Catching up - bye bye Loki

In February of 2015, suddenly one Sunday morning, before dawn, Loki passed away. He was barely 6, and it was a tragically sad day. From his earliest kitten days Loki/Bitey Whitey/Lokerson Pokerson/The Locust/Lokitty etc. was a total character. He was super twitchy and went back and forth between a cuddly lovey (and bitey) lap-sitting purrfest and a hyper-spazz-bolting around the house crazy pants. He loved Kiki more than anything or anyone, and I don't think he ever got over that loss.

 

I'm a plant.

Cold Case is my favourite cop show.

1 year

In loving memory of the friendliest, furriest, people-food-stealiest cat ever.

I took my Geomorphology class to the Grand Tetons, and then the National Parks all got closed by the government.

Though the weather was rather cold, we got some great streaks of luck to carry us through a most successful field trip.

Awesome luckiness #1: minutes after getting to camp a big bull moose walked through and managed to not poop on anyone's stuff.

 

Awesome luckiness #2: ran into the son of the late great David Love, who wrote the geology of the Grand Tetons. He gave the class an overview of the geology. It was fabulous!

  

students drawing sketches and taking notes

 

 Gros Ventre landslide

 Spectacular view from Lizard Creek camp at the north end of the park

 Spectacular view from Gros Ventre camp

Spectacular view from the driver's seat right before heading home

One week later.

Today is Tuesday. Taco Tuesday, if you will. If Kiki was allowed to eat tacos, he would've LOVED them. Not just the taco meat, which is obvious, but also the cheese and sour cream, and guacamole too since the weirdo liked avocado... so, in honor of Kiki and taco Tuesday, here's an early photo of Kiki from when I first rescued his little kitten friend Loki, and a video (thanks Brock) of a happy Kiki being petted by Mazzy back in Bakersfield.

 

Goodbye to Kiki

Back in the summer of 2002 I went to the Kingston Humane Society with my roommate at the time, Joanne, to adopt a short haired cat. A mangy looking orange thing picked me through the bars, and Joanne insisted that I bring that one home. The Humane Society identified him as a "domestic short hair". About a month or so later, ear mites, parasites, and other ailments gone, his fur grew in and it became obvious that this was no short haired cat.

This was a food-stealing, long-haired, attention craving, loving ball of fur, a dog in a cat suit, who accompanied me at 4 different homes in Kingston, my parents home in Barrie, a ski trip to Val David in Quebec, a cross-country week long driving move to California, 6 years in Bakersfield, and another move to Utah with a stopover in the mountain wilderness of the Sierra Nevada.

I named this blog for Kiki. I was attempting to toilet train him when I started blogging. The toilet training was a failure, probably due to the cat-falling-in-the-toilet incident...

Kiki's tolerant nature and role as entertainer, comforter, and allergen will all be missed terribly.

No one has any idea how poor, stupid, Loki will survive this loss.

Sad days around here for sure.

Antarctic Adventures - Port Lockroy & Neko Harbor

This was our final landing in the Antarctic before heading north. Port Lockroy is a British research station that has been around for several decades, and naturally, being British, has a post office. Part of the station has a "museum" set up the way Antarctic scientific research was done in the 40's and 50's (it's basically just preserved, complete with food, from that time). It was really cool, and this is where I sent a few postcards. Mail from here goes by boat to the Falklands, then military plane to the UK, then enters the British postal system!

Day 18:
Postcards were sent from British Base A
Then back on ship for BBQ day
Humpbacks, zodiacs
Snowslides on our backs
Then from the Antarctic we sailed away

Food shelf!

Recipe book, complete with instructions for penguins, seals and cormorants

I knitted a vengeful fur seal, here it is looking satisfied after a hearty whale snack. Picked those bones clean!

Weddell seal

Neko Harbor sunset

Antarctic Adventures - Elephant Island - Cape Lookout

Cape Lookout was a spectacular geologic dream. Gorgeous metamorphic rocks, gorgeous glacial striations, cute penguins doing cute things, till littered with perfect hand samples of gorgeous metamorphic features that we were not supposed to take home. Dream? Oh wait, nightmare!

Day 13:
In search of the elusive blueschist
We found an abundance of poo-schist
Chinstraps and Macaronis
Gentoos and an Adelie
And then serpentinite with a twist

Red band is garnetiferous-chert, if you will!

Hot damn! Those are some sexy folds!

Hey, it's the elusive blueschist!

Yes, I AM the only Adelie penguin kicking around here. What's it to ya?

A Chinstrap penguin pulling off the "cute and cuddly" mantra of the Penguins of Madagascar

Evidence that Gentoo penguin chicks are the cutest things ever. Yes, that one is parked on top of an elephant seal.

