Moving in the direction of normal

First, I am happy to say that Jeff continues to improve. Most of the time he actually seems perfectly normal, and has no symptoms other than a little bit of pain sometimes, and getting winded a bit more easily. This comes with its own challenges, as he forgets that he has to take it easy, and I have to remind him not to do things. He is not allowed to exercise at the moment, possibly for the next six months, and that is quite a difficult prospect for him. It is expected that he will make a full recovery, but recovery from a pulmonary embolism is a long slow process. He has to take blood thinners for the next six months, and wait for the clot to slowly dissolve and reabsorb. There are apparently no other treatments (anything that would remove the clot more quickly is much more risky).

When I look at the statistics, it's a bit scary – about a third of people who have pulmonary embolism die within the first twenty-four hours. After it is detected and treatment begins, the risk of death drops significantly, but it is difficult to find statistics that accurately predict risk. The best statistic we have found is that between 3% and 8% of people with treated pulmonary embolism end up dying. However, as Jeff continually points out to me, this includes people with all kinds of compromised health including COPD, cancer, recent surgery, and other serious risk factors. So it is likely that Jeff's risk of having something serious happen at this point is low, but that doesn't keep me from worrying about it, at least sometimes. I have made a rule, which Jeff is electing to follow, that he can't be anywhere alone without checking in at least every fifteen minutes. I figure that this way if there is some serious event, at least it won't be too long before help is called.

But, as I said, most of the time Jeff seems pretty normal at this point. Although we didn't spend Christmas with my family as we had planned, we did have a nice Christmas just the two of us. Jeff was even able to surprise me by filling our stockings – he went for a short trip to the store, and managed to stop at a candy store very quickly.

Because he was so fast at the candy store, he thought he was buying a box of assorted Jelly Belly jelly beans, but was in fact buying a box of Bean Boozled Jelly Bellys, which have normal flavors as well as very nasty flavors that look identical to the normal flavors. Here is Jeff tasting a jellybean flavored like skunk spray:

After that, it was necessary to cut open and sniff each jellybean before eating it:

We opened our presents from each other,

and Jeff got me handmade bowls, specifically for ice cream. It's a good thing I had made some peppermint ice cream (with candy cane pieces) for Christmas, because it was perfect for trying out the new bowls: 

This afternoon I leave for Eugene, and will get in around midnight. I am ambivalent about leaving Jeff, and sad that he will not be able to make the trip with me, but I am sure that he will be fine (being looked after by friends in town who he will be staying with until his brother arrives from Calgary to be with him) and it will be good for me to spend some time in Oregon. So for those of you in Oregon, I can't wait to see you soon!

Bad time, better time

The past couple of days have been crazy, and in not at all what we expected to be dealing with at the moment. We were looking forward to our trip to Oregon, which we were to leave for on Monday. However, all that has changed.

On Tuesday Jeff was having severe abdominal pain, which at first he thought was some kind of muscular pain from sleeping poorly, but which got worse throughout the day leading him to think it was something else. At 7 PM he went to the doctor (our doctor's office has excellent extended hours), and then was sent immediately to the emergency room. After many tests, they finally figured out late Wednesday afternoon that he has a pulmonary embolism. This is much more serious than anything I imagined, even as we were in the ER waiting for a diagnosis. It is a mystery how it came to be that he has it, because he has no known risk factors and there was no evidence of him having had a clot in his leg (which is usually where a clot in the lungs comes from).

Jeff on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after getting a diagnosis

He has improved a lot each day since then, and yesterday afternoon he was allowed to go home.

Jeff at home with his "cat nurses" as he calls them. This picture is slightly misleading, as Jeff was only briefly dressed in jeans, and got into pajamas pretty quickly after this.

 Last night's sleep was a little bit difficult at first, but we were both able to sleep reasonably well. Today, Jeff seems just about normal, playing video games and watching movies, though he is not allowed to exert himself. That means I get concerned when he does anything, like grating cheese to help make dinner, but he was told before discharge that he is allowed to do household activities as tolerated. I may be slightly overprotective, but in general my experience with people who have pulmonary embolism is not good (an understatement). When I worked at Harborview in Seattle, pulmonary embolism was pretty synonymous with sudden death, so I think I have a right to be protective and careful. However, other than an inability to cough properly and related phlegmy throat, just looking at Jeff he seems totally fine, which is reassuring.

I will post more of an update in a couple of days, but I just wanted to let everyone know what has been going on, and that things are getting better. Jeff will not be doing any traveling for the holidays, but I will be making a shorter trip, after Christmas, and Jeff's brother will be coming here to stay with Jeff while I am gone. I will be arriving in Eugene late at night on December 28, and will depart from Portland on January 3 in the afternoon as previously planned. For anyone who has tried to make plans with us, maybe send me a new email with your availability if you think it might be possible to get together, though with this shortened trip it may be harder to squeeze in visits.

Two very full weeks

Last time I posted was two weeks ago, and it has been a very full and busy two weeks since then. I rushed to get all my work done by Thursday, December 4, and then that afternoon we drove three hours to Saskatoon so that I could attend an awards evening put on by the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation. I did not receive an award, but was in the program as a recent grant recipient, and had to make a poster describing my research to a lay audience and stand at it and talk to people for a good chunk of the evening. This is not my favorite kind of thing to do, though Jeff says I'm pretty good at it despite my dislike. Then we drove back three hours to Regina that night, getting in late, so that we could catch our flight the next morning to Calgary. That week was rather exhausting.

We had our early Christmas in Calgary with Jeff's siblings and their families. It was a fun time of visiting, eating, playing some games, and spending lots of time with babies. Unfortunately, people were sick, naps didn't align with one another, and parents were not getting lots of sleep. However, all this had the effect of forcing quite a bit of rest and down time, which I think I greatly needed.

Jeff's sister's partner and their sixteen-month-old, and Jeff's brother's wife and their three-month-old

 We came home the night of December 9, and the remaining three weekdays last week were spent hard at work. All except for Friday morning, when I had a doctors appointment and took the rest of the morning to bake some cookies. Thursday evening we had a retirement party to go to, Friday evening was a Christmas gathering for people (and their families) who attend a research meeting that Jeff is part of, which is what I baked the cookies for. On Saturday afternoon was a birthday party for our friends' one-year-old, and much of Saturday was spent doing work. So between work and all these social events, this has been somewhat of an exhausting week!

