It's a Girl!

Little Olive had a mani/pedi today and the vet confirmed what we'd hoped. Olive is a girl! Break out the pink cigars.

Freedom To Marry

Lucky you. You can get married. Everyone else should be allowed to marry, too.

Take the pledge.

via Slog

"Overheard" on Facebook

Eric to Lisa: I think the origin of the word "bunny" came from "funny" with a bounce.

Olive Breakthrough?

I maaaay have had an Olive breakthrough tonight. I've been doing a lot of reading about buns-especially lately because I'm concerned that she's soon to become a dredlocked bunny because she won't let me touch her and she certainly won't let me brush her. So, I've been worried about her delicate skin and also worried that the vet will think that I'm a bad bunny mum when I bring her in to be fixed.

Anyway, one thing I came across is that lots of buns prefer to be pet on the forehead. Hmmm. When I try to pet her, I try to pet her bod like I'd pet a cat or doggins. It makes sense that she wouldn't be into that since it might feel like I'm a predator looking for a teeny, fuzzy lunch. I don't think I've ever tried to pet her forehead!

So, I've been up late tonight working on clearing out my Google Reader (um, I mean, I'm working on HOMEWORK. I'm doing HOMEWORK!), and went to the kitchen to give Olive some H2O. She was sitting next to her cage looking fluffy as ever. I returned her water bottle to its cage spot and absentmindedly tried to rub her forehead. She didn't move! I rubbed her forehead and around her ears for 3 minutes, perhaps, then gave her a sesame seed treat. I sat on the floor waiting for her to finish her treat; she returned when she was done. Interesting!

I tried again: I rubbed her forehead and around her ears for another couple of minutes. She seemed relaxed; maybe she liked it! I figured I'd better not push my luck. I gave her another treat and left her alone.

This miiight be a fluke, but I hope not! I've been struggling to get Olive to do business with me for a couple of months now; I really hope this might be a turning point! Hooray!

Why Is This So Hard?

via HuffPo

Wah Wah Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

via AlterNet

Cars, Assholes, School, LIFE

WARNING: This post contains language that is NSFM (not safe for moms) and graphic menstruation art.

• I am car shopping. I've had it with the Sube, and it's time for it to make penance for all the trouble (not to mention money it has cost us) it has given me. So during my perusing, I've noticed that there are about a 1,000,000 Chevy Cobalts available in this area and in my price range. There are two top reasons I'll never own a Chevy Cobalt.

1. I am pretty sure there's an explanation for the million or so Cobalts available to me; I'm also pretty sure I don't want to find out what that explanation is.
2. Chevy Cobalts are not cobalt, and I have a problem with that. Even the blue ones aren't cobalt. I won't purchase a liar car.

• We are entirely out of that shit hole, also called North Street. Here's a huge "fuck you" to our white-trash neighbors and their little shit kids and the jackasses who own/"maintain" that place. You had it easy with us. Oh, and karma is a boomerang.
• My summer classes are making things really hectic for me, but I am enjoying them. I evenlove one of them. Plus, I'm doing a project on menstruation which is pretty much as good as it gets for me.

There's more news, but I'm tired now. I'll try again soon. In the mean time, enjoy some menstruation art by Isa Sanz, via Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health.

Spring 2010 Grades: I Made It

Spring grades are in.

Intro to Human Development: C

Adolescent Development: LGBTQ: A

Politics of Education: A

My summer session starts tomorrow. I'm not ready!

Hellllllllo, Broad Street!

Some news:

• J, Olive and I, with huge help from my family, have moved all our things to a new place! Everything is a giant, confusing mess; our box spring didn't fit upstairs; I'm sick....
• Little Olive is not so little anymore! She's nearly 4 months old, which means that bunny adolescence is upon us. She is a super daredevil and she's started thumping her little bunny foot, which is pretty cute. At first, though, it was alarming since we didn't know that strange sound was her! She's also old enough to start eating some veggies. So far, she's tried carrots and carrot tops, red leaf lettuce and alfalfa sprouts, although it seems she's not crazy about the sprouts. Next up for Olive, getting fixed....
• I've finished my first semester at BU, and it was pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty, pretty hard. My summer term begins next week and will last a month. It'll be really intense: 8 hour days two days a week.
• My brother, Eric, graduates from Ithaca College this weekend with a B.S. in Outdoor Adventure Leadership. After Tiffany finishes her school year, the two of them will be doing a 5-week road trip across the country. If you're anywhere west of us, you might be getting a call from them....

