3rd Day of Sukkot

I can't believe it's already Sukkot. Sukkot (singular: sukkah) lit. means booths, and are temporary walled structures that we build and 'dwell' in during the holiday. It's a harvest festival that lasts for 8 days. It's supposed to be one of the most joyful holidays. People eat and sometimes sleep in their sukkah. We used to put up our own. It just ended up being too much of a hassle to put up. Really needed more than 2 people to put it together, and we stopped asking people to help us at some point. The wood, I think, ended up rotting and couldn't be used anymore. It was nice when we had it up, though. Like what's custom to do, we had guests or ushpizin over for dinner in it for the first few nights. They were usually our neighbors and were not Jewish. That was fun, and they seemed to enjoy it, too. Now, with covid, it probably wouldn't be wise to do that. We usually ate almost every meal in the sukkah. It was interesting eating outside like that. 

This is my wallpaper for October. It's Overhaul or Kai Chisaki from Boku no (My) Hero Academia. He was the main villain of the anime's 4th season. He was also the boss of a yakuza group, not related to the League of Villains. I think he was one of the best villains of the series so far. He wanted the world to go back to the way it was before Quirks or powers. He was cruel to the yakuza's boss' granddaughter, Eri. Using her blood in special bullets that takes away the victim's Quirk. It doesn't necessarily kill the person, but if they're a pro hero, they'll feel like their livelihood was snatched away. I think there were bullets that also enhanced Quirks, and he used them on his own underlings. The problem with that was sometimes it enhanced them too much, and the power was too great for them to handle. So, they'd go crazy. Thought this seemed somewhat Halloween-like. There's another season coming up, but it won't be until Spring of 2021. Kind of a while. It'd be great to see what happens next. 

The month-long holidays for October are: National Apple Month, National Caramel Month, National Cheese Month, National Chili Month, National Cookie Month, National Pasta Month, National Pretzel Month, National Seafood Month, American Pharmacists Month, Bat Appreciation Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Corn Month, LGBTQ+ History Month, German-American Heritage Month, National Cookbook Month, Pizza Month, Polish-American Heritage Month, Sausage Month, Spinach Lovers Month, Talk About Medicines Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. There are a lot this month. I don't think pharmacists get enough credit. Without them and the meds they make, I wouldn't be able to function. They should be celebrated for the hard work they do. I'm part German, and not that long ago found out I'm part Polish, too. It's good to recognize the history of the LGBTQ+ community. 

Like I mentioned, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer, which is what I have, doesn't get much in the way of awareness or funding for research. Most of the focus is on the early stages. The ones you can 'beat'. There's no cure for stage 4. The scary thing about that is people are more likely to have it come back as stage 4 after they're 'cured'. They have that forever looming over them. I added an awareness ribbon to my facebook frame for the month. The ribbon is green for spring and the triumph of life over death, pink for the cancer originating in the breast(s), and teal for healing and spirituality. People aren't expected to live very long after being diagnosed with stage 4. About 27% are alive 5 years after diagnosis. 11% after 10 years. I hope I can live much longer than that. (And, that the quality of my life is good.) The stats are old, things have advanced since then, it all depends on what type of breast cancer, etc. Many factors. I'm lucky mine's not triple negative. That one has the worst life expectancy. Mine's er+, pr+, and her2-. Another way of saying it is positive for both hormones and negative for her2. Mine tends to be mixed with how long people tend to live with it. I also don't know much about other people who have it as infiltrating ductal carcinoma or IDC. It's one of the most common types, though. There's a lot to it. 

It's been a while. I think it's the first time I actually didn't post during a month. I might try to get back to doing this on a regular basis. In order to help with getting back into things, I decided to make a schedule. Not with my Google calendar, but in my Notes on my iPhone. That way the times can be easily flexible, and I can put something else in the time 'slot' if I wanted to. It worked pretty well yesterday and, so far, today. It's kind of fun to check off things again on there, too. 

Had a shower today. A couple of weeks ago, there was an issue with it. I was supposed to get one on that Monday. Sometimes, if my home aide forgets or something, I have one on Tuesday. That would have been fine. However, no one showed up for either days. Wednesday afternoon, my palliative care nurse, Brian, called. I told him about the showers, and he seemed upset about it and called Home Health. He was able to get me an appointment for that Friday with someone I didn't really know. Luckily, my usual home aide, Savannah, came that day instead. (Normally the 2nd day is on a Thursday.) Apparently, she was sick most of that week, and assumed they would find someone to see me while she was out. She said that's the usual procedure. Nobody followed up on it, though. This is one of the only things that I've had issues with, which is that unpredictability. I wish it was more set. Even the times during our usual days change. She tries to keep it around 11am most of the time, but sometimes it's much earlier or later. I'm glad I at least get them most weeks. I kind of wish that I could have one more day than the 2 I get, but it's not bad. 

I'm taking 2 chemo meds now, Ibrance and Arimidex. I've been getting more side effects lately. I thought I wouldn't get this one, but I'm loosing my hair. It seemed to take a while. Maybe for me to notice it. It's coming out in clumps. I've decided to have most of it shaved off. It'll be a drastic change, but that way I can be more in control of it. The earliest appointment my hairstylist had was for the 28th. I wanted it sooner. Not sure what my hair will be like by then. I'll tell her about the cancer stuff, too. It might shock her, but hopefully she'll understand why I'd want it shaved. I don't want to be completely bald, just have a little there. I plan to wear knit hats instead of wigs or scarves like so many other cancer patients do. They'll keep my head warm this way. I ordered 7 of them on Amazon. I have 4 of them so far. They all fit pretty well, even with my long hair. I might wear them on a regular basis, if it gets to be too much with the hair loss. The other major side effect I've had has been fatigue. I just feel so wiped out most of the time. 