It has also been a bit odd weatherwise. The real shock is that most of last week was spent with highs above freezing, which has meant lots of melting. There is very little snow left, and grass is even peeking through in some places. It's making things all brown and yucky looking, which we normally don't have until spring (as much as I can say what is normal here after being here for a little over two years). Today the hype was just below freezing, and this afternoon it started to snow a bit making things look a bit more fresh and white. I never thought that I would say this, but I sort of wish that it would drop below freezing, stay there, and snow a fair bit, because it makes winter much prettier!

This upcoming week I have a lot to get done at work– grades to submit for one class, papers to grade for my graduate class, end of year documents related to annual performance review to submit, a manuscript to review, and a manuscript to edit and submit for review. Also, I have to prepare for teaching next semester, help my honours student get her data collection up and running, and probably a few other things that I am not thinking of right now. That is the neutral to stressful news. The happy and relaxing news is that I have only one meeting scheduled over the next week, I can do quite a bit of this work from home, I don't think it will spill into the evenings, and it should all be done by this coming Friday. Then, a free weekend, and then on Monday, December 22 we leave for Oregon where we will spend twelve days. I plan for that time to be completely work free, and I expect to immerse myself completely into the holidays (funny note from Dragon speech recognition software – it typed hostilities instead of holidays, and when I went to fix it it suggested hot ladies).

Until then, I will do my best to relax into the Christmas spirit at home with Jeff, my kitties, and our Christmas tree :-)

Pushing my way into the holiday season

It seems that the weather is always news here – this week it snowed a lot, and yesterday and today have been supercold. This morning it was around -40°C/F (Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same at -40°) with the wind chill. Jeff decided to go running anyway, but was fully decked out in winter gear including the goggles that my brother got him for his birthday, and the Road Noise speaker vest that he got last Christmas. He looks a little bit like an alien, but that's okay.

Work has continued to be very busy, and both yesterday and today I have had to spend a good amount of time working. However, this Friday we leave for a five-day trip to Calgary where we will be celebrating an early Christmas with Jeff's siblings and their families. I do not plan to do any work during that time, and have warned all my students (undergraduates, honours students, graduate students) that I am on vacation during that time and won't respond to them. So as busy as things are, there is a very lovely light at the end of an increasingly short tunnel.

Despite being busy, I have managed a few fun things in the past week. First, my local library branch had a workshop on Wednesday night teaching how to arm-knit a scarf. I heard about arm knitting several months ago, and was intrigued by it then, so when I found out that this workshop was happening, it was free, and it was at a convenient time and location, there was no way I could not do it even if I was busy. It was lots of fun, and in less than two hours I have learned the technique and made a giant scarf. It's too big to actually wear, so I will probably undo it and make a smaller version.

On Saturday, we hosted our annual American Thanksgiving potluck. Jeff made a turkey, and I made a squash lasagna using this recipe. We had a slightly smaller group then we have had the past two years, but it was still a reasonable crowd with nine guests. The lasagna turned out to be really good, and was definitely better for hosting than the pumpkin ravioli or pumpkin gnocchi that we made in the two past years. Those have to be cooked right before you eat them, and involve lots of active kitchen time, whereas a lasagna can sit by itself in the oven and then sit on the counter for a while if it needs to before being eaten. I followed the recipe almost exactly, except that we substituted butternut squash for the kabocha squash (easier to find, and comes precut into cubes at Costco), and used a combination of Jarlsberg and mozzarella for the cheese (Safeway didn't have Gruyere), and made the squash purée a day ahead of time to spread out the work a bit. Oh, also we used fresh lasagna noodles instead of dried, and omitted the garlic. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly, and I highly recommend trying it as it was delicious and everyone said so.

Today we got a Christmas tree, though we won't start decorating it until tomorrow. It is in a stand in the living room thawing out, and smells wonderfully Christmasy. Also, I just finished filling twelve of the twenty-four days in our wooden advent calendar with little things for Jeff, and later tonight he will fill the other twelve days with little things for me. Besides that, I also ordered a regular paper advent calendar complete with woodland animals living in buildings in a town, which we will also use and can bring with us when we are out of town. I am so ready for this horribly busy season to be over, and the holiday season to begin :-)

What it means to be busy

So first, I was wrong when I said it wouldn't get above freezing until March or April, because Friday and Saturday were like spring here – all the snow melted. However, everything is frozen again today and there is a light coating of snow, so I suppose it's back to normal. If you want one perspective on what the weather is like here, check out this rant. Apparently some people were offended (not as much by the language– though this probably shouldn't be played around children– as by the general negative sentiment toward Saskatchewan), but I find it extremely funny.

The last day of classes here is December 4, and then there is a two-week period of final exams. I feel like the next two weeks are ridiculously busy, and I have a little bit of trouble figuring out how I am actually going to accomplish everything I need to get done. I have a list with dates, prioritizing things and noting deadlines, and somehow if I work pretty solidly for the next little while I should be able to get the most important things done, but it is a bit overwhelming at times.

On the other hand, being this busy means that I am capable of being this busy. My capacity for doing things continues to improve, partly because I'm figuring out how to better manage my limitations, partly because Jeff has gotten into a rhythm with doing all the things he does because of my limitations, and partly because I am slowly continuing to get better. When I think of how things were a year ago, I can't really do a lot of things now that I couldn't then, but I am doing more of the things I can do.

For example, I am still part of the Regina Newcomers Club, and go to a couple of the social events held by the club each month. This is not different from one year ago. But now I am also a member of the executive committee for the club, coordinating membership and the new member nights. Volunteering in this capacity adds much more time and responsibility to my activities with this group.

Everything is kind of like that – instead of one graduate student I have two, instead of one honours student I have two, I am on a huge number of student thesis committees, I am on a university employment equity consultative committee, a committee with the Saskatchewan College of Psychologists, a departmental committee, I proposed a new psychotherapy skills group for graduate students and am heading that up, I am seeing a client as part of my teaching duties, the number of research projects I am involved in has increased exponentially since last December, and probably lots of other things that I'm not thinking of right now.

Two years ago, I was probably doing about a tenth of what I'm doing now. Even one year ago, I was doing probably 1/2 to 2/3 of what I'm doing now. And the thing is, I think probably even three years ago or five years ago, when I was perfectly able-bodied and had none of the limitations that I have now, I wouldn't have been able to keep up with the pace that I'm keeping now. I think that with all of my limitations I have had to learn to be more efficient in much of what I do, and where I'm limited in some arenas, I'm probably shifting energy and focus into places where I'm not limited.

