The little devil on your shoulder

First, the Kentucky Oaks runs today. Blind Luck seems to be the general favorite. Personally, I like Jody Slew and Quiet Temper. One more hour 'til we have a winner!

And if today is the Oaks... tomorrow is DERBY DAY! My picks? Dean's Kitten for... uh... obvious reasons. Also, I like the way Line of David runs (we'll see how he handles a wetter track), Paddy O'Prado, and I think Conveyance might have some tricks up his sleeve. Top picks are Lookin at Lucky, who hasn't raced much back east and Awesome Act. We shall see!

Sadly, I won't be drinking mint juleps because, happily, I'll be running my own race tomorrow! It's the 200 mile, 12-person, 30-hour relay from Napa valley to Santa Cruz. Here's hoping I trained enough through head colds and overnight shifts...

( In other news )

Anyway, enough of the brain-dump. Have a good one, duckies! Let me know who you pick to win!

As ucky as it was outside yesterday, it is some kind of beautiful today (and the weekend is only meant to get better). The cats are perched in wide-open windows and the seedlings are on the back porch to get some direct sun.

I only have one class, but it's from 1-5pm, *sigh*

As school winds down and I'm getting ready to move across the country, I've been thinking about life and home a lot. I live-at-work for the next year, but after that I'm completely on my own. I've realized that I'm tired of sharing kitchen and bathrooms (in fact, have never had my own), although I like having other people (and their pets) in the house. It's nothing against the people I share them with-- I'm just tired of it. I suppose I'll need to find a place where there is a bedroom/bath/kitchen for every housemate? Does such nirvana exist?

In other news, the whole equine-vet world is exploding with the controversy over the dead polo ponies in Florida. If you haven't heard anything about it, it was a horrific supposed-accident in which 21 horses died within the space of a few hours before their match after receiving a compounded vitamin mix. Whether it was the compounding pharmacy's fault (they claim an error in the formulation, but won't say which ingredient and toxicology tests aren't back yet from the horses) or the vet for prescribing it, or just rotten luck, I hope to god nothing like this happens again. I also hope it encourages some standards of safety and efficacy in compounded veterinary products. (These are typically drugs we cannot get through pharmaceutical companies, because they aren't licensed in the USA or no one makes them anymore etc, so we have pharmacies make them with less oversight than their big Pharma neighbors. The mix given to the ponies was meant to emulate a product that Meriel sells overseas.) It's huge topic, and every vet on the list-serve's I belong to seems to be weighing in. Personally, I can't say more than I think it's a tragedy, and I just hope we can learn from it to prevent something like this from happening again.

Made it back upstate this afternoon after the ultimate in reaxing weekends and beautiful fall day-drives. Returned to the rental car agency. The man at the booth was really nice, but I wonder if his head was really in it.

( I don't usually correct other people's math, but sometimes it's a public service. )

So then I went to the auto repair place and got my car back. I asked the girl how it was. she said "great". I turned it on. ( I bet you can guess what happened next... )

I also saw Catch and Release last night, the movie with Jennifer Garner and Kevin Smith. Odd to hear him *talk* in a movie, but it was really pretty cute overall, and left me with that warm, fuzzy, feeling. now must watch Heroes and count down the minutes until Thursday night.

But the best thing about long weekends? is that they're followed by SHORT weeks. Woo hoo!!

Whew. Two weeks later I have a night to lay on the couch, doing nothing but watch Supernatural (for the first time in *weeks* I'll have you know, Gin)

The move is almost moved. I'm more or less unpacked. Built a fenced-in pen for my dog, and all that remains is to clean the place and find a spot for my TV.

I had to present my summer's research to a) the man who sponsored it and b) the rest of the lab group today, and it actually went okay. I have one more week there to wrap up my experiments and play with the pretty ponies. Pictures of babies and house to come in the near future.

So relieved. I've actually lost about two pants sizes and lord knows how many pounds this month-- not by diet and excersize, but by stress and forgetting to eat. Er. Whatever works I guess.

School starts again in a week. *gulp*

In the meantime, I'm a little daunted by how far removed I've been from fandom and how behind I am on my f-list. What'd I miss?