We had a plumber look at both toilets, since mine and the one downstairs were acting up. There's only one other toilet in the house. That being my parent's. It felt weird having to use it. I don't know what I would have done if I needed to use it in the middle of the night. I wouldn't want to wake her. Supposedly, they are both fixed. However, the plumber said the one downstairs is old and will need to be replaced with a new one soon. It's always had issues, so makes sense it needs to be replaced. He said he could install the new one for us. I'm glad I can use mine again, but I don't trust that downstairs one. This means I'm still going up the stairs to go to the bathroom. That's dangerous for me. They (the palliative care team) want me to stay downstairs most of the time. There's less of a risk of me falling and easily breaking bones that way. I still need to go up them for things like showers and getting dressed. My computer's up there, too. 

Managed to get an hour of reading in today. I'm trying to go through those 6 books I got from My Thrill List. I'm reading a different one every day, so I don't feel stuck on one. Today I read A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay. Got through a good chunk of it. I think it's one of the better of the 6. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. 

Haven't studied Welsh through Duolingo in a long time. Finally got back to it. Surprised I managed to remember as much as I have. It was enough to open another unit or checkpoint. Hopefully, I can keep it up this time. 

Got back into looking for quotes from Alliance. I haven't done anything related to writing/my books in a very long time. In fact, the last time I searched for quotes from it was back in February. I hope I can keep this up. I was almost done with looking through it. I just need to finish looking through what little is left, then move on to Alliance: Dawn. Hopefully, I can go through all the books I'll look for quotes in quickly, and then move on to other things. For instance, making an author card, drawing things relating to some of the books, making trailers, deciding on which recipes to show in the trailers, etc. Fun stuff. 

National Oatmeal Day!

I love oatmeal! Usually I add syrup, sometimes cinnamon, raisins, salt, and a little Splenda if I'm having it as a breakfast. Oatmeal in things like cookies is also great. It can be pretty versatile. It's one of my safe and calming foods. Nutritious, too. 

National Pumpkin Day was on Saturday. I used to hate eating things with pumpkin in them. Thought it was fun carving them as a kid (with the help of my parents, and didn't do it every year for Halloween), and loved having roasted pumpkin seeds (from those same pumpkins that we roasted in the oven) with a little salt. For some reason, I had no problem eating that part. Pumpkin pie on the other hand...Would not touch it for years. I still hate most squashes, but at some point that changed with pumpkins. Maybe I got enough guts to try a really good pumpkin pie or something. Now, if it has pumpkin in it, I tend to love it. Recently got pumpkin butter, which has real pureed pumpkin. It's not outstanding, but really addicting. Funny how they call it a fruit spread, when many people categorize it as a vegetable. Technically, it is a fruit. I guess it's like how tomatoes are. It's not as sweet as many fruit spreads, which is nice to have sometimes. 

Managed to finally get my flu shot on Friday. Flu shots are even more important for me since I have at least colitis. Might have another autoimmune disease. One of my meds works in a similar way as an immunosuppressant. That means it suppresses my immune system so much my digestive system isn't bombarded by it. However, it also makes it super easy to get sick. And, when immunosuppressed patients get sick, it takes us longer to get over it. We're at risk of dying from the flu, because of this. We can't have the live version. That's the only one I've been told not to have for vaccines in general. If people I come in contact with also have the flu shot, it's an added protection. If I do end up with the flu, it won't be as dire as if I hadn't gotten the shot. When people in IBD groups say things like I'll never get the shot and list some bogus reasons (Big Pharma, it'll cause something like autism, hasn't been studied enough...), it can be harmful. Some people are banned from those groups on fb because of that. They take it extremely seriously. They also boot out people who are trying to sell something or promote some sort of health advice. I've seen many people try to sell miracle cures, say we need to find G-d, giving out misleading info, just need to think positively, etc. It's crazy. Actually a problem in many chronic illness groups. I hate actually getting the shot, though. It's quick, at least.

I got a blood draw since I was at the clinic already. I wasn't sure if my rheumatologist had ordered those 4 tests yet, since he didn't reply to my last message. Turns out he did, but put it in incorrectly. It took about 10 minutes over the phone for the lab tech to get it right. Meanwhile, I anxiously waited in the lab, not knowing if they could do it. It seemed like a lot of blood this time. I didn't get my usual reaction. It's usually an involuntary response where whenever I see/think about my blood or other medical stuff, I can pass out, or throw up, or both. Most of the time it doesn't get that bad. However, I tend to get really sweaty, my heart races, get really dizzy, nauseous, etc. It might go away once I put my head down and sip some water for a while. One of the worst times that it got to the point of passing out was while I was at WSU. I told the nurse about that feeling coming on just before the blood draw. She didn't know what to do and threw me in the bathroom. As I passed out, I hit everything around me on the way down. (Toilet lid, railing, sink, etc.) So, I woke up cut up, bruised, and out of it. Still got the blood draw done. She should have suggested a lying down position. The interesting thing about this 'response' is once it's happened, I don't get it again for a while. So, I could look at my blood all I want or other things, and nothing will happen. It gives me a calm and relaxed feeling after, too. It's so bizarre, though. I got one result back so far and it's negative. That's ok. If they're all negative/normal, then fine, I don't have scleroderma. If one or more is positive, then it needs to be looked into more. If not scleroderma, then I can move on to something else. I'll still get some form of an answer. I plan to wait until I know for sure what's going to happen with my insurance, and then I'll make an appointment to see a dermatologist. I know they'll have more things to look into. 

