Nothing says "I Love You" like...

Back in March I shared my glee over the idea of Bampoo. Who knew there would be more shit inventions to come!?

Direct from Yahoo!News

Panda poop to be recycled into souvenirs

By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 30, 6:05 AM ET

BEIJING - Nothing says "I love you" like a photo frame made from panda poop.

The Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base has come up with a dung-for-profit scheme that turns droppings from the endangered species into odor-free souvenirs ranging from bookmarks to Olympic-themed statues of the animals, state media and base officials said Monday.

The facility in the southwestern province of Sichuan houses about 40 bamboo-fed pandas who produce less than a ton of excrement a day.

"We used to spend at least 6,000 yuan ($770) a month to get rid of the droppings but now they can be lucrative," Jing Shimin, assistant to the base director, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

The products will be made at a local handicraft company mostly from undigested bamboo culled from the panda waste through a special process, Xinhua said.

An official who answered the phone at the Chengdu facility said the dung is "carefully selected, smashed, dried and sterilized at 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit)." He refused to give his name but said the products will be of all colors because they will be dyed.

"They don't smell too bad because 70 percent of the dung is just remains of the bamboo that the pandas are unable to digest," Jing said.

While no price has been set, he said the most expensive souvenirs will contain a panda hair — collected from the wild — in each package.

The 2008 Olympic statues will feature "athletic pandas performing various Olympic sports," Xinhua said.

In March, base officials said they were looking into making high-quality paper from the fiber-rich panda excrement, inspired by a trip to Thailand, where they found paper made from elephant dung.

The Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand already sells multicolored paper made from waste produced by its two resident pandas. Making paper there involves a daylong process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.

The panda is one of the world's rarest and most beloved animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.

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Ms.B

Was he THAT late?

Today, on the way to work, I had another opportunity to play my "Crazy Driver Intervention" game that I blogged about at the beginning of the year.

Shortly after my exit from the freeway, a white truck began to weave around everyone desperately trying to find an open route so that he could speed. As he tore through the School Crossing zone, I thanked my lucky stars that no children were present. A few seconds later he was out of site and I continued my way to work. Only a minute later, I reached a stop light and waited to make my right-hand turn behind a few other drivers. I could see a white truck stopped along side the road up just around the corner and wondered if the speeder had run out of gas. As I worked my way up to the corner I noticed a woman laying on the ground, holding her arms to her body and writhing in pain. Two men were standing over her, one of which was talking animatedly on his cell phone. From the look of the situation it is pretty safe to bet that the white truck struck the woman as she was starting to cross the street.

I wonder if the driver of that truck still feels that a quick arrival to wherever he was going was more important than that woman's life, or the lives of the other drivers that he wrecklesly passed before he got to her.

I also have a sense of guilt. I could have done my intervention techniques and kept him stuck behind me if I had wanted but today I wasn't in a sassy mood.

I simply let him pass.

A Kitten's Life

I've often wondered what it would be like to experience a day as one of my cats, specifically Fluffy, our little wood-pile kitten. Her days are full of mystery and excitement. Adventure and fun.

She bravely comes in the bathroom when the scary hair dryer is on and stubbornly stays in the room while the vacuum is running. Seconds later she is startled by a shadow on the wall, swells like a puffer fish and zooms across the house to the safety of the cat tree. Heaven help anyone if they happen to be standing between her and that tree.

She loves her cat tree. My father built it for me years ago from some large tubes, wood, and old carpet. She climbs it all day long and sleeps in the little loft. From the moment we brought her home she figured out that this was the place to scratch and claw. So smart. When perched on the very top shelf she is eye level with my DH. Fluffy feels like Queen of the World on that perch.

She spends her nights with the other two cats, romping around the house and creating chaos. Her days are spent plotting the many different ways to attack the three dogs and her two people. We walk from room to room constantly on guard. Daily we see her ride one of the dogs bareback up the hall; Fluffy desperately hanging on as the dog tries to buck her off. Yee HAW!

If something is moving, it must be investigated. If it is jiggling it must be attacked. My husband learned these truths this morning as he stood by our kitchen table in the buff. OUCH! I bet he'll wear his underwear from now on!

