Puppy Love

I always love having a reason to get up and relish in the refreshing atmosphere of early morning before sliding into the regular grind of school life. Having recently acquired a puppy, daily walks at four o'clock in the morning have completely redefined what constitutes "early" for my boyfriend and I.

Our precious bundle of joy blissfully ignores wistful calls of "Cora," we project in her direction. Her name is inspired by the Italian word for brave: coraggiosi. And brave she is. She can ascend and descend whole flights of stairs, climb over tree stumps and chases butterflies, dashing at a full prance.

She also has daggers for teeth, and she loves getting them caught on any type of fabric within reach. Sweatpants? Yes. The couch? Heck yes! The carpet? Oh man, you have no idea!! At least the scraping of tiny puppy teeth makes an unmistakable scratching noise on the carpet, so we can catch her in the act before serious damage is done. She also loves chomping on the chair and table legs... (by the way, don't tell my landlord) and they have become among her favorite chew toys. These again make a characteristic crunching noise when teeth dig into wood, so her naughty habit rarely flies under the radar.

One of Cora's best attributes is her willingness to snuggle. This is of course after we've tired her out so much that she no longer has energy to paw at our faces with her wolverine claws or chomp on our hair, or ears, or faces in general. They're all love bites, at least that's what we keep telling ourselves. As I type on this keyboard, I am glancing down at my pinkened wrist, speckled with red bite marks from the wild baby animal that thinks my hand is a chew toy.

But godamn I love her. I love her so much I dream about her even when she's sleeping in her crate right next to my bed. I think about her during the day and fantasize about the moment I come home and she scampers towards me, shaking in excitement. I wish we had our own secret language so I could tell her exactly how special she is and so she could ask me all of her pressing questions about puppy life.

Things like:

"How come I fall asleep on the couch and wake up in my crate? Is it magic?"
"Why do you pick up my poop? I can never find it the next day."
"Why do some people walk by me and not want to pet me? Am I invisible?"
"What's in that giant ceramic bowl you sit on sometimes? I really want to know."

Maybe one day she will learn the answers to these questions, but for now she is simply my little snuggle muffin.

The lovely lady Cora

Spirit Hawk

The gorgeous 160 acre rural cemetery adjacent to the SUNY ESF campus is often used for outdoor lab sessions. Though it may sound like a creepy outdoor classroom, it provides a beautiful and relaxing atmosphere with endless educational opportunities.

Just last week I was winding my way through tombstones colonized by moss and old growth oaks and norway spruce trees. A few fellow classmates and I were conducting a mycology lab to analyze lichen growth patterns on various substrates. While it was just as boring as it sounds, we experienced a few brief moments of wonder when a hawk swooped down in front of us and landed on a large headstone. Here is our encounter through photographs:

(By the way, the best way to view this series of photographs is to click on the first one and then move through them in rapid succession when they are enlarged. It makes it look like a stop-motion movie or a flip book. It makes way more sense than scrolling through the photos and looks a lot cooler.)

Starving Student Meal Deal

Of the two main Syracuse grocery stores I frequent, the closer, more convenient option is my least favorite. However, my opinion was slightly changed last night after a particularly fruitful shopping experience. Tops offers these "Family Meal Deals" where you buy one relatively large ticket item and receive all of the meal fixings that go along with it for free. This week's deal featured a chuck roast with an assortment of veggies, dinner rolls, cupcakes, and a two liter of soda.

The nice thing about this meal deal is the consumer has some choice in the ultimate cost of the meal. My boyfriend and I swung for the least expensive chuck roast at $22.62. But the Family Meal Deal could also be a good excuse for a shopper to splurge a little and purchase a larger portion of meat thanks to all of the savings from the "free" grocery items. Instead of spending $38.87 on a nice pot roast dinner, we only paid the cost of the meat.

