WADDA DAY. After Fannie’s 8-hour surgery yesterday, she seemed fine, but then, this morning, her BP plummeted to 70 over 30 or something. To make a long story short, her doctors decided to move her to ICU where they pumped her full of drugs and new blood. Her BP had crawled up to more normal levels by the time (Fannie's friend) Elroy and I left the hospital two hours ago.
Whew!
Naturally, my folks called Fannie (from OC) this morning, only to hear their groggy daughter baldly state her BP numbers plus the fact that she was being moved to ICU. That’s when she faded out. My parents freaked. They left a panicked voicemail on my phone.
With a phonecall, I managed to de-freak them. I'm trying to encourage them not to talk to Fannie directly. Not at least until she emerges from her post-surgery groggitude.
GRUFF BUT GOOD. Elroy and I visited Fannie at about noon. That's when I observed Fannie's very gruff eastern European (Russian?) nurse, in whose way I managed to stand. “Vat is deh matter vit you, eh? Seet down over dehr! Be now out of trau-ble!”
OK, so I exaggerate. A leetle.
Just then, Fannie’s doctor showed up and happened to mention that nurse Natasha (or whatever her name was) was “the best nurse in the hospital.” She was standing right there, inspecting the previous nurse's work with the IVs and whatnot.
“Oh, please. Now you shaut aup,” muttered Natasha.
Later, my sister confirmed that Natasha was indeed a great nurse. “I like you,” said Natasha to Fannie, after Elroy and my first visit today. “Remember, dough,” she added, “Deh [namely, Elroy and I] are s’posed to entertain you, not you dem!”
OK, so probably she IS a great nurse.
At one point, I saw Natasha glaring at the Tower of IVs next to Fannie's bed. Something was wrong. Soon, Natasha grabbed one of the IV tubes and pointed to a section of it. She announced, "Dees tube ees keenked. You getting nutting! I feex!" And she did.
It was another dreary day, mostly, here in Fogland, though there were patches of sunlight, at least over in South San Fran, where Elroy and I visited the local Costco to buy Fannie a portable DVD player with video iPod thingamabob. It’s nice, but it looks like she won’t be using it any time soon. She can barely move.
I TOOK SOME TIME this evening to catch up on the news in OC, but that only managed to piss me off.
GRATUITOUS COUGAR KILLAGE. Evidently, last Friday, some assholes from the Department of Fish and Game shotgunned a cougar to death out near the fucking Coto De Caza Gold & Racquet Club. Evidently, two cougars were spotted there earlier, so the Fish & Game assholes went out there to check it out. According to the OC Register, “When the two big cats approached [the] wardens, one cat was shot and killed.”
That’s just fucking great.
A few hours earlier, says the Reg, a 14-year-old kid spotted a cougar at the golf course. The beast was quietly sitting in the grass, minding its own cougular business. The kid came within 25 feet of the cat and took dozens of pictures. He told the Reg, “I wasn't really scared or anything because (the lion) just seemed to be really calm and kind of reserved.”
Yeah, reserved.
Other people were with the kid, gawking and yammering, but that didn’t inspire feline aggression. Eventually, the creature got up and “wandered away down the golf course.”
—Yeah, only to be shotgunned to death by MORONS a few hours later.
Here’s one of the pics.
SEAL STABBAGE. As if that weren’t bad enough, yesterday, the Reg reported that a court hearing had been set for a local ASSHOLE who (“allegedly”) stabbed a sea lion to death with a steak knife:
Police arrested Hai Nguyen [aka TOTAL FUCKING ASSHOLE FROM HELL], 24, on charges of attacking a 150-pound, female sea lion near the 'M' Street Pier in Newport Beach, stabbing the animal repeatedly with a steak knife after it had taken bait fish from his fishing pole, Newport Beach police Sgt. Evan Sailor said…The wounds proved fatal, with veterinarians at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center electing to euthanize the animal after it was found the several chest wounds could not be treated, Richard Evans, the center's medical director, said.
Knife Boy is facing charges of cruelty to an animal. But he could face federal charges as well. Hope so.
UNBELIEVABLY STUPID WOMAN SCARED. One animal story managed to cheer me up:
Self-described psychic scared by 'unbelievably large man'
A woman who described herself as a psychic told police on Sunday that a large "crazy" man was on her balcony Saturday night…The woman described the man as "unbelievably large God-like man" with "plastic features and hollow eyes." She told police the man used her phone and then told her "thanks."…The woman reported that her cat is now terrified because of the experience.I wouldn’t take the woman’s word for that last bit of info. I’d talk to the cat directly.
