Fabric Desert

 Joanne's closed.

It was the only fabric store in the area. The next normal fabric store is about an hour away. And you can't judge fabric by internet photos. 

Now what?

That feeling when a family friend wants to see your blog, so you finish a bunch of meaningful posts to hide the random ramblings about Fern

XD 

Black and white ruffed lemur

Mom: "Why have you been watching so much Spiderman lately?"

Me: "It's a phase" 

(To be fair, this was a month ago. I just thought it was a funny exchange. And I wasn't watching the same movie over and over - there are just a lot of Spider-man movies. I haven't even seen them all yet)

Deadpool and Wolverine

I watched the first Deadpool after it came out. I ended up liking him more than expected. But I don't think violence is ever funny, so I didn't expect to watch any sequels. When they announced Deadpool and Wolverine, I sighed. Because it meant that I would need to watch the sequel. 

The second one was about as good as the first one. 

To my surprise, the third one was my least favorite, despite having my favorite actor. This was largely because of the multiverse stuff. It was all over the place, plot-wise. And it felt more like fanfiction.

Why did Laura end up in that weird discard dimension? 

Anyway, I always mention something about X-Men movies, and this kind of counts. 

That is all.

Predicting the Future

I've been watching the original Muppet Show with my Dad. It's been a lot more fun than I expected. I recognize some of the guests, but Dad recognizes almost all of them. I've gotten really good at predicting what's about to happen. For example: "he's about to stomp on those flowers." 

We've watched a few of the old Goofy shorts too, and same thing. I can see the play on words before they happen. Though, to be fair, they're not all that hard to spot. But it's fun to say them before they actually happen on the show. "He's the lookout. LOOK OUT!" (As Goofy falls off the ship into the water).

What Would the Parents Think?

When I was working on those Fern stories a few weeks ago, I thought it would be funny to ask my parents a question:

"So, if we had a lot of land and I started bringing home pet monsters and all these magical people, what would you think?"

 

First I asked Dad, who responded, "I'd love it!" 

Then I asked Mom, who said, "As long as they were over a rocky area and isolated, it would be okay. " (so she could have peace and quiet, because they would be too "unexpected").

 

Oh man, I started laughing so hard. What a contrast!

Every Family Needs a Bear

If you've seen the Paddington movies, you'll know that Paddington makes some big mistakes. But despite that, his kindness and understanding almost always manages to win people over.

Which is lovely. Kindness should be more important than mistakes (you know, as long as you try to learn from your mistakes). 

Unfortunately a lot of people don't think that way. If you make a mistake, then it doesn't matter what else you do. 

So I guess Paddington makes you want to be a better person. I mean, Pedro Pascal and Nicolas Cage say as much. 

My dad loved the Paddington movies. But he'd only seen them once before we went to see Paddington 3 in theaters. He commented that the newest one was violent. I stared at him. "You don't remember 1, do you?" 

We went back and watched the first two Paddington movies. Dad even bought a couple jars of marmalade so we could eat it with toast during the movies.

The Quest for a New Computer

I've been stalling in getting a new computer. Mine was old. Really old (13 years or something). And it was becoming a major pain. The internet would often stop working for a while. Photos would take forever to load. Then it crashed a couple times. 

Finally I caved and ordered a computer. A refurbished one. When I tried to transfer the data over, to my astonishment the storage on the new computer was only about 1/4 of my ancient computer. So I had to pack all the pieces up in their box again and take it to the store to return it. Then I went home and ordered a different computer. An older model than the first one I'd ordered, but it was still a few hundred dollars more expensive. Yeesh. 

I was pretty nervous as I did the backup, because of the trouble with the old computer and the fact that I already had to return one computer. But after letting it sync overnight, the transfer seems to have gone great. 

Now I've started the long process of making sure that everything transferred ok. Talk about tedious. I've so far found one file that hasn't come over. Maybe it was a weird format. I'll figure it out.

Red ruffed lemur

A Random Musical Idea

I had a random idea. I'll probably never actually do it, because it would take a ton of work. But it's fun to think about. 

My idea is to take an actor I really like, and arrange a song for them. It would be an arrangement of melodies I love from some of the movies they've been in. Especially melodies that relate to the characters they play. Maybe more than one song from each movie, because some movies have a lot of good music! It would mostly be for the flute, but some of it could be sung too. 

And yeah, I don't think I'd ever actually do this unless I knew the actor would listen to it. And it would be cool to see if they had any movies or songs they specifically wanted (or didn't want?).

But, for example, if I were to write one for my favorite actor, Hugh Jackman, it would contain melodies from these movies:

X-Men (specifically the song Logan and Rogue. I was in love with that song in middle school)

X2 (which was my favorite movie for a long time)

Greatest Showman (I'd want to use a few songs from this movie!)

Rise of the Guardians (the Easter song)

Kate and Leopold (I'm not familiar with this soundtrack as much, but it's a great movie)

Flushed Away (again, not familiar with the soundtrack. But this movie is hilarious)

Van Helsing (yes, one of the few movies I'm embarrassed to admit that I like)

Les Miserables (I'd need a few songs from this movie too)

 

 

I started thinking about this for other actors too. Heheh. Do you think I could get in touch with an actor if I offered to arrange a medley for them? XD

Leaf

Last week, I noticed my cat Leaf was having trouble eating. Years ago, I taught her to open her mouth when prompted. As if she were yawning. I learned how to do that from the lion keeper at the zoo. I kid you not. 

The problem is, yawns don't last very long. You can actually train an animal to hold their mouth open for longer, but I never bothered to do that. Her fake yawn wasn't enough to let me get a good look inside her mouth. Finally I thought to take a video. And there, under her tongue, was a big lump. 

This was on the weekend, when the vet was closed. So I had to wait two days, and then cancel other appointments to get her in on Monday. And during those two days, it got noticeably harder for her to eat and drink. 

The vet thinks it's probably cancer. Aside from medicine, there's not much they can do about it. She's old and has kidney problems, so surgery isn't advisable. And the lump would likely come back anyway. 

She has a follow-up appointment tomorrow to see how she's responding to the medicine. 

For now at least, she's still as sweet as ever.