A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I'm now putting my photos on Instagram. I won't always link them here, so please follow me there if you want to see them.

Today I dyed my own hair.

My cats have adjusted to my new routine by sitting on my wheelchairs at all times. In the morning I open my bedroom door and see them both on the chair I need to use to get out of the bedroom. I shove them off it, put down my crutches to hold the chair still while I sit down, and one of the cats takes the chance to jump on it again. I scoop up that cat and try to sit on the chair holding it, and then the other cat jumps on the chair. I frequently end up scooting around my apartment clutching two cats and a pair of crutches.

Alex licking my icepack in a highly dignified manner.



No crutches will deter Alex from my shoulders!





Meanwhile, right in the middle of what was already an incredibly stressful day, that little asshole Erin escaped for the first time ever. I realized she was gone just as I took my boot off to ice my foot, called and called, heard piteous meowing from DOWNSTAIRS, on the side of the really treacherous wood stairs. I went down, traced her to UNDER THE APARTMENT BUILDING NEXT DOOR, coaxed her to come close enough to grab, and then realized that I had no way to get her back upstairs as I'm on crutches. I sat there holding her by the scruff of her neck and literally yelled for help.

Thankfully the neighboring building landlord was there, and I directed him to get the carrier from my apartment and bring it down. I crammed her into it, he took her up, and I hobbled after. He said he saw me yelling on the ground and thought someone had tried to murder me!

KatMari has been quietly continuing behind the scenes, bit by bit, as I transform my apartment into my ideal living space.

I now have a second dollhouse, also tin but this one from the 1950s, next to the first. I unpacked all the little animals I made when I was a kid from Fimo (and a couple from clay) and which have been in boxes for ten years, and gave them a home:

Sherwood and I are snowed in! We had intended to depart today, but yesterday the snow piled up six to eight inches, and and we are at the end of a steep, half-mile dirt road. Hopefully we can escape tomorrow. We would not actually mind being snowed in, but I am expecting Layla to fly in and stay with me in LA on Friday, and there is more snow expected on Thursday.

Layla is coming in from Alaska. She had hoped for sunny warm weather in LA, not for ME to get snowed in!

Previously, on the very few occasions when I experienced snow, it was also bitterly cold and though I enjoyed looking at it from inside, I couldn't spend much time outside as I quickly got so cold that it was no longer fun. This time, it hasn't been all that cold, so I could take long walks in the snow and feel like the weather was no more than crisp and pleasant.

Yesterday I indulged this by hauling my parents, Dad's dog Heidi (carrying her beloved Squeaky, a blue rubber ball), and Sherwood to walk the entire length of the dirt road. It snowing lightly, but we were bundled up. Then, right before we hit the end of the road, we got hit by a mini snowstorm. Snow started pelting down as very tiny balls of ice crystals, like teeny hail. We then walked the whole length back with snow pelting down on us and piling up on our hat (Sherwood) and hood (me). And then escaped to my cabin, where we lit a fire and dried off.

I am staying at the cabin, which is downhill from the main house, so I walk back every night. Normally nights in Mariposa are pitch black due to the lack of light pollution. In snow, light reflects off the snow and makes it bright as day, though the light is blue-white rather than yellow-white. You can see easily, though colors are washed out - I can distinguish brown and yellow, but dark green leaves seem black.

The snow is fluffy, like cake flour that sticks to itself. My feet sink in way past my ankles.













My cabin outside...



And inside.

Alex is interested in my phone:



Alex is very interested:



Alex loses interest, howls at the moon:

Yesterday I got my dyed in a style called "oil slick," which is a type of rainbow hair that brunettes can do.





I love it. It came out even better than I imagined. It's prettier in person than in the pics - the colors are both more delicate and more visible, and you can see more of them.

I asked the stylist not to try to cover up the gray in my hair, but to keep it as is so it (I hoped) would become another color accent. I say "gray," but it's actually a bright, glittering white. I like it and hope to have a streak rather than just individual strands some day. Anyway, that worked very nicely - it adds to the sparkly/metallic effect.

Even more photos, in different light and showing how changing my part reveals different colors. ( Read more... )

I set up all my books to be be photographed. But before I could do so...



I dumped Alex off the sofa and tried again:



I dumped Alex more forcefully off the sofa and tried again:



Multiple blurry cats-on-books-pics later, I finally achieved this. Enjoy it, because it only lasted for as long as it took me to hit the button:

They are Alex Hamilton (the gray one, who talks a lot, is hyper, and gets into everything) and Erin Burr (who alternates sitting back and waiting for it with beating up Alex and stealing his food). They are two months old, tiny and adorable, small enough to be picked up in one hand and to sleep together in my lap, which they do often.

They are my former cat-sitter's neighbor's cat's kittens (neighbor pictured). [I forget if I mentioned it, but my other cats died of old age last year. No condolences necessary.] I told my cat-sitter it wasn't really a good time for me to get more pets - I'm too busy, I'm not home much, I'm trying to save money, etc. She texted me that photo with the caption, "Get two, they will keep each other company. Otherwise they go to the pound."

Erin Burr is currently living up to "feline disaster" expectations; when I took them to the vet, I was informed that the bald patch on one ear was ringworm and given a pamphlet recommending quarantining them for a month, washing hands after touching them, and scrubbing the entire house with bleach. Luckily I already had confined them to the bathroom and the hallway to make sure they'd use the litter box.

I then googled ringworm, which I should know not to do for any medical condition, and found an amazing level of hysteria, full of phrases like "treat it like ebola" and "be strong, some day this hideous nightmare will be over," and recommendations to strip naked before entering the quarantine room, put on a set of clothes and shoes that never leave it, never touching the cats without rubber gloves, boxing all my possessions for two years to make sure the spores are dead, throwing out all my furniture, and repainting the walls.

I am not leaving my new kittens alone without human touch for a month and destroying all my possessions for fear of catching... athlete's foot. I have had that sort of skin infection before. It is not a big deal. I'm treating the ringworm, keeping them where they are, washing my hands, and cleaning, but I am not acting like my new kittens are lepers. They need love and cuddles. (I tried the "shoes and outfit stays in the room," but it's really difficult as they kick the shoes around. Also there's a half-inch gap at the bottom of the doors, and they regularly shove toy mice, blankets, etc through it. DEFCON ONE precautions are not a realistic possibility.)

That being said, once Erin Burr is released from custody, I expect she will find new ways to wreak havoc. Luckily I don't have firearms.

My plane was stuck on the runway in LA for over two hours, because the pilots were reassigned, I suspect in error; the airline people all seemed baffled. But I did finally arrive in Vegas! Photos below.

I was greeted at the Las Vegas airport by a giant iguana.

( Read more... )