12.19.13.4.11 6 Chuen 4 Uo
Everyone's lost someone they love. Does't matter if it's a pet or a parent, whether it's through death or abandonment. Everybody has lost somebody.
And what happens when you lose your loved one? You grieve and you make deals--even if you are an atheist, you will still make deals with yourself. "If only I had her back--I wouldn't complain about" whatever. There are always conditions.
Last night I was playing an online game on my computer and my cat, Zen, jumped on the desk as he often does and laid himself half on my arm, half on the keyboard, and purred madly. Very annoying. In fact, quite often I put him on the floor, especially if he knocks something over and/or breaks something or hits some impossible combination of keys which nearly blows up my computer.
But last night I didn't put him on the floor. In fact I moved a book so he could stretch out. Maybe it's because I know he's not well, and the loss of Goober still looms large in my heart. But as Zen was laying there showing me his belly and purring and staring at me in that intense way that he does when he really loves me, I thought, "If he had a terminal illness and I was going to lose him soon, or if I had lost him already, I would wish for him to be here on my arm purring. And I wouldn't care if he knocked things over or screwed up my game."
Maybe in some other universe I did make that deal, and that's why I have him now, why his illness turned out to be just a thyroid problem easily fixable with little white pills once a day and not some awful, fatal kitty disease.
But the whole idea wouldn't leave my mind. What if we treated everyone we loved that way? As if we were on the verge of losing them, and we were making deals. The annoying things people do fade away when they're gone. Why can't we learn to ignore them now? So my dad farts a lot. He's got Alzheimer's and he still knows who I am. Someday he won't remember me and I will wish to be back at this time when he does know me and he walks around via fart propulsion.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
new birdie
12.19.13.4.8 3 Lamat 1 Uo
I just made arrangements to buy another lory.
Not that I want to have five birds. It's just that I honestly think Lance will die if he's alone any longer. He's ripping out his feathers which he has NEVER done. And he knows I don't like it because he does the feathers under his wings and on the back of his legs where I can't really see and if I catch him he pretends not to be doing anything.
And he's hardly talking. Since Gwennie died in August, he's only given me his foot a couple of times (he still gives Willy his foot so I'm not sure what's up with that.) Although on Saturday afternoon he did talk quite a bit--I think he was happy to get a clean cage.
I'm getting a 12 year old red lory named Molu. He loved Scarlett so much, I know he will be happy with this bird. She talks and is hand-fed. She's coming in on Friday from Oklahoma.
I just made arrangements to buy another lory.
Not that I want to have five birds. It's just that I honestly think Lance will die if he's alone any longer. He's ripping out his feathers which he has NEVER done. And he knows I don't like it because he does the feathers under his wings and on the back of his legs where I can't really see and if I catch him he pretends not to be doing anything.
And he's hardly talking. Since Gwennie died in August, he's only given me his foot a couple of times (he still gives Willy his foot so I'm not sure what's up with that.) Although on Saturday afternoon he did talk quite a bit--I think he was happy to get a clean cage.
I'm getting a 12 year old red lory named Molu. He loved Scarlett so much, I know he will be happy with this bird. She talks and is hand-fed. She's coming in on Friday from Oklahoma.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Dream
The dream went back and forth between these 2 parts but I will tell separately.
First part is kind of a reversal of my other dreams of destroying AC/DC.
They were having tryouts for a new drummer in a local supermarket and I went to watch. The first guy to try out was Phil Rudd who has been their drummer in the past (and I believe still is), but he left for a while due to health issues and they had a series of 1 album drummers. The tryouts had 2 parts. First the person had to play the drums for “Back in Black” to see how much it resembled the original (which was Phil Rudd) and the second was to do a kind of solo/freeform drumming just to see what the person was capable of. Of course PR did a perfect version of BiB but his solo really sucked. Even I thought so, and I don’t really like drums (I find drum solos tedious—even by great drummers like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin). The most interesting thing was that he had music to follow for his drumming. Like musical notes except for drums, they were different sized dots on a graph. I never thought before about how drummers know what to play.
So Phil left and the next guy came up. I don’t remember his name now, but he was a grizzled guy, looked like ex-military, closely cropped dark gray hair on the verge of being shaved completely, and a couple of folds of fat on the back of his head, really bull-dog looking. He claimed to be 42 but looked like 62. He did a terrible job on BiB, sounded NOTHING like what’s in the song, but his solo was amazing. So there was a conundrum. Could this guy learn the old stuff well enough to please the fans? Because clearly his drumming talent would take the band in a new direction. There was a lot of debate, and Phil was standing around looking pissed off, and then they sent the guy away with a “thanks but no thanks” and I could tell that guy was pissed too. I had been talking to him and I liked him. He went stalking down the aisle and I watched him walk away. Then a Public Relations person came up and started asking about him and I said they’d sent him away, and the woman got really angry, and I offered to go get the guy, and I managed to find him just when he was about to walk out the door.
I still think they might have gone with Phil again; I don’t remember any more of this part.
