tl;dr: she was doing a lot better when we left the vet and now is doing less so D:

Her x-rays came back fairly clear, other than the fact that she's been swallowing air- probably because of how congested she's been ;w; She's been gulping air while trying to breathe and now she's full of air + gas. They gave her an injection to take down inflammation and get rid of nausea. And holy shit did that work wonders! Within half an hour, she was breathing much more quietly, was more relaxed, and just in general seemed to be doing better. Yay!

They sent us home with the pill form of the injection they gave her + an antibiotic, with instructions to call next week to see how things are doing. Pat and I got Wawa and then I fed Lumos treats in the parking lot, and she finally ate something!!!!! So we were feeling a lot better. She even ate most of a package of her wet food when we got home :D

Pat had a queer speed dating thing tonight, so it was set to be a nice, chill evening in for me and Liz...which it was! At first!!! Until we realized that Lumos was getting louder again D: But also it was late enough to try to get her to eat another meal.....which she was not interested in at all.

Okay. Well, she has to take her antibiotics without food, so let's do those?

NOPE! It was a liquid antibiotic and she threw it up almost immediately ;w; She's continued to breathe very loudly ever since, though thankfully in the last 15-ish minutes her breathing has started to calm down again. She still has no interest in food or drink, though.

Please everyone keep her in your thoughts ;w; I'm still not over Ethyl passing in 2023- I cannot handle anything going wrong with Lumos right now. I'll just die ;w;

Lumos chipped one of her teeth D: She'd already been feeling under the weather - we think she's developed seasonal allergies in her old age - but tonight I managed to catch a glimpse of her yawning and noticed something looked off. Thankfully she's a calm and trusting cat, so I was able to hold her head and gently pull her lips back to get a better look...and yep! One of her front fangies is chipped ;w;

So, uh, we're getting her to the vet ASAP. Liz is gonna call first thing tomorrow morning and see if we can get in same day (or maybe the next day), because tooth stuff is no joke. I'm really hoping it's nothing major...everyone please keep Lumos in your thoughts ;w; She's 12 now, so she isn't young, but she's still so vibrant and energetic usually.

Right now she's sleeping very peacefully, because she got her fancy wet food all day. She's been refusing to eat kibbles and now we know why D: So! Since she's allergic to one of the additives in most wet foods, we can only get her the ~grain free, filler free, all pure ingredients~ foods. We'd been getting her a salmon & pumpkin mousse that's specifically formulated for older cats, but they came out with new flavors recently! And I figured she could use some variety, and I was right, because she loved the tuna, mackerel, and pumpkin one we got this time.

She's so spoiled I love her so much ♥

TODAY WAS SUCH A FUCKING EXPEDITION AND I REALLY WISH IT HADN'T BEEN!!!!!

lays on the ground

The day started with our laundry machine being full of ants, which is fucking great and also I have a whole paranoia thing about my food getting infested/tainted by ants so like. Now they're somewhere else in my home, and that's terrible!

And of fucking course Liz and I had been planning on catching up on laundry today, so we were like...okay. Cool. We can go to a laundromat, do a shit ton, and call it good (for now). But nope!!! It's never that easy!!!!!!!! On the way to the laundromat, literally less than 5 minutes from the house, we got a flat tire in a chunk of road with nowhere to pull over.

COOL COOL COOL

We made it to a gas station, took a bunch of laundry out of the car - you know, because we were on the way to the laundromat, so of course the whole trunk + back of car was full - and Liz got to work trying to put on the spare tire. But the jack for Pat's car is like super fucking finicky, so it was just not working right.

HOWEVER!!! WE WERE SAVED!!!!!!!!!! A friendly bisexual man helped us change the tire while his girlfriend and boyfriend took turns slapping his ass.....because apparently I was in the start of someone else's porno XD Liz paid him back by buying him a pack of cigarettes and a gatorade, and honestly it was just a very nice interaction. City living is great, y'all.

