Trick or Treat?

Look what the cat dragged in (literally):






Several mice, two bats, and a dove. At this point, I’ve lost count with the number of mice he’s killed. At least one or two a week since I kicked him outside. Mango decided to dismantle one bat in my bathroom, leaving blood everywhere.

He darted past me with the dove, toward the bathroom, and I, erroneously thinking it was another bat, ran after him. The dove fluttered, slammed into my bathroom wall, he caught it and disappeared with it under my bed. I had to clobber him with the broom, and then bribe him with a can of cat food to remove the poor bird from his grip. Miraculously, the dove did not appear to be physically injured. I let it recuperate for a few hours then walked a few blocks to release it.

I don’t know what it is about orange cats, but I’m sure glad he only weighs 12 pounds. If he weighed 50 or more, he’d be a danger to people! My little Mango monster.

To get him back (not really), I brought him to school for our diagnostic imaging ultrasound lab. He was perfect, but part of that may have been because he was hiding from the probe under a towel. I think his left ventricle looks slightly enlarged in accordance with early stage Feline Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. I’m probably paranoid though, and since there’s no way to really fix it, I’m not going to worry just yet.

He’s such a good cat.

Mid Semester Break 5

With the hurricane, this week has been surreal. More days off than we've had in a long time.

I've made a point of making this a lazy weekend. On Friday took Jossie to the airport (she went to Oklahoma to see her bf). That evening my friends and I went to see Eagle Eye at the NEW movie theatre! There we happened across one of our professors (a scary thought) and his wife. The movie was entertaining, but not something I'd watch again.

Saturday was spent tanning in the comforts of my fabulous pool, which is much too cold from the 80F cold fronts and rain we've had all week. I was just glad to see the sun again. I also napped a bit (ahem, most of the day). At sunset I reemerged to attend a social gathering aimed at introducing a friend's fiance to everyone here. She's in 6th semester, and this is his first trip down to St Kitts. They're getting married in December.

It was quarter til Sunday when I went home. When I awoke Sunday morning I had lots of energy. The pesky little local kid from down the street came over to play with the dogs. We went up the road to a dirt pile so I could fill up my planting pots. I think each of the nine pots weighed 20 lbs when full, but I managed to get them safely positioned in my yard without incident. I begun placing various seeds strategically in circles with a maker made from a Qtip in the center. (I thought it important to mark the parsley and cilantro from the hemlock and henbane, just in case.)

My energy flagged at noon and I retreated to my room. I started searching for streaming movies online and watched The Painted Veil (my new favorite), then started looking for movies with Edward Norton in them. I had no idea he was in so many popular movies. He's a very good, diverse actor. So then I watched The Incredible Hulk (part one and two), then The Illusionist (part one and two), part of Babylon AD until it got boring, Quarantine until it got scary, and now I'm watching The Kingdom of Heaven. I love the internet.

Last night I also was motivated enough to go into lab and work on a new extraction protocol with thick oily sea turtle blood. Then right when I had everything set up, you guessed it, the power went out. For a long time. Sigh. I was stuck there for hours.

Today I am to pick up Jossie at 1:30pm. To me, it was a very short weekend for a $1000US. I sure hope he appreciates her (but he probably doesn't). I also intend on going over to check on a friend who hasn't been answering her phone. We've gotten a bit worried about her because her Rottie is dying of osteosarcoma (same thing Padeaux died from). Sad sad. I wish I didn't, but I know exactly how she feels. On the optimistic side, she usually forgets to turn her phone on, so she might not be answering because of that or a migraine. Who knows.

Destruction

Omar hit at 1:30am, hard. The wind was so strong that I couldn't open my door. I peaked out the window and my beloved tomato plant was almost flat against the concrete. The palm trees were bent over in the yard and I could hear the waves pound the 50ft cliff at my house. I wish it had been daylight so I could have seen the ocean. It rained non-stop.

When morning came, the sky was still darkened, but all was quiet. The waves were still huge. They must have been 15 ft at 8am. Neighbors came from up the street to look from my house, as my view is excellent. Then the rumors started.

Cell phones were down, the power was out, water was not to be trusted. School was, of course, still canceled. We heard that Sprat Net's (a lobster and bar) was gone. Boulders the size of my bedroom were washed up on shore to occlude the roads. Those I confirmed myself. Truly amazing that they could wash up so easily as sand. Water is a powerful force.

