なみのり ピカチュウ (o^ : ^o)

Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment on the last post. I feel so fortunate to have friends like you guys. ♥

We put Tia down this morning. Dr. Schuff said that it was either neurological damage or cancer, and that we could have put her through a battery of tests but the chances were slim that she would ever be able to walk again regardless, and the tests would probably just tell us that the problems were too severe. She whined and whined all night (which broke my heart) and by the morning she could hardly even lift her head. I sat with her head in my lap in the car on the way there, and I stayed with her as she fell asleep before they put her down. I left the room when they gave her the final injection--because I had some memories from putting Lily down that haunted me, and I didn't want to go through that again--but I was with her until the moment that she fell asleep for the last time, petting her and telling her over and over again that she was a good girl. Mom stayed with her through all of it. The whole process was very peaceful.

Honestly... I'm in denial about it, I think. I just can't understand that she's gone except in fleeting moments where I understand it in little bits and pieces. It's going to be a while until I accept it all the way, and it's going to be extremely tough. It was just so sudden, and unexpected. I miss her so much already, and the parts of the house she frequented seem so empty and lonely. I've already cried myself into near sickness and I know the tears aren't anywhere close to being over.

But, ultimately, I feel good about her life. She had behavior problems, so it would have been so easy for her to have been put down long ago, without the happiness of having a family who loved her around her, and without having lived out her life. It was obvious that all she wanted in her life was to be with someone who wouldn't leave her. Her first family dumped her when she was five, and if we hadn't saved her I have few doubts that she would have been put down at the shelter due to her problems with other dogs. Instead she had five and a half years of sleeping on our beds with us, playing with Lily and Hana, and going on walks, and so I will never regret how she lived, nor how she died--she went peacefully, in her sleep, surrounded by those she loved, and she didn't have to suffer for very long.

The thought of never getting to see her again, though, never getting to pet her, snuggle with her, play with her, take her for walks... It's so, so hard. I feel like she'll still look in my bedroom door any minute, asking with her eyes to be let in, and wagging her tail when I tell her she's a good girl.

I'll probably be doing a more detailed post on her sometime in the next day or two.

( Okay, I just have to whine about my life right now. I just have to. No one should feel obligated to read this, as I really am just whining. )

To counterbalance the angst a bit, I'm rather enjoying driving because it means I can blast music all the time, and theoretically I could go out and do things if I didn't feel guilty doing so because of how awful I'm doing in Chemistry. I don't like having to get gas because it seems like something that occurs far to often, but other than that, driving is good. :) I am super excited about the idea of putting bumper stickers on my car. OHHH YEAH.

I am almost certainly applying for a job at Brunswick Vet in the next few days! Every time I'm there with one of my pets they tell me I should bring in a resume, so I figure it's about time I do so. I think having a job would do me a world of good, with time management skills, money, and getting to do something I enjoy. It would just be a few hours a week probably, but still.

My birthday is coming up in just over two weeks! After that, I plan on starting my Umbreon mascot costume and that is going to be FUN. *____* I'm really excited about it.

Also, I've been drawing a little lately and that makes me happy. Must finish digital Furret drawing for poke_arts and scan other drawings!

I was up until 5 AM yesterday, then slept until 3 PM, and now it's 3 AM and I am arbitrarily up reading about being an INFP and pondering various things in my life. Which is fine and all, but it would be nice if I could do it at a more reasonable hour.

This has been one of those weekends where I vow to do a whole bunch of fun and awesome things that I always dream about doing when I'm too busy to do them, and in the end I did some of them but ultimately feel I wasted a lot of the weekend. I'm getting so frustrated and fed up with my procrastination, lack of energy, and the fact that I sleep on such a strange schedule. It's getting old. I need to get out and spend time with people, get a job, actually do my homework and work harder at doing well in Chemistry. I say this now, but then I just repeat the cycle of just hanging around doing nothing, and Chemistry is so frustrating to me that when it comes down to actually doing the work I put it off at all costs. :< When did my self-discipline get so bad? I can't bring myself to do homework, can't bring myself to wake up at a reasonable time... It's so annoying.

I think now that I'm driving, though, once this crazy weather is over things will get a bit better. It gives me more control over my life, and I think ultimately that's what I need more than anything.

