Hemophobia
Noun
1. Fear of blood.

Xenophobia
Noun
1. Fear of strangers or foreigners.

Xenohemophobia
Noun
1. Fear of strange blood.

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Today, I had just given the guinea pigs a handful of greens and they were greedily munching away, when I looked over and saw dried blood coating the rim of their white pellet bowl. Looking more closely I see dried blood splattered on the back wall of their cage. Holy Heck! I look at the two little fur balls. Neither one seems hurt. They had just been yelling at me to feed them moments ago. But there was the blood, which could not to be dismissed. My mothering instinct over-ruled the part of my nervous system that likes to shut down in these moments and take a little nap.

There is something very daunting about searching for the source of unexplained strange blood, especially when you are also hoping you will not faint once you find it. With much dread I lifted, inverted, prodded, probed, ruffled, palpated, quizzed and frisked those two squirming veggie monsters with bated breath. Nothing. Not even a zit.

My mind went back to the previous night. I had to take a pain pill with caffeine, because it's sometimes the only thing that will work for me. That kept me up until about 2 AM. Once, during the early hours, I heard one of the girls cough a few times really hard. They do occasionally get some hay caught or something goes down the wrong tube and then they cough. Guinea pigs cannot hurl, so they cough as a default. Still, this was hard enough that I almost got up to check on them. But it stopped and I forgot all about it. Now I'm thinking that whatever they shoved down their throats wrong had actually ripped up their throat enough for it to bleed a little. Then they coughed blood onto the back of their cage and dribbled it around the rim of their food bowl.

The whole bloody incident reminded me of another recent encounter.

A month or so ago BlindHorse was getting ready for work in the morning and he cut his finger on something. Now, I knew this because, even though we've lived here for 8 months, even though the bandages have been in the exact same place all those 8 months and even though he has needed, asked for, and retrieved himself a bandage from this exact same place many times in the past 8 months, he still had to ask me, "Hey, Honey, where are the bandages?" It's a guy thing. I know you girls feel me here.

To be more precise though, he said, "Hey, Honey, everything is okay and it's really not that bad, but where are the bandages?" He says this while carefully hiding from me whatever body part may be bleeding. This way I don't suffer the shock of his oozing life force, and my vivid imagination, causing me to pass out. And this way he doesn't have to wait five minutes for me to come back around before he finds out where the damn bandages are. It's a little system we've worked out over the years.

So, off he goes on this morning, I kiss him bye at the door, lock-up behind him and go back to bed. Hey, it's 5 AM. Fageddabowdit! A few hours later I wake up and flip on the bedroom light and freeze, transfixed in horror, at the Bram Stoker gout of blood smeared across the switch-plate. I forgot in that moment that just this morning my darling husband cut his g-darn hand and asked me for a bandage. Instead, it's like stepping into one of those late night movies where you're screaming at the stupid woman, "Don't open the door!! It's NOT the pizza delivery guy!!!" It was very handy that I was standing next to a nice soft bed.

On that morning I realized I really, really don't like strange blood showing up unexpectedly in my daily routine. It kind of throws my whole system off. And by system, I mean my brain's electrical system, cause I go down like a tranquilized elephant on the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

And then today, I realized that the guinea pigs rank higher than my husband on my mothering instinct meter, since when he's bleeding I do not force myself to stay conscious while I painstakingly scrutinize him for injury. I just yell to him from the other room, "They're in the First Aid box in the closet!"

Poor bugger.

...For This Jelly!!!

I'm a big fan of belly dance and I thought I'd beat some of the fall/winter blues by checking out some of my favorite tribal and gothic style on Youtube.


Beginning with the performance of The Indigo (love those girls!) at Tribal Fest 8 back in May. It's long so in four parts.

Pt. 1

[link]

Pt. 2

[link]

Pt. 3

[link]

Pt. 4

[link]



Some other good stuffs...

Zoe Jakes
[link]

Kami Liddle
[link]

Jeniviva
[link]

Naimah
[link]

Have you heard of Lauren Luck?

I was digging around on YouTube and discovered this delightful girl and her series of videos that show you how to put on makeup to achieve various (usually celebrity inspired) looks. The makeup tips are great, but Lauren herself is adorable and dead funny.

Lauren's getting quite a lot of notice from the videos now and has even had a BBC One piece done on her and has been hired by Barry M Cosmetics to do weekly tutorials on their webiste. It's a great story of a genuine person and I'm so glad that her personal qualities and her makeup talents are being recognized and rewarded.

I grew up on a 35,000 acre ranch that was an hour's drive to the nearest town. Fooling around with makeup was never high on the priority list. So as an adult I can be a bit intimidated by makeup and it is great to have such a real, sweet and down-to-earth person showing you the ropes. She really puts a chicken like me at ease. I'm always afraid I'm going to look like a clown. But, inspired by Lauren's videos and armed with their knowledge, I decided to play around with my makeup yesterday and was really pleased with the results. BlindHorse and I went out to dinner and a movie. At dinner, the waitress told me I looked just like Christina Ricci [link] .