We also heard that the strip of bars on Timmothy Beach had been swallowed by the sea.It was bad, flooded and covered in 4ft of sand, but still there. The video below (if it works) is the beach.

I emerged at 4pm to assess the damage. The dogs came with, and were total pills. Very unlike them, but they had been cooped up in the house for days. When I drove west, toward Sprat Net's, I saw the cause of the power failure: all the powerline polls were snapped. Great, how long will this take to fix?

I turned around and started toward the capital, Basseterre. There, the sea met the road, and waves were still quite tall. A guy, about my height (5ft 7in/170cm), ran away on Bay Road when a wave struck.

When I was satisfied with my post hurricane island exploring, the dogs and I headed home. I crawled back into the warmth of bed, quite tired from the 2 hours of activity I'd had that day.

About an hour later, all of a sudden, and quite unexpectedly, the power came on! Someone must have been motivated to fix those down lines.

I called mom, who had left half a dozen emails, phone calls, and other messages. Then called dad, who informed me how bad St Croix was hit. They have a curfew from 6pm to 11am and many ships sunk in the Christiansted harbor and yaght club. So, I survived, and I suppose it could have been worse (like it was at dad's house!).

Hurricane Omar

When in doubt, it can always get worse. This morning school was canceled on account of Hurricane Omar, which is came out of the blue. It started as a tropical storm, they always do, and yesterday grew into a Category 1 Hurricane. Today it has progressed from a 1 to a 2 and is now a Cat 3! It's heading directly for St Croix and St Kitts too. Super.

Hurricanes almost never come from the west and head east, Omar's direction. The west side of the St Kitts is typically protected from storms with the volcano and mountains, if the storm comes from Africa. With Omar, I'm completely vulnerable! The last hurricane that did this, wiped out Port Zante in Basseterre (the capital of St Kitts). Figures.

To avoid more make up classes, we adamantly urged our prof to continue with the Anaesthesia lecture, even when the power went off, came back on, and then the computer system (for ppt) failed. School is canceled tomorrow to, unless "the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and the birds are out." We were urged to go to the grocery store to stock up on food/water, and to fill our cars up with gas. I have about half a tank. (I fill up ~1x/mo and with it being the 15th, that's about my standard usage.)

I found a wandering paniced 3rd semester student from Texas and invited her to go to the grocery store with me (she has no car). We went to Ram's and were shocked that there was absolutely NO parking. The roads were congested, the neighboring parking lots were full, and they had run out of shopping carts. Nevertheless, we braved the crowd.

It didn't take us long to grab the few items we needed (like toilet paper), but the check out lines wrapped around the isles. It took over an hour to check out. I had wanted to get gas, but as we left, we were so fatigued from the grocery store that we couldn't bare to wait in the literally 3 hour line to fill up a tank.

Living without electricity for so long, I think I'm pretty prepared. The power cam on early afternoon today, which was an odd, pleasant feeling. I was a bit shocked; I wasn't expecting it.

The cable has been intermittent, but that's about as exciting as my dad has gotten. It's been raining all day, but just started getting windy. Like, 30-40 mph windy now, to develop into 110 mph windy. I'm going to go back to sleep. If you want to monitor the storm or Caribbean weather in general, go to the Atlantic Loop on NOAA.


I really wonder how things can get worse (although I know they can), but seriously, don't you think that 5 exams, a car accident, dead car battery, a dead baby goat, no electricity, no clean drinking water, no cooking gas, a stomach illness from eating on campus, a centipede in my bed, and now a hurricane hitting me straight on is a little much for October?

Five people at school have been out with Dengue Fever. They all live on my street (we found were the mosquitoes were breeding). I bet that's next. Or my car breaks down or is carried off by the storm. Sigh. This is too much drama. Wow, the wind has really picked up now. Wish it were daylight and I could take picts.

Powerful Weekend

Power is still patchy. This has been a "surely it can't get any worse" weekend. I knew it was a bad omen when the thunderstorm (that follows me) appeared. I cut my hair (right -->) a little too short too. See my classic deer in headlights look? Maybe were in monsoon season or something, because it hasn't stopped raining since and weather reports expect it to continue for over a week. I'd prefer to think it's bad karma following me.

Thursday, I volunteered to raise and release a baby goat. It died hours after I brought it home. Devastating. So I took it to campus for necropsy Friday morning, and my prof assured me that there was probably nothing I could have done. Still devastated, so I cut out of my last class to bury myself under the safety of my covers at home.

