Aud's House of Nonsense 8)

aaaAAAAAA i hate my health insurance website it is a nightmare of loading errors that curls up and starts sobbing every time I so much as click on something and I JUST WANNA KNOW IF I CAN SEE MY DOCTOR AT SOME POINT IF THAT'S OKAY WITH YOU WEBSITE

and my brain is having its own special wigout armageddon because tHERE'S STUFF I GOTTA DOOO and if I don't somehow do it RIGHT THIS SECOND tHE ENTIRE WORLD WILL END AND THEN THE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH

also my walking regimen has been ruined by mosquitoes and everything is awful and why did i get out of bed again nngghhhhhhhh

 

bllghh ok after breakfast and more phone and website wrangling i am almost 100% certain things will work out, and I have an appointment with the doc on wednesday

as for the rest of it, it's too gross to try and walk so I'm just gonna make today a Get Stuff Done on the Phone Day and call it good

 

having a kitty who meets me at the door and spends several minutes greeting me and sniffing my shoes and hands and asking for pets when i come home will never not be a balm for my heart

 

Today I learned that Clark's Feed and Seed, a pet supply store in Bellingham and one of my favorite places on earth, burned down two weeks ago.

They sold all kinds of quality pet things, really good pet food and dog treats and various kitty fixings--I got my dearly departed Penny all kinds of little treats and toys from there, and I remember my friend's pitbulls got the everloving crap pampered out of them there. But mostly I went there for the fish.

They had everything there. It was a paradise of live rock and little anemones and just about every aquatic plant you could think of, all of it healthy and thriving. The fish were so happy, you guys. They had a rotation going for the bettas even--they didn't have enough room for everyone to be in a tank at the same time, but they arranged it so everybody got to be in a tank at least for a little while after being in a container for a bit. I remember going there lots of times with friends and watching the little critters they brought home grow up. My roommate's darling little albino frog and dwarf puffer, and then later her completely gorgeous blue lyretail killifish. Another friend's collection of rummy nosed tetras--he ended up getting a pirate one with only one eye.

If I had a bad day, I went there and hung out with the seahorses and the clown fish until I felt better. If I had a good day, I went there and just said hi to everything. There were hundreds of tanks, and all of them looked so happy and healthy and vibrant. The staff were awesome, they let me stay as long as I wanted. I remember one time they had mandarin fish and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven--I'd never seen them up close before, and here they were, FOR SALE.

I always hoped I could go back someday. I feel like I was just -in- there and it's just gone now. All those poor fish.

They don't know what caused the fire, they're still figuring it out. In the end, they managed to save fifteen bettas and two clown fish.

So yeah, I'm pretty crushed.

 

In other news, One Piece continues to be a delight--they're in the middle of a side story now, and everybody got new outfits, and Brook's made me shriek with joy:

Spoiler: OH BROOK NEVER CHANGE <3

THE HAIR

THOSE PANTS

THAT SHIRT

JFDKLS;FJDSL;KFJSAFDSA

THIS IS A SOFT-SPOKEN EXTREMELY POLITE TEA DRINKING NINETY-YEAR-OLD SKELETON

AND NOW HE'S A GOOFBALL COTTON CANDY MEME <3<3<3

GET THIS MAN SOME FRIGGIN POPSACKLES

 

Oh my god I was a doofus and forgot to include the most obvious and wonderful slightly spoilery reason why Brook's shirt is so amazing:

Spoiler: For those of you who haven't met Brook in One Piece...

Brook, as an unliving skeleton, has spent his entire existence in this show making jokes like this:



ALL THE DANG TIME. "I can't believe my eyes! Even though I DON'T HAVE EYES!" "Oh, it's so scary it makes my skin crawl! Even though I DON'T HAVE ANY SKIN!" "HELP ME! THEY'RE GONNA KILL ME! Ah! BUT I'M ALREADY DEAD!! YOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!" They're such GROANERS and yet you can see them coming and so when they finally drop you end up cheering at the same time.

It is revealed at some point that he ate the Revive-Revive fruit. This gives him an extra chance to "live" that's sort of like in a video game--with this fruit, nothing happens until he dies, and then its powers activate and his soul can inhabit his dead body again. (Unlike most video games, the body stays dead.) But when Brook died, his soul couldn't FIND his body, and when he finally discovered it under the water, it was a skeleton! So he is basically a ghost haunting his own bones.

