Sunshine, Ho!

Me: I wanna take me with me.
My mom: Does that mean you're beside yourself?
(I don't remember typing this, I must have still be kind of drunk?)

I won't have time to check in tomorrow before I leave for the airport, since I have to be up far before dawn, so I'll say my habitual pre-travel words tonight before bed instead. I just got back from last minute shopping to grab things I may or may not need but should have "just in case." Rather have something and not need it than need something and not have it. amirite?!

As soon as I finish shoving everything back into my luggage I intend to go to sleep so that I won't be totally dead all day tomorrow. Though, even if I went to bed right this instant, I'd still only be getting about 6 hours of sleep. So I'll probably end up sleepy anyway, but at least I won't feel crappy AND tired. I can live with that.

I'm super excited, which is going to work against my whole going to bed plan I'm sure. Shut up! I can't help myself. Of course the drinks I had when I took my mom out to dinner tonight may prove useful in that regard. We'll see. My extraordinarily shitty internet will definitely be conductive to going to bed early. Like it's trying to prove a point or something. It's gone out about 14 times since I started writing this.
I'll update from an airport someplace, if I'm able.

In case any of you find yourselves wanting to imagine me flying through the sky, here's my schedule!

Flight #1
From: Cleveland, OH
To: Chicago, IL
Departs: 7:30am
Arrives: 8:20am

Flight #2
From: Chicago, IL
To: Sacramento, CA
Departs: 10:05am
Arrives: 12:40pm

Hopefully no one forgets to feed my goldfish. Ahem.

To everyone in Ohio: See you in a month!
To everyone in California: See you tomorrow!
To the internets: We'll be in touch, obebe.

P.S. Tomorrow is Aaron's birthday. I am going to hug him the instant I'm off the plane.

Nicest Viewer Ever

EVER! No seriously. I mean it.

Someone added one of my sketches to their favorites over at Deviant. Now, it is customary to thank people for visiting your gallery, so naturally that's what I did. I never want anyone to feel like their support isn't appreciated. Image my surprise when this is the response:

Name omitted.

At first I thought I was being yelled at, but as I continue beyond the first sentence I realize it's just a really nice person saying really nice things. On the internet no less, how rare! Viewing, commenting, and collecting my work is great on it's own, but this individual really took it to the next level. The rest of you may have to step up your game. I kid, I kid. But really, it was a very generous appraisal and it made me smile when I read it.

In less than a week I'll be in California again. How exciting! Some of you already know that, either because I told you personally or because you're following me on my super official Facebook. Like that guy and her over there. Yeah, you. I'm stoked. I'll be gone for an entire month, so if there's anything in particular you'd like for me to do that I wouldn't be able to do from the other side of the country, you should probably ask me now. Tomorrow is already quite booked though, so, any other day.

Mauled By A Bear!

Okay, it was my cat, but honestly he is kind of like a bear. In size and build, anyway.

What happened is that everyone and their dog (literally) wanted to come see the mythical giant cat on my nephew's birthday. I tried to warn them that he had never seen a dog before and thus wasn't a big fan, but children are hardly adept at waiting and they opened the door prematurely with the dogs right there. Much to the dismay of my flesh:

I should probably get stitches or something.

The worst part was that due to his weight (30 lb.) and size (2'8"), he didn't just rend the flesh, he also bruised the muscle beneath. The big fat! Mere seconds after it happened he was chilling on the foot of my bed half asleep like nothing out of the ordinary had happened whatsoever. Dog intrusion totally forgotten. But that's Neelix for you.

Home is Where The Heart Is

We got back in to Ohio yesterday, but I was so exhausted and busy doing things that I didn't bother with an update. My apologies for that. Hopefully enough of you heard through the grapevine that there was no worrying. It's not like me to set out on an epic journey and not let you guys know I arrived safely.

We got a late start because our plan to grab a couple of muffins and some coffee from the hotel's free breakfast failed when my grandfather saw biscuits and gravy and just had to have a plate. Then we ran into traffic crossing the Ohio river, where all the interstates merge to cross the bridge. Then I delayed us a little longer when we pulled off 75 North to get gas in Ashland and ran into Grandpa's Cheesebarn. How can you NOT stop at a place like that and buy something is beyond me.

We finally got in around 6pm.

Neelix made the trip like a pro. Not a peep of protest from him despite being in a carrier for over seven hours. My grandpa, being horrible with names, of course cannot remember the cat's. He's been dubbed such things as, "Melee," and "Ni hao." Or most recently, "Meatloaf." Waiting to see what he'll call him next became a minigame. If I guess close to right, I win! Neelix always loses, though.