I've never had a cat that followed me around and sat at my feet before. And when she battles with you she doesn't use her claws. Granted, the teeth are bad enough so there are no complaints. We suspect that she learned this technique because she spends more time rough housing with the dogs. She's never thought about using the claws when playing.

It's been interesting to watch her carve out her territory in our home.

People sometimes ask me how I can live with so many pets. I wish I could find a way to convey to them how interesting it is. Three dogs. Three cats. And not two of them alike.

I feel sorry for folks that don't appreciate the joy an animal (or 6) can bring.

Ms.B

Doldrums

The Care Center is full of negative energy today. Many employees are experiencing the "Monday Blues".

Who am I kidding? "Monday Blues" is too nice. Today, many employees are being complete bitches. I think I would even lump myself into that category, although, in my own defence, I was very happy when I arrived at work today. After all, today is not yesterday!

The mentality of "I'm the only one with problems, and if I'm not then rest assured that at the very least, my problems are the worst problems!!" is running rampant from office to office.

I hope I survive the day! I think I need a vacation!

Relaxing Sunday

With girls camp upon me this weekend, I got permission from my boss to work Sunday through Thursday this week. This way I can go up to camp on Thursday afternoon and not worry about being short any hours on my check.

Sunday isn't a day that I normally work but I figured the exception could be made and that I might even enjoy the quiet office and low-key atmosphere. With no workshops to get to no one would be rushed and chaos would be at a minimum.

Words can't even begin to describe how wrong I was to assume that. I was wrong. So wrong.

By 8:30 I was clocked in and happily crunch data sheets. The office was quiet. No one knew I was here. It was lovely. Alas, I reached a point where I needed some data books from the supervisor's office so I left my safe haven and trekked down the hall. I should have listened to the little voices that were telling me to stay in the safety of the office!! (Doesn't everyone have those little voices? Don't tell me I'm the only one!)

I never made it to the data books. Before I could locate the supervisor a staff member found one of our ladies, I'll call her "V", laying on her bedroom floor in a pool of blood. She had taken a little tumble while trying to get up to change her television channel. Oops! I was the lucky one who agreed to take her in to the Emergency Room. Before I could get her out the door they decided that I since I was headed that way already, I should just take another resident too!!

A short while later, my car full of sick people, I arrived at the E.R. It was tricky getting them both inside simultaneously but I managed. I even got them settled into their respective beds okay. V relaxed on her bed and dozed off but the gentleman, "K", was not as comfortable. Can't say I blamed him, really. He would have nothing to do with the gown he was supposed to wear. Surprisingly, he did allowed them to attach the heart monitor and get a reading. When the wheelchair came to take him to get X-Rays he excitedly slid off the bed and got right into the chair. Weeeee! Free ride!! He did well in the X-Ray room. It was hard to get him in the correct positions since he didn't understand what was going on but we managed okay. Unfortunately he wet himself while they were taking the films. Pee everywhere. UGH! I didn't have a change of clothes for him. I called the care center and spoke with the nurse about having someone come over with a change of clothes for K. He said someone would be right over... and they were. But the message of "bring clean clothes with you" wasn't passed on so they arrived expecting to help me out and didn't have anything dry for me to put K into. I almost went in to panic mode at that point. It had been a battle royal to get K into the large diaper and scrub pants he was wearing and now I had nothing to put him in for the trip home! The staff person said they'd run get something for him and left again.

V was still in her bed at this point. A nurse had come and numbed up her cut but the doctor hadn't yet stitched her up. I continued to sit with K until an orderly came and said that they needed our spot! K wasn't even discharged yet and they needed his spot! WTF??!! We moved K over to V's area and just as I got him settled, the doctor came to give V her stitches. With no aide in the area, he asked ME to hold her head while he sewed it up!

!!@#$@!#!

Have I ever mentioned the horrible phobia I have when it comes to needles?

AHHHHHHHHH!!!

But I did it. I took a deep breathe, kept my cool, and did it without the doctor ever suspecting that I was dieing on the inside. I was one cool girl!! (Thank goodness I didn't faint!)