Just in case you needed more evidence of cuteness, Gentoo chicks take naps on their bellies on rocks, and even snore a little. If you don't think they are the cutest things ever, you have no soul. "Greenschist is comfy!"

Antarctic Adventures - South Georgia - Fortuna Bay to Stromness

Day 7:
Thousands of Kings out at large
Beware the furries that snarl and charge
The claws that catch
The jaws that snatch
Then following Shackleton's march

That one might need some explaining... Furries is a nickname for fur seal. If you haven't read Lewis Carroll, then I'm not explaining the middle. Finally, the excursion that day involved checking out the Cumberland Bay formation turbidites, then following the last part of Shackleton's self-rescue hike out to the old whaling station Stromness.

 

Cumberland Bay formation turbidites, cute (but vicious) fur seal pups, keen geologists

 

King penguins looking kingly, turbidites in background

  

"Oakum boy" fluffy brown King baby

 

Reindeer kicking Oakum boy. Reindeer were introduced on South Georgia by the whaling Norwegians so they'd have something to hunt for sport when they were relaxing from hunting whales for their jobs. Both the reindeer and the penguin here are molting. While this photo triggers an automatic "awww, poor penguin" response, I can assure you that penguin came out fine. In fact, I watched this progress from the penguin waddling over to the grazing reindeer, flipper-flap at it a bunch, get kicked, fall down and bounce back like a Russian doll, flipper-flap some more, get kicked, bounce back, waddle & chase, and then the reindeer ran away. I was impressed and astounded.

Totally rad float of weakly metamorphosed turbidite shale (now slate/phyllite...) atop ridges formerly buried beneath glacier. Things that are amazing: this was covered in glacier less than a century ago when Shackleton etc. hiked it. The freeze-thaw has split the rock beautifully along the metamorphic fabric's cleavage, but the glacier retreated by melting so the split fabric is still side by side within the now-accordion-like confines of the original plucked material!

The view of Stromness below as we reached the spot that Shackleton etc. would have jumped for joy at the prospect of "civilization" and sanctuary had they any energy for jumping at that point.

Antarctic Adventures - South Georgia - King Haakon Bay

From the Falklands we took 2 days at sea to get to South Georgia. Our first landing was at King Haakon Bay, which is where Shackleton began the on-land part of his epic self-rescue from his most famous Antarctic expedition.

Day 5:
On we went to Peggotty Bluff
Greywackes, moraines - that kind of stuff
King penguins galore
Striations and more
Then left when fur seals barked "enough!"

Jumping over Peggotty Bluff

King penguin not looking majestic (difficult shot to get) - possibly looking disdainfully at the poo blob on the ground

Freaking fabulous erratic perched atop a gloriously glacially striated outcrop of greywacke (also note the moss that is growing in the fractures!)

Fur seal, as ugly and vicious looking as it should be portrayed, 'cause those suckers are aggressive and angry and out for revenge on humans for all the seal hunting that went on last century. Seriously. These are some rage-filled terror beasts.

Fur seal pup - cute, but vicious. Rage-training begins at birth with these guys, as does the trickery (a la "Madagascar Penguins" cute and cuddly, boys, cute and cuddly!)

shoplifting dog

Sometime before the fish incident, there was a bread incident, that might have gone something like this...

dog again

After the last cartoon, I was asked to continue and make a Quincy's Adventures series. Several weeks ago she was returned to our door by the husband of one of my geology PhD mates. What actually happened between escape and return by good samaritan remains a mystery, however the reek she brought back with her made me imagine this scenario (as doubtful as it may be in Logan, Utah in January...)

dog...

Below is a poorly (and hurriedly, and while laughing) drawn cartoon of what I came home to yesterday after school...

back in a winter climate

Ahhh, winter. It's been a long 6 years that I've lived without it and only gone to "visit the snow". So, with one housemate away (leaving behind Q, the dog), one exam and one final report left for the semester - a plan of "exhaust the dog so that majorly productive studying happens" was concocted.

A snowy night hike followed by a sunny x country ski the next day occurred and all participants had a great time, however the dog exhaustion only seemed to last the one evening/night. As I type this post (not studying) she is whimpering for "more skiing! more snowshoeing! more! yay!" which is just not going to happen today.

mountains in my backyard

behaving herself to pose for a photo... moments before tearing off after a deer or something

the snow here is ridiculously deep and dry powder, I hardly know what to do with it... but I am pretty sure that my snowshoes will be of inadequate size to contend, and I will sink like a stone when I use them...

"yay! I'm a dog! I'm bounding through snow nearly as deep as I am tall! wheeee!"

...And then, a couple of days later, we tried a real challenge: 4 dogs, 3 girls, 2 skis (each), and 1 Honda Element. We skied into Idaho- it was fantastic!

"treats!"