Now, not only was it nice to be compared to a celebrity, but especially nice to be compared to a celebrity 8 years younger than me. Let's just say that I made a stop to buy more makeup to play with on the way to the cinema.

So, if you haven't heard of Miss Luck, do check her out on YouTube [link] . And before you go, tell me, has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? And who was it??

I few weeks ago the stock account won a 3 month subscription through the Stock Education Week challenge [link] .

We wanted to use the capability to post thumbs as an opportunity to feature some of our watchers. So go check them out. We have some great watchers. [link]

Yesterday morning I went to open a can of mixed nuts to put some in BlindHorse's lunchbox and noticed some little black plastic shavings on the counter. Then I noticed the little teeth marks on the lid. Arg! A mouse!

After a quick rummage through drawers I'm assured he's been into nothing else... yet. Still have to hit everything with the disinfectant wipes, but no casualties besides the nuts. OK, calm down. You have a brand new pack of mouse traps in the catch-all drawer.

As I open up the plastic on the mousetraps I realize that they are the cheapo ones we picked up at the dollar store. The wood has no printing on it and it's not really square. It actually looks like they they took extra large shims and tacked on the mousie hardware. "Who cares?" I think as I rummage around for the almond butter. By this time tomorrow I'm just going to be tossing it in the dumpster with a dead mouse attached.

My first sign should have been when I couldn't get the sucker to set. It was the hairiest hair-trigger you ever saw. After a few dozen snaps and some almond butter flipped onto my face, I realize that the little hole that you put the wire through hasn't punched all the way out and there is a little round metal bit hanging on like a skin tag. After I punch it all the way out I still have to bend the trigger plate just slightly to finish the deal.

I'm a little perturbed, but I'm still in huntress mode as I pull out the bottom cabinet drawer and gently slide the trap to rest against the wall in the space under the fridge. This is my favorite ambush spot. Gets 'em every time. We used to leave a set trap in there all the time, just in case. But ever since that... What is that smell? Is that a rat? Are those maggots?...incident, we have changed over to a 'wait for first blood' approach.

I forget all the trap wrangling as I replace the drawer and wipe the almond butter from my cheek. It will all be worth it when I hear that snap. It's the sound of victory. It's the single drumbeat in the death march of a mouse invader.

I put it from my mind afterwards. A watched pot never boils. I wouldn't even check on it until tomorrow. But then last night, as I lounged in my regular spot on the couch, computer perched on my lap and my pre-bed hot cocoa (with marshmallows) steaming it's chocolately goodness into the air at arm's reach...

Thwack!

Ahhh! The sweet sound of success. My crusade was short, but satisfying.

jiggle. tink. thump. thump.

Eeeewwww!

Now, I'm a nature lover. I'm not against the death of a creature for the the greater good (or to save my mixed nuts), but I like the kill to be clean and quick if I can. Sure it's more than the mouse could expect from nature. The feral park cats might play with him a while before dispatching him. But I am a higher animal.

tonk. thump. jiggle.

Sheesh, would you just suffocate or have a little mousie heart attack already.

thump. BONK!

In the back of my mind I wonder if maybe it was actually a rat instead of a mouse. I imagine that there is a large Norway rat under my refrigerator flailing around with a cheapo dollar store mousetrap clipped annoyingly to the end of his nose.

tink-tonk-thump-bump-jiggle-bonk-bink

This is going on way too long and is hard to sit through. In fact, I don't. I run past the fridge to the bedroom and wake up BlindHorse with a start.

"Can you hear that?" I ask. (Probably not since he had been fast asleep with his earplugs in) "I caught the mouse, but it's not dead and it's thumping around under there and it's really freaking me out."

Telling me I just need to let things run their course, he rolls over.

I know. I'm a ranch girl. I sit and smell the daisies with alligators. I'm not usually one to yell for a man whenever I see a spider. But this flailing rat/mouse staccato coming from behind a drawer underneath my fridge has got me wigged out. At every pause I hope it's over.

flip flip tink thump

A minute or so later BlindHorse comes into the kitchen. I'm sitting on the couch with my knees pulled up under my chin staring across the room at the drawer. "Where's the flashlight?" he drawls resignedly.

I hop up, smiling, to get it. He loves me. He couldn't go back to sleep and leave me alone with my flopping mouse.

He slowly slides out the drawer. I voice my concerns that it is a man eating rat with a flimsy mousetrap stuck on it's nose.

But no. It is a little mouse with a flimsy mousetrap stuck around his middle like a girdle made from a paper clip. The combination of the big looming human and the piercing flashlight seem to give him an extra shot of mousie adrenaline. With a final flailing heave, the mouse slips out of the trap and darts away into the darkness that leads to the underneath storage area.

I am tossing the two useless mousetraps still left in the package. When BlindHorse gets off from work tonight we will have to get some better ones. But I have a feeling it may be harder to catch the little bugger the second time around.


Photography... ~weelittlesoul
Stock... *SalsolaStock
Traditional/Digital Art... ~weelittlebit
My love... ~blndhrse