Another staff person showed up shortly after the doctor was done with some clothes for K. No shirt. But at least she had pants and underwear. Since he was already discharge she was able to take him back the care center while I waited with V. A short while later I was able to bring V back as well. Hooray!!

With an adventure under my belt, I settled in to my desk to actually do the work I had planned to do at the start of the day. Or so I thought. Apparently one of the men who lives here decided, yesterday, that he was going to walk to his parents house. He has traumatic brain injury and has no clue where they live, but he took off for their place never-the-less. Two hours later (about the time I arrived home from the E.R.) the staff were finally sending out people to search for him and beginning to think they should call the police. The family was contacted and since I was in the building, the nurse counting telling me as "contacting administrative staff". I asked what I could do to help and the nurse asked me to notify the administrator and wait by the phones. The missing resident called his family shortly after and his mother called me and gave his location. That little turkey was 47 blocks away at a local hospital. He had walked there in the few hours he'd been gone. I was sent to pick him up and as we drove away from the parking lot together I tripped my car's odometer. It was six miles back to the care center. It took 15 minutes to drive there. How he walked that far in that little amount of time I'll never know. (I secretly suspect that he left a little earlier than estimated.)

I finally clocked out and went home at shortly after 7:00 p.m. I slept really well that night!!

I'm never working on Sunday again.


Ms.B

What a trio we must be...

It just occurred to me that I share an office with a woman who thinks she is full of worms, and another that doesn't realize that 12:10 comes in the a.m. AND the p.m.

Curiosity about what things I do that could drive them crazy in return started to build. I've spent the past few minutes tearing myself apart in my mind. I hope it was therapeutic and not detrimental to my self esteem.

1) I have a favorite pen. It is a cheap, BiC brand pen, but it is fine point. Fine point pens are the only pens I want anything to do with. I love them. Since my pens kept vanishing from my office I attacked my current one with the label maker. I didn't just put the label down the side of the pen. Oh no, that wouldn't do. I put it on there like a flag. ----And I have a nervous habit of spinning my pen in my fingers during meetings so the little flag whips around and around.

2) There are pictures of my dogs and cats hanging on my desk in the place where shots of happy, chubby babies should be. I update them frequently and share stories about them when mothers try to brag about their angelic children.

That is all I can think of. It is hard to critique yourself. Other than those two examples, I suppose I must be perfect! Yes. Perfect.

What's in a name...

For the past few weeks I've been worrying about my grandmother, Eva. She's always been a very strong woman but suddenly, about a month ago, her mind started to go. Paranoia rules her day and she has my father and aunts very concerned.

Ironically, there is a woman I work with who happens to have the same first name as my grandmother. She too is a little loony at times. I love her to death and am grateful that I share an office with people I enjoy. So please understand that I call her "loony" with love. :-) For a while I wondered if she was just losing her hearing. I tried talking softly to her a number of times and she heard me just fine... even with background noise.

Today I was talking to some people in our office about doing a facility walk-through (where we look for problems that need to be addressed) and I mentioned that I was going to re-do the form for them so they would be easier. Not 10 seconds later, Co-worker Eva turned to me and said "Did you make that new walk-through yet?"

*awkward silence*

Um.... no.

I left the room to look up something in one of the charts and returned a few minutes later holding a helmet. "Look, guys! I just found *Frank's helmet in the Chart Room. It's been missing for months!" Without missing a beat, Eva turned and said "That's a neat new helmet. Who is it for?"

Last week I told her I was going to the break room to heat up my lunch and that I would be back in 5 minutes. Since no one was using the microwave, my absence from the office was more like 3 minutes. When I returned, Co-Worker Eva got all flustered and said she had just sent away some potential applicants. When asked 'Why??' she told me that she thought I had gone out to lunch and wouldn't be back for an hour.

Just now she turned to me and said (and I quote!) "Is '12:10' a.m. or p.m.?"

(She was NOT referring to military time, for the record.)


Ms.B

*Name changed to protect the innocent... or guilty, whichever he may be.