This morning, Mom and I gobbled down some muffins and headed out to buy me some fish. It snowed like crazy all night, and was still coming down! Here is Mom standing in front of the car:
I'm proud of my mom for being willing to drive me to the pet store when the roads hadn't been fully plowed and everyone was moving slowly. Although, she said later she might not have done it if she'd realized how bad it was going to be. Still, we made it to Petsmart, and started looking for fish.
As we were checking out the tanks, we were startled to see some African dwarf frogs, like the little water frogs Jorja owned for about five years. We're only supposed to have fish in our apartments, but frogs that can only survive in water and only grow to be two or three inches long sound like they should fit the bill!
The worker who helped us wasn't a very happy camper, though. I guess she had to drive out here during winter break when it was snowing, but... You would think she would be glad that people had come to the store, rather than if she had come to work and no one had shown up. Maybe she was covering for someone who hadn't shown up. Or she was just a grumpy person.
Anyway, despite her underlying rudeness, I was able to get two little frogs and a "fancy guppy" with a silvery front half of its body and a black tail. Then we returned to my apartment and I said good-bye to Mom! Except she left her red suitcase in my living room, so I had to run it down to her. Then I said good-bye again and she was off.
From drab... to fab!
I scanned in over 70 pages of drawings... That took up most of my day. And at one point some workers came over to fix a broken handle on the cupboard under the sink. Apparently the screw had been worn down, so it was smooth like a nail- that's why twisting it had no effect. They replaced the screw and were out of there pretty quickly. Although they got a chuckle out of that bleeping fire alarm. Still waiting for someone to fix that.
I ate those poppy seed muffins all day as I scanned things and watched a few cartoon episodes. I had some things that had never been scanned that I wanted saved, like my sketch of the Protagonist For Hire main trio:
And mostly I had a bunch of older pieces that I had never scanned either because I didn't like them at the time and now wanted to save them for posterity, or the scanner was on the fritz or something and then they got lost after that. I have a twenty-page-long Smurfs comic that I drew back in late 2013, I think, about Vanity Smurf and Hundredth following the events of one of my favorite episodes of the "Smurfs" cartoon, "The Hundredth Smurf". Y'know, the one where Vanity's reflection comes to life?
Page 14- Hundredth impersonates Vanity to get him into trouble
after Vanity lashed out at him on a previous page.
Alt Text: "No, I'm pretty sure legs can bend like this."
The last several panels are a direct reference to Hundredth's episode, when he tripped down Vanity's stairs, broke their "reflective sync", and Vanity locked him out and told him to "Get lost".
Page 15.
Vanity is muttering to himself at the end that zapping Hundredth
back into being a reflection again and then shattering him forever
sounds "a little dark for a "Smurfs" comic".
I never added speech bubbles or dialogue because I'd always planned to do it last or digitally or something. Fortunately I found most of the dialogue in an old file of mine, and what I don't have I can use my context clues for. I'd like to finish it sometime over the next week out of pure nostalgia. Adding the dialogue, I mean- I'm not going to finish coloring the other pages or draw that crowd scene that apparently did me in the first time I tried to get through this comic, heh heh.
Unfortunately... by the end of the day, my fish had already died. I don't know what happened. I kept checking up on the tank every half hour or so. I followed the instructions on the bottles of chemicals I added to the water that were supposed to help fish not die. I floated the pet store bag in the tank water before I dumped the fish and frogs into the tank so they would adjust to the water temperature. The water pump/filter had been set up and was running. I fed it (and if anyone was looking at that picture, yes, I did accidentally drop too many flakes in there, but I fished them out again). I did my best.
Maybe it was the temperature of the water? I felt the water, and it was pretty warm (probably a result of the light overlooking it. But... this is a tropical fish. So you would think it'd have evolved to survive warm temperatures in the wild. Huh. I wonder if constant beeping noises every minute or so can cause fish to have heart attacks or something.
That dang fire alarm... no one ever came to fix it, which made me doubt if the lady Mom and I had spoken to yesterday had actually put in my request. It's possible that the workers are out doing other jobs, or have to go retrieve a ladder from somewhere, but since the beeping is rather annoying, I decided it wouldn't hurt to submit another request. This time from my own account so I would know it went through. We'll see.
The fish also could have been sick at the store. Or I messed up in some other way. Who knows. Petsmart has a 14-day satisfaction guarantee, but I'm not sure I'll be making it back out there when I don't have a car. Maybe Demetria and I can talk when she gets back- she might have some fish she'd like to add. She's owned bettas in the past and said she wanted some, so perhaps I can provide the tank and food and stuff and she can contribute some fish.
Anyway, that was my day! I watched some more shows and drew tonight (after eating some Aggie Blue Mint ice cream and finishing the rest of my chocolate milk, of course). Did three quick "Sing" sketches, because it's such a great movie. As much as I enjoyed it, one thing that put me off with "Moana" was the "chosen one" plot, and "the ocean" controlling everything, like forcing Moana and Maui to stay together. Just. Maui tries to leave and the ocean physically drags him back and plops him down. Okay, that works, but... it's a cop-out. It just is.
But "Sing", man! Absolutely character-driven, and with so many diverse characters. Financially-struggling problematic cheapskate control freak protagonist who never makes anyone do anything he’s not willing to do himself? Yeeesssss! And the plot was about him trying to do better for himself, not trying to get a significant other? Yes! Good movie. Very good movie. You should all go watch it.
Anyway, we'll see what future days hold for me! I anticipate scanning in fewer things in one go. Tomorrow should be another relaxing day to do some drawing and writing!
But "Sing", man! Absolutely character-driven, and with so many diverse characters. Financially-struggling problematic cheapskate control freak protagonist who never makes anyone do anything he’s not willing to do himself? Yeeesssss! And the plot was about him trying to do better for himself, not trying to get a significant other? Yes! Good movie. Very good movie. You should all go watch it.
Get you a forty-five-year-old koala who can do both
Anyway, we'll see what future days hold for me! I anticipate scanning in fewer things in one go. Tomorrow should be another relaxing day to do some drawing and writing!