This is my only explanation at the moment, and I hope it is a good enough way of thinking about things to prevent me from seriously crashing and burning in the next couple of weeks :-)

Winter has arrived

In the last week, we have made the sudden transition from fall to winter. The temperature is very unlikely to get above freezing until March or April, and we've had a bit of snow in the past week to make the transition completely unambiguous. We are having to remember rituals like wearing boots and bringing shoes to work, stripping off snowy outerwear by the front door, and parking in the garage. It takes a bit of effort to resurrect those patterns that were completely automatic only a few months ago, but which we happily forgot as soon as the snow melted.

It is very busy with the approaching end of semester, and my first time writing letters for students applying to graduate school. It is an incredibly involved and complicated process, and I feel like I need to go back and give my graduate school letter writers some kind of seriously nice gift. In addition, there are plenty of scholarship and grant applications that students need letters for. I am realizing that this letter writing business will only get worse every year, as I have more undergraduate and graduate students pass through my lab, sit on more committees, and accumulate a trail of former students who will need letters for many years to come for various things. I always knew that this was a thing that academics had to budget time for, but I am only now beginning to understand the extent to which it is a part of this job. I am certain that next semester will be less busy, at least at the end of the term, because no one will need letters.

Yesterday was exciting in that we nabbed a free recumbent exercise bike that a retiring professor was giving away. Jeff happened to be checking his email right when the email was sent with the free offer, so we talked about it for about thirty seconds and then called the owner, found a guy with a truck who could go get it, and within half an hour we were the new owners of a pretty nice exercise bike.

Last winter we purchased a used treadmill, and it has turned out to be not as great a purchase as I had hoped. I had expectations of being able to run on the treadmill, or at least walk on the treadmill, with relative ease by the time summer hit. Unfortunately this did not happen, and the treadmill has largely languished in the basement. Whenever I go to the gym I usually do a stint on a stationary recumbent bike for cardio exercise, but getting to the gym can be kind of hassle. So now we have a bike in the basement, and it's no big deal if I only have half an hour, because that's enough time to get a twenty minute cardio workout and do a bit of stretching. It might be better to work out for longer, but it's definitely better to work out a little than not at all, and my trips to the gym have been relatively few and far between lately (besides my yoga class, which I attend every week).

So the treadmill is going. I still can't keep an even pace, and I still need to stagger a little bit from side to side when I walk. Running is still very experimental, and I need to be in control of pacing, timing, and space. With all those constraints, solid ground is much more appropriate. So if you happen to know someone in Regina who needs a used treadmill, give them our number :-)

Breaking up is hard to do

Today has been one of those days – lots of reminders of all the things I can't do anymore, and the things that are hard that used to be easy. I haven't had one of these days for a while, which is good I suppose. I do feel better this evening that I did this afternoon, and I know that this is a temporary state, but one that pops up fairly regularly. I expect that it will be different next week, probably tomorrow, and really most likely even by the time I'm finished writing this blog post. Sometimes redirecting attention to something else really is the answer.

So I've decided to write a post about a failed friendship that was probably doomed from the start, but which we let go on entirely too long, and recently had to end by formally breaking up. It felt a bit like junior high all over again, but fortunately with greater maturity and restraint. It is not often at our age that a friendship gets to the point where a formal breakup is required, but this was one of those unusual and extreme situations.

Just about exactly one year ago, we met someone who is a psychologist in the business department – he studies decision-making and other aspects of social psychology that are relevant to business. He was hired at around the same time that we were, and is a few years younger than us, and has a wife who is a few years younger than him. When he found out that we did not have kids and enjoy playing board games, we very quickly became that their "new best friends," though we very conspicuously never reciprocated by calling them our new best friends.

It was a bit complicated from the very beginning. We didn't know many people in town, we had a number of things in common, and we were actively looking for friends. At the same time, we knew from the start that these individuals had a different way of interacting socially than we enjoyed. There was always lots of talk about work, constantly making social comparisons, being very competitive with everything from board games to work-related things to whose house is better, clear statements that there is a best way to do everything – just do what research says is best when it comes to everything from eating to interacting with students, lots of self-focused talk, and a general lack of being able to read and understand others' perspectives. You would think that we would just have bolted from this situation immediately, but it was a bit hard when we really did want people to socialize with. Getting lots of invitations and being told what great friends we were had the dual effect of making it impossible to just let the friendship fizzle out, and providing enough reward to put up with the stuff we didn't like.

However, we would often come home from spending time with these individuals feeling angry, drained, and just generally not good. Compare that with how it feels to spend time with actual friends, and we generally feel better when we come home than we did when we arrived. We knew it had to end, but weren't sure how to do it. We hoped that the fact that we would both be taking long vacations that did not overlap over the summer (and therefore would not see each other for almost 3 months) would allow for a natural end to the social relationship. However, as soon as they got back into town they called us up and want to make plans.

It all came to a head a little over a month ago when there was a confluence of events. The first included them bringing their cat to our house and the cat peeing on our basement carpet (this is kind of a long story, and probably not worth telling, except to note that they were unaware that their cat actually peed in our basement but told us as they were leaving that he has a tendency to spray so we should do a good check).  The second was an incident in which this "friend" gave a short talk at a psychology students event in which he disparaged psychology, and made some remarks that amounted essentially to the fact that he is better than everyone in the psychology department, and better than all of his colleagues in the business department.

After all this, and numerous other events that I will not enumerate here, we decided we just had to end it. We started out with not-so-subtle hints, but none of these were noticed. In the end, I wrote an email explaining our position, and Jeff thinks it was great – we had been talking for some time about the fact that it was important to make statements that were not something that could be argued with and this is what I did. I told them that we just have different personalities and different values and that we don't want to continue to spend time in an environment that is not consistent with these personalities and values.

So that was that. It seems to have worked, though it took some time to fully sink in I think. This is something that you never think you're going to have to do (or in my case it's something I never really considered as something people have to do in general), so if you find yourself in this position, now that I've been through it I might have some advice :-)

Birthday part two, Halloween

Jeff's favorite month went out with a bang. On his actual birthday (Monday), we had leftover ice cream cake and presents from me. Later in the week, he received a package full of birthday presents from my mom and brothers.

