[Shello]

That neck pillow is totally adorbs!!  The cat dryer is pretty neat but can cats not just air dry?   I've seldom had to bathe my cats; I did have one stubborn one that didn't do a great job cleaning himself so he would get frequent showers.  But we just let him dry on his own after a bit of towel hugging.  

 

That's pretty cool about Ghostlet too.  I'm sure he enjoys having an outlet for an old hobby. 

[Scaly Freak]

On 3/30/2023 at 2:03 PM, Shello said:

The cat dryer is pretty neat but can cats not just air dry? 

 

They can, but cat fur that has been wet down to the skin doesn't insulate very well, and cats do not do well with being cold. They often attempt to dry themselves by licking off the water, which does not work very well, and the experience of being wet and uncomfortable and remaining wet stresses them out... and cats really do not do well with stress either. Lastly, a cat might attempt to dry itself by rubbing their fur against whatever absorbent surface they can find, like a couch or carpet, and this causes the fur to mat up, which isn't good for them either.

 

So the short answer to your question is, yes, they can, but it's not ideal for them.  

[WhiteGhost]

23 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

There's a particular size of baby shirt that fits cats well, and some people use them instead of cones. (I forget if it's 3-6 months or 6-9 months.) A long sleeve one might protect her infected bits, depending on exact location.

I had never thought of that, but thinking about it I am sure they have clothes specifically designed for cats here.  I have seen a lot of pictures around the interwebs.  Unfortunately for our case it wouldn't really help, because the infection needs to breathe so covering it up would be counter-productive

 

23 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

When our Happy Sidekick (a black labrador) had knee surgery, the vet clinic sent us home with a cone that was made of stiff fabric. It was very easy to fold the "back part" back over her shoulders, and let the front hang over her front legs, and it still effectively stopped her from reaching her stiches. Granted, those were on her back leg, not on a front leg, but the notion of something flexible that stops the pet from reaching where we don't want them to lick or pick , seems like its transferable with some creativity.

We bought a softer cone that was made of some kind of fabric like felt (maybe it was felt) that was softer than the plastic cone but still rigid enough to hold its shape.  Unfortunately it had many of the same problems as the plastic and, not being transparent, created a bunch of new problems

 

15 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

Cuties! I mean, cool news about Ghostlet too! 

 

Btw, how do you cut your cat's nails? We pay the vet to do ours because they put up so much of a fight. But I'd like to be able to, because Frodo keeps getting himself stuck by using his nails as grappling hooks

We usually have to do it as a team.  I will hold the cat and Ghostess will do the snipping.  Sometimes the cats will sit still enough to do it with the cat in our lap (sitting up like in a chair) but usually we need someone to hold them in place.  I don't know how single people do it.  I hear you about the necessity of it, though.  Wraith will often get herself stuck on drapes or blankets if we don't keep her nails trimmed

 

15 hours ago, shaar said:

 

Hahaha this is SO COOL!  Football team coach goooo~

 

 

That cat dryer also looks AMAZING!!  Poor Lich definitely looks like he's plotting his revenge tho...

He has the makings of a coach, but he says he would rather be an offensive coordinator because he hates defense  

 

Oh yeah, I'm  sure we will have Revenge of the Lich at some point  

 

8 hours ago, RES said:

I've heard this too...the neck pillow is cute though, is there a way to attach it more securely? 

Yes, this is the solution we ultimately went with.  We adjusted the neck a bit so that it fit more snugly (but no so snug that it was choking her) and now she isn't able to get it off

 

7 hours ago, Shello said:

That neck pillow is totally adorbs!!  The cat dryer is pretty neat but can cats not just air dry?   I've seldom had to bathe my cats; I did have one stubborn one that didn't do a great job cleaning himself so he would get frequent showers.  But we just let him dry on his own after a bit of towel hugging.  

 

That's pretty cool about Ghostlet too.  I'm sure he enjoys having an outlet for an old hobby. 

They can but it isn't really good for them.  Wet cats get cold and cold cats are more susceptible to illness

 

6 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

They can, but cat fur that has been wet down to the skin doesn't insulate very well, and cats do not do well with being cold. They often attempt to dry themselves by licking off the water, which does not work very well, and the experience of being wet and uncomfortable and remaining wet stresses them out,. and cats really do not do well with stress either. Lastly, a cat might attempt to dry itself by rubbing their fur against whatever absorbent surface they can fund, like a couch or carpet, and this causes the fur to mat up, which isn't good for them either.

 

So the short answer to your question is, yes, they can, but it's not ideal for them.  