Saturday, I had an early brunch at Elmer's. I got their chicken-fried steak and eggs breakfast. Had it with turkey gravy instead of country gravy. (The country one has pork sausage in it, and I don't eat pork products.) Added another dimension of flavor. The eggs were scrambled and it also had hash browns and a biscuit. The biscuit came a little late. I thought our waitress had forgotten or something. Turns out they took a little longer to make and it was a fresh batch. It was a really satisfying brunch.

Went to Port Gamble after that. It was very windy outside, so I didn't have the patience to take pics of that. Most of the leaves had fallen there, so it wasn't as nice as I thought it would look anyways. Went to the General Store and the Of Sea and Shore museum upstairs. The store has a cafe, too. They pack a lot into one building. That museum has apparently one of the largest collections of shells in the world. They really cram them in there. It used to scare me as a kid, because of the huge crabs and lobsters. Sharks not as much. All of them weren't alive, of course. A lot of the crabs were found locally. Knowing such big things were lurking in the waters near me got me more. There are some things from around the world, too. I had forgotten how many crabs they had. Almost seemed like half as many as the shells. 

Got chicken parmesan from a local market for dinner Saturday. Had root beer and stuffing with it. I don't drink root beer that often, so it was a treat. My parent made stuffing to go with her dinner, and suggested I have some. The chicken parmesan seemed skimpier than usual, so I thought why not? Got a pumpkin spice scone from there for dessert. It was much better than the Starbucks' version. There wasn't a super thick layer of icing on top. Just a light drizzle. Seemed to have more of the spices, too. I think there was actual pumpkin in it. Nice. 

Mairimashita! (Welcome to Demon School) Iruma-kun has been interesting so far. I'm liking it more than I thought I would. It's about a human, Iruma, who's sold to a demon. The demon always wanted a grandson to dote on. He makes a contract with him to agree to be his grandson. If Iruma hadn't agreed to it, he would have been killed. His human parents were awful towards him and he never had the opportunity to go to school before. His new 'grandpa' forces him to go to a demon school. If the demons find out he's human, he could be eaten. So far, no one suspects he is, and he's made 2 close and powerful friends. He's also managed to make one of his teachers his familiar by accident. It seems like humans have powers in their world, too. Only, he can't fly like the others. The other students think he's simply working out his leg muscles in order to get stronger. I've noticed the demon language is based on Hebrew. They tend to add circles and tiny lines to some of the letters, but it's easy to tell. Even the ranking of classes has actual clear Hebrew letters. Yod being the highest rank, which is interesting...Alef is the first letter in the alphabet (known as the alef-bet in Hebrew), and that's the lowest rank. I can read some of the words that they flash briefly, but from what I can tell, a lot of it seems to be gibberish. It's only shown for a few seconds at a time, though. In order to read and understand the language, Iruma's grandpa puts a spell over him where he hears and reads Japanese instead. Except for that ranking system. He seems to see it the way they do. When he speaks, demons hear their language. So, it works out that way. Iruma reminds me of a mix of Deku from Boku no (My) Hero Academia and Tsuna from Hitman Reborn. 

The 4th season of Boku no Hero Academia has been good, too. Seems more intense than other seasons. Especially with the new villain, Overhaul. He appeared at the end of season 3. He seems more powerful than Shigaraki, who's the head of the League of Villains and the main antagonist of the series. Deku became an intern for Sir Nighteye, who was All Might's sidekick. (Getting an internship is another step to becoming a full-fledged pro hero.) He's also Mirio's mentor. Mirio looks a lot like Tintin from the Adventures of Tintin. He might be a parody of him. There's some sort of tension between Nighteye and All Might. So much so that All Might asked Mirio to introduce Deku to Nighteye. He couldn't bring himself to do it. In the most recent episode, it's revealed that Nighteye is investigating Overhaul. Deku comes face to face with him at the very end. 

Decided to drop Kabukichou Sherlock. Kabukichou is an entertainment and red-light district. They focus quite a bit on the red-light district part. It seemed to make fun of drag queens and gay people. I don't think it actually touched on trans people. The head of the detective agency is a drag queen who holds their meetings at a drag queen bar that they own. Some of the gay people they showed briefly have seemed 'real' and they didn't make fun of them, but with others it seemed like they were the punchline in some sort of joke. Mrs. Hudson, the head of the detective agency, also tends to grope one of the detectives whenever they see each other, which I'm not cool with. I do like the twists on Sherlock and Watson. Sherlock tends to perform rakugo, a form of storytelling while sitting on a stage with only a fan and cloth as props (usually comedic stories), when he solves a case. His personality totally changes as he does it. While at crime scenes, he really throws himself into it. Sniffing everywhere, lying where the victim is/was or their bed, getting down on all fours to inspect the floor, etc. More than the other detectives. The others try to beat him in solving it. Even going so far as to destroy evidence. The main case is on Jack the Ripper, but they solve side cases at the same time. Watson is a doctor, and ever since he found a transmitter in a body, it seems like someone's after him. Someone blew up the place he was staying at. He's had to stay at different hotels because of the fear that they'd be blown up, too. He only wanted the detectives to help with his case, but got roped into helping Sherlock instead. Now he lives with him along with Moriarty, who's a teenager. I think Moriarty is also a detective in this. However, in the books he was one of Sherlock's archenemies. Don't know what his connection is to Sherlock in this one. If it didn't have the more sexual or homophobic stuff, I think I would like it a lot. I can't get passed that, though.

Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit (the Japanese name is even longer...) has been a pleasant surprise. I didn't expect much from it. They live in a world that was once ruled by dragons. Once those dragons disappeared, many different types of fantasy-based beings started coexisting peacefully with humans. Like, vampires, homunculi, elves, orcs, etc. Nine is a terrorist organization that wants the powers of the dragons, create chaos, and to change the world. The police form a unit to combat Nine called Special 7. They have abilities that surpass the average human (many aren't human). The main character is Seiji who's a rookie and human. He doesn't seem entirely human to me, though. They make fun of him lightheartedly at first, then realize he has a lot of potential. The Nines seem to hardly be there, so they solve side cases in the meantime. Although, they might have been involved in the most recent case with a bomber. Especially because the bomber used magic. They never found who the bomber was, but they had to disarm 4 bombs in different buildings. They had to figure out how to do it with only one detective at each, with the same amount on the timers, had to be disarmed in a certain order, and none of them had experience with bombs. Luckily, the homunculus named Bellemer on their team, who's also a ninja, helped them from afar with watching and giving instructions from drones. She's dealt with bombs before. Most of the characters have been very likable and quirky. It reminds me a lot of Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront) and Hamatora. 

Yesterday, I went through more of Duolingo's Dutch course. Finished Politics 1, and got halfway through Gerund. The politics unit was interesting. Got more of a view into their government, royalty, and some laws. Made it to #13 of the Ruby League. Hopefully, when I do it later today, I can get higher in the ranking. 

Yesterday, I scanned the drawing of Junko and started cleaning her up in Photoshop. First time I've scanned something with my new printer. It's much better than the previous one. It doesn't thicken the lines and add blue marks. It's clearer. Doesn't add more gunk to erase in Photoshop. She looks pretty much like she does on paper, but with slightly lighter lines. I'll continue to clean her up in Photoshop next time. It might not take me as long as it did in the past. 

Got to editing Alliance yesterday, too. Even though there seemed to be interruptions every time I tried. Went through 5 pages of the ebook and 7 pages of the print. Not bad. 

11th of Av

Managed to mostly stay away from social media during Shabbos. Yay! Really felt like I recharged that way. Been cutting down the time I spend on social media today and yesterday, too. It's been nice. 

Did the candles, blessings over the grape juice (I can't have wine) and challah, and online services for both Friday night and Saturday morning. Wahoo! Same as last week. Hopefully, I can make this a habit. They actually had that Saturday morning's service, rather than the week before like last week's had. That was good. I like how they make it feel like you're actually there.

Some of the night and morning services touched on Tisha B'Av. That was a bit difficult to sit through. It started Saturday night and went until Sunday night, and is a mourning holiday. We remember atrocities that happened to us in the past. Things like the Crusades, pogroms, expulsion from Spain/France/England, the Holocaust, and more. One of the main focuses is on the destruction of the 1st and 2nd temple in Jerusalem. It's the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. People fast, study the Book of Lamentations, most Torah study is forbidden, sit on low chairs or the floor (like with shiva or the week of mourning someone), some sleep on the floor, some people refrain from greeting each other, and more. I didn't observe it, and I don't think I ever have. I usually just notice it. The rabbi that did the drash (or sermon) Friday night tied it in with the recent mass shootings. It seemed to fit too well that that stuff happened close to the holiday. It was a powerful and emotional one. 

For close to 5 hours on Sunday, I cleaned my bathroom. It really needed to be done. It was difficult with the pain of whatever's going on with me healthwise. I'm glad I was able to get so much done, though. I swept the floor, cleaned the toilet, did all of the shower area, sink, a cup and toothbrush holder, the counter, and dusted off the things on the counter as well as a little step stool. I didn't 'mop' the floor because the way I do it might have been too much for me on top of the other stuff. Unfortunately, Tasha decided to pee near the closed door and that leaked onto the floor. It was right after I swept. I was angry for a moment, but I don't know if she actually knows she's doing it. It was similar to when she peed on my closet door not long ago. She may have an issue with that. I was able to clean that up, too. It looks so nice in there now. 

I've been having an even harder time sleeping lately. Both of my arms hurt constantly. They never really let up. They get worse when I'm lying down. It's really hard to describe the pain, but it burns and feels tight, I guess. Anyways, I decided to go to bed at a more decent time last night. I got out of bed at around 6:50am or 7am, because I couldn't stand it. I don't really like getting up earlier than 8am. So, this was weird for me. Most nights I've been in bed for even less time lately. Maybe I could look at it as being able to get more things done or something? 

Got back to Duolingo's Dutch course. It had been a while. Still remembered most of it. Finished the Nature unit and started the Traffic one. 

Read the most recent chapter of Ao no (Blue) Exorcist. A lot of surprises this time. With one of them, I was glad that it didn't turn out the way I thought it would. I'm still wondering about Shiemi's role, and when will Rin come back to their present time? 