(All photos above taken today by Chunk from Elroy's car. —'Ceptin' for the cougar shot, which was taken by that kid.)
12 comments:
Scary stuff. Hope I don't dream of no God-like man on my balcony. You stay there until Fannie goes home. Even then, cook for her.
Best wishes and quick recovery to Fannie.
Take care.
Chunk, obviously you missed the part of the story where the cougars were seen stalking children at a local pool. You can't have dangerous, wild animals around children that show no fear of humans. You can't tranq and relocate, you'd be putting them in another cats territory and they'd likely return anyways. Guess you'd rather wait for someone to get killed or mauled like the folks in Foothill Ranch a couple of years ago. I usually agree with you buddy, but this time you're waaaay off base.
BTW, best wishes to Fannie,
from 7:50
7:50
I respect your POV, but I disagree. As a mountain biker (at the time), I was all over that Foothill Ranch incident, so I'm well aware of it and of similar incidents, which remain extremely rare.
I'd settle for some sadness and regret that we've encroached on these creatures' habitats, compelling them to behaviors that are threatening to the encroachers, forcing us into dilemmas most foul.
But no. There's no sadness, there's no regret. There's just more stupid "manifest destiny" thinking. We're human, and so we get to take, take, take, and the consequences to anything else just doesn't matter. Not a bit.
I'm beginning to think Dawkins is right.
P.S.:
Re my point about "manifest destiny": I wasn't suggesting that Native Americans aren't human. Rather, I was suggesting that the racism behind "manifest destiny" is duplicated in the speciesism--this utter failure to value the other--of our current attitudes and practices regarding "beastly" beasts.
Again, I am prepared to accept that some dreadful actions are inevitable, unavoidable. It's the attitude that generates and magnifies this dilemma that is my real target here.
Cougars should be completely eliminated in OC. It's stupid to think they're cute little cats, Chunk. The half eaten mountain biker a few years back sure wouldn't believe so, that is if he still had a liver and a heart. Kill them all and enjoy their skins next to your fireplace.
Now, 9:58, you're just posting to ne provocative. Don't be a dick.
9:58:
This blog is situated in Academia, more or less. So I'm assuming that our readers read carefully.
If you don't wanna do that, fine. But then move on to another blog. I hear Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly have blogs.
Perfect! Go there.
Unfortunately, as our populations continue to grow, this type of thing will, and does happen more often on a worldwide scale. This is the way it has always been. Whether it be creatures, empires, peoples, resources, etc, mankind will take, use, kill, move, desatroy what it needs to move forward and expand. Even to an extent of our own eventual demise. When we run out of something or something is in our way, we find a way through it, around it, over it, or instead of it, that's just what we do, always will. As ugly as it is, it is survival of the fittest, no matter the end cost or what is required to survive. In this tiny little incident in the great scheme of things, the mountain lions are in the way of our,(yours too Chunk), way of life. So one of us has to go, and it isn't going to be us. We're not going to stop expanding our living options because of our feelings toward an animal. It's sad to see, yes, but it's inevitable. As the world population continues to grow, maybe in a hundred years from now, we will behaving the same debate over wildebeast in Africa when they tear up our front lawn during their annual migration. And sombody will bring up that there used to be lions in North America too.
Sorry, longwinded....
7:50
and no I'm not even faculty...LOL!!
The point you are missing, 2:26, is that the lion did not "have to go." Your rationalizations are pure sophistry, wrapped in false justifactions, and drizzled with a reduction of self motivated excuses.
My dear 2:26--
There is no good reason simply to accept population growth as a given. (Neither, by the way, does an intent to address it compell one to embrace draconian measures, as have been embraced in the past by Chinese officials).
I'm not sure how you are appealing to the notion of the "survival of the fittest." If you view it as some sort of justification of human behavior, then you are committing a long-discredited fallacy regarding facts and values.
If, as is more likely, you are supposing that the laws or ways of nature make human population growth and indifference to nonhuman species inevitable, then you are simply misunderstanding biology--and Darwin in particular. Darwin did not and would not endorse the notion that human rapaciousness is an aspect of his theory of natural selection.
Can the human community address the multiple problems of large human populations? Well, that is at least very possible. Should we try to bring that about?
Of course.
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