In the other part, my friend Sam had bought a Victorian painted lady house up by Choate and they had fixed it up a little, but they hated the house and wanted to get rid of it. I’ve always wanted to live in a painted lady so I bought it from them. I spent the first night in there alone for some reason, and I had a dream (nightmare) that this boy, or young man, with deformed hands, was trying to get my attention. I kept seeing him in a certain spot by the fireplace, but somehow BEHIND it, behind the wall. The refrigerator was against the same wall, and the door kept swinging open, even when I put something heavy against it. So I was working on the house, spackling nail holes and doing little things like that, not unpacking. Somehow when I was working on the same wall, the back wall of the house, I found some kind of
boarded up doorway. I opened it up and there was another whole room at the back of the house. It was about 20 feet long running along the back, and 8-10 feet wide. It had another fireplace on the back wall, 2 windows on the side wall overlooking some of Choate, and several windows along the back. It was filthy in there. My first thought was: how come none of the other owners noticed the discrepancy in windows from the outside of the house to the inside? There were at least 5 windows in this boarded up room. Down the center was some kind of partition that didn’t reach the ceiling. It was like bookshelves or cubbies or cabinets—storage—you could put things on all four sides of this divider and on top like a shelf. One of the strangest things about the room was that the back and side wall (where the windows were) were finished walls, although they were covered in nail holes (the spot above the fire place had probably 50 horrendous holes—and the holes were backward as if the nails had been driven from the outside of the house). But the other side wall, and the long wall that the refrigerator and other fireplace were on wasn’t finished on that side. It was just studs. Not even insulation.
So my thought is, cool, another whole room, and what a big room! And wow, how much work it’s going to take to fix just this one room up. The floors were hardwood but scuffed and filthy and scratched. I looked out the back window and I was overlooking the pool. That made me think of one of Sam’s friends, Diane (no such person in real life), who said the pool was haunted. It was a round above-ground pool kind of tucked into a hollow.
I kept investigating the room, thinking about what I could use it for, and eager for Will and my friends to come over and start helping me fix up the house so I could show them this bonus room that Sam and Jaime had missed. In the corner between the back of the fireplace and the outer wall by Choate, I found a body. It was almost completely a skeleton, with some leathery flesh. Its hands were up, braced in between the wall studs, and the fingers were fused together like flippers.
First part is kind of a reversal of my other dreams of destroying AC/DC.
They were having tryouts for a new drummer in a local supermarket and I went to watch. The first guy to try out was Phil Rudd who has been their drummer in the past (and I believe still is), but he left for a while due to health issues and they had a series of 1 album drummers. The tryouts had 2 parts. First the person had to play the drums for “Back in Black” to see how much it resembled the original (which was Phil Rudd) and the second was to do a kind of solo/freeform drumming just to see what the person was capable of. Of course PR did a perfect version of BiB but his solo really sucked. Even I thought so, and I don’t really like drums (I find drum solos tedious—even by great drummers like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin). The most interesting thing was that he had music to follow for his drumming. Like musical notes except for drums, they were different sized dots on a graph. I never thought before about how drummers know what to play.
So Phil left and the next guy came up. I don’t remember his name now, but he was a grizzled guy, looked like ex-military, closely cropped dark gray hair on the verge of being shaved completely, and a couple of folds of fat on the back of his head, really bull-dog looking. He claimed to be 42 but looked like 62. He did a terrible job on BiB, sounded NOTHING like what’s in the song, but his solo was amazing. So there was a conundrum. Could this guy learn the old stuff well enough to please the fans? Because clearly his drumming talent would take the band in a new direction. There was a lot of debate, and Phil was standing around looking pissed off, and then they sent the guy away with a “thanks but no thanks” and I could tell that guy was pissed too. I had been talking to him and I liked him. He went stalking down the aisle and I watched him walk away. Then a Public Relations person came up and started asking about him and I said they’d sent him away, and the woman got really angry, and I offered to go get the guy, and I managed to find him just when he was about to walk out the door.
I still think they might have gone with Phil again; I don’t remember any more of this part.
In the other part, my friend Sam had bought a Victorian painted lady house up by Choate and they had fixed it up a little, but they hated the house and wanted to get rid of it. I’ve always wanted to live in a painted lady so I bought it from them. I spent the first night in there alone for some reason, and I had a dream (nightmare) that this boy, or young man, with deformed hands, was trying to get my attention. I kept seeing him in a certain spot by the fireplace, but somehow BEHIND it, behind the wall. The refrigerator was against the same wall, and the door kept swinging open, even when I put something heavy against it. So I was working on the house, spackling nail holes and doing little things like that, not unpacking. Somehow when I was working on the same wall, the back wall of the house, I found some kind of
boarded up doorway. I opened it up and there was another whole room at the back of the house. It was about 20 feet long running along the back, and 8-10 feet wide. It had another fireplace on the back wall, 2 windows on the side wall overlooking some of Choate, and several windows along the back. It was filthy in there. My first thought was: how come none of the other owners noticed the discrepancy in windows from the outside of the house to the inside? There were at least 5 windows in this boarded up room. Down the center was some kind of partition that didn’t reach the ceiling. It was like bookshelves or cubbies or cabinets—storage—you could put things on all four sides of this divider and on top like a shelf. One of the strangest things about the room was that the back and side wall (where the windows were) were finished walls, although they were covered in nail holes (the spot above the fire place had probably 50 horrendous holes—and the holes were backward as if the nails had been driven from the outside of the house). But the other side wall, and the long wall that the refrigerator and other fireplace were on wasn’t finished on that side. It was just studs. Not even insulation.