So in the above post he's wearing a shirt saying SUMMER BODY on it...

EVEN THOUGH HE DOESN'T HAVE ONE!



YOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!

 

Today I found a new friend in somebody's curbside free bin. Her name is Lola. 8)

 

Things I found while cleaning out my desk and bookshelf and bedroom closet:

• Two love letters
• Five friend letters
• Three teacher letters
• My dearly departed Penny's ink paw prints
• That packet of black and white 1970s photos they let me have from the college newsroom when they were throwing stuff away, which includes pictures of the psychic they hired to talk to the campus ghost I wrote an feature article about, somebody dressed up as a tooth, some lady sticking her tongue out at the photographer, somebody caught in mid ballet-esque leap with pantyhose on their head, and a flamenco dancer
• Two blank diaries
• Two headscarves
• Three poetry chapbooks
• Two wee barbells
• A teeny tiny Brook pin
• A little polished bit of opalite
• My missing orange rose earring (!!!)
• Three scribbled story notes from WIPs of old
• Some pretty postcards I've been meaning to add to the art wall
• A ton of art from dearly missed long distance friends that I've also been meaning to add to the art wall
• My magikarp hat
• A ton of pretty scarves:

 

Mmh so I got a little health update yesterday after going to the doctor. So far she is super happy with me, like, jubilant even. I was surprised! She mentioned some shots I'm eligible for but that I don't need right away (mostly for hepatitis B and pneumonia) and I need to do that eye exam thing and send them a copy, but other than that she said what I'm doing now looks to be getting some good results and to keep it up. I got some blood test results and stuff back and I have no idea what any of it means, but I don't seem to be doing horribly at least.

I didn't expect to get good results. When I started all this healthy adventure thing, I knew I was gonna do it, what else was there to do, but somewhere behind all the earnest hoping I assumed I'd just meet another roadblock. In the hours before the doctor visit I was terrified that I'd done all that only to learn that it didn't really do anything, or that I'd gotten even worse somehow.

But I'm doing okay so far! Even with all the CFS flareups and mosquitoes and crappy weather and my giant depressed brain getting in the way. Holy crap.

So today I celebrated by walking to the hippie store and acquiring a giant jug of green tea and also a chocolate pretzel bar.

What would I do without Sister Scissors and Miike Snow on these walks though. <3

 

This morning I threw together diced tomatoes, chickpeas, frozen stirfry veggies, spices, and some coconut cream (I grabbed it instead of coconut milk by mistake but I thought maybe it would still work in this) in a pot and let it all simmer for a little while, and it turned out tasting like this curry-ish thing that wasn't half bad? It's not the chicken tikka masala I am having death cravings for, but it'll do. X)

 

HEY KINTSUUUGIIIII

My grandma is currently recovering from skin cancer surgery, (from what I know it's a very common and run-of-the-mill procedure, nothing lethal or insanely scary, but it still doesn't sound fun at all) and I wanna send her stuff to watch so she doesn't get bored. I am thinking shows about cooking, painting, charcoal drawings, home decorating, funny things, cute things, entertaining things, cute animal spam, amazing stuff, that sort of thing. She also really likes zebras and cardinals. If you have anything in your subscriptions that sounds like that, please feel free to link it at me, I will be super grateful. <3<3 I've already hunted around a bit for stuff like this, but new material is always awesome 8)

 

If your grandma likes mice she might get a kick outta this music video! Cute mousies. <3 (And humanely treated, of course!)

 

Eee that is super cute and I will definitely include it in the next email, thank you! 8)

 

Ooooooh my god youtube recommended this to me, it's a dude and his friends playing Metallica's Sandman in the style of a Bowie dance-pop song and it's AMAZING. :D Also the lead singer dude looks EXACTLY like an OC I wrote about in highschool woooow it's always weird when that happens. X)

 

Ok but dragon squishing game??? Do tell

 

Here are some photos that have piled up from various outings:

Spoiler: flowers and bugs and pretty things whoo!

(I'd never seen a yellow lightning bug before! 8D )




Every time I walk past this it EXPLODES WITH BUTTERFLIES. <3









The fairy garden got some new stuff! that little mirror is SO CUTE





WWWWWWWWWWWHAAAAAAAALE CLOOOOOOOOOUD