At one point I got up to eat something, but the power was still off so I didn't want to open the fridge. The mainstay of my diet has become canned green beans, chili, and Chef Boyardee, heated over an open flame. I fumbled to light my gas stove, but it would not light. I tried again and again, and decided that it must be out, so I gave up. With no electricity or fuel to cook with, I crawled back under my covers. At least I had water (I've been drinking the masses of bottled water I kept in storage for just such an occasion).

Around 6pm my friends started to worry about me, I was a bit hysterical over the goat, and came over. The power was still off, so they made me get up and go out to another friend's "BBQ" for dinner. BBQ here means hot dogs, not real meat. I'm on a "diet" anyway. Must squeeze into the bride's maid's dress that I took measurements for 6+ months ago. I'm sure it'll fit, but it doesn't hurt to be too thin. Sufficed to say, I only picked at the mayo covered macaroni and weenies. By the end of the night I did feel a bit better.

When I awoke on Saturday the power was on. What a bizarre and amazing feeling. I rushed to the laundry room to commence washing my unmentionables. The lab at school was open, so I went to practice, was there for an hour, then ran back home to put a new load in the dryer. Right about the time I was ready to leave, it started to pour... again... so I waited. Eventually I decided to brave the rain, and arrive back at school sopping wet.

The power was still on when I returned home after lab. So odd. I finished my laundry, then tended to my garden, which happens to be full of almost ripe cherry tomatoes, and fed the dogs. Exam after exam after exam had left my apartment in a disarray, so I cleaned until it was nap time, and crawled back under my covers. Mid afternoon I hauled my gas tank to a Shell to exchange it for $30EC. When i returned home to plug it back in, I discovered a leak. Any where else I could have taken it back immediately, but not here, they were closed until Monday. I don't even remember what I did Saturday night. Must not have been very exciting, but at least I had power (and water). I microwaved something for dinner.

Sunday the power was still on. Really getting odd now. I went jogging to campus and back to work up an appetite. I thought, just to be safe, I should rush to make myself a snack. As I walked over to the microwave with my cold plate of chili and rice, the power went out. I was INCHES away from it. I picked at the cold rice, but the chili couldn't cover the taste. Ah well. At least I had power and things living in my freezer were solid once more.

Several hours later, the power came back on. This time I microwaved green beans and studied a bit. Jossie and I discussed the power situation [the having of power, that is]. We wondered what cursed week of no power we would be subjected to in exchange for the power we had now. dread filled us. An entire 24 hours with power, that's just not possible after 2 weeks without. We settled back into our respective apartments and I turned on the mind numbing cable tv. I had to get another new remote because the one I'd brought from the states and had been using, had died. New remotes are always difficult at first.

I retreated to my room and surfed the Internet, caught up with a few friends. As time for bed neared, I saw a centipede near me! This was a baby one, but the centipedes here get as long as a foot (a solid 10 inches) and their bites put you in the hospital. They are much feared by the local population of veterinary students, especially since tales of their aggression are not without warrant. So where did this dang bug go but into my sheets. I couldn't find it either, the sneaky thing. My bed was neat (since I'd just made it), and my pillows were off, but it was still evading me. If I couldn't find it, I decided, I'd have to sleep on the couch or worse, with Jossie!

After much searching, I grabbed the can of BOP (extra strong pyretherin bug killer) and begun spraying my room, and the sheets on my bed. In a flash of terror and anger, it came at me! I managed to slam a book on it before it got near me, but that didn't kill it. No, it moved the heavy text toward me. I clamped onto it with forceps and watched it's jaws snap at me, dripping venom. These things really are that bad. When I was sure it was mostly dead, I tossed it in my neighbor's bushes, and headed back to bed.

Maybe it was the excitement, but I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned, got up to have a snack, then tossed and turned some more. Then it occurred to me just how cold I was, so I put long pants on, got my wool blanket to go over my comforter, and plugged in my heating pad. Finally I was cozy in the 80F cold front.

Waking up this morning was difficult but I managed it. It was still raining and dreary. Jossie and I made it to class with time to spare before our power was again cut for the week. I managed to get a different tank of cooking gas, one without a leak, and brought it home. On the trip home however, and this exemplified my lack of brilliance on days that end in a Y, I decided to test it while driving, so I turned the lever to open the valve. Gas came rushing out and filled my not so safe car, and I had to pull over to shut the darn thing off. Made it home in one piece, with the dogs' help. We're thinking of attempting some pork chops, but are undecided (remember, I'm still on a diet).