I'll report on my first couple of days of school sometime next week, I hope.

Overheard in the J and L House

Lisa to Jesse: I feel bad staying up late when Olive has to be in her cage.

Jesse to Lisa: Parents get to stay up later than the kids.

Here's Olive squished behind her cage. She likes it there.

She's getting so big!

New House!

Find some pictures of our new place on flickr!

Plus, Olive is old enough to start eating vegetables! She loves carrots and especially loves the tops. She's so fluffy and cute and we love her soooo much! She's even pooping and peeing where I want her to. Perfect! Now, if only I could get her to like being touched....

What's New, Bunny Rabbit?

Things have been a little crazy around the J and L house lately. My semester is winding down which means that all the stuff I've been avoiding for the past couple of months has to be done NOW or PRETTY DAMN SOON.

Some other news in brief:

• I've been seeing a chiropractor for lower back pain and it's really been helping! I've never seen a chiropractor before now but I'm totally over physical therapy so chiropractics seemed like the next thing to try. Unfortunately, our insurance doesn't cover some treatments that will help my spine over the long-term. We'll have to see how we figure that out.
• J and I have a trip planned to visit Rachel and Eric in Philadelphia in the time between my spring semester and my summer session. I'm afraid that trip may have to be postponed (postponed, NOT cancelled) because J and I will (hopefully) be moving to a nice, quiet house during the week that both Rach and I are free. The reasons for the move are too numerous to name. Well, I'll use one name: Rose, the awful, screaming, horrible, bully bitch who lives upstairs with her idiot kids and her surprisingly nice and reasonable boyfriend. I can't stand her and I won't spend a second more than absolutely necessary listening to her bellowing at her moron offspring. She is awful and I hate her. More to come on the topic of a move soon. Maybe I can tell you about it when you're helping me move some boxes? Heh heh.....
• Olive is getting big-ish! She is so cute and we love her even if she only kind of tolerates us. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post all the pictures we take of her, but you can periodically check her flickr set. The video of her trying to stand and eat bits of the house plant is pretty damn funny. You can easily find the link in the sidebar under the "This is What I Like" heading (right side of the blog). Here is Olive lounging against the Guitar Hero guitar behind the tv (her favorite spot).

Poor Olive got a real scare the other day when Jesse brought out the big vacuum. The sight of that giant monster scared little bunbun so thoroughly, that she immediately jumped on top of her house and stayed there for a few minutes! Poor, traumatized Olive.

Fall 2010

• Legal History of Sex in the US
• Social Justice
• Community Leadership and Development
• Holistic Health Practice

I should be able to graduate after the Spring 2011 semester.

Re: Check This Out!

Sorry the video is SNR. I can't get it to do what I want it to do.

Check This Out!

Ever since Tovah encouraged me to try to make rejuvelac during my spring break, I've been doing some research about sprouting. Now that I've finished my first batch of rejuvelac, I want to continue sprouting. I came across this neat video via the SproutPeople. I might try sprouting and growing some wheatgrass for little Olive!

Overheard in the J and L House: A Bunny Edition

Lisa to Jesse: Is this movie too scary for the bunny?

Lisa to Jesse: Olive had better not have any fun while we're gone!

Olive Parsley

Meet Olive Parsley, the only bunnis I know who shares a phobia (and perhaps an entire personality) with her momma.

Today, we pimped her cage. Well, J pimped. Olive and I bonded.

She is fast!

Neat! I can get my orchard grass from outside the cage!

Only slightly larger than a Peep.

