Birthday Weekend

What a crazy, chaotic, emotional, and stressful week this has been! I am so lost on my days since I have practically lived at the aquarium since Saturday. A situation arose on Friday that caught everyone off-guard. Inuk, the male beluga, wasn't acting like his normal self and was showed no interest in his food. It was a clear sign that something was wrong. We were able to run a blood test and it showed he was going through renal (kidney) failure. Not the best of news to hear. He has been receiving care and fluids throughout the day. And everyone has been so awesome and going out of their way to help and be supportive -- its truely amazing! I felt it necessary that I help out as much as possible. So I have been going in as much as I physically can and helping out with the procedures. From a veterinary aspect, this is great experience to see how whales are treated and see how marine mammal medicine is conducted in an extreme case. Everyone keep their fingers crossed for Inuk and send prayers and positive thoughts his way for a speedy recovery :)

On to other news, Gertie Bomb (my aunt Gertie) came up to visit this past weekend to celebrate my birthday! I went and picked her up at the train station and we went to eat at Mystic Pizza. Famous place because of the movie, but the pizza is alright. Its no Peppinos like back at home though! After lunch we decided to do some road tripping and try to find a local beach. During our travels down Route 1, we came across signs for a winery. So wouldn't you know it, we went looking for a beach and found a winery instead ;) We were left with no choice but to do some taste testing from the Stonington Winery! For the most part, most of the wines were alright -- there were only 2 that I really liked and would recommend buying. We then visited downtown Stonington and randomly came across the Old Lighthouse Museum (although it was closed) and the DuBois Beach.

We headed to Newport, Rhode Island on Monday for a day trip. It was a little over an hour away and we crossed some pretty neat bridges with awesome views. Newport is an interesting place but in a cool way! A lot of old buildings from the 1700's and even cobblestone streets! Some of the streets are just wide enough to fit one car down. So driving downtown Newport was a little tricky and had skinny streets going in everyway possible. Luckily with my driving, we didn't get lost :) We had planned on having a nice lunch at the White Horse Tavern which is one of the oldest operating taverns! But we arrived only to find a sign saying 'Winter Hours Thurs - Sat'. Just our luck. So we looked at our tourist map and picked out another resturant just up the street. We walked along an old cobblestone street with cute little shops. Got to the resturant and it was all boarded up for repairs. Strike 2. Finally we found a nice pub to eat at and enjoyed a nice lunch after a couple epic fails. We went and walked the Cliff Walk a little bit that went along the ocean and the Newport Mansions. Gertie Bomb yelled at me a couple times because I playing on the rocks and getting to close to the edge. We saw some pretty huge houses such as The Breakers which was owned by the Vanderbilt family and was their summer 'cottage'. Some of the mansions had tall fencing around them making it hard to gawk at them.

My birthday was on Tuesday. Another year older! I'm getting to be an old fart! I received a nice surprise at the aquarium. The rents ordered a beluga cake that was delivered to the aquarium for my birthday. It was delicious and had this yummy chocolate mousse type stuff in the center! It went over pretty well too with the staff and volunteers. It was a huge sheet cake and over half of it was eaten. But I think the best present I got was a good nights sleep! Up til then, I was running on little sleep and exhausted from caring for Inuk the whole weekend! So a nice 8 hour sleep felt wonderful!

I apologize for the lack of blog posting lately. Things have been crazy lately as you can tell and I just have been a little pre-occupied with other things! But now that things are beginning to become a bit more organized, I will continue to update with everything going on at the aquarium! Time for some pictures! Enjoy!

Old Lighthouse Museum -- Stonington, CT

Old Cobble Street -- Newport, RI

Beach on the Cliff Walk -- Newport, RI

The Breakers Mansion -- Newport, RI

Sitting on the Cliffs -- Newport, RI

My Birthday Cake