After that, we finally managed to get "lunch" which was...late enough to be dinner......whatever, it was very good!!! And then...laundry daaaaay~~~~


you know I had to bring the boys!!!!
The laundromat had a lounge on the second floor with free wifi, but 1) the chairs were the most uncomfortable things ever and 2) once we really got into the swing of it, there wasn't much time to "relax" or wait. It took awhile, but now we have tons of clean clothes!!!! Our laundry never runs right in the winter due to the plumbing being shit when it's cold, so we were very behind...

And then we rewarded ourselves with bubble tea :D


oshikatsu life ♥
Final step: getting a replacement tire. The initial plan had been to swing by a 24 hour tire place and get a used one for relatively cheap, but that only sorta worked. Pat's car takes a very odd tire size, so they didn't have any used ones D: But this was a process, since they had to look through a ton of tires...only to be met with failure D:

However, all hope was not lost!!!!! They did have a new tire, for a much better price than tires for his care usually run. All in all, it could have been worse, but it still felt like one thing after a-fucking-nother. I swear, I couldn't catch a break today.

Now I just want wanna curl up and either play enstars or crisis core...I'm beat! So I'll leave you with a picture of a tower of tires~

ALTERED IS HERE!!!!!!!

And it started with my phone crashing in the middle of one of the event songs, because apparently it hadn't charged last night? So that sucked XD I managed to get another chance to play it, but it was very stressful and also it made me feel stupid.

After I managed to get that sorted out, we went out for some errands! I accidentally made me and Pat crave &pizza, so we got that for lunch :D And then went to Michaels, because I want to make cute bows to put on the Double Face nuis (thx to some cute ones I saw on twitter the other day).

However, Michaels ended up stressing me out because??? bad brain day?????? fussy they didn't have any active coupons??????????????????? idk I just got really overwhelmed ;w; I did end up getting some cute ribbons and shit, but it was an oddly harrowing experience.

BUT I DID TAKE SOME CUTE PICS OF THE NUIS WHILE WE WERE OUT!!!! Here's one~


saw this tree outside &pizza and I just had to put the boys in it~ they look so cute ;w;
And then I got home and continued to have bad brain times for no fucking reason??? I tried working on crafting but just got frustrated, so I tried working on icons and that also left me frustrated D: So I gave up on being "productive" and played a bunch of Crisis Core, and that helped :D

Also, it gave me something to do while my phone was running a billion autoplay loops of the engstars event XD

IN THE MIDST OF THAT THOUGH!!!! I FINALLY GOT NATSUME TO RANK A!!!! Because I managed to pull his rate up 5*, he's getting fans in basically every song, soooooo it helped push him the last little bit of the way to 75k ♥ So, he's almost forgiven for gacha crimes (betraying me during the Halloween MaM event in jp and cn).


sobs it's been such a long journey...cannot believe I have four different idols to rank A now...
Other than that...I've gotta log into jp and cn even once today...I've been neglecting them in favor of eng, because I've been looking forward to this event for over a year. Also my head hurts ;w;

SCREAMING ROUND TWO!!!!


the way I literally screamed when he showed up, I did not expect his tsundere ass to make an appearance :O
So the Altered scout box went amazingly, lmao. I also got three copies of Tsumugi, because at least he knows how to be prompt and responsible.

uhhhhhhhh the livestream was great, the new character wasn't Kaname BUT he's apparently an assistant to Nice Arneb Thunder, aka sketchy dude extraordinaire. There's now a giant floating blimp above Ensemble Square????? The next bit of plot sounds insane, though I'm not upset. I love ridiculous things; I do love YuGiOh after all XD

OH RIGHT. ANOTHER FUCKING THING.


