Captain Hastings

Hastings has gone into heat for the first time. Our baby is growing up!

I've also discovered, about half an hour ago, that she loves Kraft Cheesy Pasta. I gave her one piece of the macaroni, which she snatched and gobbled up, then she licked the bars through which I'd passed it. Weirdo.

Here's some pictures. Since I've knackered my camera, and it no longer has a working flash, these show her outside, trying to drink the raindrops.





Here's a picture I took a while back (I think she's licking his hand). Note Matt's and her matching evil eyes.

A mysterious mystery.

Today I found what looked like shed skin from a snake on the small stool by the computer. It's about an inch wide, and maybe an inch and a half long. Where did it come from?

We checked Jehovah, our dried rattlesnake, but the patterning does not seem to match up. (Sometimes I think he turns himself round, but that's a whole different story.)

So... what gives? Do we have a secret snakey houseguest?
I tried to get a photo of the skin, but my camera started playing up. Coincidence?
Ooooooooh...

Just another diamond day, just a plate of crabs...

1) So, we were passed on a little harness and lead for Hastings recently. I had nice little ideas for being able to take her out for a pootle around the garden. Ummm... no go.
It took us half an hour to get her into the harness. She'd either retreat her head out of the neck hole, or she'd manage to get her paws through and end up wearing it like a tutu.
When Colin eventually managed to get it on her, she had a complete panic attack, desperately clawing at it and wriggling. So I got it off her as quickly as I could, at which point she ran and huddled at my neck quietly for quite some time. So no harness for her.
We've passed it on to Mouse for Jonas but, at last report, it's not going too smoothly for them either.

2) I didn't get the job that I wanted. Off to the temp agency with me, then.

3) I put some of my stuff up on deviantART.

4) I'm looking forward to our Halloween movie night up at Mouse's flat on the 4th. We've been saving up some of the films that look most funny. Blind Terror; The Dead One; Silent Night, Bloody Night; Nightbreed and Suspiria.
I suppose there'll have to be a vote on which films to watch. We're inviting a few friends round (we're having it at hers because most people live far nearer her than me), there'll be what we call 'lazy costumes' (i.e. nobody should go to too much effort), there'll be decorations and Halloween themed food and drink (and receptacles - me and Mouse have quite a number of themed cups and plates around, surprise, surprise.) Should be fun.

5) What with the new nerd computer*, I still have some stuff to install, but I'll get some photos up soon.

*It's got lights in the side, it plays the Voyager theme tune on shut-down and (if I recall correctly) the Next Gen. theme on start-up. It also has an 'Activate' button rather than a 'Start' button, the hard drive is labelled 'The Collective', and I'm currently using 'MicroBorg Internet Exploder'. Yes, the friends who got it for me are nerds. Why do you ask? And yes, I do rather like it being like this.

Total Eclipse of the... What?

Check out the mostly naked young men, and the Village Of The Damned* style glowing eyes.

Creepy...

*Note I used V.O.T.D., and not 'The Midwich Cuckoos' on which the film was based. That's because in T.M.C., the kids' eyes did not glow. That was made up for the film. Pedanticism now over.

It's quiet. Too quiet.

Well, Matt started work yesterday, so at the moment I'm all alone in the house. It's weird. Over the time we've been together, there's times when we've both been unemployed, when one of us was studying, when I've been working and Matt hasn't, but never when he has and I haven't.

It's lonely here. I may be somewhat overcompensating on cooking and tidying. Especially the cooking. Matt went off to work with a lunch of roast chicken, cheese, tomato, rocket, spinach and watercress on a crusty pesto roll, two minted lamb kebabs, and a chocolate muffin. Dinner tonight I've planned pan-fried salmon in garlic butter, and leek and stilton mashed potatoes.

I feel like I'm not contributing to the household in any financial way, so it's only fair that I take care of stuff like that.

Oh well. I should find out this week if I got that job and, if not, I'm going to be talking to the recruiting agency that got Matt his job. In the meantime... well, I want to set myself up a website for my drawings. It's ridiculous that I don't have one. I should probably do some more work on my cafepress. And, of course, MoH.

I'm not a shill, honest...

So...