Tried drawing more of Junko. No matter how many times I tried, her cat ears weren't coming out right. I'll try again next time. Started thinking more about her hairstyle, too. 

Edited more of Alliance. I'm surprised at the mistakes I'm finding, despite going over the beginning not that long ago. I think once I catch up to the part I know is better, I'll move on to the sequel. I don't think that one will have nearly as many mistakes. 

Watched Boku no (My) Hero Academia The Movie: Futari no Hero (Two Heroes). It supposedly was also in the manga (I haven't read it), and the anime briefly hinted at it. It seems to have taken place before the last season of the anime. It was nice to see something related to the show again. The next season starts in October. Yay, soon! This one was about All Might and his old friend Dave. They met when he was a Japanese exchange student in California. In a way, it was also about them handing the torch down to their successors, Melissa (Dave's daughter who also wants to help heroes as a scientist in the future) and Deku. The action scenes were great and fast-paced. 

National Peanut Butter Lovers Day!

I love peanut butter, but a little goes a long way. My fave is crunchy with extra pieces. Feels like I'm actually having something substantial. However, that's a type of trigger food for me now. Fortunately, I can have the creamy version, but it's not the same...Peanut butter's very versatile. Good in many different sandwich combos (not just with jelly), makes an awesome sauce (The Thai/Vietnamese ones are addicting!), used in many desserts, in stews, and so much more. 

This is my wallpaper for March. It's some of Midoriya's (aka Deku's) class at UA in Boku no (My) Hero Academia. Deku is on the front left corner. Thought it would be a fun one. I think it's a play off of one of the ending sequences. 

The month-long holidays for March are: National Celery Month, National Frozen Food Month, National Noodle Month, Irish-American Heritage Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. 

For my Jewish calendar, the main pic's of a bronze statue of people standing on a ledge and what looks like a wall on the side. It's titled Exodus. It was made in 1950. It's a little strange looking. The smaller pic's of a embroidered velvet Torah mantle from 1966. They don't feature such recent stuff that often. 

For my elements calendar, it's Mercury this time. I've always found mercury interesting. They mention how dense it is and that people can float on it. They also mention how people were so into it before they realized it was toxic and could drive people crazy. They show mercury batteries, a pool of it for the main pic, an old ceramic flask for holding dental mercury, and tuna sushi mentioning how mercury can accumulate in large fatty fish like tuna. 

For Korean, I've made it to level 3 of Basics 2 in Duolingo. Going faster than I thought I would. I might end up finishing before the 3-month mark I shoot for for languages. Maybe I'll go back to it in the future to study it longer. I've thought about writing out the sentences, and possibly saying them into speech-to-text to see if I'm saying them right. Also, to get sentences down. That might prolong it a little. Would be interesting to write the language out, too.

Edited more of the full-body drawing of Shadow. The lines looked too thick, so I started thinning them down with his hair. Had to zoom in closely. Might take me longer, if I do this for the rest of it, but I think it looks better already. 

Edited more of Alliance. Made it to chapter 15 today. There are 20. This was much faster than I expected. Also, counted how many pages I've gone through this week. I don't usually. Went through 12 pages for the ebook and 18 pages for the print version. I've been lagging behind lately on it, but this week it seems like I got through a lot. Yay! Hopefully, next week it'll be the same or more. 

My Roommate is a Cat has been great so far. They really captured how cats actually behave. Showing what life was like for Haru as a stray was surprisingly dark for a rather light-hearted series. One of her siblings died, 2 were taken in by a large family because they were curious, the cats that looked after her and her siblings were most likely killed by crows (they implied it), and she lost track of her remaining sibling. It was cool that he ended up being adopted by the girl from the pet store, Nana, that befriended Subaru. She lives in the same neighborhood. Haru was able to meet her brother when she became stuck to Nana's key chain after she had left Subaru's. She was giving him advice on how to properly feed Haru. (She was getting a little pudgy.) Subaru couldn't get the key chain off himself, and just ran after her with Haru in his arms. She asked them over so she could help Haru. Haru and her brother will get to see each other in the future. The most recent episode reminded me of one of my close friends in junior high through high school. Hiroto is essentially a male version of her, and he's a close friend of Subaru's. His behavior, personality, the way he interacts with both Subaru and Haru, usually bringing his mother's food to Subaru's (often my friend's mom would give her food and occasionally other things to give to me), etc. sounded so much like her. It was uncanny. She was like a whirlwind, but a good person too. 

Youtube:

Mix:

Bleach:


Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler):

One Piece:

4th of Tevet

Hanukkah started the night of the 2nd and ended on the 10th. I used one of the biggest menorahs that we had. We have quite a collection. This one was free, since my mom worked at a Judaica shop, parts of it are bent, and it leans to one side. They couldn't sell it like that. It's hard to light towards the end, because some of the cups bend inwards toward the shamesh. The shamesh candle/cup rests above the others. You're supposed to light the others with that candle. Made it difficult to put it back in its cup. It only uses Shabbos candles, which are thicker and bigger than the Hanukkah ones. It makes quite a statement. I think people can see this one the best from outside, and we're supposed to be public about it. 

Found frozen latkes from Trader Joe's and had them on the 1st night. They also had huge bags of gelt. Gelt are chocolate coins. A long time ago it used to be real coins that students would give to teachers as a way to honor them. Anyways, their bags were much bigger than our local market's. World Market had even bigger ones with more of a variety. Had sufganiyot (jelly donuts) on the 1st and 6th (I think) night. So, I did get to enjoy some good Hanukkah food.