Madara is one of the cards in the end of year tour because he's a fucking attention hog and I hate him and I want to chew glass about him all the fucking time!!!!!!!!!!!!
There's some sort of magical girl transformation going on with this event/the next bit of plot????? Like. Uh. It's a lot. It's called "Main Story Mega Sphere" which even sounds like some sort of YGO bullshit...

ngl I love it ♥

Also I'm fuckin tired, so this entry is kinda all over the place :T

Liz and I are gonna watch the Element web anime with Alex tonight, because we wanna rewatch it and she hasn't seen it yet. And since Altered is starting tomorrow in engstars, it's well timed :D

and our cherry blossom "tree" is in bloom!!!!!
aka, cherry blossoms for the cherry blossom boy ♥ Pat, Liz, and I went to Taco Bell for dinner, but first I had to take a bunch of pictures of Kohaku with the cherry blossoms. It's basically a glorified stick with a few smaller sticks coming out of it, but maybe in a decade or so it'll grow into a full tree :D

( more pictures of Kohaku-san under here! )

Also, today is Pat's cats birthday!!! Yes, their birthday is April Fools Day XD But we went to Petsmart to pick up some toys and treats for them, plus a new laser pointer for Lumos. Pat picked out some freeze-dried fish, and reactions were mixed:

• Dennis: HOLY SHIT BEST THING EVER!!!!! this may in fact be the best treat he's ever received- maybe the best food ever????
• Lily: no shits given- she barely cared about it or the freeze-dried chicken + catnip mix Pat got as well...which tbh is classic Lily behavior XD
• Lumos: licked the freeze-dried fish like it was a lollipop, before giving up on it. hers was eventually given to Dennis, which he appreciated

Lumos did enjoy her new laser pointer! It was her party favor- except we didn't have a party with all of them, because there would have been a fight XD It was nice tho!!! It's always good to get the kitties new stuff~

And then we went to gong cha and got XL bubble tea again, because I have no self control and bullied everyone else into it. I mean, it wasn't hard to bully them; we all love bubble tea. tasty tasty :D

Now Liz and I are farting around watching YouTube videos about dumb Hallmark movies~ I've been playing some more of the enstars merge game - I got one copy of Tetora already!! - and Liz is playing the new Madoka game. I hope it works out for them, since tbh they were quite upset when the last one shut down. Apparently the story was really good, so they were sad to see it go. But it just launched, so they're getting in at the beginning.

WELP I promised Tsukasa that I would treat him better if he came home nicely, and he did!!! And since I'm a man of my word, I sped through the engstars tour so I could get enough memorial coins for baby boy~


goodbye memorial coins.....


SMOL!!!!!! idiot baby boy covering ants in paint, because that's a good idea XD
He's so small!!!! He was one of the only Tsukasa cards I was missing in engstars, plus he matches with a Kohaku card, soooooo here we are! I guess I just collect Tsukasa cards now!!!! XD

I'm still feeling crummy overall tho. Liz and Pat went out and got lunch meat, spinach, and bread so we could have sandwiches for dinner, because that sounded simple enough that I could handle eating it. I now feel...like I've eaten, but not necessarily better by any means. At least I was able to stomach it :T BUT STILL.

ugghhhh

This is now two events in a row that I feel...idk, sicky??? Like, crappy to the point that it's affecting my ability to play enstars, which I would say is a pretty low stakes thing to do. I'm spending most of my time curled up on the couch or in bed, but I can't stay focused long enough to play more than a song or a two at a time. IT FUCKING SUCKS!!!!

At least I have smol cousins on my engstars homescreen?


babies!!!!!
Now that I have them on every server I play on, I think I need to switch it up XD Maybe I'll put Natsume + one of the other eccentrics on my CN homescreen to tempt him home? idk we'll see~

I'm gonna see if I can make myself some sorta...smoothie? Beverage thing?????? I wanna have something sweet and/or fruity, but I don't know if we have frozen fruits anymore...

it's Pi day!!!!!!
Liz and I went to Wegmans after dinner and picked up an apple pie, since it's something we all like, and we had pie for pi day! :D I don't think I've properly celebrated it since high school, since my school always made a big deal out of it. I'm pretty sure I've had pie on 3/14 since then, back when I worked in bakeries, but it wasn't like a "big deal" or anything. So it was nice!!!

And now we have pie~ It's actually quite good, so I don't think it'll last through the weekend XD But it'll be good while it lasts!