Spoke Much Too Soon

As if things can't get worse, some idiot backed into my car. Like, we were both driving down the road, they stopped, so I stopped, then she decided to back up [without looking], into me!

When she wanted to blame me, I got pretty pissed. That's me and my super short temper for ya! Rolling eyes. My poor ole car.

Anhydrous Campus

Seems I spoke too soon. Water is now gone, at least on campus, I haven't been home since 7am.

Really gross to have 30 toilets on campus not flushing with 700 students and 200+ staff. Giardia or some other tropical parasite has been giving everyone the runs, so everyone is in a bit of a panic. I'm waiting for the day when I look down and a worm looks back up at me.

Studying my tail off for Toxicology. Exam is at 7am tomorrow. Might not get much sleep tonight.

Power Struggle

One whole week without power. I'm surviving... barely... developed a new slogan-- Go Green! All you out there using electricity, you are evil and polluting the environment. You should rebel, cut your utility bill dramatically, rise to the challenge, go back to nature.

Yes well I do believe nature is taking over my dearly beloved freezer full of meat. I'm fighting tooth and nail though: had excellent baby back ribs last night for dinner with green beans heated over an open flame. (My stove still works.) Also attempted to study by my oil lamp last night. That lasted until my ribs were done, then I relocated back to my second home-- campus.

With the news reports stating "virtually destroyed," I considered investing in a generator, but it has been determined that shipping and running a generator is too expensive for the size I'd need, plus there's the island import tax (60% of retail value AND shipping). The thought of withdrawing for the semester and moving onto someone's couch [in the states] to wait for the power to come back on has seriously crossed my mind. That's probably cheaper than a generator anyway.

Today we were fortunate enough to receive a schedule which will be in effect until the back up island generators also explode. Did I mention the estimate for this to get fixed is December? Anywho, here's the schedule for light at the end of the tunnel (both literally and figuratively):

6am to 12pm

• Bayfords Feeder - St. Peters
• Frigate Bay Feeder - Bird Rock
• Cayon Feeder - Canada Estate to Grant egg farm via. Cayon S.E. Peninsular – Frigate Bay, S.E. Peninsular

12pm to 6pm

• Canada Feeder – Conaree, Half Moon Heights
• Basseterre North Feeder- Taylors, Shadwell, College Housing, Greenlands, Buckley’s, McKnight, Fortlands
• Sandy Point Feeder - Palmetto Point to Figtree via. Old Road Basseterre North Feeder –Lime kiln, Camps, Mattingly, WEST FARM, Boyd’s

6pm to 10pm

• Industrial Site Feeder – CAP Industrial Site

10pm to 6am

• Industrial Site Feeder – CAP Industrial Site

OH, rumor is these are the times we're NOT supposed to have power... meaning we will have 18hrs of electricity a day? I'm going to not hold my breath on that. At least we have running water, and the weather is perfect. So, it could be worse. I'm sure that will manifest itself in a new and exciting way somehow.

6pm came and went, yet I remained in darkness.

Powerless

Well, I have no electricity. There was a huge fire at the island's power station (which is basically a giant generator because it runs on diesel). They estimate it will take WEEKS to get the parts needed to fix it (and by then, the repair man will probably be on vacation).

"Please note that the main power generators at the St. Kitts Electricity Company has been damaged and as a result load sharing will take place island wide i.e. power will be available for limited periods of time during the day or night. We have contacted the Electricity Department but they were unable to provide any additional information; as soon as we receive a schedule of the load shedding we will share it with you. The length of time required to have the situation rectified is uncertain, but we will keep you updated as we get additional information

It would be advisable to unplug any items that can remain off when power returns as there can be surges that may damage sensitive equipment.

We are currently using our stand-by generator to provide power to the campus and the Campus Living Residences."

Then we got an email about a "loading bearing schedule." West Farm (where I live) isn't on the list. Fun times.

Rudder is at school helping me study for Small Animal Medicine. Guess he and Salty are going to get all the meat in my freezer when it melts... I've already brought food up to campus for safe keeping.

Also camping out, here at school, with my rice cooker, coffee maker, lounge chair, quilt, and other kitchen amenities. I've become popular because I have cooked food. BUT at least we have running water at home! That is, until the pumps go out. Give it time.

PS: The power went out on Oct 1st (4 days ago). I wonder if school will run out of fuel for their generator. Gas was $15.44EC/gal ($5.75US/gal) on my last fill up. I hear it's higher now.