2004 Weblog Awards

I'm proud to announce that I've been nominated for a 2004 Weblog Award!  Paul Davidson, from Words for My Enjoyment, has nominated Four-Legged Lexis for "Best New Blog."  The voting should start around December 1, 2004.  If you're looking for new reading, check out the nominations for all categories, or specifically, the nominations for new blogs.  Cross your fingers that this little blog makes it to the list of finalists! 

In other news, I discovered something super cool today while teaching.  Instead of a chalkboard (awful) or a whiteboard (awesome), the fourth grade classroom that I taught in today had a "Smartboard."  It's a whiteboard/LCD projection all together.  I could write on the whiteboard, but it was an electronic writing, that also appeared on the computer screen, and vice versa.  I love whiteboards, and this is just one step better.  I had fun with it, and the kids helped me get used to it.  Writing on it and making sure that my writing could be seen in the back of the room was a little difficult at first.  It's the "new" chalkboard, without the evil scratching! 

I had about thirty minutes between teaching and working at the local clinic.  Speedy Gonzales is my name!  The clinic was very busy tonight.  In between doing normal diagnostics and such, I dealt with not one, but two, MACs.  Mean Ass Cats.  While we're talking about awards, all of said MACs would qualify for an award, if there was one, at MyCatHatesYou, because truly these cats hated me!  "Taffy," the HBC kitty who not only had a broken ulna, but a lacerated kidney.  The lacerated kidney came out, and for a while, the prognosis for "Taffy" was guarded. 

He was back in full action tonight, broken ulna and all.  The doctor wanted to check his blood urea nitrogen and creatinine levels.  Getting just a couple milliliters of blood out of him was ridiculously tasking.  It ended with just enough blood to run the tests, but with me having two extra little holes at on the edge of my right palm.  Thankfully, these were not teeth marks, but claw punctures.  It was hard to be upset at the cat for long, but that's only because the owner and her daughter were so concerned about the cat. 

"Hot Dog" fell into the same category of MAC.  Fully armed, just like "Taffy," with claws on all four paws and very sharp teeth.  She climbed my arm like a tree in the radiology doorway.  I clenched my jaws together hard to keep from screaming and/or knocking the cat off of me.  Later, when we attempted to remove her IV, which is by far easier on the cat than putting one in, "Hot Dog" attempted to sink her teeth into one of the other techs that I was working with tonight.  I haven't really figured out what factor is at root of all evil for these MACs.  Something must predispose them to being so unfriendly, beyond pain or fear. 

I did not realize  that it was 9:00 p.m., and time to close when the hour arrived.  The pace of the evening's activities was so continuous that the hours just slipped by, virtually unnoticed.  That's good.  The countdown moves on: 61 hours until the vacation begins!