I joined a website recently that is devoted to swapping letters and mail art with people from around the globe. When I have downtime, it's a great excuse to challenge myself to write a letter or draw a picture.
I joined a swap recently called "morbid curiousities". It's a letter-writing swap. I wrote about an autopsy I went to.
hey guys! I haven't been online in forever because my computer is still pooched. life without the internet has involved a lot of cooking, painting, learning how to draw, and watching my way through Arrested Development and early seasons of The Office.
I've been on a letter writing kick lately and I've noticed that it's time to update my address book anyways, so comments are screened. I encourage you to leave your phone number and address if you'd like me to give you a shout sometime or if you'd like to be added to the "Kay Is Bored and Wants to Mail Random Stuff to Random People" list.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a wedding where they had these horrible centrepieces on the tables; each table had a flower vase with a distressed-looking goldfish trapped inside. The loud music, the lack of swimming space, and the candles near the vases all seemed to contribute to terrorising the poor creatures.
I took the fish from the vase at Aunt Ljubica's table and added it to the vase at my table, and having company seemed to calm the two fish down somewhat. I had no idea what the heck I was going to do with these fish. Taking them back to Kingston would have been hell for both me and the fish and I wasn't sure how they'd manage on the six hour bus trip. I had visions of aerating them with a turkey baster if I had to.
Luckily, a little girl at the next table told me that she had a goldfish aquarium at home and was taking as many of the wedding fish as she could. Her mother was similarly horrified by their treatment. I sent them home with the two fish from my table.
Later that night, I had a dream that I had kept the fish and was setting up an aquarium for them and other unwanted or rescued fish. I had the dream again a couple of days later.
A friend of mine got a kitten recently, and invited me to PetCetra with her so that she could get some kitten supplies. I wasn't going to buy anything, but I did intend to look at the aquariums and other supplies there and get a feel for what things were going to cost. As luck would have it, PetCetra is going out of business and everything was 80% off. For less than a hundred dollars, I came home with a 5 gallon aquarium, ornaments, lighting, filtration, aeration, and heating systems, food, gravel, a siphon, a net, chemicals to test and treat the water, an algae scraper, and even a first aid kit with basic medications for fungal and bacteria diseases that can affect tropical fishwater fish.
So that's all well and good. But I'm still fishless.
I set the aquarium up on my computer desk and started asking around for unwanted fish. It turns out that several of my friends have overcrowded guppy tanks and would be glad to give me a couple. I figure that three or four could live comfortably in my tank. I have to wait another week or so, though, before I can get them. I've set the tank up and added some fishfood and a bacterial supplement so that I can get the nitrogen cycle started in the biological filter....fishkeeping is a lot more complicated than I remember it being when I was a child. But I've been reading every book and website that I can get my hands on, and I'm pretty confident that I can do this without screwing it up.
Unfortunately I think this is sparking a phase for me...I keep checking kijiji for people's unwanted pets. I keep seeing geckos, tarantulas, rats, etc. If I had the time, money, and space, I'd have a whole menagerie of random critters. But it'd be irresponsible for me to dive into that now, so I'll just wait patiently for my fish. And for a phonecall back for that leopard gecko I may or may not have inquired about. *cough*
Lucas gave me his old keyboard when he moved, and he finally found the cord for it, which means that yesterday I was finally able to plug it in and start playing with it. I could've sworn that the only song I'd remember from my childhood piano lessons at the Conservatory would be Yankee Doodle, but apparently I also remember how to play Away in a Manger. Well, that's a start.
My ukulele practice has been going along well. I'm getting better at reading music, and I've learned a few little tunes. Not very elaborate ones nor would I count them as complete songs, but they sound kind of pretty and I feel satisfied when I play them.
Also! I found a guy in Canada who sells tamburicas! I can get a prim (smallest) for 450 or a brac (slightly larger) for 600. That's quite an investment though, so I've put the idea on the back-burner for now.