When I got him home and let him out all the other cats here came to investigate. Despite everyone's concern, there was no confrontation.  Which, if I recall (which I do), I said about a million times before I brought him back that there wouldn't be. And there wasn't. Odin, Karma, and Spider all came and checked him out with no hostility whatsoever. And, naturally, Neelix being as carefree as he is didn't mind their curiosity one bit.

<3

In fact, everyone's biggest concern: Odin, had no qualms about his presence at all. Neelix sat under my chair, I sat in my chair, and Odin curled up under my desk. Just a foot away from one another with no incident. By this afternoon Spider and Neelix were sleeping on my bed together. Karma has visited him several times, in her indifferent sort of way, and then carried on about her business.

The only concern now is the dogs and that's not even actual concern. They are all well tempered with cats, since they've grown up with them around, but Neelix has never seen a dog. So I'm sure when he encounters one he'll be a little freaked out. Nothing time won't solve, though.

He's been sleeping in my lap all afternoon, making my legs fall asleep because of how very big he is. Not fat, just large. About 30 lb. worth of orange and white cat. Good thing he's well behaved. I missed him so much that I couldn't bring myself to make him get off of me. I just drank my coffee and dealt with the pins and needles.

Today is my nephew William's birthday, so I'll wrap this up to go eat pizza, shower him with presents, and then devour lots and lots of cake. Mm, birthday cake... I'll never forget his first birthday, he donned his first piece of cake like warpaint. It was great. Soon he'll be starting school. wtf!

Tennessee

Tennessee is one of those words that you look at weird because you're pretty sure you spelled it right. So just to be sure you rearrange some of the letters, add or remove a few and then the whole thing just becomes so confused you're not sure any of it was ever right in the first place. Then even if you are certain it is right, every time you read it thereafter it seems wrong.

I'm checking in from some place in Tennessee (see?). The hotel in Port Richey had no internet, so I was a week without. Not a huge deal, I was pretty busy anyhow. Hanging out with the Seminoles, loading up the SUV, driving out to retrieve my cat, and then taking all the folks who helped out to dinner so many times I lost count.

Boy was I thrilled to see my cat again. Words can't even describe it, so I won't try. He remembered me as soon as I let him out of the carrier into the hotel room to wander around. Spent the entire evening stalking me like a shadow and laying on me like a big big fat. He's taking the journey well which is fabulous. Not that I expected much differently, he's a chill cat.

The drive down was a breeze. From Ohio to Georgia, where we rested the first day, went by fast. Kentucky has beautiful architecture along 75 South, and Tennessee is just naturally gorgeous. Georgia is, well, Georgia. A whole lot of nothing. Only redeeming quality of Florida is all the armadillos I saw. I had never seen a live armadillo before. Super yay!

The drive back up? Not so fast. We ran into a 2 hour delay after Atlanta. We had no trouble at all driving through the very heart of it on the way down, but it was atrocious this afternoon. We bypassed the city itself on 285 West and managed to, somehow, run into a traffic jam once we got back onto 75 North 20 miles after Atlanta. Go figure. Luckily we had gotten lunch just before, so even going 5 mph wasn't so torturous.

Now I sit here sipping a strawberry-chocolate shake and munching french fries watching reruns of House until I'm tired enough to sleep. Then at the crack of dawn it's back on the road. Only about 5 or 6 more hours ahead of us if we make good time.

I've tons of pictures of tons of things, but those will have to wait. Sometime after I arrive in Ohio tomorrow. See you all then!

The Spanish Inquisition

Nobody expects it.

In a little less than 7 hours, I will begin the journey South to fetch my belongings from Florida. Finally. Finally. What a weight off my shoulders. It will be a long drive, around 24 hours total. Though, we'll be breaking in Georgia to eat and sleep so all in all the trek will probably round out around 30 hours or more. That'll put us there on Monday.

I bought a bunch of snacks for the road. Banana nut muffins, blueberry muffins, lemon poppy seed muffins, Bavarian creme doughnuts, Sunchips, pistachios, and jerky amongst them. I'm sensing a little bit of a theme there. Also orange juice, since I'll be rising at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I'll end this paragraph there before I am forced to think about how very little sleep I'll be getting tonight.

Here's a little run down of the ideal schedule. I'll probably do more than just these things of course, but these are what falls on the "to do" list. The entirety of Monday will be spent wallowing around in the hotel's queen size bed or even better, the hot tub. This'll be a day devoted to recovering from sitting for so damned long.