Wearing ski goggles (for winter running) from my brother

Finally, we celebrated Halloween by dressing up and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters.

Jeff as a black hole, me as a witch

Black hole in the dark

Our friends came over with their ten-month-old dressed as a strawberry, and we enjoyed a short visit.

Witch and strawberry playing bang on the table – our favorite game to play together

The weather has continued to be relatively good, with no snow on the ground yet, and daytime highs well above freezing. This weekend was the last weekend of yard work for the season– Jeff took down Halloween decorations, raked leaves, reorganized the garage to make sure there was room for the car, we covered the garden beds so that weeds won't pop up as soon as the snow melts in the spring, and various bits of winter preparation. We have an appointment next Monday to get the winter tires put on the car. I feel like we are more ready for winter than we have ever been, and although I don't want it to arrive right away, at least when it does we are relatively prepared.

We are also enjoying the fact that Saskatchewan doesn't participate in daylight savings time. So while everyone else is extra tired and losing an hour, for us everything is the same. This is one of few times when I feel that I can gloat a bit about living in Saskatchewan :-)

Jeff's birthday

Tomorrow is Jeff's birthday, but we celebrated over the weekend. I have been experimenting with some ideas, and made an experimental chocolate orange ice cream cake. I baked a chocolate cake in a springform pan lined with parchment, froze it (still in the pan), made an experimental orange flavored and colored ice cream, poured it on top of the cake, sprinkled chocolate shavings over the top, and froze the whole thing. This is how it turned out:

It tastes pretty much just like a Terry's chocolate orange, only made of cake and ice cream. There are a couple of things that I would do differently next time, but would also definitely call it a success. I think next time I would make the cake layer a bit shorter, and make the ice cream just a bit firmer (slightly less melty, perhaps by adding more egg yolks), so that they both can be at an optimal temperature at about the same time. However, I am fairly proud of this accomplishment, as I came up with this specific method for ice cream cake making on my own (not from a cookbook or the Internet).

Also, in case you're wondering, the shirt Jeff is wearing is for the Canadian Football League team called the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Yes, Tiger-Cats, affectionately known as the Ti-Cats. In Saskatchewan Roughriders territory it is probably best not to be seen outdoors in this shirt, but Jeff got it at a white elephant gift exchange last year, and likes to wear it occasionally. He does have some pretty incredible shirts :-)

Recipes, Cats, and the Evening News

First, let me publicly address comments from last week:

The sweet potato ice cream recipe I used came from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, and someone has posted the recipe online here. I used less sugar (a little under 1/2 cup), and omitted the salt and lemon juice, and didn't make the maple glazed pecans. Also, I used evaporated milk (a whole 12 ounce can instead of 1 cup +2 tablespoons like the recipe calls for) instead of whole milk to make it creamier, and baked the sweet potatoes (probably more like 1 1/4 pounds as opposed to just 1 pound) instead of boiling them. Oh, and I also put in about a teaspoon of cinnamon instead of 1/4 teaspoon. In my mind, I followed the recipe, but my ice cream probably tasted quite a bit different than it would if you actually followed the recipe. Jeff makes fun of me for this, and also finds it very annoying at times. He often has to ask me how we actually make various dishes knowing that if he follows the recipe it won't turn out quite right. He has sometimes made me write things down, but a lot of this stuff is just in my head.

Jeff's cat shirt is kind of amazing, but I have become habituated to it and forget how funny it is. Jeff is  slowly decorating the house for Halloween (he wants everyone to know that it is not done yet), and this weekend brought the addition of another giant cat, this one looking out our window:

Note the giant green cat eyes

Things are slowly moving along on all fronts. My hormone levels are back down to normal non-pregnant levels, and I am in a rest phase. We are taking a bit of a break from things in that domain, which is nice and allows me to think more about other things.

We are in the middle of the semester now, and it definitely feels like it. I spent much of the weekend working, as did Jeff. Jeff has been working on deadlines for various things, including multiple grant proposals, since the beginning of the semester. He still has about two more weeks of this craziness before things get back to the usual level of middle of the semester craziness. I am hoping things calm down soon, because if they don't it is possible that Jeff will lose his sanity completely :-)

But, even with all the craziness Jeff managed to find time to be interviewed for the local news. The video is here, with Jeff's part starting around 5:45. One of our friends commented that Jeff should be a hand model :-)

October-iness

It is feeling very October. Jeff is watching as many horror movies as he can in honor of Halloween month, and creepy monsters are becoming a bit more prevalent around here.

A monster called Pumpkin Head presenting me with a spoon to stir my morning tea

It is also Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. We will be celebrating again with our friends Vanessa and Jason as we did last year, though this year there will be the addition of their almost 10-month-old at the table. This morning I baked a pie, we have bread baking in the breadmaker, and Jeff is preparing some of our garden vegetables.

I have said it before and I will say it again – Thanksgiving is a great holiday to celebrate twice, particularly the pumpkin pie part.

I also experimented with a sweet potato ice cream recipe yesterday. I was skeptical, because it is a fairly healthy recipe, and very healthy as ice cream goes: the only ingredients are sweet potatoes, milk, spices, and a bit of brown sugar. The result was surprisingly good – creamy, smooth, and delicious. I'm not sure if I could see myself eating it year-round, but it will definitely be a regular in the rotation for fall!

Picking up and returning to normal

Thanks to everyone who left comments and sent kind words my way. This has been one of those hard times, and it is very helpful to be reminded that we have people thinking of us and have support. And, as we always seem to do, we are getting back to normal.

Last weekend Jeff's dad visited, and we had a very nice time barbecuing, harvesting the garden, going out to dinner, going for a short hike, and just hanging out.

The haul from the garden this year was less than last year, partly because of a wet and cool summer, and partly because we planted less potatoes. Overall we had about 4 1/2 pounds of beets, 10 pounds of carrots, and 16 pounds of potatoes. We ended up with three giant bags of beet greens, and even though we had harvested all of the Swiss chard a couple of weeks ago, it seems to have started growing back and we have a bumper crop. And possibly most exciting is that we finally harvested some rhubarb.