The Deal
http://www.topsmarkets.com/WeeklyAd/Store/362/

It's a great deal not only for families pinching pennies but also all of us poor college kids out there who deserve a nice meal every once in a while. It's enough food to split with a whole group of friends so if you ever want to have a family meal with your buddies, have everyone pitch in a few dollars and you'll all be eating like kings even if you're broke.

Our haul - someone may have snatched
 a cupcake before I snapped the photo
(2 liter bottle of soda not pictured)

Don't you love seeing the word FREE

Frozen Food Tasting

My sister works at a trendy chain grocery store whose products she worships even though most of them are mass-produced in facilities at the opposite end of the country. The other day I went to pick her up from work but arrived a few minutes early. While she was in the break room retrieving her things, another employee was preparing an array of new products for the employees to sample. Each of the three products was a frozen meal that had been heated and portioned into small sample cups for everyone to try. Since I'm not one to pass on free food, I examined the three different options: a salmon noodle casserole, some sort of beef stroganoff concoction, and chicken in gravy sauce or something.

I stood behind a flock of contemplative employees, carefully reading each of the food descriptions. I then glanced up to see an older man with a goatee stroke his chin, deeply considering the flavor profiles of the no doubt lukewarm, rubbery beef bits he was chewing. I had originally intended to sample the food item that I believed could best retain its flavor and texture after being manufactured, frozen and microwaved. In the end I opted for the most exotic sounding fare: the salmon noodle thing. It was only a few bites worth of food so what could it possibly do to me?

As I brought the first forkful to my lips, the fickle smell of poorly prepared salmon wafted up my nose and I immediately second guess my choice. I love salmon, but somehow I felt as though this noodle mixture was degrading to salmon everywhere. I shrugged and took the first bite. There was no second bite. It was wonderfully flavorless and boring just like something manufactured with as little care or culinary effort should. It tasted like a day old tuna sandwich that had been forgotten in a school backpack. I had to stifle a laugh as my sister asked me what I thought:

"Meh, it's frozen food."

I couldn't lie, but will the employees have to?

Weird Fungus

I'm sorry to resume my blog with a less than profound post. I wish I could say my online absence has been due to an intense intellectual awakening that I could not fully articulate in a blog post until now. Sadly, I have nothing philosophical or mind-blowing to say, but I have some cool pictures of fungus!

I am working on a collection project for my mycology class and the coolest thing I've found so far reminded me an awful lot of tripe a.k.a. the stomach lining of various farm animals. Tripe is actually considered a delicacy but I don't think I could ever stomach that stuff (see what I did there??) This white jelly fungus I found was growing on a decaying tree. After drying it in the oven it turned a dark brown color. Pretty neat! Hope the fumes aren't slowly poisoning myself and my roommates.

Before drying

After Drying

Envelope Art

I've never been good at drawing, so I've had to hone in on other talents. I love writing letters to friends and family since it's a very personal and meaningful way of staying in touch. Probably about seventy percent of the things I say are meant with a sarcastic or comical overtone, and I have started channeling that into how I decorate the envelopes. It's fun and easy and if I run out of stuff to say in a letter I just put more stickers on the envelope so the recipient has more to look at. It's really worked out quite well and it makes writing letters even more fun!

Possible Demon Sighting

It seemed liked another cheerful summer's day. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and many neighborhood residents were enjoying a casual stroll or leisurely bike ride. I might have even had a little extra pep in my step as I breathed in the warm air, anticipating a delicious lunch as I approached my apartment. Just then, as I turned at the corner of Euclid and Ackerman, I saw a ghastly sight. What was clearly a shriveled, mummified hand was strewn across the sidewalk as if someone had carelessly dropped it on their way to the grocery store. Obviously my first questions were what supernatural being that hand belonged to and if it had crawled here on its own. If the hand was still living apart from its demon body, was I at risk of being suddenly attacked and sacrificed to the demon overlord? I started to panic and snapped a quick photo as proof before crossing the street and hastily continuing my journey home. I peered back for a quick second and I could have sworn I saw those gnarled black fingers twitch.