They Said Someday You'll Find All Who Love Are Blind

They said someday you'll find

All who love are blind

Oh, when your heart's on fire

You must realize

Smoke gets in your eyes

-The Platters

For my birthday, my parents generously gifted me the entire series of Homicide: Life on the Street. It was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I remember watching it for the first time when my parents and probably sibs were out of the house. I wasn't too old, twelve maybe. The whole house was dark except for the television set. I loved the premise: the procedural stories of homicide detectives in Baltimore; I remember feeling I was doing something illicit by watching such a violent and mature show without my parents knowing. As it happened, I'd bumped into a marathon of episodes, so by the time my fam returned, I was hooked.

I've always had a thing for true crime and true crime-type entertainment and Homicide only deepened the interest. Soon, I was insisting on watching it in its weekly time slot. Often my dad joined me and tried to make it through the whole episode without dozing off (not because the show was a snooze). The show eventually dropped from the major networks and I didn't have access to it on cable.

So, to receive the entire season was a terrific gift! Initially, I wanted J to watch with me, to watch at least two entire seasons and give it a good shot (crime drama isn't his thing at all). I wanted to share the show that I loved so much with him; and, I'll admit, he didn't hate it. The problem was that I couldn't wait that long! Jesse'd be willing to watch one, maybe two episodes a week along with whatever we had on the docket for a particular week, and that is just not good enough for me. Needless to say, I've continued on without him. And, of course, I love it. I remember a lot of it and that's just fine. I'm really, really enjoying it.

But I've noticed something about this series, which started in 1993. It's not something you see today and it's something I've noticed in the series Mad Men that J and I have recently started watching via Netflix. Mad Men is set in the 1960's.

Do you know what was common in television then and is pretty taboo these days? SMOKING! Everyone smoked in teevee shows in 1993; everyone smoked everywhere in the 1960's (right?). Thanks to Reality Check, among others, we're totally unaccustomed to seeing smoking on screen these days.

I'm certainly not complaining; but it is certainly something I noticed!

Spring Break and What's Next

I'm on spring break this week; it's important that I'm occupied and at least semi-productive so I don't feel like I've wasted the week. Today is only Tuesday, and already I have been so busy!

Monday, I went to the outdoor store for a new compost pail and a rake. I drilled ventilation holes and transferred the compost from the full pail to the empty so I can use the soil at the bottom in the garden. I wasn't sure how it'd look, how composted it'd be; but I was pleasantly surprised! It looks like dirt!

I had to add the "compost only" label because the old neighbors used the pail to get rid of broken glass, so that was awesome.

Today, I got a baby dwarf Lionhead bunny! S/he is really cute and has been practicing her sprints tonight. I'll definitely have more pictures (and a name?) soon.

Tomorrow, I'm spending the day with my friend Amanda and we're going to drink booze with lunch and get massages. It should be pretty amazing. Thursday, I have to do some homeworks and then J and I will spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday together! I'm pretty sure there's a bike ride in our future.

My seedlings have really taken off and I am also making rejuvelac from sprouted spring wheatberries this week. Thanks for the idea, Tovah! All good fermented things come from Tovah.

Regarding this semester, it has been really hard. So much more difficult than I thought it'd be. It's also been kinda lonely, complicated and confusing. My life is so different now than just a couple of months ago! I'm glad I'm done with my mid-terms and I'm really glad I'll only have a month left when I get back.

I have struggled with one class in particular, Intro to Human Development. The class is all theories and nuance and stages and if you don't get all the little details, you're sunk. I bombed three quizzes and kept going to the professor over and over again. But I busted my ass preparing for the midterm and I was able to get a 74. It's not awesome, but it's better than a 50 and I think it'll give me a boost of confidence to get me through the end.

I still have a ton of work to do, but in a month; it'll all be over.

After that?

We visit Rachel and her husband Eric in Philadelphia for a few days, hopefully have dinner with Megs Sherry and her parents and relax a little before my Summer term begins.

Stay tuned for: meet my friend Amanda, a visit with Tovah, a wedding in Michigan and a few days with J's fam, and news of the fall semester!

Eco-nundrum

The organic peppers (our preference) are imported from Israel. The pesticide pepps originated in Mexico. Is it better to buy organic with a much larger carbon footprint or consume the pepps that are "closer" to home?

I bought the organic. What do you think?