So my thought is, cool, another whole room, and what a big room! And wow, how much work it’s going to take to fix just this one room up. The floors were hardwood but scuffed and filthy and scratched. I looked out the back window and I was overlooking the pool. That made me think of one of Sam’s friends, Diane (no such person in real life), who said the pool was haunted. It was a round above-ground pool kind of tucked into a hollow.
I kept investigating the room, thinking about what I could use it for, and eager for Will and my friends to come over and start helping me fix up the house so I could show them this bonus room that Sam and Jaime had missed. In the corner between the back of the fireplace and the outer wall by Choate, I found a body. It was almost completely a skeleton, with some leathery flesh. Its hands were up, braced in between the wall studs, and the fingers were fused together like flippers.
mystery of the missing fish
I was up to 5 fish in my tank. Betta Boy IV, Sucker Fish V, a white corydoras and two spotted cories of different types.
I don't know what happened with my sucker fish. One day it was just dead. So I buried it in the sacred cactus (which is so full of dead catfish that I can't dig a hole without finding a corpse) and bought a new sucker fish. The next morning I turned on the light and sucker fish did a kind of jerking spiral to the bottom of the tank, where he sat with his fin up. I said, "well, his fin's up, so he must be okay" and I fed them and left. When I got back, the sucker fish was in the same place, but the other fish were eating him. Yum. So I fished him out, noting that his fin was STILL up, went back to the petstore with a water sample and got another sucker fish. He lasted 2 days. So obviously, despite my okay water tests, my tank is inhospitable to plecos.
That left me with the 3 cories and the betta. Fine, but no one to eat the algae.
Last week, maybe Thursday, I couldn't find the smaller, darker spotted cory. This is the fish who survived the great poisoning a few months ago, when I put the dirty rock in the tank and killed my giant pleco and everything else except this one cory.
My gravel is black with some small white specks so you can see how a dark brown cory with darker spots could easily hide. I didn't think much of it. There are 3 live plants, three rocks plus the plastic house-rock where he could have been hiding. I did a gravel vaccuum thinking I'd find a corpse or he'd swim out of hiding but neither happened.
But as the weekend progressed, I had to admit that the fish was totally gone. I did another water change/gravel vaccuum yesterday, and I moved every rock. No fish. No corpse.
The tank has a clear plate covering it. The only sizeable opening is where the Whisper filter is, and there's a constant stream of water flowing out of the filter into that hole so the fish can't even get up there much less jump out.
So where is my fish??
I don't know what happened with my sucker fish. One day it was just dead. So I buried it in the sacred cactus (which is so full of dead catfish that I can't dig a hole without finding a corpse) and bought a new sucker fish. The next morning I turned on the light and sucker fish did a kind of jerking spiral to the bottom of the tank, where he sat with his fin up. I said, "well, his fin's up, so he must be okay" and I fed them and left. When I got back, the sucker fish was in the same place, but the other fish were eating him. Yum. So I fished him out, noting that his fin was STILL up, went back to the petstore with a water sample and got another sucker fish. He lasted 2 days. So obviously, despite my okay water tests, my tank is inhospitable to plecos.
That left me with the 3 cories and the betta. Fine, but no one to eat the algae.
Last week, maybe Thursday, I couldn't find the smaller, darker spotted cory. This is the fish who survived the great poisoning a few months ago, when I put the dirty rock in the tank and killed my giant pleco and everything else except this one cory.
My gravel is black with some small white specks so you can see how a dark brown cory with darker spots could easily hide. I didn't think much of it. There are 3 live plants, three rocks plus the plastic house-rock where he could have been hiding. I did a gravel vaccuum thinking I'd find a corpse or he'd swim out of hiding but neither happened.
But as the weekend progressed, I had to admit that the fish was totally gone. I did another water change/gravel vaccuum yesterday, and I moved every rock. No fish. No corpse.
The tank has a clear plate covering it. The only sizeable opening is where the Whisper filter is, and there's a constant stream of water flowing out of the filter into that hole so the fish can't even get up there much less jump out.
So where is my fish??
back over here
12.19.13.4.7 2 Manik 0 Uo
I've decided to use my Jaguar Nights blog SOLELY to promote Jaguar Nights and post calendar information. Therefore my shamanic posts and other things will be back onto this blog. I'll probably just move the few posts I made onto JN over here.
I've decided to use my Jaguar Nights blog SOLELY to promote Jaguar Nights and post calendar information. Therefore my shamanic posts and other things will be back onto this blog. I'll probably just move the few posts I made onto JN over here.
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