This is my wallpaper for December. It's Bakugo from Boku no (My) Hero Academia. Thought it was perfect for this time of year. I like the warm glow. Since I have my taskbar and start menu set to picking colors from the background, it changed to warm crimson with slightly different shades of warm orange highlights. Makes it pretty when put together. I found a lot of new wallpapers, including this one, yesterday. I wanted more of a variety (based on more shows), and most of the ones from before are in black and white. I wanted more color. 

There's only one interesting month-long holiday for December: National Pear Month. I love pears! However, now I can only have them peeled, chopped up, and cooked. They're too tough on my system otherwise. 

It's been a while since my last post. Hopefully, I can get back to posting more regularly. It's great that I've already posted more this year than the past few years on here. I've been sick off and on, which is partially why it's been a while. (I don't feel motivated to do much when I'm sick.)

I finally made an appointment to see my primary next Monday. I don't think I'm going to come out to her as agender, because it'll most likely be the last time I see her, and don't really want to deal with her much. I have to see her in order to get refills for lamotrigine. She tells me that she can't refill it unless I see her once a year about it. My previous doctors said differently, but maybe the system has changed. She might think my parent influenced me or the meds affected me, if I come out to her. I've also been in a lot of pain and more symptoms (related to colitis) have popped up. Last time I talked to her, she seemed utterly fed up and frustrated with my case. I'm sorry I have so much to deal with...She'll most likely run blood tests to see how lamotrigine is affecting my liver (I think, either that or kidneys) and a general panel. I can see how things are in general without mentioning any of the health issues I've been having that way. 

I'm thinking of calling the Gender Health Program number soon. I wanted to have my primary appointment first. I might email my parent's previous case worker on it, too. Just to ask her questions about it before I take the plunge. 

When I do finally start it, I'm going to first want to see a new primary. One that's been trained with gender issues. They can set me up with one. I also want that new primary to refer me to gastroenterology again to get a new GI. One with an MD. My current one actually told me that she's not equipped to deal with my case. Her hands are tied. (She's a PA.) I've only had one GI with an MD. That's not much. I also want to see a gender therapist. Apparently, my insurance's program will cover pretty much everything. I was surprised that they'd cover electrolysis. It's expensive otherwise. It's a big possibility for me now. 

Since I've had issues with awful life-threatening monthly 'friends' in the past (it's more complicated than that), and other issues, I most likely am sterile. I've been iffy about having my own kid for a while. Occasionally, it's been tempting, but at other times I'm completely turned off from it. Pregnancy and childbirth are incredibly gendered, so the process would most likely cause a lot of dysphoria. If I'm not sterile, it could kill me. If I do want kids in the future, I could adopt. Anyways, I'm thinking of getting a hysterectomy and oophorectomy. Not only because of the issues they give me, but it'll help with my dysphoria. I don't care if I'd have to take hormones for the rest of my life to make up for what's lost. People might try to talk me out of it because of how 'young' I am. I've always looked much younger than I am. I think I brought this sort of thing up after having an 8-month long 'friend' roughly a decade ago. My doctor was against it, and thought I'd change my mind eventually. Might be why I ended up becoming hesitant about it. I don't know. With those things out, I won't have to have another IUD implanted. Another positive. That program covers top surgery, too. So, yay! Another thing. After all this, I'd probably look very different. Probably happier, too. 

A couple of days ago, I decided to change my sleeping 'schedule' a little. Before, I had a set time to get up during the week. Now, I've decided that whenever I start to get ready for bed, I set my alarm for 9 hours later. 1/2 hour for getting ready, and 8 1/2 for being in bed. However, I tend to toss and turn at least for another 1/2 hour. It's more like I'm shooting for 8 hours of sleep. I haven't had a full night's sleep for a couple of years now. It's really difficult with the pain, and oddly being so fatigued. The eye mask and earplugs help a lot, though. Hopefully, no matter when I go to sleep, having the same set amount of time will help. This also means getting up at different times, but I think this would be more natural. It might be easier on my body. I'll probably do this during the weekends, too. 

Lately, despite feeling happy and excited to try so many different foods, I've occasionally felt tired of eating. Like the act itself. I've felt like this in the past, and have a hard time feeling any hunger during it. It's related to my colitis. Makes it a little difficult. I absolutely love food, so it can be frustrating, too. I tend to not pay attention to time between meals when I'm like this. I need to have 5 small meals daily. The daily range I set for myself is 1200-1600 calories, except on the weekends where I allow myself to eat however much I want. (Usually more calories.) If I forget times, I might skip meals. Sometimes I don't try to make up for a skipped meal, which means I go below my min amount of calories for a day. So a couple of days ago, I decided to set a timer after I start a meal for 3 hours. This way things are more set, I know when to start making/eating a meal, and I make sure to have it. The difficult part sometimes is getting myself to eat it. Smells great and might look amazing, but I still might have a hard time. This will help, though.