( On another note, have a fun little Pokémon meme! )

Aaand now that it is nearly 4:30 AM again, I do suppose it's time to sleep. Which I should have done about four hours ago.

Oh, and I'm slowly working through responding to your comments on the last entry. Thanks to everyone who participated--it's fun seeing what you had to say/show! If you haven't done it yet, go do so! It's just to be creative and learn more about each other and I would love it if you all go answer at least one question. :D

Ahhh, I've been so bad at LJing and commenting the last couple of days. e__e Need to write entries and comment! I have so many tabs open of things to read! I just feel like I have so much going on, even though most of the "things I have going on" are trivial things like maybe forty-five minutes worth of packaging, driving to dad's house by myself to get my DS charger, going to Sword of the Stranger screening with Makayla, thinking about doing a painting and other crafty things, and so on.

Thank you all for the sweet replies for my last entry! ♥ I did some driving by myself today, and I daresay it's easier to drive by myself than it is with parents. The only thing is that interacting with the other drivers/cars makes me a bit nervous, but other than that, smooth sailing so far.

However, today my internet time has been stolen away by Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time. I got it...er, technically yesterday because it's currently 3 AM, and I've been playing it almost nonstop ever since about 7 PM. It took me a while to get the starter I wanted--the question sets it was generated kept being all wrong! I was so bad at the battles at first, but now I've improved quite a bit. I'm not terribly far, but my team is called Team Wildflower, and I'm a Chikorita named Hanabi with a male Pikachu partner named Azami. We also added a female Wooper named Para-Para recently, and she was given such a silly name in part because I'm not sure if she'll be sticking around. We'll see--she's actually been fairly handy so far when she's not using Mud Sport constantly. And it is nice to have a Water/Ground type!

I'm beginning to think I need to cut my f-list down again. :( I don't like to, but I'm finding that the volume of posts on my friends list is a bit overwhelming and sometimes takes away a little from life/school/artistic time because I insist on reading extremely close to every post on my f-list. I like to get to know everyone on my friends list well and make sure I respond to important posts when I can. I don't know if I'll actually do a cut soon or what, but just FYI, if you don't feel particularly attached to me or what I generally post about I won't be offended or hurt at all if you just let me know via PM or comment and we can mutually remove. It'll be on friendly terms, no hostility or drama or any of that. If I've met you IRL or we've been friendly for a while/have a lot of similar interests then this obviously doesn't apply, but I'm just putting that out there for anyone who added me and just never felt it clicked or whatever.

I'm sleepy now, so I'll have to do more LJ-ing tomorrow, as well as work on art and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.

Ughhhh I have so much Chemistry to do it's not even funny. I'm so unprepared for the test on Wednesday and my work ethic is down the toilet. :(

I went to the Songbird Team meeting today, which was wonderful and happy, and then went down to Roseville as a bad spur of the moment decision and got home at 10 PM. Of course, I somehow just remembered that 5 Centimeters Per Second is out of print and I saw one at Best Buy about a week ago, but then I forgot that it's Sunday so Best Buy closed before I could get there, making the whole five hour total trip moot (and this was all time that I should have been using to study).

Now I'm trying to talk myself into doing Chemistry work. I feel really unmotivated to do the work partly because I don't really understand what I'm doing all that well, and I don't understand it well enough because I didn't do the work. So basically I'm propagating my own CYCLE OF FAIL for absolutely no reason. WTF SELF, STOP THIS. *Flails unhappily* ;___; At least I still have a few days left to get working and learn the material to a point where I understand it and can do well on the test. To be honest, I almost always do this sort of awful, stressful cramming schedule anyway so I shouldn't be so shocked, but for some reason I always think I'm out of this problem and then it sneaks up on me.

I really just need to get my butt in gear. SERIOUSLY.

Also, Sword of the Stranger is playing in theaters on Thursday evening in Roseville, so I want to try to make it to that. And my driver's test is Thursday afternoon. I think I might try to plan a Dennou Coil marathon or something for this weekend or next weekend.

When I got home last night at almost 6 PM, I was a little tired, so I decided to take a nap for an hour at most. When I woke up, it was 12:30 AM, meaning I slept for nearly seven hours. I stayed up until 4 AM then was tired again, so I then I slept from 4:30 AM to 12:30 PM. And here I was going to go to a study group and get a bunch of things done last night... I don't know what triggered this insane amount of sleep--I felt like I was just a little tired. .___.

