Thoughts prior to Kinaalda

It is the first blog and I am a bit behind. But blogging should happen when you finish vet school and move to a Navajo reservation for your first job. Who does that? Well the reasons I am here are long and complicated. But here I am. In my trailer are two Navajo dogs and one non-Navajo dog. The little Navajo dog just pooped on the floor and the lingering aroma is fantastic. He's a little squirt and his cuteness saves him. Every time. Today at work I taught GI pharmacology, without my powerpoint as it mysteriously disappeared into space somewhere between the computer and the flash drive last night. But I'm a big fan of the dry erase board and the students didn't visibly judge me for flipping through the book to my chosen teaching sections and drawing things like intestines on the board. Intestines I can do. After that...hmm. Thursdays are sometimes a light day as there are no clinic students all day. I had the pleasure of expressing a cranky pug's anal glands. I enjoyed it as I can't smell so well this week. I'm actually surprised the poop smell is making it through my semi-clogged nasal passages. Not so clogged as I would be were I a 13 year old girl running to the east before dawn with wet hair containing corn chunks, however. But we can talk more about that tomorrow. There was also a euthanasia that broke me down a bit. Two obviously good souls were parted until we all meet our dogs again in heaven (pause as puppy has just emerged from the bathroom unrolling a toiletpaper roll... aww bless his heart he dropped it right over his pee spot. You know, he may just be that smart...)...and I was sad. The rest of the day was all on the computer or grading. A potential emergency did not show due to cost. That happens quite a bit down here. Tomorrow my favorite horse will be back, and a few bulls will be in for Trich testing. Then I'm taking the afternoon off to visit a Kinaalda ceremony with one of students. It took the entire week to build my resolve, now transitioning to excitement, to go to this. Honestly these last few weekends have been rough on my lonely soul and I have fled to far off towns to enjoy good company of more familiar faces. In fact I need to plan a flee place for this weekend as well. I don't usually make it far beyond 3 PM on a Saturday before the tear spillage drives me away from my trailer. It's been a rough 6 weeks. Longer than that, actually. But leaving the trailer always turns into something interesting. Xtreme llama parasailing or Flagstaff or both have been my getaways. I'm usually just too tired to go back to CO. I want to go so badly though. Soon.

 

 

I realize the blogs creates some questions. But it's my blog and I know what I'm talking about. What else today... free lunch as the culinary school is testing their talents. That was nice. I successfully taught almost all of my students not to give ivermectin to collies or turtles. This is good as I gave myself a minor heart attack last week when preparing the antiparasitics lectures. My non-Navajo dog is half-collie and if he had contracted mange I wonder if I would have had the sense to not give him Ivomec. Hmm. Not the first time I've slapped myself in the last week.

 

 

So tomorrow I will probably write about the Kinaalda. As crazy as it is, I'm curious if some early shaping in a positive way could come of it. For instance, when I am exhausted, sick, sleep-deprived, have 12 major things to do before I can sleep, and am operating under complex of stupidity and inadequacy, I remember that I survived the calving rotation at CSU under similar circumstances in the freezing cold on the back of a horse for 10 hours, and when I got off I cleaned the cow barn. Yeah, that's right. Don't mess with me.

 

 

Well I'm going to mess around elsewhere online for a bit. Last item of interest: the stories from my student concerning Kinaalda meshed with my enchiladas to create a dream of Navajo people wrapping live horses in cellophane to suffocate them and eat them. They then buried dead people in my suitcase. Navajo people don't do these things, however my brain is one of my ultimate sources of entertainment as is telling other people my dreams. Enjoy!