Running Mishaps and a Gorilla Suit

Hi Friends,

Sorry for my lack of blogging lately and my totally emo posts.  Nick had last week off work and he expressly stated that he wanted to "Do Nothing".  Despite my best efforts to convince him that doing nothing is way boring, thats pretty much what we did so I literally had nothing to share with you.

We did splash out on some brand spankin new trail running shoes ("trainers" as they say in jolly old England) and Nick joined me on his first run since a week before our wedding when he was telling me to "hurry up" and ended up falling flat on his face, resulting in him being high on Vicodin and wearing a moonboot on our wedding day.  True story.  

Luckily, this run went better, but not perfect.  I set some ground rules to start, he had to run half a step behind me and I was setting the pace.  We planned to run to the reservoir and see how we felt...

Via

Well we made it there which is about two miles, and the whole time he was running next to me like a freaking gazelle and making "Can't you run any faster" faces as we got passed by much fitter dudes.  I wanted to punch him in the face, as predicted.  Somewhere between miles two and three he got tired, but I was totally in the zone.  He started walking and I kept jamming along for another mile to some techno beats, when all of a sudden as I took a deep breath, a MASSIVE bug went down my windpipe.  I mean I didn't see it but it felt HUGE, and it felt ALIVE.  Like it was crawling around in there.

When Nick caught up with me I was vomiting marmite and toast on the side of the road.  And he was bitching about the fact that he was "SO hungry he was going to die" and how he wished he could swallow a bug for some sustenance.  Kill me.  We walked the 3 miles home -him wishing for free chocolate bars to magically appear on the side of the road, and me wishing for a glass of water to wash down whatever it was I swallowed.  

Will we ever be good running partners?  I don't know.  But we are trying to get in shape for a 10k in september!  And I am kinda sorta thinking about doing this....

Via

It's a 7k run or walk through London dressed in a GORILLA SUIT to raise money for gorilla conservation - called the Great Gorilla Run!  I cant decide whether it seems like a lot of fun - 1,000 people in gorilla suits = hilarious, OR pretty miserable - running 7k IN a gorilla suit = hot, sweaty, mess.  Hmmm......  What do you think?!  

The Endless Job Hunt

via weheartit

I totally fell for this bullshit.  My first year of college, we had this funny little man with bright yellow sneakers come in and talk to our class about just doing what you LOVE.  I was so into it.  At the end of that day I had scheduled an appointment to talk to the curator of large mammals at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  She was awesome.  Then somehow my mom's catering company started catering a function called Angels in Flight, for cheetah conservation.  Here my mom was introduced to a cheetah conservationist.  Before I knew it, I had applied to do a student internship in Namibia, at the Cheetah Conservation Fund and I was spending my summer hanging out with cheetahs and tracking leopards.  It was fabulous of course.

Tracking radio-collared mom and cubs in Namibia

Meanwhile, my dad was encouraging me to get a business degree and I was insisting that I just wanted to work with animals.  I started off studying biology, but I got so sick of hearing about the premed kids and their stupid MCAT, that I transferred my major to Environmental Science.  After a stint working with elephants and rhinos at the Cincinnati Zoo I concluded that while these animals were amazingly cool being a professional pooper scooper just wasn't for me.  I honestly enjoyed the physical labor, but I wanted to use more of my sciencey brain than I needed for that job.  I later decided that I wanted to go to vet school, so I ended up taking all the bio classes on top of my envi sci degree.

Which leads me to my current state of getting busy - the job hunt.  I chose my degree based on what I wanted to do, what I thought I would LOVE doing. Now can someone please tell me how the hell I find a job doing it?  Because at this point my magna cum laude Environmental Science degree from a prestigious-ish university is getting me absolutely nowhere as far as gainful employment goes.  Everyone kept telling me, "Kelly with your grades you'll land a great job!"  I'm not one to brag, but my GPA is quite high thanks to a year of studying abroad in Australia (70% and up transferred home to a 4.0 - cha-ching!)

Swimming with wild seals in Australia

Now I've forgotten finding a job I love, I'm on the hunt for just finding a job - ANY job.  But I can't even get an interview.  Surprisingly, "daily maintenance of elephant enclosures" just isn't relevant work experience.  So maybe those do what you love feel gooders are right - I've chosen a career path I LOVE, and from the looks of it, I'll never have to WORK another day because no one will HIRE me.

That business degree is looking good right about now.

Anyone want to read my resume?

Picnics and Chameleons

On Tuesday Nick had off work for the Easter holidays so we had a picnic!  It was a bit chilly and windy, but there were plenty of people out enjoying the park... even the icecream man made an appearance!

We picked up some sandwiches from this little place called The Honey Pot, which I'd been dying to go to.  It has such a delicious sounding name don't you think?  Especially when all the other sandwich shops have names like "Pulled Pork Sandwich Shop"  Umm... not the best place for your favorite vegetarian.

Alas, in the country, vegetarian food is hard to come by and even in The Honey Pot, the best they had to offer was a sub par egg salad sandwich.

While we were out we stumbled across the coolest reptile shop ever.  Now I'm not normally in the business of sharing my dreams on this little blog, but a few weeks ago I had the most vivid dream about Heidi playing with a pet chameleon named Charlie.  I have been wanting a chameleon desperately ever since, but where the hell do you even buy a chameleon? Well this reptile shop sold them!

The owner asked if I kept reptiles, and I replied, "no but I had a dream about a chameleon and I've wanted one ever since!"  I could see his crazy lady / terrible reptile pet owner alert going off in his head, so I pulled the....

I've worked with cheetahs....

And elephants....

and Sumatran rhinoceros line. (coolest animal ever FYI, this is Emi and Harapan, they're famous)

I'm not sure if at that point he thought I was a complete nutter, but he seemed to believe me enough to tell me its chameleon breeding season!  And brand new (captive bred) chameleon babies will be available in a few weeks!

(Via)

Now these little cuties run about £100 a pop, and thats not including the fancy set up they require.  They're also prone to stress meaning they die easily and only live for 2-5 years if well taken care of.  Plus, the reptile guy said they are a lot of work and give you no affection, he recommended a bearded dragon as they are apparently more affectionate reptiles.  However, I still want/need/must have a baby chameleon.  

HAVE I LOST MY BLOODY MIND?

Do Bengals Care About Bengals?

My passion in life is endangered species conservation, and many people don't understand that.  For those of you who don't get why people try to prevent extinctions, well I honestly don't think you'll ever get it.  But maybe some people just aren't very informed about the subject, so I wanted to share this with you, especially my fellow Cincinnatians and Bengals Fans.





1,411 TIGERS LEFT IN INDIA!?!  Does this make anyone else sick?  I just don't know how we're going to explain ourselves to our kids when they say, "But that animal was so cool!  Didn't you do anything to try to save them?"


I've been thinking though, fellow Cincinnatians, Chad, Marvin, Carson, the rest of the boys and Ben-Gals - why don't we do something about this?

When the tiger goes extinct then how powerful will our team mascot look? I'm not sure what I'm proposing exactly, a collaboration between The Cincinnati Zoo and The Bengals Nation maybe?  Just imagine what a little Who Dey power could do for this amazing cat!  Think about it - Paul Brown stadium has a seating capacity of 65,535 seats.  Even an optional $1 donation with the price of tickets could probably raise some pretty serious funds.  So who's with me, Bengals Fans?!

Please holler back in the comments section I'd like to know if any other nati people think this is a serious issue.  Visit Save Our Tigers for more info on the tiger situation.  And if you're not from Cincinnati, but your favorite mascot is also in trouble, we can talk about that too!