing something out of another ursine's head. A New York steak settled him down. While the squirrels were quick to haul off the peanut butter and I hid a roast chicken in my burrow before Dave could see it and start on another of his rants. Seriously, Dovahchicken needs to get over the fact that his species is just that tasty. It's too bad he wasn't born a lemming; as arctic critters we can cause vitamin A toxicity when consumed. So we're not good eating.

 

Come morning the lot of them were freaking out that all their food--save that nasty brew--was gone. The sight of their crude alarms being disabled with massive bear prints right by them should have been a warning. Instead they partook of their only source of "nourishment" and decided to get hunting. Even that weak-as-water beverage of theirs can get someone pretty tipsy on an empty stomach and if consumed in large enough amounts. Which they did instead of simply going into town to get some food. I will never understand humans...

 

Three sheets to the wind, they began their hunt. Making enough noise to tell us critters where they were long before they got there. It also didn't help them that, as the saying goes, you don't buy them, you rent them. Ted was able to smell them miles away with that super-sniffer of his. And in their impaired state they kept shooting at trees and rocks that seemed to move. After they finally realized the safeties were still on.

 

By sunset they were sobering up enough to be a threat. So we decided to stop messing around. I've seen a grizzly wear sandals, put chocolate spread on a whole salmon, and watch outdoors shows. But never have I seen one handle the very rifle I gave up so adroitly. The shot had to have been three-hundred yards away. Sadly Ted wasn't aiming to kill, just to maim. One of those "manly, primal hunters" now had a nasty burn from a bullet graze on his butt and he started screaming bloody murder. His friend soon found himself with a bolt in his, one dipped in funky fungus extract. I don't know what he saw but soon after pulling the thing out of his rump he began screaming about "the purple butterflies" coming to eat his nose.

 

Meanwhile, two of their friends had been assaulted by squirrels who got under their clothing to bite a certain part of their anatomy. Both had stripped nude and were running around senselessly, still swatting at phantom tree rats. The last two were trapped up a tree with an angry Moose watching them. They'd interrupted his wrestling break and he'd "missed a part of the story." I didn't ask. There are some things you just don't question when faced with a half-ton bull moose.

 

After an hour of terrorizing these fools, the rangers came around. The two the squirrels had attacked had encountered a ranger station and were taken in for poaching and streaking, along with drug tests and full psychological evaluations given how they were acting. I don't think we'll be seeing them again. Oh well. We had our fun. And we got their food. Maybe if they had brought us some real beer we wouldn't have attacked them so viciously. Anyone else thinking of heading into the woods, keep that in mind.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Blue Lemming Burnout!

 

My benefits finally kicked in at my new job. Thankfully just in time because I crashed and burned yesterday. I should have known I was working too hard when I began to hallucinate a talking pig stalking me at all hours, red pigeons asking me for a handout, and that we were finally getting a bill against loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions introduced. One minute I'm trying to ignore the talking pig while I search for whichever console introduced a virus to the company system, the next I'm waking up in my vet's office. It seems I passed out for no apparent reason. I had to spend the night in the animal equivalent of the ICU. Just because we crap in the woods doesn't mean we critters don't value our privacy! And I hate the ambiance of veterinarians' offices. It's all so cold and sterile and my neighbors won't shut up!

 

I'll spare you all the grisly details leading to the final diagnosis. In short, I'm overworked, over-stressed, and mildly malnourished. As a middle-aged lemming I don't have the physical or mental stamina to "work" fourteen hour days anymore. Not in my (lack of) physical shape or in my wacky state of mind. I need nuttiness and absurdity much like humans need healthy food, rest, and clean water as opposed to soda, beer, or hard liquor. So my vet has prescribed me a diet of Jeff Dunham specials, The Naked Gun trilogy, Monty Python, and every Mel Brooks movie ever made. If that need isn't met, I start seeing things. Like that talking pig. Or I start listening to...Terry, the Evil Rubber Chicken. He's currently locked away in chains, inside a strong box, inside a safe in the burrow. Although I think he's been whispering to Dungeon Master. Offering him new advice on ways to punish bad bunnies using kitchen implements.

 

Another thing I'm being ordered to do is spend more time tending to my berry garden. Thing has become a real farmhand, knowing exactly how to lay down straw so that the strawberries don't touch the dirt and rot and how to coax those blueberries into giving large, succulent fruits. The only incident was him putting down a little too much fertilizer but it's not a big deal so I let him go with a slap on the wrist. Well, there was that time he got into my scotch and I found him with a number attached with string. He had really tied one on. The massive cuticle ache he had the next day was punishment enough.