Also, I just had some very good gacha luck in enstars today, so I'm gonna gush about that~

( click here for my various gacha wins )

Liz and I are about to watch the first episode of Yellowjackets, because we've both heard really good things about it and have multiple friends who really like it...and he have time to kill until the JP event starts XD But no, seriously, many friends have recommended this show, so I'm actually excited to check it out! I don't usually go for real people skin shows...fingers crossed it's worth it ;D

I still feel like crap. It's kinda like.......what, I got over being sick and got one, maybe two good days before I got knocked on my ass again???? That is decidedly unfair ;w;

And I just feel so whiny!!!!!!!!!!!!

BLUHHHHHHH.

I took an accidental nap in the middle of the afternoon :T Like, all I did today was lay on the couch and watch crap on YouTube, so what did I need a nap for? I guess because I'm in so much pain I'm not getting enough sleep??? idk.

At least I did something with my evening. Liz, Pat, and I went out to dinner at a Japanese place Pat found, and...they were unexpectedly swamped. We ended up waiting more than an hour for a table on a Thursday night. What???

It was really good, though!


the boys came along - because of course they did - and helped us with the karaage chicken :D
idk what else I wanted to talk about. I think I just wanted a break from making icons because I hate everything I make right now- probably because of how crummy I feel.

bluh bluh bluh.

Lemme share some good pictures of Lumos from the other night...maybe that will give me strength...

( black cats are so good )

Now, back to waiting for the enstars scout box to start...at 2 am...... :T

Today, we made another pilgrimage to our Joanns ;w; I'm very attached to this particular Joanns, because it's the one I went to in college (the first time, so the late 00s) and then I lived basically across the street from it when I first moved back to Baltimore in 2016. It is THE Joanns for both times I've lived in this city, so it's the one that's hitting me hardest.

....to be fair, I haven't been up to Pittsburgh to visit the Monroeville Joanns, aka where I got my start with sewing & cosplay, because I'm just not ready yet. I'm gonna see if we can make a short trip up to say goodbye to it before it closes...but it's so hard to think about ;w;

ANYWAY. In an attempt to fight my depression over the bankruptcy, I had Liz take a couple fun pics of me in the fabric section of the Joanns. I wanna remember all the joy it brought me over the years ♥


also featuring my incredibly good Pusheen cape~
We'd gone with purpose, tho- Liz and I wanna make Kohaku and Madara's first feature scout outfits to wear to DC's Sakura Matsuri this year, and what better time to pick up fabric than during....the closing........sobs ;w;

I'M TRYING TO HOLD IT TOGETHER I'm still very sick so it's hitting me so hard ;w; I want to enjoy working on cosplay and shit, I just...sobs.


the boys with the fabric we got today!!!
We managed to get navy fabric for Madara's pants, the green for his top, the gold for....all his bullshit gold bits, and the light pink for Kohaku's top. We're gonna have to wrangle the embroidery machine for Madara, but I'm honestly pretty excited to figure it out :D

And then we had a time getting Taco Bell for dinner...the one right near the Joanns was randomly closed for the weekend???? And then the next closest one wouldn't let us place an online order...because???????? So we had to loop around and go to yet a different one, which I will always remember for the time they forgot to include the crunch part of my crunchwrap in 2011 XD

I got crunchwrap sliders today and they did include the crunch~ Literally it only happened that one time, but I can't get it out of my mind XD WHATEVER it was tasty!!!!

I've been curled up on the couch since we got home, because I do not feel good. Even with taking more DayQuil, I am not...doing well.....which is frustrating, because I have shit to do! I'm waaaaaay behind on the Switch event- not so much that I can't catch up, but I was hoping to be further than this already.

Also, I barely slept last night, because I was so exhausted and sick that I couldn't fall asleep. I ended up doing quick editing on some selfies from katsu~~~

( click click so I don't destroy everyone's friend pages~ )

Okay....still not feeling great, but I'm gonna make an attempt at playing the JP event some... If it goes badly, y'all can find me...idk, working on sewing my nuis clothes instead? Maybe if I use a tiny, incredibly hot tool (smol iron), I'll feel better XD