current distraction: thunder

I wanted to split up my posts from last week.  So this one is about the nonexistent Knoxville Botanical Gardens.  They advertise it as if it is still up and running, taken care of and everything.  Alas, it is not.  The buildings were broken down and there was hardly a flower in sight.  Some cool trees though, so that was nice.  A disclaimer: at the end I did see an area across the street that had cool stone walls and nice flowers but that was the only nice part.

We made a funny picnic out of it: sushi, pasta with vegetables, fruit salad, and a sandwich for Rich.  Of course we got a root beer and a cream soda and split them because we can never decide which we’d rather have at the time.  Before the garden we went to a UTK baseball game.  It was funny especially because in front of us was the hickest little family.  They were hilarious though, the dad ended up catching a ball and just tormented his sons with it.  

So at this point I only have about five weeks left (excluding the two days of this week that are remaining).  Almostttt out of here.  Then I’ll be on LI with nothing to do until I move to New Haven and start up at Wesleyan, all of which I am very excited for.  Random: it’s already 80 here!  I wish I could go to the beach.  Yeva and I almost bought tickets to go to Florida cause there was a huge deal going on, roundtrip to Destin for only 60 dollars total!  But it sold out before we could buy it, drats.  I feel a little blah.  I guess I miss hanging around the creepy garden.  "Please don’t speak in the hanging garden, no one sleeps in the hanging garden” (The Cure, anyone?)

current distraction: depression.

The past week was amazing.  I wish he could’ve stayed longer, but it was so fun and relaxing.  Last weekend we went to the Knoxville Zoo and it was actually a lot nicer than I imagined.  Surprisingly, one of the elephants killed a keeper a few months back.  They didn’t look murderous, but who ever knows with elephants.

This might be the culprit.

The zebras were very depressed. 

“Where did my life go... "

“these stripes make me look so fat I want to die"

“I know I put my colors somewhere..."

I kept trying to give them pep talks but it didn’t work.  The meercats on the other hand were very excited to have visitors.

They were just a tad upset that the glass ruined their picture.  They wanted a better photo shoot, they’re actually pretty vain.  Anyway I have to go to bed but I’m going to post tomorrow about other fun events from the past week: 

Knoxville Botanical Gardens (do they really exist?) & Nashville (what a wonderville)

current distraction: Smoky running ramped with a pen

So it’s been a while.  I have a valid excuse though and that’s that Comcast is to blame for setting up my wireless incorrectly and therefore I could not connect to the internet.  They fixed it yesterday and apparently all is well.
Anyway, what have I been up to... well, two weekends ago at this point we went hiking in the Smoky Mountains through parts of North Carolina and Tennessee.

It was a fun day, we did a four mile hike and met some llamas at the end.

So those are pictures displaying how beautiful the hike was, how terrifying that little bridge was, how plentiful the rhododendrons are.  Now here are my cool findings:

Cool finding #1: A natural staircase

Cool finding #2: Self Explanatory

Cool finding #3: Mayan God of Death??

Mayan God of Death for comparison

Then we found a llama!

So that was the hike.  Last weekend I went up to Connecticut to escape the South for mental stability purposes.  Aside from weekends Yeva and I have just been cooking deliciousness still.  Homemade mango salsa; couscous with zucchini, garbanzo beans, golden raisins, and pignoli nuts; etc.  I always want to take pictures to put on here but I’m trying to make it not turn into a food blog.  Anyway, I’m frustrated because the spacing and sizing and editing of this post has been a hassle and now I’m tired again.  I want to go out and take pictures today but it keeps on and off thunder storming so ehh not too sure.

 current distraction: sick little kitten.

This weekend was pretty fun, depressing news first then fun stuff.  So Saturday was Smoky’s first vet appointment.  The doctor is an old man, probably around 60 or so, but he’s quite spunky in a cranky way.  Sort of like my grandpa where he is right and you better listen, but he’s a lot more uppity than grandpa.  Anyway, we told the vet that Smoky was a girl since that is what the shelter told us.  He picks the kitten up and goes “Hmph, those are balls.  This is a male.”  So I got all excited because I thought he was male. But now it’s all figured out.  However, Smoky is sick =(  The poor gender confused kitten has an upper respiratory infection and it’s getting pretty bad. It conveniently got much worse after we left the vet. He’s had running eyes, a stuffed nose, can hardly breathe, and now he won’t eat.

I spent the entire day at work today in a panic because I was so worked up about him.  I was so nervous that we were going to come home and he was dead or something.  But we got home and he was passed out and then started crying and whining to us when we started paying attention to him.  So we took him to the vet again and he gave us food and high calorie other stuff to force feed him so he has some energy.  He actually seems to be getting a bit better already.

At the end, after the vet explained ten times over how and when we have to feed the cat, he started asking about how we will feed the cat during the day.  Problem: we have work and kittens aren’t allowed at national laboratories.  So he asked if we had friends, we said no we’ve only been here three weeks and don’t know anyone.  Then he said that we could drop Smoky off during the day and he would watch him and feed him when need be.  It didn’t even seem like he was going to charge which was really, really nice (but we’ll see, that could always be wrong).  You can tell he really cares about the pets, and I appreciate that alot.

So the rest of the weekend: sixty degrees and sunny.  Saturday Yeva and I ran errands and then made vegetarian enchiladas from scratch for a mexican potluck that all the interns were having.  I was a bit nervous at first, since I am a complete psychopath when it comes to trying new food, especially something with cheese.  But surprisingly enough I loved them! The potluck was fun and it was nice to get to know everyone better and spend quality time together outside work.  Sunday morning I got up a bit early to go park hunting.

I found a pretty nice one in a really ritzy area.  It was pretty calm even though it was such a nice day out.  There were some runners and a family having a picnic.  It was nice to be outside and in a tshirt in January... very different from the brutal winter up north.

After this park Yeva and I went and found a park by UT that was definitely more lively.  It was right by the river and everyone brought there dogs.  It was the perfect people watching place.

It was definitely a relaxing weekend and that was much appreciated since work is quite the crazy place.

current distractions: BIG NEWS

So I haven’t updated in a while because Rich was here for a week and so I was quite distracted by not being depressed and not having separation anxiety.  It was a great week.  We went to Nashville and walked around there, got lunch, went to a bar, listened to music, etc.

  

It was a pretty cool place.  It was pretty spontaneous so next time I want to look up a few places to go to first.  Hmm... other than that we made some awesome meals: sushi, pizza, breakfast night, anddd burger night.  I started putting avocado on my veggie burger and I really like it.  You would think that would flip me out because of my consistency issues but no I actually really like it.  Work got better this week also.  I coded an algorithm that now I have to manipulate to do better things for me and I understand everything a whole lot better.  It’s crazy how much I’ve learned in only two weeks.

So now time for the big news...
                                ...
                   Yeva and I adopted a baby kitten today!

DAH.

So yeah, we got a cat and we actually get to pick it up tomorrow.  It’s about nine weeks old and it doesn’t have a name yet but it’s a girl (without the inverted penis) and she’s perfect.  I will post pictures tomorrow, I promise.