 

Finally, I've been ordered to relax and avoid getting too anxious about...bugs! So no electrified fly swatters, no Bug-A-Salt hunts, just strips, zappers, and--this I didn't know--Moose's magic mushrooms being allowed to grow. Fly agaric (amanita muscaria) actually lures in and kills flies. My "no-fly zone" will remain even if I'm not actively enforcing it. And with the pond gone we've been mercifully free of skeeters. Both the larger variety that could suck a lemming dry and the smaller, hard-to-see ones that always make a meal of my shaved butt. Yeah, I've shaved for the summer. Although I'm still forced to wear flannel at night and early in the morning because Melissa's diet has caused me to lose a few grams too many to handle the cold. I...I even found myself picking up an ax and chopping off dead limbs from the local trees!

 

I'm turning into a lumberjack! Am I okay?

[donttouchmethere]

21 minutes ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

I'm turning into a lumberjack! Am I okay?

It depends of the kind of lumberjack your turning into

I... I... can't resist...

here it comes, you made me do it:

Spoiler

 

(That pig from work might just be an workmate ^^)

[Ernest Lemmingway]

6 hours ago, donttouchmethere said:

(That pig from work might just be an workmate ^^)

I doubt it. He looked and talked like Huggy Bear from the original Starsky & Hutch series. Nobody at the office dresses in '70s funk attire or speaks jive.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Sis gave birth to her second child, another son, at 04:00 yesterday. Unlike her first, this one didn't need to be induced. And wouldn't you know it? I couldn't get time off of work or school to go visit her, her hubby, or the latest addition to this zany family of ours yesterday. I just got back from the vet to meet my newest nephew, Hudson Lemmingstein.

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid. There's another blue lemming in the world.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

"Off" Season and Moose's Mind

 

Well, it's late May and the glen is seeing temperatures cold enough to make me think early April. Thing and I had to pitch a plastic tent over the garden to protect the berries from a frost even as Ted was able to harvest some honeycomb without a single sting because the bees were too cold to respond. The squirrels are having a hard time gathering enough nuts because they shrivel in the cold. And in another three weeks we'll all be roasting as summer makes an early appearance this year. Again.

 

But it's not just the weather that's "off." Cecil, seemingly pulling himself out of a haze, has retired from playing Skyrim. He even cleaned up his parts of the hollow and had a hundred pounds of Hot Pocket packets, instant ramen cups, and pizza boxes hauled off for recycling. I think he even bathed! I asked him who the lucky lady was but he denies he's doing all this because he now has a girlfriend. The only other reason I can think of is he finally got bored with the game and realized what pigs he and Dave have become when he finally looked around. It has been seven years.

 

I don't think Dave has noticed. He went to a rather paltry poultry protest and ran into the CCAC (Crazy Chinese-American Chef) again. For a chicken who's played a game loaded with traps, he hasn't had the good sense to create some of his own to drive the guy off. Instead he asked me to use my shiny new crossbow to drive the guy off. I only gave him a flesh wound but that was apparently enough for the funny fungus juice to work. He began calling a birch "the biggest chicken I've ever seen!" and tried to cut it down with his Asian cleaver, a blade not nearly stout enough to cut down a tree. When it shattered he began biting the trunk for nearly two hours until the rangers saw him and took him in. The second human found with hallucinogens in their blood in a week. They're already talking about a possible entheogen cult hidden in the forest. So long as they don't suspect the lemming...

 

Lipps, or at least his wife, Vera, called in a Catholic priest to try and exorcise the cabin. I know the duck would never admit to anything being wrong with something he did so she's likely the one who did. It didn't work; the broken souls haunting the place won't respond to Christian symbols and rituals. They have spirits broken by Diz-knee's atrocious Star Wars movies. They need to contact a Jedi. Which, I found out, do exist as part of a real life Jedi church devoted to the Force. It's not the most ridiculous religion I've ever heard of, either.

 

I don't know what his employers are putting in their products, but lately Moose has been acting...smarter? I don't have a word to better describe it. We caught him doing the New York Times crossword puzzle and he actually got all the answers right! Then he came up with a device to adapt hooves to better pull the aluminum ring on bean dip cans, "Just in case I shed my antlers again." Finally, I caught him watching PBS. Moose! Watching educational TV instead of pro wrestling! Doesn't he realize intelligence is the source of all misery? That being a blithering dunderhead leads to a happy life? It's too late for me; short of a lobotomy I'm doomed to be painfully aware of all that's wrong and painful in this world. But he can still be saved. If it is the samples his employers are giving him, the damage can be reversed by getting him a massive supply of bean dip and chips from Frito-Lays once more. The order I put in is due to arrive via semi-truck today. I think I hear it even now.

 

Pray for Moose. He's the only one of us who can still lead a happy life if he's stopped in time.