Tuesday I meet with the Seminole tribe folk who moved all of my possessions out of the house it was in and into storage. Whatever will fit will be loaded into the SUV and driven back up North when I go. Likely all my personal boxes, dishes, consoles, computers, and cozy computer chair. The other furniture will remain in storage until the Seminole find buyers for it or I get my place.

If I sell it I don't have to worry about moving it all the way from Florida to Ohio and can use the money to instead just buy all new furniture that I don't have to move hundreds of miles. If I don't sell it I retain my comfortable over-sized furniture but have to spend money without having made any getting it to wherever. Logically the previous is the better idea, but we'll see how it goes.

Wednesday is vacation day! I do absolutely nothing of importance all day and just bum around pool side sipping fruity alcoholic beverages with little umbrellas in them.

Thursday I have to go to the house in Clearwater and personally pick up a few odd ends that were left behind, but most importantly I have to go there to get my cat. The fabled Neelix! I can't wait. I'm actually looking more forward to being reunited with my cat than I am looking forward to having all my stuff back. Anyone who has met him knows why though.

He's a great cat.

Friday, bright and early we begin the drive back up, stopping once somewhere along the way for food and sleep again. We should be safely back in Ohio with Neelix and everything else by Saturday sometime. I probably won't have a lot of time on the internet while down there, but I will have my cell phone with me. You know what that means! My mom will send me daily picture texts of my goldfish every time she goes to feed him.

Toodles land of ice and snow.
I'll miss you most of all, internets.
Florida, watch out, here I come!

Nature

Some people spoil their kids. Some people spoil their dogs. I spoil my goldfish: Gobi Gaara. While out the other night I decided to pick up some fabric plants to replace the plastic one he had. Not only are they more visually attractive, but cloth is far gentler on passing fins and scales. Then I decided to upgrade his house from a half gallon tank to a five gallon aquarium, complete with filter. That's right, it's no longer Gobi House. It's Gobi Manse.

1.5 inches of pure awesome.

Happy goldfish is happy.

Whoever said you can't buy friends is mistaken, as I also bought some friends for Gobi Gaara. So he wouldn't be sitting here on my desk in a big aquarium all by his lonesome while I'm out of town. The plan was five neon tetras and a cory cat.

As an aside, neon tetras are a community fish, and should always be kept in small schools.

That said, I wasn't planning to put all five in Gobi's manse. I was donating two of them to my mother's tank. She used to have a small school of neon tetras herself, but lost all but one over time. So that one tetra was a nervous mess. Buying five tetras would give us each a school of three. However, when the clerk went to fish out five tetras she ended up scooping up six tetras and a ghost shrimp. Rather than try to put them back, she just gave the extras to me. No charge.

While five gallons is a considerable size it's still not that big, so I gave the extra tetra to my mother for her tank. I had not noticed, since her tetra had been the only one for so long, that its colors had faded so much. In comparison to the newly introduced fish, he was rather bland. Probably from the stress. Within ten minutes of being part of a school again, his coloring improved and he quit hiding under a rock.

Friendly tetras are friendly.

I then brought the rest of the fish to Gobi's manse and dumped them in. He had been all by himself for quite a while and wasn't sure what to make of the situation at first. Kind of peeking out at the new comers through the soft leaves of the plants before coming out to investigate. The three neon tetra formed their little school, the ghost shrimp played hard-to-see on the rock, and the cory cat took to whiskering about the pebbles for food.

Much to my surprise, my favorite newcomer was the ghost shrimp. The addition who ironically wasn't even on my list to begin with. He was very active, scooting about with his swimmerets and picking bits of algae off the rock cave. Gobi Gaara accidentally picked him up a couple of times and spit him back out, mistaking his hard exterior for a pebble. Pretty amusing relationship between the two.

I was even more surprised when after about thirty minutes the ghost shrimp decided it was time to shed his exoskeleton. As soon as I noticed he had done it, the thought entered my mind, "I hope Gobi doesn't accidentally suck him up again." Because, if he had been soft that first time it happened, he'd have been gone. He was practically invisible, though, and it was unlikely anyone would see him before his skin hardened into a new shell...

Ghost shrimp is a ghost.

I was wrong. Less than five minutes after he had shed, while I was musing the idea of naming him Benjamin Linus, the cory cat caught him by his head and sucked out his brains. Like a zombie. I should have known better. Ben always gets his ass kicked. Less than five minutes after that the cory cat had devoured his entire body. Ten minutes after that he had found Ben's old protective shell, and decided to eat that too. In under twenty minutes it was as if the ghost shrimp had never existed at all.

Perhaps he was merely living up to his namesake and will now haunt Gobi Manse. The only thing cooler than a mansion is a haunted mansion, after all.