On the upside, I feel rather awake now!

( List of things to do, just for me basically. )

Poor Princess had to be shaved at a groomer's shop today because her fur got all matted (thanks to the fact that she has a screaming fit worthy of being in an exorcism movie when we try to brush her), so she looks kind of hilarious and downright tiny! She still has her fur on her head and tail, so she looks kind of like a strange, tiny, black and white lion. I'll post pictures of her when she's not still sedated.

* My hen Fawkes died yesterday. :( I can't say I'm devastated because I kind of expected it, and she lived a good long life... But it's always sad to see an old member of my flock go, and I had her from the day she hatched through her entire life so it'll be weird not having her in the coop any more. She was also one of only three larger-breed chickens that were still alive, so now only Dandelion and Constantinople the buff orpingtons are left as far as large-sized chickens go. Her mother Brindle died about a year or two ago at about the same age and with the same symptoms. I named her Fawkes after the phoenix in Harry Potter because I thought she was a phoenix (one of my favorite breeds of chicken--see icon) when she hatched. Then she grew up and turned out to be an easter egg chicken instead, so the name didn't seem as clever any more. :)

It's always weird when a chicken I've had for more than seven or eight years dies, because it almost feels like a little bit of my childhood dies with them... I mean, that's not true, but I grew up with them and my friends and I spent so much time with them when we were twelve, thirteen, fourteen, so there are so many memories associated with them. I don't know what I'll do when The Salula dies, or Yami, or Timber, or Ilikeayou... It feels like they've always been there, a constant part of me, and my life won't seem the same without them. I already lost The Other Other One several months ago, and I still have to consciously remind myself not to list her on my pet list any more. And even Brindle, who died at least a year ago, and to a smaller extent Lace, who died a week or two after Lily did, about two and a half years ago.

( Fawkes )

It's probably weird for some of you who are newer to my f-list how much I love my chickens, but to me all lives are equal and to me they are all wonderful individuals. And yes, chickens do have personalities, they are (or can be, anyway, though it's been bred out of some breeds) intelligent, and they do think and socialize and care about one another and have their own language and behave in surprisingly complex ways at times. People can try to refute me on this if they'd like, but I've spent countless hours in my chicken coop throughout the last nine years so good luck to anyone who would try to tell me what I've observed about chickens is wrong. ;)

* I forgot to write about it for some reason, but I went to the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Release Annual Meeting on Saturday. It was an awesome meeting, it really was. ♥ It reminded me yet again of why I rehab, even though it's stressful and devastating and time-consuming. My fellow rehabbers are some of the friendliest, most compassionate people I've ever met and they are so dedicated. Linda, from the songbird team (my team!), gave such an amazing speech on why we rehab and it nearly made me teary.

Last year our group rehabilitated over 900 animals. Pretty incredible, especially considering when I joined the group three years ago I think we did somewhere between 300-400 and our group was very small and not all that well organized. Now we're an awesome group with a lot of amazing rehabbers, programs, educational animals, and so on. Now we just need a real center and we'll be set!

We did some reviews of 2008 from each of the team leaders (songbirds, raptors, fawns, small mammals), discussed some general business/leadership/funding/classes and so on matters, watched a slideshow of animals from the previous year (including some of my babies ♥), and finished the meeting by watched a video of the rehabbing process and then release of a golden eagle from last year named Talksalot. There was hardly a dry eye in the place after that video. I was quite close to being teary as well for the second time in the meeting. (Wildlife rehabbing is a powerful emotional experience, what can I say!) I wish I could show it to you all.

Anyway, I'm so glad I went to that meeting. It was great. ♥ I watched some of the beginning of Earthlings again late last night (just the beginning, which is before it turns horribly gruesome and stomach-churning and painful) and cried my eyes out. Just...because. I feel like I have such a strong purpose, and such a strong love for animals and desire for them not to suffer. It is empowering and crippling at the same time. I...feel as though I can't fully expound on how I feel about it. Not only because it's such a deep feeling, but also because I think it's so intense and different and because it's so at odds with how most people live... It's hard sometimes. It really is.