Found a lot of stuff at World Market recently. They have a pancake mix line with a variety of flavors. I've thought about trying them in the past. They're normally inexpensive, but this time they were about 50% off. Got the banana caramel one. It's amazing! I thought it'd call for milk and/or eggs, but it just had you add water and melted butter or vegetable oil. (I've been using the oil for them.) One serving is rather satisfying and easy to figure out the measurements for the water and oil. The directions apparently have you make 3 servings. The texture is nice, too. It's crispy. It has the same amount of sugar as my cereal, which isn't much. Despite having little caramel chips and banana mixed throughout. They don't even need syrup. They have a ton of calcium and some protein. Seem pretty healthy. I'm going to make them about half the time for my breakfasts until I finish the canister. I want to try the other flavors, too. 

Finished watching the Sniffer on Netflix. It was surprisingly good. Hope there's a 4th season. I liked that at the end of the finale Victor hugged the Sniffer tightly. (Not really a spoiler.) The Sniffer usually doesn't like hugs, and even handshakes can be odd for him. He hugged back. I think they both needed that emotionally (they went through hell that episode), and it was a friendly gesture. I almost feel like they could be in a qpr, since they're such close friends. The main theme song had a cool vibe. Went back to Persona, which is a Malaysian detective show. It's in Mandarin, but there's quite a bit of English sprinkled throughout.

Youtube (It's been a while, so I'm sharing a little more this time):

Boku no (My) Hero Academia:


Gintama:


Rurouni Kenshin:

Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront):

Mix:


Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler):

Zombieland Saga:

One Piece:

National White Chocolate Day!

This holiday was on Saturday. White chocolate seems to be its own thing to me. Not really chocolate. It's good in a lot of things, and adds an interesting flavor. 

Today's the second day of Sukkot, which lasts for 8 days. It's a harvest festival. We didn't put up a sukkah this year, and haven't in many years. I didn't want to. It's not nice enough out there to enjoy it. I do have good memories of sitting in the one we used to put up on the backyard patio, and inviting people over for dinners out there. Most of the guests weren't Jewish. Mainly neighbors. 

It's been a while since my last post...Hopefully, I can finally get back to posting on a regular basis. I was going to post yesterday, but my desktop suddenly shut itself off. It's always a little weird after being off for so long. Usually works its kinks out on its own. Just in case, I ran a disk scan (I think it's actually 'check disk'), and let it repair itself if it found any errors. However, it shut off all 3 times that I tried before it was finished. At least, it got through more of it each time. I ran a cleaning scan through CCLeaner, and fixed errors in the registry with it. Usually this helps with most problems it has. I might run other scans and defrag later. We'll see how this goes for now.

Recently got 4 new cool weather shirts. Most of my other shirts have holes, are frayed, or are worn out. Still haven't gone through them to at least get rid of 4, since these replace them. I think there's only one that's fine, and it's one of my oldest shirts. I got it in high school. It's warm, fuzzy, and long. Comfy. Also, it's gotten really big on me. Odd. I found out that I'm now on the cusp of medium and large in the regular 'women's' or misses section. That's quite a bit smaller than I used to be. 3 of the ones I found were L's, since I thought it'd be nicer to be a bit roomier than slightly tight. The last one is an XL, since it seemed to run a little smaller, but I also wanted it even roomier than the others. All 4 came from the same section, and there were a lot of options there. I thought 4 was plenty. All of them were 50% off, too. Perfect time to get new ones.

Recently, I posted something in an IBD group. Someone responded with referring to me as a chick. I said I'm not a chick. He said it wasn't derogatory. First, even if I was a woman, many women are offended when people call them that. Especially if a man said it. It might (and I stress on the might) be acceptable to use it with someone who's in their teens or early 20's. I'm quite a bit older, and he thought I was roughly the same age as him. He's 35, so it's not like he thought I was that age. Plus, to say it's not derogatory and no one should be offended by it...comes off as being entitled and childish. I tried to be as polite as possible with him, and said I'm not a woman or a man. I'm agender, and I know I'd get some hate for that. I was trying to go about it without saying I was. Anyways, he went on a long tirade about how biologically speaking there are only men and women, nothing else. Saying it was basic science. He also suggested therapy to help with my gender 'confusion'. Way to be with promoting conversion therapy. Wahoo! He said he just wanted to empathize and help me, but all I did was attack him. I'm sorry my existence seems like an attack on you. The cherry on top of this last comment was the "I hope you have a great day, ma'am!" part at the end. Making such a point to misgender me... He said not to respond to his comment. At that point, I decided to block him. I later saw an admin of that group post a somewhat cryptic message: "I got rid of him." I'm assuming they're referring to this guy. This was the first time online that I've actually corrected people. I think I'm going to do this in the future. It's easy online. They could throw a bunch of insults or apologize nicely. With the ones hurling insults, I could easily just block them. If this were in person, I wouldn't have bothered correcting him. I'm more nervous for my safety offline. 

I'm starting to get used to my new iPhone. The recent update has been better. I used to play escape games on my desktop, and recently thought about and how I miss them. They're usually full of interesting puzzles. So, I decided to find some in the app store. There was one that was AR based. It seemed 'real' this way. However, the game kept crashing, sucked battery life, and it didn't look that great. Trying some of Haiku's escape games has been a lot better. The first one was a murder mystery set at a manor. I like when they throw in a mystery/detective angle into it. The horror ones are interesting, too. That one was actually very short, and I figured it out in about a couple of hours altogether. The 2nd one that I'm on has been a lot longer with more rooms. The puzzles seem more intricate. You're a shapeshifter and a hunter of supernaturals has captured you. You have to figure out a way out of his mansion. If you touch an animal, you can transform into that form. So far it's only been a raven and cat. There was a hellhound, but they wouldn't let me touch them. With the cat, you can see remnants of ghosts and their items. There has only been one ghost so far, and I figured out how he died already. Maybe there will be another? Very interesting series of games.

