duck-shaped pain

Most of the bears have been pretty harmless -- swiping apples and sandwiches and leftover nachos. But last night, a bear ate an alpaca, which belonged to one of our neighbors down the road.

They have a whole field of llamas and alpacas, and the story that ran in the paper this morning about the attack mentioned how distraught they were about losing their "favorite alpaca." I don't doubt that they were attached to it, however, they've never seemed to be too concerned about taking care of their livestock, as far as I can see. Llamas run free in my neighborhood, not through design or zoning changes, but rather, because these people often forget to lock their gate. Llama traffic jams are pretty amusing, as well as when the llamas decide to take naps in your yard.

There's a clerk at the natural foods store I frequent that seems very fond of me, or who at least decided that I'm the sort of person who likes to hear all sorts of tales of gastric distress. I was in there the other day, buying juice, a Luna bar, and a frozen veggie burrito for my lunch, and during the checkout process, I got to hear, in detail, exactly what each of these items does to her stomach and various other digestive parts when she eats them. I like sharing, but not when it goes too far. I'm tempted to go through her lane every time I go there, changing my purchases every time, so that I could hear this woman's complete digestive history.

At work yesterday, I erased. I spend several hours erasing blemishes and other crud off of a series of charts and graphs which had to be made presentable for various reasons. It's the sort of ask that makes you wonder, I went to college so I could end up doing this? Good thing those Eraser Studies classes didn't go to waste.

(Then again, the moment, I thought of that last line, I remembered, hey, I minored in art, with an emphasis in drawing -- Eraser Studies isn't too far off the mark.)