* I watched Pokémon 11 this evening! It's a Pokémon movie so you can't expect Oscar quality out of it or anything, but I really enjoyed it. There was something about the animation and art direction that I appreciated a bunch though I can't put my thumb on why. I guess it just seemed more creative and well-done and high quality than I'm accustomed to Pokémon being, I don't know. I say this even though I know the Pokémon movies DO get prettier each movie, haha. It was somehow slightly even noticeable taking that into account! Also, there were so many adorable/fun/awesome/pretty moments in it that I just adored--the sorts of little, silly things that I always look forward to in Pokémon movies, and I think there were a lot more of them than usual. The movie was just so pretty and cute and it made me smile and laugh and make a *___* face! ♥

I don't know, I felt it had more character and personality than a lot of the movies and I just fell in love with it for some reason. I think the plot got a bit stale towards the end and I wasn't interested in the villain at all and some of the plot as a whole was just like "Oh, uhhh...whatever," but I had so much fun watching this movie. I think I'm going to watch it again soon because I enjoyed it so much! ♥ I think my overall favorite Pokémon movies are 3, 5, 8, and 11. But then I list that and I always want to include 2 and 1 for nostalgia and because I adore them, and I loved 4 quite a bit too, and 6 was sweet/adorable as well, and I liked 10 a lot... Really, the only ones I didn't care for all that much were 7 and 9, and even then I still got some degree of enjoyment out of them.

I'm such a Pokénerd, ahaha. I can't even give a coherent Pokémon review because it always degenerates into me just babbling about nothing and getting all excited over weird things. XD Oh well! I do love me some Pokémon. In case no one here has failed to notice. XDDD

...I overuse ♥ so badly. IT IS AN ADDICTION.

RL Friends-- Anyone want to come stay with me way out on McCourtney for five days in mid-August? I'm housesitting there and I would be ever-so-grateful to have a companion to watch anime with and converse with when I'm not doing chores. I'd be doing a lot of animal-related work (as the lady has dogs, big draft horses, fawns, and other animals), but we could hang out between and I wouldn't make you do any work at all, so you could just relax and read or watch things or whatever when I'm doing stuff. YOU GET TO HANG OUT WITH THE BABY FAWNS I'M TAKING CARE OF IF YOU COME. LOTS OF THEM. So, um, yeah, let me know if you want to come. It'll be like a vacation. :D [/RL friends message]

Today feels like a very Pokémon-centric day, though I'm not sure why. O_o; All I did was get all excited about my Pikachu DS (which will hopefully ship tomorrow) and do one trade on wifi. Er. Whatever, mind.

My dad is crazy. A couple days ago, he randomly was like "HEY KRISTIN DO YOU WANT A CEILING FAN IN YOUR ROOM?" I said something to the effect of, "Uh, sure. That would be kind of nice. I don't really care either way, though." So today, it turns out he randomly bought me a ceiling fan and he spent part of the day installing it. Ever since he did so, he has been coming into my room about every hour to stare at it, poke at the remote control, and interrogate me about whether I like it or not. ^^; Er, dad, it's very nice, it was very nice an hour ago, and it also happens to be the same ceiling fan we have in our living room and in your room. So I'm not quite sure what the obsession is here. XD

Also, slowly getting caught up in Darker than Black! I feel like such a bad fan for not being caught up, but it's kind of difficult to be caught up when your media players wouldn't work. ._.; OMG EPISODE TWELVE. SO GOOD. This is the sort of episode I've been waiting for! I must admit, I didn't completely and totally understand what happened because I was a little distracted, but what I did get was fascinating. I was hoping the show would turn out amazing like this. ♥ I hope it continues to be great like this because I love the concept of the Gate, and the fake sky and...yeah, I love it. Also, the Yoko Kanno music (as usual) rocks hardcore. Li is the best. I always call him Hei, but I'm more into the Li side of him, so I never know what to call him because I feel like Hei is his "real" name, but ASKDSFJ I don't know.

Also watched episode ten of Bokurano. I thought it was a weaker episode, but I love the series so I don't really mind.

