Today was Alex's Birthday!
And nothing says, "Happy Birthday!" more than 7:30 AM tick sampling. Waking up that early isn't a problem for me; I have two alarms and a game plan: before I go to bed I drink tons of water/coke/etc, so when I wake up, the adrenaline rush from hearing alarms going off/ being paranoid jump starts my bladder. Then I have to at least walk to the bathroom.
Waking up is not the worst part of this.
We go to the field dominated by non-native grasses first. It's relatively simple, you check to see if the trap is open, closed, or contains an animal and shout out your response. Then Dr. Fore scrambles to write things down; I don't know how she does it as we aren't exactly bringing our "A" game team spirit. A post-stroke (read: Courtny Cox) Nirvana may be more coherent. Nature remedies this though. There is so much dew on the grass. After walking down the line, your pants are completely drenched or dominated by the non-native grasses. It's a nice pick up and keeps one from going to sleep during the job. It also saved me when I almost wet myself today.
See, mice don't weigh too much, and the first trap I picked up was heavy. I peek into to make sure there was an animal in it... I mean... who knows, maybe some prankster filled with with oddly moving rocks. Or maybe some vortex was opened inside the trap. Or it could be filled with pixies and gold!
But it was later found out to be a rabbit which is a much better alternative to chipmunk.
So we finish grabbing all the traps with animals, 10 in total, and decide to get breakfast before we process them. Not being a morning person at all, I just decide to get something to drink. While I normally would just get a Coke or Dr. Pepper, Betsey and Alex are trying to steer me away from soda (dangerous thinking I know). I get a one of those V8 with strawberry and kiwi. It was good, but it was still filled with sugar and relatively nothing else. But what can one expect. They also found it really strange that I eat kiwis with the skins on them. Betsey fantasized it as eating hair; I prefer astroturf. Regardless, kiwis need some sort of texture to contrast the mush and tart and slight sweet.
After this, we go back to the lab to process the animals. Mainly we measure their feet, sex, weight,and if it's a recapture as well if it as any ticks on it. If it isn't a recapture, we clip it's toes to mark it. It's not as bad as it sounds, but it is not something one looks forward to when you should still be sleeping.
We mostly get Peromyscus leucopus but sometimes we get the cutest smaller mouse whose very long name starts with R. (It's like Rethmodamadies... or at least that is how you pronounce it). So at least the things we get to groom are cute.
But then there are the ticks... we get larval and nymphs on P. leucopus so it's mostly picking of small ticks that don't look too intimidating, but sometimes you'll see an adult tick... and most of the time it's on you.
We finish processing and decide to adjourn for an hour or two. We all were hot, wet, and really wanted to put clothes in our freezer; almost like Spring break! After this interim we get lunch and discuss what we need to do; proposal, proposal, and proposal. Betsey also wanted to examine the data to know how much we would need to process in the following week. I know, such a slacker! Does she not know proposal?
But we decided to look over the data while our proposal was in the shop, having parts taken off and sold on the black market of proposals as it was a tad too inflated. Let me tell you, Alex is an excel wizard, and I quote from him, "I was almost an accounting [read: excel] major." But he had columns flying every which way as we made an easy-to-read list of all the mammals captured from 2010. The highlight was when we had to print it; there is no printer in our lab, so we had to find somewhere else to have it printed. Alex found a huge list of printers in Mag, but we didn't know exactly where we could get into, so we narrowed it down to the main floor and the floor we were on. Then, we fell into two feelings, one where we went searching for a printer in an open room and one where we set trying to logic it out. Let me tell you, Logic-ing where you can print while sleep deprived is a hoot. Eventually, we follow Betsey's idea to print from a copier in the main office. This doesn't work the first time as we didn't input a code; a nice receptionist lady shows us how to do it from her computer accidentaly printing out several things while she was just trying to show us how to print.
Then we left to go up the stairs and print; we left through the main door which we did not enter and was closed. It's one of those doors that once it opens, it's weighted to stay opened, and I was the last one out. Everyone looked at me... not to shut it, but not in a way that it was okay to be open. Unable to make up my mind of what to do with the door, I, along with Betsey and Alex, ran up the near by stairwell. Oh them researchers sure are crazy.
Then came the edit from Dr. Fore. It was strange. It pointed out some things that were wrong (some of them from what we wrote, some of them from what she had written), and some very odd things. She noticed when there was an extra space, a minor indention error, or even through what must be paranoia of words being different size (I swear... that "another" is the same as all the other words!). It left us with a lot of work to do and some great conversation while doing it.
Unbeknown to Alex, we were also secretly planning his birthday bash. She was contacting people to meet up; I was dreaming of dollar cones. That was the bait; we were going to lure him to TCBY to get dollar cones. They were delicious and something I will do every Wed. until I die (and I will request that after I die every Wed. one be placed on my grave... with sprinkles). Then when we (me, Kara -- plant biologist extradordinare -- Alex, and Betsey) started to leave, I feigned having to go to use the bathroom. In this time period, I had precious moments to find Alex an ice cream cake. There were many decisions, but most involved peanuts or peanut type toppings which was a no-no for Alex's diet.
I finally decided on a White Chocolate Mousse cake.
Luckily, the TCBY and Bellacinos share the same place, so I used a Bellacinos bag to carry the cake into the car. Even more lucky, Alex didn't ask questions to why I had so many grinders. Kids gotta eat ya' know.
We got back to the dorm where our small group was gathering and Betsey and I realized: we didn't have forks or knives. We tried to text the last guy coming to bring some, but he brought Gyros food instead (very close, but no cigar). Betsey then tried to stealthily ask if anyone had any forks/knives which lead to confusion and someone eventually asking Alex. He then volunteered to run home and grab some. It was great. I think he suspected something -- if not knew-- but was rolling with punches. I mean... what is the worst that could happen? Free cake?
He came back and the festivities started: cake, Little Fockers, and laughs. It was amazing.
Things I learned today:
If Betsey and I have better communication, our like-mindedness and sleuth will achieve much.
Many ice cream cakes have peanuts.
A little dew adds up to sea world.
I shouldn't blog at midnight as it starts to lose it's charm.
Stay itchy,
~Justin
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