The Update (Aquarium & Mighty Mouse)

NAIB-

My first shift at the National Aquarium in Baltimore started in December.  Since then I have logged almost 40 volunteer hours and have really enjoyed my time.  I almost feel guilty to gain so much pleasure from being around an array of amazing and fascinating creatures.  They bring me such indescribable joy.  Every time I volunteer I learn new and interesting information about these creatures.  At the end of my shifts I have to refrain myself from walking around to the various volunteer supervisors, shaking their hands and deeply thanking them for allowing me to come yet another day (obviously this would be incredibly creepy).  Instead I smile and kindly state, "Have a nice day, see you next week!"  

Honestly, two days a week isn't enough.  In fact, I wish I could go every day.  It seems that my favorite animals rotate constantly as I learn new information about each one.  Currently, my top three (keeping in mind that marine mammals are always at the top) are hands-down: 

1. Giant Pacific Octopus-the female has a life-span of approximately 5 years.  Once she lays eggs (fertile or infertile) she stops eating and spends the rest of her days protecting her eggs until her inevitable death.  Their intelligence has been compared to dogs and they are highly social.  The octopus at the NAIB is given difficult "Puzzles", if you will-clams inside a sort of hamster ball which it must figure out to open in order to eat its content.  I once had the opportunity to touch and "Play" with a GPO when I was in Eureka and we put a basketball in the tank.  The octopus wrapped itself around the ball and changed its color to match.  Amazing.  
2. Sea Stars-They have no brain, their arms regenerate if torn from the main body, they move by pulling water through a small opening on their top (dorsal) side and with a muscle push it through canals (water vascular system) into the many rows containing hundreds of tube-feet.  When the water is squeezed through the muscle, the foot pushes outward/off.  When the tube feet touch something it contracts, creating a suction.  So it has to do this with many rows consisting of hundreds of tube feet just to move about.   Not to mention how they eat...okay I'll tell you: once they find a tasty mussel, clam or other bivalve they literally push their stomachs out of their body (underside) and through a space 1-3 millimeters wide and digest it from it's insides.  Tell me that isn't wizard cool.  All this without a brain (while I can barely juggle talking on the phone and drinking a cup of coffee).  
3. The Masked Lapwing-because I had the honor of holding one (I'll let you look it up on Wikipedia in case you are are incredibly bored by now).  

Also, I will be signing up for a SCUBA diving class for April/May!  

Mighty Mouse-

Has died 7 times now.  Ah, 7 is a magic number, isn't it?  Colter was away for a few nights with his brother and parents in Cumberland.  While we were saying goodnight on the telephone I was sitting at our little bistro table in the kitchen.  I had just finished telling him, "I really hope I don't have to deal with a mouse while you're gone" when I (no joke) hear a noise from the stove.  Just as the words had barely left my mouth a mouse peeks its head up from the gas burner.  I gasped.  The mouse looked in my direction as if to say, "How do you do" and jumped out of the stove to sniff at my left-overs.  Again, I gasped and was shocked at its lack of fear of something thousands of times larger than itself.  I stood up, it jumped back into the stove.  Colter very sensitively began to counsel me.  Well, a few days ago that little mousie (or one of its buddies) went to mousie heaven-and stay there!