Kat, I wish I had something more than good thoughts to wing your way.

My co-workers did not know Dogs in Elk. I have enlightened them. The cat fanciers are not laughing nearly as loudly as the dog folks.

Enh. The reality is I have one more hour of reading the same stories aloud (seriously? I've been doing this for weeks and have read the same 3 books 30+ times....) and then I'm done. It's not that bad. I just am losing my voice and I have packing to do. etc. etc.

What is the last thing that made you smile unexpectedly?

mac calling his grandmother last night to tell her to punish me for being mean.

Heh. Nice try, mac!

What is the last thing that made you smile unexpectedly?

Fun video: Sweet Lion Love

Talking of animals and zoos … this will melt your heart! Two guys working for the London Zoo brought up a lion baby until it got too big to keep in their house. When it was grown up they decided to return the lion back to Africa and visited it a year later - luckily someone where there to tape this heartbreaking moment.

Awww.....

A neuroanatomist describes her experience of having a stroke: [link]

So on the morning of December 10, 1996, Taylor awoke with pounding, caustic pain behind her left eye. It came in waves, gripping and releasing her. Nonetheless, she started her morning routine, oblivious to what was happening. She jumped on an exercise machine and looked down at her hands and says they looked like primitive claws to her. She didn't recognize her body as hers.

"It was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my consciousness of personality to where a mysterious person was having this experience," she said.

She also couldn't define the boundaries of where her body ended and the things around her began. The molecules of her arm blended with the molecules in the wall. It made her feel enormous and expansive and connected to all of the energy around her, which gave her a sense of peace.

"Imagine what it would feel like to lose thirty-seven years of emotional baggage," she said.

It occurred to her that she had to get to work, but then her right arm became paralyzed and that's when she finally realized she was having a stroke. She says rather than feel panic, her brain said, "Wow, this is so cool" -- proof that scientists don't think like the rest of us.

She decided to call her office but didn't know the number. So she pulled out a stack of business cards, sifting for one with her work number. It took 45 minutes to get through a third of the cards. By then, however, the hemorrhage had grown and she didn't know how to work the phone. She waited for a moment of clarity to return -- it came in waves -- but when she tried to dial the number from one of the cards it just looked like squiggles. She matched the shapes of the squiggles on the card to the squiggles on the phone and eventually reached a colleague. When he answered the phone, all she heard him say was, "Whaa, whaa, whaa" -- a bit like the sound the adults in Peanuts cartoons make. When she opened her mouth to respond, the same sound came from her.

Bad Career Day:

Robert Irvine is canned for lying about his resume.

Conservative White House Aid plagerizes for guest editorials.

A neuroanatomist describes her experience of having a stroke:

Urrgh. Freakout.

OMG ya'll. about 2:30 I discovered that there was some online compliance training I had to do that was due TODAY!. I had totally forgotten about it. I rushed through it, then decided to look back at the emails around that time and make sure there was nothing else due - THERE WAS A LEGAL SIGN OFF AND ANOTHER ONLINE TRAINING! I just finished. 30 min to spare. so sad also, I had to get 75% on one of the trainings and I got an 83% mostly due to reading on question completely wrong and answering the 4 related questions all opposite of what I meant. DOH!

Steph - yeah, grandma got a kick out of that. thankfully she is no dummy and quickly asked him if it was his bedtime. then he proceeded to add not so true editorial additions to his story about our evening and my meanness.