I downloaded tons more anime today. I COULDN'T RESIST, even though I have about a million series I need to watch and the list keeps growing. I downloaded another episode of Denno Coil though I haven't started it yet, I downloaded the first two episodes of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Turn A Gundam is still downloading, and the first four episodes of a series called Ookiku Furikabutte (which is about baseball, but I've heard it's really amazing so far). I imagine my list will continue to grow and grow until it is the most epic list ever.

My dad is slightly disgruntled because I have a dirty Pikachu plush in the bathroom drying off. Unfortunately, all my cleaning attempts have been thwarted. :( This Pikachu plush has a story, though--in '98, we were driving along Allison Ranch Road (where we used to live) in the rain, and we saw this dirty, bedraggled Pikachu on top of a fence post. I couldn't just leave it there, so I asked Mom to pull over so we could "rescue" it. It took a lot of prying off and struggle, as it was nailed to the fence post, but we did manage to "rescue" it. XD It never will be clean, though, and to be fair, it's a pretty ugly plush. But still, I feel it was a noble effort!

Bah, I'm so tired and I'm busy failing at drawing, but...eh, might as well write anyway.

I was planning on going to Shannon's party today, but so many things came up that there was no way I could've gone. I feel really bad about it, especially because I completely forgot to call. *Facepalm* Shannon, if you read this, I'm sorry!

Anyway, it was my phone day for Wildlife Rehab and Release, and I was swamped with calls earlier in the day. I had to make a ton of phone calls in order to sort anything out. There were several calls about adult injured birds--one died on arrival at the vet, one had to be euthanized, and one, uh, wasn't an adult at all and was seriously, seriously injured on top of that. Last I talked to Jacqui about it, she was trying to decide whether to euthanize the little not-adult robin, as it had what sounded like severe internal bleeding. :( I was supposed to get a sixth jay later in the day, but the lady who was going to bring it to me called a few hours before she would have dropped it off to notify me that it died. So, rough day. Very stressful trying to place these birds, who mostly ended up dying anyway. There was one baby grosbeak who came in today, perfectly healthy, so Tracy took him. :) At least one bright patch there.

For some reason, Dad determinedly wanted my brother and I to go down towards to mailbox and demolish all the plant life there. This was...much, much harder than it sounds, despite there not being much in the way of plant life down there to begin with. After about an hour of chopping at the ground with picks and hoes, we conceded defeat. x_x;

Then we watched The Plague Dogs. Ahh, I adored it! I love dark, old-school, non-Disney animated movies, seriously. Especially animal-centric ones. The backgrounds were SO gorgeous, the story was great, and I just...loved it. It was nice and dark and gory and psychological. The last scene was really poignant to me for some reason. I keep replaying it in my head over and over and over. The movie was totally up my alley. I wish I could write more coherently about it at the moment (because I planned on going on and on about it for a while), but I'm exhausted.

I cleaned a lot of bird cages later, and now I'm drawing a Lucario gijinka and...not liking it. I want to draw something awesome right now, but I can't seem to muster anything even remotely good.

Oh well. I need to go to bed now. After staring angrily at the Lucario gijinka some more.

I've been sooo terrible about updating. I guess I'm just lazy and obsessed with the Pokémon games as usual and...um, busy, I guess. Sort of.

I saw almost all of the Mob yesterday night at the Thursday night market! (Note: The Mob is what my group of friends have nicknamed ourselves. There are about fifteen or so of us.) It was a lot of fun, although I didn't get to hang out with them for too long and it basically consisted of a bunch of scattered, amusing conversations. I feel like the group dynamics have changed because the individuals have changed, but...well, change is unavoidable, and I still adore them all. Being together with so many of them brought back lots of wonderful memories.

AX is so frickin' close and I'm really excited but I haven't even booked a hotel room yet! I'm so afraid I'm not going to be able to get a room at the Hyatt, and that's where I really need to stay because of cosplay. :( Anyway, I'll start working on that tomorrow. I really really really really hope it works out to get a room there somehow, because otherwise I don't know what I'm going to do.

Today we went down to Davis to visit my Grandma. I brought the four jays along, which was entertaining, picked yummy cherries in her backyard, and talked to her about random things.

I've been getting so lucky with the shiny Pokémon as far as trades go. :D

I'm sure I have a million other things to talk about, but to be honest I'm just not motivated these days as far as blogging goes. I am reading my F-list religiously, though, even if I don't always leave comments. Just know I always read. :)