We were away when we would have started getting some rhubarb in early summer, and then the plant shot up a large flower stalk and stopped producing the the part of the plant that we would eat. We had to leave it alone so that it would regenerate energy into the root and not kill the plant. We know now that as soon as a flower stalk starts to appear we should cut it off so that the plant doesn't use so much energy that way. But, just at the end of summer it started shooting out regular stalks and leaves again. I am not 100% certain that this is the right thing to do, but we are starting to have frosts at night, and since that would likely kill the rhubarb leaves/stalks, I just cut them all off so that we could get at least a little bit of tastiness out of our rhubarb plant this year. I do worry a bit that cutting all of the leaves/stalks may end up killing the plant so that it will not come back next spring, but I don't think so. In the words of my internship friend Jeff J. (who grew up in North Dakota, with weather not so different from what we have here), "Rhubarb is bad ass." I think it will survive.

This free-form rhubarb tart just came out of the oven:



We will be enjoying it shortly :-)

Avoidance is getting too hard

For a long time, and very prominently since May, I have been avoiding a topic on this blog that has featured very importantly in our lives. I had plans to let the cat out of the bag when the issue resolved, but now that is not going to happen as quickly as we had hoped/planned. Avoidance is getting too hard, so I'm just going to spill it: Jeff and I are trying to get pregnant.

The full story is extremely long, so I will try to give an abbreviated version. A little over four years ago we decided that the timing was right to have a baby. We had first started talking about it around four years prior to that, but it wasn't the right time with the stresses of grad school (financial instability, future unknowns, etc.). After spending some time trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, we got some basic testing done to see if there was a problem in that department, and discovered that Jeff had a very low sperm count.

Skip ahead to early 2012, and we were making plans to start in vitro fertilization (IVF). We had gone through quite a bit of discussion, consultation with doctors, and even medical intervention, and it turned out that this was our only option if we wanted to have our own baby. After much testing and preparation, we were finally ready to proceed. Then, the day after our appointment with the reproductive endocrinologist (IVF Dr.), my brain bled.

So I had brain surgery in June 2012, and for a good long time after that was really in no position to have a happy, healthy pregnancy. Then, once again after much discussion and consultation with doctors, we decided in early 2014 that the timing was right, and I could physically handle a pregnancy without putting my own well-being at risk.

Saskatchewan is the only province in Canada that has no health coverage for fertility treatments, and since that means we would be paying out-of-pocket anyway, we decided to go to Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) instead of a more local but less well-established clinic. This has involved many phone calls, several trips to Portland, and lots of complicated coordination between very different healthcare systems.

Our road trip to Oregon in June was only part vacation – we were also in Portland for IVF. We had some idea what we were getting into, but didn't really understand how intense a process IVF is until starting it ourselves. There are many weeks of drugs, including a variety of self-administered injections, many blood draws and appointments that are at times daily, and the whole process is very physically taxing. We had originally hoped that we would be coming home from Oregon pregnant, but for medical reasons (related to IVF, not to my other medical issues), pregnancy was once again put on hold. We were able to get six embryos created, but they were all frozen for later use.

After returning home, we started to prepare for a frozen embryo transfer (FET). The preparation involves about seven weeks of drugs, blood tests, and ultrasounds. We went back to Portland for a FET on September 3, and then waited twelve (excruciating) days for a pregnancy test.

Have you ever heard that saying "you can't be half pregnant?" It is supposed to suggest that there are some things in life that really are black and white. As with most things, it turns out that this is an oversimplification. On September 15, my pregnancy test came back "inconclusive," because my hormone levels were in between what is considered to be definitely pregnant, and definitely not pregnant. I went back every two days for blood tests, and my hormone levels were low but rising, indicating that I was not not pregnant, but that the chances that this would be a viable pregnancy were quite low.

Finally, on Monday, it was determined that my hormone levels were not rising quickly enough, and that this would definitely not be a viable pregnancy. Still up in the air was whether it would simply be an early miscarriage, or an ectopic pregnancy (which can be quite dangerous if not treated appropriately). So, more blood tests. Today my hormone levels started to drop considerably, meaning that this failed pregnancy will be taking care of itself, with no need for such careful monitoring or intervention.

People talk about miscarriage as if it is an event that occurs at a specific time, with a clearly defined beginning and end. Maybe in some cases that is how it works, but in my case not so much. It is hard to say exactly, but I have probably been in the process of losing this (very early) pregnancy for about a week, and before it is fully over it might be another week or two (before hormone levels get back down to definitely not pregnant levels).

We can't say yet exactly when we will be headed back for round two, but it will definitely be a few months. We have to wait for my hormone levels to get all the way back down to normal, then let my body rest, then dive back into seven weeks of preparation (lots of drugs, blood tests, ultrasounds) before we can actually transfer another embryo.

So, that is where we are. All this going on at the same time that we are trying to focus on other things, like the start of the semester. I am ambivalent about posting all this. On the one hand, I feel like some people already know more about my personal business, like medical issues, than they need to. Also, pregnancy is one of those things that people tend not to talk about until they have a viable pregnancy with low chance of miscarriage. On the other hand, it feels like I am putting up a front, and to be honest is just really exhausting, to continue talking about what is going on in my life while leaving out what is most central to me right now. Plus, many of the people who read this blog already know parts of this story. I know that some of you are wondering what is up, and since it has been a difficult couple of weeks I haven't really been up to providing an update. A blog post seemed like the most efficient way to do it.

Stuff this week

I was not sure what to blog about today so I will just tell you some things that happened this week:

1. We got our new MasterCard debit cards in the mail, and went to the bank and changed our pins and made sure everything was activated and now we are back to normal in this respect. However, the woman at the bank was confused by something in the system, and was trying to make sense of it by telling us things that made no sense. So hopefully this is all fixed, but it seems possible that there will still be a little trouble!

2. I had my first yoga class. There were a number of exercises that I found very challenging, and a few I couldn't do at all, but it turns out that being in a beginner yoga class I blend in very well. There are lots of people in the class with varying athletic abilities and physical abilities, and although I think I'm the only person with serious balance problems, there are others who seem to be having just as much trouble as I am but with different exercises and for different reasons (an older guy with a serious shoulder issue, several people who seem to have severely limited flexibility). I really enjoyed the class and am glad I signed up for it!

3. I also had my first aquacize class. I think I was the only person under sixty, and was definitely the only person who had not taken the class before. However, I fit in completely while getting to and from and in and out of the pool, as many people in this class have physical disabilities and walk with canes and need to put on no-slip shoes to be safe getting to and from the locker room. So it turns out that since everyone else has taken this class before, I am the only person in class who doesn't know all the exercises, and my prediction about where I would fit in and where I wouldn't was incorrect.

4. I had an unexpected visitor to my graduate class last week. Over the summer I spoke with a ninety-something-year-old emeritus professor who had retired sometime in the 80s. He expressed an interest in coming to my class to see what students were learning about psychotherapy these days. I told him to get in touch with me when the term had started to set up a time where he might come to class, or possibly even give a guest lecture. On Tuesday when I showed up in my seminar room, there he was sitting around the table with my students. He stayed for the portion of class where we were discussing readings, but I asked him to leave before beginning the skills-based portion of the class (e.g., where the students role-play). He indicated that he would like to come back, and that he would like to participate in role-play exercises with the students.

After carefully considering what to do, I ended up sending him an email asking him not to come back to class unless he wants to do so to give a guest lecture (on a specific, predetermined date that we agree on). Unfortunately, I can tell from my university email program (because he is also on the university email system) that he has not yet read the message. I do not have his phone number. I am a bit worried that he might show up to class again on Tuesday, and that I will have to have a conversation with him in person, right there and then, about not coming to class. I will do it if I have to, but it is really not fun having to kick a ninety-something-year-old emeritus professor (with decades more experience than I have) out of my class. I can see the perspective where someone might think it is harmless for him to come to class, but it absolutely changes the dynamic and the comfort level in the room. I cannot teach effectively when there is someone in the room who doesn't belong there, especially when it is a graduate level class where I expect full and mostly uninhibited participation, and there are only ten students in the room. I do not love this kind of situation.

5. We are having beautiful sunny weather, highs in the mid 70s, with bright blue skies. It is perfect early fall weather, with some of the leaves on the trees just starting to turn yellow and some just starting to fall. I know that it won't be too long before we have to face winter again, but I am trying to enjoy this lovely weather while we have it! I had work to do this weekend, but I spent all afternoon yesterday outside on a blanket in the backyard (under our very tall sunflowers that are just now starting to bloom) grading papers and reading.  Next weekend is slated for harvest of potatoes, beets, and carrots from the garden, and we will be fortunate to have Jeff's dad visiting during that time to help :-) I just hope that we have weather this nice for his visit!

Declined and denied

Over the past week we have been dealing with bizarro world credit card/bankcard issues.

In the US, it is common to have a debit card that is tied to your bank account but can also be used as a Visa or MasterCard. Here in Canada, that is not so common. However, our local credit union offers a MasterCard debit card, and this is what we use for almost all of our purchases. We also have debit/bank cards, but I don't even know my pin, because the MasterCard debit functions exactly the same, but can also be used as a credit card (e.g., for online purchases where a chip and pin debit doesn't work), and we earn "choice rewards" points which we can use for travel, gift cards to stores we shop at, or merchandise.

So imagine my surprise at having my card declined with a basket full of purchases and a long line of customers behind me. I tried to use my regular debit card but got locked out after unsuccessfully trying three different pin numbers that were all wrong, and had no other way to pay for my purchases. I left them in a bag at the cash register, and tried calling the number on the back of the card. The guy I talked to said that they were blocking my purchases, but had no record of why, and after talking to his supervisor said he had fixed it. So I went back to the cash register, waited again for my turn in line, and tried once again to make my purchase. Still declined. I finally realized that I had an American credit card in my wallet, and successfully used that to complete my transaction.

After another long conversation with the same customer service agent (just good luck – he was at a call center in India so it was surprising to both of us when I reached him the second time), it was determined that for no reason on record both my card and Jeff's card were being completely blocked, and we would have to go to the bank to order new cards.

Jeff went to the bank, and the person he spoke to insisted that his card was fine. So Jeff went to the ATM to test it out, and he received a message that said "UN-AUTHORIZED ACCESS" and the machine ate his card. Jeff went back to the same person who apparently was so shocked by this that he was literally speechless with his mouth open. Jeff was lucky enough to be able to speak to the regional manager, who was able to see something on the account that no one else could see – somewhere there was a fake/erroneous record of me calling to report fraud. The best guess about what happened is that Jeff ran his card at a business where fraud had occurred at some point, and even though there was no fraud on our card, they ended up shutting our access off completely without telling us. So now we are supposed to receive our new cards in a week to ten days, and in the meantime I have to find other ways to make purchases (I should probably somehow get to the bank during their ridiculously short open hours to reset my debit card pin, but this can be challenging during a full work week).

This is the short version of the story. There are actually many more phone calls that both Jeff and I made, with people insisting that our cards were fine. I imagine this is probably one of the most boring blog posts I have written, but it was an important part of our week :-)

In other news, Jeff's VCR broke, which he was very distraught about because he has some VHS tapes that are completely unique or very rare and not available anywhere else or in other formats. So, I did a quick search and found someone selling a used VCR which Jeff just bought and brought home. It apparently came with quite an interesting collection of tapes, which I am now going to check out!

First week of school

Last week was the first week of school, but it was a partial week and I only taught one class. This coming week will be the first full week, and will involve making adjustments and getting back into the swing of things. I am teaching an undergraduate class that I have taught multiple times before (a 200-level personality psychology class), and a graduate class that I am teaching for the first time (an advanced courses on psychological interventions). I am not at all nervous about these classes; I am quite comfortable with the material and I'm actually really looking forward to this semester's teaching. What I am nervous about is two classes that I have signed up for: deep water aquacise and yoga.

When I was in college and graduate school, I often signed up for PE classes; I took everything from lap swimming to African dance to yoga and Pilates. However, this is the first time since my surgery that I will be taking such a class, and I am very nervous about the idea of trying to fit in and adapt to classes for "normal" people. The main issues with aquacise will be getting in and out of the pool, and managing the wet floors and shower in the locker room; I expect that I will probably be able to do all of the exercises. With yoga, it is the opposite – I will probably look pretty normal until it comes time to do anything that requires balance (which will be often), and then I will have to either modify or skip a lot of exercises in the class.

This feeling is familiar. It is the same feeling that I had many times when I was young and approaching the first day of school, knowing that there would be many unknowns, that I might not fit in, and that I would have to figure out how to overcome as yet unknown obstacles. It is both uncomfortable and exciting. Today I did a little back-to-school shopping to ease my nerves: aqua shoes to wear poolside to help avoid slipping, toiletries to keep in my locker room locker, and even a little shower caddy basket from the dollar store to keep them in. I am as prepared as I can be, and of course it will be fine, but I still have a few butterflies in my stomach!

Waskesiu

Last weekend we went camping up north. It was lovely to be in an area that had trees that were growing naturally (all the trees around here are planted). We saw many interesting things including a natural bog, many kinds of mushrooms, a bit of wildlife, and forests carpeted in thick moss. I hiked 2 1/2 km with only the assistance of my hiking poles on Saturday, and 2 km the same way on Sunday.

there are big deer in the forest in the background

We had a very good time, and although it rained a little bit on Saturday morning, it apparently rained torrentially all weekend in Regina so we certainly got the better deal.

Also, I have been working a bit on my jogging. I can now go for almost a whole minute, though I require probably ten minutes of seated rest afterwards. Jeff recently took this video to show me how much better my jogging looks than it used to:

It is excruciatingly slow (both the jogging and the progress) compared to what I would like it to be, but progress is progress :-)

Dragonflies in droves and abundant ice cream

The worst of mosquito season is over in Saskatchewan, and this is partly because dragonfly season is peaking. Dragonflies eat many many mosquitoes, and the ones here are large, at times looking more like small birds than insects. Somehow we missed this last year – I don't think we notice the dragonflies at all – but there is no way to miss it this year. At times I am sure I have seen upwards of twenty dragonflies at one time. I think they are very beautiful creatures, and seeing so many of them at once can be a little bit awe-inspiring.

Also abundant in our house in the past week is homemade ice cream. About a month ago I bought two ice cream cookbooks, and I have been dying to try out some of the recipes. I sent Jeff out to buy some half-and-half, and I am used to half-and-half having a particular milk fat content, but apparently around here the dairy product with that milk fat content is called coffee cream. So, I had to send Jeff back out to get the dairy product with the right milk fat content for the recipe I was using, but then we had this extra milk/cream, and I found another ice cream recipe that was appropriate to use it in. That made two batches of ice cream. But then there was a little bit of each type of milk/cream left over, and rather than let it go to waste, I made another half batch of a different type of ice cream. So we currently have three kinds of homemade ice cream in the house, and even though we had friends over to eat some of it last night, there is still quite a bit left. I am not complaining. However, none of the three types of ice cream turned out perfect (the malt powder didn't dissolve properly in the malted milk chocolate ice cream, the coffee flavor is a bit too prominent in the darkest-chocolate-ice cream-in-the-world, and the coffee beans I used to make the coffee ice cream were old, and taste old), so I will certainly have to try making each of them again :-)

Remember not long ago I mentioned that I had gotten a grant for my research? Well, earlier this week I was interviewed by the local paper, and they did a little story about the grant and my research. I am both shy/embarrassed about getting attention, and excited/proud about the research :)

Culture overload

First, a quick update on Maddy: she is allowed out the regular door (the cat door is no more) so that we can check to see if there are any animals in her mouth before letting her in, and the cat bib arrived yesterday so we are hopeful that maybe this will end the killing spree.

Two major things happened over the past week: I went to Washington DC for the American Psychological Association convention, and Jeff and I went to the Regina Folk Festival.

At the APA convention I was presenting a talk and went to several reasonably good talks, but the highlights of the trip were not convention-related. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to visit with my friend Meredith, who lives in Ohio but was visiting her parents in Arlington. I rented a mobility scooter to use during my trip, and we walked/scooted around the mall, visited a few museums, went out to eat, and spent much time catching up. It was lovely.

Arty selfie outside the art museum

Silly selfie at my hotel

 The conference went through Sunday, but I flew home Friday night in order to be in town for arguably the most interesting weekend of the summer in Regina. Jeff and I got weekend passes to the Regina Folk Festival, where we spent a good part of the weekend hanging out in camp chairs on the grass in front of the stages. We saw many musicians/bands, including Serena Ryder, Indigo Girls, Matt Andersen,
The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer, Klô Pelgag,  Quique Escamilla, DakhaBrakha, Saidah Baba Talibah, Mo Kenney, Andino Suns, The Dead South, The Fretless, Mario Lepage... did I forget anyone? It was a very interesting mix of styles, and most of the music I had never heard before.

Mo Kenney, who is great - check out her music

Indigo Girls

Between the museums in DC and the music in Regina, this past week has been a bit of a culture overload – in a good way :)

The Most Interesting Cat in the World

"I don't always bring dead animals into the house, but when I do, sometimes they are actually still alive."

Maddy is no longer allowed to go outside. It is a bit challenging to keep her in, as she desperately wants to go out and is very wily, but an incident last week led to a complete ban on all outdoor activity.

We were sick of her bringing in dead animals, and maybe she sort of got the message, because last Tuesday she brought in two live animals – one bird, and one mouse. We spent almost two hours trying to get the bird out of the house, and Jeff is terrified of birds in enclosed spaces. I think it makes anyone a little bit jumpy, but Jeff was yelling, running into walls, and falling backwards over boxes. As soon as we got the bird out of the house, he declared that that is never happening again, no matter what it takes to prevent it. Live birds would normally be my domain, but because I am not as quick or agile as I used to be, it had to be a team effort. Jeff was left more than a little bit traumatized by the whole ordeal.

As for the mouse, we saw it darting around under furniture in the basement, and then it disappeared. We looked for it, but to no avail. It was discovered this morning, dead, in a closet.

I am not totally convinced that there isn't a solution that still allows Maddy to go out. When she is stuck inside and wants to go out, she is both annoying and dangerous. Annoying because she makes constant pleas at the doors and windows, and dangerous because she has a way of positioning herself in front of a person (and moving with you as you walk) in just the spot where it is almost impossible not to trip over her. Jeff is actually a bit concerned for my safety, given my unsteadiness. I have never fallen as a result of this behavior, but there have been times when I've had to catch myself. So, I have decided that we will try the cat bib again. I have ordered both available types, and a new kind of collar that might make it less likely for her to lose it. We'll see.

Today Jeff and I are celebrating our eight-year wedding anniversary. Time flies! An awful lot has happened in those eight years, but a lot has stayed the same - I am still very much in love :) Today is a holiday here (happy Saskatchewan Day!), and a lot of restaurants are closed, so we will be going out to dinner at a local pub. It may not be fancy, but neither are we, so it is probably more fitting than other restaurants we might otherwise choose. Anyway, happy anniversary dear husband!

The week in review

A review of the week in list form:

1. We had our roof shingles replaced. Relatively soon after the snow melted, we noticed that when it rained or was particularly windy little tiny bits of our roof would wind up on the ground. I had someone come take a look at it, and he confirmed that our shingles were disintegrating. He indicated that it didn't look like it had gotten so bad yet, and since we hadn't noticed any leaking, we had probably caught it at just the right moment. It turns out that our roof is a very simple one, and made the job easy (and as inexpensive as a job like that can be). On Wednesday morning the roofers showed up just before I went to work, and we had a new roof before we got home. Fortunately, they only had to replace 8 ft.² of the plywood underneath the shingles, so that also made it easier, faster, and less expensive. Now we have a ten year guarantee for the workmanship, and a limited lifetime guarantee for the shingles, so any problem we have for a long time will either be covered by the warranty or by our insurance (lots of people here end up having to make claims due to high winds and/or hail, but if you can't prove that the roof was in good shape prior to the severe weather, the insurance can deny the claim). It feels good to know that the literal roof over our heads is strong and secure.

2. We made reservations for camping two more times before the end of summer. Toward the end of August, we will be going up to Prince Albert National Park, which is about a five hour drive north of here. Compared to where we have lived before, Regina feels pretty far north, and compared to Regina, Prince Albert National Park seems pretty far north. And although it is located in the boreal forest (a.k.a taiga which, you may recall learning in school, is a northern biome out-northed only by the tundra), it is only on the southern end of the boreal forest and less than halfway up Saskatchewan. For now, I see no need to explore the northern half of the province :-)

The other camping trip we have planned is for next weekend, which was a bit of a last-minute decision, and there were almost no campsites left anywhere within a three-hour drive of here. In fact, it looks as though we may have gotten the very last campsite in that radius. We're going to Crooked Lake Provincial Park, and we know very little about the park, and even less about why this particular campsite was still available when nearly every single other one in the entire province was taken. It may be a terrible campsite, and looks as though it might be really near the highway, but anyway it will still be fun to go camping.

3. Maddy is on a murderous rampage. While we were away in June, she killed several mice. Last summer, she killed a few birds. We have never been happy about this, but tolerate it to a certain extent because after all, she is a cat. It was rare that she would bring in a dead animal in Eugene or Seattle (although sometimes there would be a streak), but here it is much more frequent, and while most people just don't let their cats outside here, since she had already been an indoor-outdoor cat for nine years before we moved here it would be nearly impossible to force her to stay inside now.

Well. We have never seen anything like this weekend, and are no longer sure what to do. Yesterday, she brought in three birds. The first one she ate the body, but left the wings and head, the second she didn't eat much of, and the third she ate all but three feathers (we know because she brought it into a location where we could watch her eat it, though we chose not to). Mid-afternoon, after the third bird, we locked her in for the rest of the night. Today, she brought in a mouse. Jeff is so tired of cleaning up dead animals that he is currently watching a movie in the basement with the dead mouse still down there – he says he'll clean it up before we go to bed.

Maddy seems to be doing nothing but hunting. Last summer we tried making her wear a cat bib (it is worth checking out the link) to try to stop her from killing birds, but she figured out how to take it off and kept losing both it and her collar. I do wish there was some way to stop her murderous tendencies, but, she is a cat. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Flooding, mosquitoes, and grants

While we were away there was massive flooding in Regina and around the region. Fortunately, our house didn't get any water at all even though nearby streets (a block away) were flooded knee-deep, and many homes that have never had any problems with flooding were hit by sewer backups. I heard of one example of a woman whose toilet suddenly started spewing water, leading to water damage all over the house. We were extremely lucky.

One of the lingering consequences of flooding in the area is a worse than normal mosquito problem. We are relatively close to the creek, and I think possibly because of that our backyard is absolutely filled with mosquitoes – much worse than last summer. This means that in order to be outside, we have to either put on mosquito repellent, wear protective clothing (most people on the West Coast have never heard of a mosquito jacket, but we now own two), or both.

Summer is short here, and there is a bit of a feeling of urgency around enjoying time outdoors. So in order to be able to spend as much time outside as possible, I decided to purchase a screen tent, which we will also be able to take camping. It is currently out on our back patio, tied to bricks to keep it from blowing away in the wind. I think it was a worthwhile purchase.

Another piece of news that I got while we were away is that I got a grant that I had applied for in February. It is a relatively substantial grant, that will partially fund my graduate students, allow me to hire a lab manager for ten hours a week, and provide money for recruiting and paying research participants. The grant will provide funding for three years, starting in September.

The granting agency is the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF), and I am lucky that an agency like this exists here, with funding priorities that are very much in line with the research I want to do. The grant is to study people who have a history of exposure to trauma, and their experiences with healthcare providers and healthcare systems. I am really excited to be able to do this research, and actually sort of amazed that I got this grant. It is yet another indication that I am in the right job, and in the right place. We may not like the mosquitoes in the summer or the extreme cold in the winter, but from the perspective of day-to-day things like work, we couldn't be in a better place :-)

Oh the paces we went!

I have been negligent about blogging, I know, but there are good reasons – we spent a good deal of time out of range of Internet or cell phone service, when we were in range we were busy with vacationing and other matters, and when we got back (one week plus one weekend ago) we had many important and urgent things to attend to (so many weeds!, and rows of densely planted carrots that would not thin themselves). And so now, I will provide a partial update on the things we saw and did, by choosing some photos from my cell phone to share with you (Jeff has additional photos from his cell phone and his camera, but all in all we were not so great about taking photos – we were too busy actually enjoying what we were doing to take pictures of it :)).

A bathroom in Portland – is it necessary to tell people not to drink toilet water?

The Dee Wright Observatory in central Oregon

Taking a walk through the lava fields

Peterson Rock Garden – a very odd and interesting place, worth the slight detour

Painted Hills of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

Sheep Rock, also at John Day

Wallowa Lake

Joseph Canyon

Two Medicine Lake, at Glacier National Park

The view from our campsite at Glacier

And an attempted visit to Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, largely thwarted by mosquitoes. You can't really tell in this picture, but there were thousands of prairie dogs. I used to love watching the meerkats at the San Diego Zoo, but seeing prairie dogs in their natural habitat is similar and in many ways better. Unfortunately I'm not sure that you can actually see them in this video, so you'll have to take my word for it :)