So I see all sorts of stuff at the clinic...but I thought I was not in a city, even a COUNTRY, where I would see a patient for a ZEBRA BITE!
Yes, I said zebra.

The little 8-year-old girl (AKA bite victim) tells me "I know what it looked like." "Oh really?" I said wondering if she got the plates. "Yes, its head was black and white, and it's body was white and brown," she said with complete confidence. "Thank you, that is very good to know," I replied glancing at her step-dad to see if he wanted to laugh just as much as I did.

So you want to know the story? It turns out she was at Fossil Rim, that wildlife drive-through park with her real dad on Saturday. They were doing a no-no...feeding the animals with their hands instead of tossing the food out of the car. Zebra approaches, sees food, bites hand, HANGS ON, lets good, dad does not wash daughter's hand, dad does not tell park authorities, dad puts bandaid on daughter's pinky finger, dad finally makes daughter take a shower the next evening (as step-dad says...he finally cleans them up Sunday night before we pick them up for the week), step-dad and mom take daughter to clinic, 24 hour state law required time to report animal bite has definitely passed, clean girl's swollen little pinky finger up (with several zebra tooth marks quite visible),I try to figure out who to report this bite to, leave message for a "special agent" at the US Fish and Wildlife office out of Ft Worth (woah, special agent), talk with Sheriff's office in Glen Rose, was told a deputy would call me back, waiting to hear back. Good times.
Crazy zebra.

News Flash. I have become quite serious about moving to New Zealand in the fall of 2005. My roommate and I were talking and it came out that we both thought living in a country for a year and just working at a coffee shop or something would be the most exciting thing. I feel I have eliminated England or Australia. England I am told is a good place to visit, but in terms of living it happens to be the most expensive place to live in the world right now. Australia is cool, but spiritually void. New Zealand is absolutely beautiful, they happen to be recruiting immigrants (check out their embassy web site), and my mom has a friend from New Zealand and she said it is totally workable and we would have a blast. My roommate would like to live in a country where language is not an issue and that the standard of living is not too low (vs all the other places where I would like to go as a missionary). So New Zealand works. I think this could really happen. Follow along in the future to see what comes about. The only factor is that either Jenn and I must stay single or we both must be fallen in love with and get engaged/married and bring our guys over to New Zealand with us for the year.

New movie to see. It must be an independent because I haven't seen it anywhere. Pick it up at Blockbuster. (This means you Steph and Geoff). Its called Dummy. It has Adrien Brody and Milla Jovovich and it is pretty good. It is another sweet find like Happy Accidents. (Sweet as in the hand-picked daisy sort of way).

I finally used one of those scanner, crop & enlarge machines in Target next to the photo counter. A fun experience to be sure. I enlarged a photo from when I was a freshman in high school. It is a pic of two close friends (Wendy and Karen) and me standing in the forest on a camping trip...but whoever took it stood rather far away. I fixed that problem with the handy machine and printed out 3 pics on a sheet - $5. I'm sure this could all be done on a computer, but I do not have a scanner and I knew this would be decent qualitly no matter what. I made a collage frame for one of the pics and I am sending it to Karen. Haven't made one of those frames in a while...made me want to get back into all my crafty stuff!

Oh bum. I was going to put a quote on my blog from a book that I just read, but I already gave the book back to my sister. That was dumb. Ok, well...all you out there...be anticipating a great line soon. (SOON? in Kelly's blog world? Ha!)

The 75+ year-old professor for my class last night (we get a new person every week) was holding a paperback book to read a small portion aloud to us. I noticed that the book was rather warped, like it had gotten wet. Before he started to read, our professor said, holding up the warped book, "sometimes I fall asleep in the bath."
Well, that statment made the entire class crack up laughing. And then to add to it he said, "Yes, and when I do I just drop the book...you should see my library. You know I am like John [F.] Kennedy...he used to study in a whirlpool bath."
And just as he started to read..."I'm having a hard time finding my place because some of these pages are still wet."
That was a fun class.

Yesterday at the clinic a 14-year-old girl came in with her mom because she had a rash. The mom told the girl to take down her pants so I could see the girl's legs...this is a normal thing. There is a bandaid on the girl's leg near her knee...I immediately think the rash must be worse on that spot. The mom tell the girl to take off the large bandaid. Around it are some pink splotchy areas, doesn't look live hives, just some sort of dermatitis. The rash is the worst on the cheeks of her face. Off comes the bandaid. Underneath are the words "HELP ME" clearly scratched into her skin and slightly scabbed over. I wasn't prepared for that (and how could they have prepared me to see it?). She had used a dirty razor blade two days before to cut, tried on her arm too but definitely not as precise as her leg. They thought the rash was from the razor...but the doctor decided it was probably the new medication she has been started on (released from the psych ward at the hospital a week earlier). That is a picture that won't leave my mind.

On a lighter note, thanks to Daniel and Justin for kindly introducing me to Quiznos. Now I am obsessed. I called all the Quiznos in the phone book to find out which one was closer (about 10 or so). Then I promptly drove to the nearest location and bought a nice Turkey Ranch & Swiss.

I have to put things in their own special box in my mind.