Let's get more girly, shall we? I finally splashed out again on my soap. Oh, the soap. It's like moonbeams and rainbows. Well, at least, it's like something that smooths and moisturises, and makes your skin feel fabulous.

I'd been without for a bit, due to the rotten job situation.
Oh, how I missed it. I use it all over, rather than just for the bum and thighs, which kinda adds to the expense...

I've turned into such a girl about it. I'm usually a tomboy when it comes to skin and hair care. I found a shampoo and conditioner that works, so I don't change it. People gave me soap and body washes for Christmas (Oh, so many, every year!), so they'd last me until the next batch. No more.

I think I scared the guy in Lush with my worry - we walked in, I headed to where they usually keep it, and it wasn't there. I almost had a panic attack. I was clutching Matt, going "Matt? Where is it? Where's my soap? I can't see it!" (Remember that I said he puts up with a lot, yes?) Long story... well, not so long, they'd moved it, I was very relieved, shop guy looked concerned.

Don't worry, I've not turned soft. Proper update to follow.

Wow. Howdy!

I have been dressing like a child.

An odd, odd child.

I've been wearing my hair in plaits, and dressing in a swingy skirt, over-the-knee stripy black, white, grey and silver socks, a black v-neck under a little black cardigan, and my very much-beloved mary janes. (I have the dark cherry shiny ones.)



I've also been wearing my new plastic sushi necklace from Girl Props. I know. A plastic sushi necklace. Shaddup.



Ummm, other than the personal aesthetics, I've been concentrating a lot (no, not in the way of that famous blonde joke: "Why did the blonde stare at the orange juice?") on my drawings. I did the Teeny.



That's pretty much the actual size of it. Someone, mentioning no names, suggested I should do the same but on a larger scale. So I'm doing one that's A4, but with the same level of detail. I have spent a lot of the past few days with my eyes about four inches away from the page, making sure I don't fuck it up. It gets to the stage where Matt says something to me, and I don't realise until two minutes later that he's said anything. He had to take the sketchbook away from me the other night because it got to the point where I couldn't unbend my hand, but if I put the book down it just called to me, and I'd think "I could just do a little more..."

I think I've spent about eight hours on it, so far, and I'm nowhere near even halfway through.

My eyes hurt.

It's all about the horror (in one way or another).

So it's still a month until Halloween (nearly), but of course all the shops have their Halloween stock out (as well as the Christmas stuff, but that's a whole different issue). I love Halloween stuff. Bats! Rats! Skulls! etc!

So we went out to ASDA the other day so that I could get hyper in the Halloween aisle. Matt just sort of went to his happy place whilst I tried to persuade him to let me buy giant plastic skulls and such. I did get... quite a lot of stuff - one of the good things about ASDA is that it's cheap. So I got some plastic jewellery with bats and spiders on, and yet more of the fake spider webbing (of which we have about 9 tonnes from last year) and a large rubber skull that looks like it's from an orc, and another decal to go on our living room door (the last one's still there from two years ago) and a bat costume containing bat ears and wings, and a plastic skellington...

*deep breath*

Sorry. I went a little strang(er), there.

Oh, and when I checked the bag that has the stuff from last year, I found Blood Gnome! And Dead End! It finally occurred to me that the last time we saw them was last Halloween, when we had a thing up at Mouse's flat. I must have just bundled them into the bag and forgotten about it. Sorry that you guys who came to visit missed out on Blood Gnome.

We also bought Hastings a toy - an oddly proportioned (its head is giant) black rubber rat. She promptly bit its whiskers off and chewed the tail. We had to go into her cage and remove all the little bits of rubber. At least she didn't eat it.

Trouble is, Hastings has hit adolescence. She's grumpy and clumsy and even more hyper than she used to be. We're lucky, though. Male rats start humping people and nipping when they get to that age (*cough*Jonas*cough*).

It's quite funny, actually. She has such a little ratty attitude. We suspect that as soon as we go to bed, she's on her mobile, going "God, my parents are so lame! You will, like, never guess what they did today. They're, like, soooo embarrassing!"

Soon we'll be telling her that whilst she's living under our roof, she'll abide by our rules.
It's a slippery slope, my friends.