Started doing push-ups yesterday in addition to my sit-ups. So, now I'm doing 20 sit-ups twice a day, and 5 push-ups twice a day. I'll add 5 every time each week. I haven't done push-ups in a very long time. Should be interesting to see if I can keep that up, too. Rosie really didn't like me doing them yesterday. She bit my feet hard at some point. I kicked her out of reflex, and she looked terrified. I didn't want to do that, and certainly didn't want to scare her. 

Been keeping up with studying Russian. Some of it's really coming back to me. I think what made me think of it as a puzzle was more because the sentence structure changes often. Also for someone to have something, you have to enclose the word for that person (ex: you, I, we, etc.) with 2 words, then put the thing they have at the end. Some words change depending on the tense. Like, the word for cat changes depending on if the sentence is negative, interrogative, past, etc. The plural version changes, too. Not to mention that some words are written/pronounced differently depending on the speaker's gender. It's a crazy but interesting language. So far I haven't encountered any speaking exercises for this one. I'm curious to see how my pronunciation of it is now. Maybe eventually they'll have it. 

Read more of Code Breaker yesterday. I'm not really liking this one. I'll probably drop it, and pick a new one next time. 

Managed to get to some more editing of Alliance yesterday. It's interesting reading the beginning of it all again. There are more mistakes than I thought. Hopefully, it won't take me long to get through it.

Finished drawing and inked the Dark Healer's head. Also, figured out a bigger more detailed version of his facial tattoos. They look cool to me. I might ink those larger versions next time. Might post that, his head, and his assassin to dA then, too.

Practiced my clarinet for an hour yesterday. Mostly played Irish tunes, and got to one Klezmer tune. I'm trying to break some of my bad habits with the Irish ones. For some reason, I have quite a bit only with those. Maybe because I haven't been playing them as often? 

Finished Satsuriku no Tenshi or Angels of Slaughter recently. It technically isn't the end, but they're making the last 4 episodes a special next month. It's at an odd point to do that. I've really liked this show so far. It is based on a horror escape game. Everyone in it is really twisted. The most twisted one might be Rachel. I'm still thinking that maybe she's imagining all of it. We still don't know much about her, besides her witnessing her parents' murder and it's implied that she sewed them together with thread afterwards. There must be something more, because after Zack found out the whole truth, he seemed unusually shocked. The viewers didn't get to see or hear everything that he did at the end.

Finished Kujira (Whale- I'm shortening the name, since it's long) last night. I started it about a year ago, then dropped it because there seemed to be better anime at the time. This one was very slow at the beginning. The concept seemed pretty original and the animation was interesting. The only reason I went back to it was 1. I had finished an anime from this season, and 2. I was very curious about how it was going to end. It didn't seem to have an ending. The plot was vague at times, too. It was just ok. I probably would not watch another season if it came out. 

Boku no (My) Hero Academia's 3rd season will end this week, I think. It doesn't feel like it's ending. They're about to introduce and fight against 3 powerful upperclassmen at their school. Doesn't sound like the way to end it. Plus, new villains have appeared, and they haven't really been introduced yet. I'm sure there will be another season, but there's been no word on when that will be. 

I think people who are into American superhero comics would get a kick out of this show. The creator even mentioned that he loves those and was influenced by them. Heck, All Might's (who at the beginning was the #1 hero) uniform looks kind of like Captain America's and all his attack names are based on states. Like, Delaware Smash. It reminds me most of X-Men. Only think 80% of the world are 'mutants' (have quirks in their world), and 20% supposedly have no powers and are 'average'. With that, people hold those with quirks in higher regard than those that don't have them. In X-Men, it seems the opposite. A lot of the quirks seem to be well thought out. Bakugo's quirk is essentially that he has explosive sweat. He sweats nitroglycerin and can detonate at will. The more he sweats, the bigger the explosion. He's one of the most powerful characters. It's interesting that quirks can depend on what type of quirks their parents have. Bakugo's mother can secrete glycerin from her skin. His father's palms can secrete oxidizing sweat. The main character, Deku (who Bakugo used to bully and is now a rival), was told as a little kid that he didn't have a quirk and was devastated. He later gained a quirk from All Might as his successor, called One For All. It gives him superhuman strength, speed, agility, and power. It seems to me like he has some sort of wind power. He used to injure himself every time he used it. Also, unlike All Might, green lightning comes off of him when he uses it. He's very intelligent and can strategize better than even some of the pro heroes. I think he actually did have a quirk beforehand. (That intelligence might be part of it.) From what we know, both his parents have quirks. His mother can attract small objects around her, like a weak form of telekinesis. (Not all the women in this have weak quirks...Not all the men have strong ones, either.) We know very little of his dad, but he apparently can breathe fire. That'd be an interesting combo. Maybe it's just been dormant, or the doctor he saw as a kid lied to him. The villains are interesting, too.

Youtube:

Boku no Hero Academia:
This one seems like a perfect tribute to Deku aka Midoriya:

Tribute to one of the main villains (Dabi from the vid above is also a villain that works for him), Shigaraki:

Tribute to Bakugo:

Mixed AMVs (I haven't seen Attack on Titan, and only a little of Hunter x Hunter. These are well done, though):


Satsuriku no Tenshi: