Month: January 2018

Anyone who knows me knows I cannot bear animal harm in any way, shape or form. If an animal is harmed in a tv show, movie, or book, even though it’s fiction and NOT REAL, I have to immediately turn off the show, leave the theatre, or throw down the book. On Echo, posts that contain descriptions of animal harm are prefaced with NSFS: Not Safe For Stacy.

Which makes what I did yesterday all the more astounding. I’m working at the ASPCA’s Animal Hospital now, and we treat animals who have been harmed (animal cruelty cases being investigated by the NYPD come to us for care) or have had accidents, or are sick and need procedures. I see animals in distress all the time, which has been hard, but I can deal with it because I feel like I’m helping, and every day I’m learning more about how to be a even bigger help to the animals.

But surgery is something I really feared given my temperament. I’m currently being trained to be something like a vet assistant, and I’ll be expected to help to help with surgeries, among other things. I figured the sooner I confront this part of the job to see if I can deal with it the better, so yesterday I asked if I could “shadow” a splenectomy that was about to be performed on a sweet pit bull who’d been in a car accident. “Sure,” they said.

I was fine!! I was so worried that I would cry, or faint, or have an anxiety attack, or throw up, and I never came anywhere near doing any of that. I was uncomfortable for sure, but nothing unmanageable. Even better, the dog’s spleen was fine, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him internally, so they closed him back up, and he was okay when I left last night. (Please still be okay when I get back.)

Personally, I’m shocked at myself. I never would have predicted this.

The boys. My little shadows. They are still on the small side. I wonder if they will always be small due to being taken away from their mother at birth? (Quick backstory: These are former neonatal kittens that I helped raise and adopted from the ASPCA’s Kitten Nursery.)

My iPhone 5C slowly became unusable, and the cost of fixing it didn’t make sense, so I now have an iPhone 6S. I’m very happy to have a bigger screen, what appears to be a much faster phone, and with a lot more space. I couldn’t do anything with the 5C. It ran out of space all the time.

Here is Bali and a reflection of Bali in my tv. The real Bali is to the right, and below is the shadow of me taking the picture.

People in Penn Station lined up to buy Metrocards on New Year’s Eve. It was ridiculously freezing that night and half of me felt sorry for them for having such a cold night for celebrating, and half on me thought they were insane. Because they were probably heading to Times Square. Which is insane. And can’t be fun.

I was watching reruns of What Not to Wear the other day. God I miss Stacy and Clinton. That was a fun show. I also miss the hope that one day I’d get to be on it.

This bird was tweeting the other day as I walked past and I loved the sounds it made. It’s a common bird, but I must admit I don’t know what it is.

As America continues to disintegrate, it’s nice to have things like Grace Church’s yearly presentation of Amahl and the Night Visitors to enjoy with friends. Thank you Anna Sorensen, Tami Petty, Aram Tchobanian, AJ Stetson, Alvin Crawford, Bob Lukomski, the Grace Church Adult Choir, and Dr. Patrick Allen.

Oh wow! AJ Stetson is also the amazingly, insanely talented artist who took photographs of our choir recently. I’ve been watching him sing King Melchior every year for years! And now I learn that he was the one who did this nice thing for us!