Yeah, all this too^^^

 

--------------------------------------------

 

Yesterday I didn't leave the house all day and was planning to tell a story about Wraith getting her bath, but Ghostess didn't get home from work until almost midnight so that didn't happen.  Instead I will tell a different, more personal story

 

On Wednesday night, Ghostess caught Ghostlet in a fib (Said he brushed his teeth when he really didn't).  She asked me to have a chat with him about it so I spent a lot of the day thinking about how to approach it.  He obviously knows that one shouldn't tell lies and he is old enough that giving the normal spiel about  "Honesty is the Best Policy" would be patronizing.  Instead I took a different approach.  I first explained that we all know lying is bad but then went on to point out that we all lie in various circumstances and I don't think anyone is completely honest all the time.  We talked about the various types of lies we encounter in our lives, ranging from the malicious lies that are designed to hurt people or fraud, etc. to lies told to avoid something unpleasant or to get out of punishment (like in this case about brushing teeth), lies that are innocuous and told to avoid uncomfortable discussions (Saying you are fine when in fact you are depressed and/or anxious, or telling Ghostess I prefer the blue sweater over the grey one even when I really don't even care), lies of omission (letting Ghostess think the cat made a mess when it was just me who didn't clean up after myself) and even lies that are told for seemingly altruistic purposes (saying her pants don't make her look fat at all or the food Ghostess spent an hour cooking was delicious when in fact it was mediocre at best and I would have preferred takeout).  After laying all of these out, we had a conversation about the various justifications used for each of the different kind of lies and whether the justifications were sufficient to classify the lie as good, bad or neutral.  I was really surprised by some of his answers and was pleased that he was active in thinking deeply about the questions.  In the end we both agreed to try and do our best in being better about honesty when it was important and the implications that dishonesty can have, both for good and for bad.  It ended up being a really good discussion and I think it was way more useful than just sitting him down and lecturing him about why what he did was wrong.  All in all it was a really good bonding time for us. 

[Shello]

That's some solid parenting. 

[Scaly Freak]

19 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

n Wednesday night, Ghostess caught Ghostlet in a fib (Said he brushed his teeth when he really didn't).  She asked me to have a chat with him about it so I spent a lot of the day thinking about how to approach it.  He obviously knows that one shouldn't tell lies and he is old enough that giving the normal spiel about  "Honesty is the Best Policy" would be patronizing.  Instead I took a different approach.  I first explained that we all know lying is bad but then went on to point out that we all lie in various circumstances and I don't think anyone is completely honest all the time.  We talked about the various types of lies we encounter in our lives, ranging from the malicious lies that are designed to hurt people or fraud, etc. to lies told to avoid something unpleasant or to get out of punishment (like in this case about brushing teeth), lies that are innocuous and told to avoid uncomfortable discussions (Saying you are fine when in fact you are depressed and/or anxious, or telling Ghostess I prefer the blue sweater over the grey one even when I really don't even care), lies of omission (letting Ghostess think the cat made a mess when it was just me who didn't clean up after myself) and even lies that are told for seemingly altruistic purposes (saying her pants don't make her look fat at all or the food Ghostess spent an hour cooking was delicious when in fact it was mediocre at best and I would have preferred takeout).  After laying all of these out, we had a conversation about the various justifications used for each of the different kind of lies and whether the justifications were sufficient to classify the lie as good, bad or neutral.  I was really surprised by some of his answers and was pleased that he was active in thinking deeply about the questions.  In the end we both agreed to try and do our best in being better about honesty when it was important and the implications that dishonesty can have, both for good and for bad.  It ended up being a really good discussion and I think it was way more useful than just sitting him down and lecturing him about why what he did was wrong.  All in all it was a really good bonding time for us. 

 

Encourage reflection >>> Lecturing.

 

Solid parenting. ❤️

[WhiteGhost]

22 hours ago, Shello said:

That's some solid parenting. 

Thank you 

 

3 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

Encourage reflection >>> Lecturing.

 

Solid parenting. ❤️

Thanks.  I am glad I didn't go with my initial instinct which was to lecture

 

---------------------------------------

 

Yesterday was Friday and on Fridays Ghostlet gets out of school early.  "Early" being 6pm instead of the normal 8pm so not exactly early by any normal standard.  Usually Friday is his no homework day, the one day every week when he doesn't have to do homework.  Normally he just spends the evening on his phone or playing xbox, but that we are getting into spring and we actually have some daylight left when he gets home he wants to start spending some time outside.  Because he is really enjoying he football experience at school, he suggested that we go outside and throw the ball around as our new Friday tradition.  I love this idea so that is what we did.  We don't have enough room in the yard to run a lot of pass patterns so we mostly just tossed the ball around.  To keep things interesting we spent a lot of that time trying to throw left handed.  It felt really weird but we finally got so we could get some reasonable form and accuracy.  It never did feel normal though.  In any case it was very fun

 

When Ghostess got home we gave Wraith her bath.  She hated the bath as much as Phantom did and hated the dryer as much as Lich did   

 

On the plus side, her ringwork looks like it is responding well to the medicine.  Hopefully it will take less than 2 months to clear up

 

 

[Ranger Hal]

2 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

When Ghostess got home we gave Wraith her bath.  She hated the bath as much as Phantom did and hated the dryer as much as Lich did   

Hahahaha! Poor Wraith!

[shaar]

OMG Wraaaaith that picture is precious!!! Hehehe poor thing~

 

Your new Friday football tradition is also very wholesome ❤️ 

[WhiteGhost]

On 4/1/2023 at 1:49 PM, Ranger Hal said:

Hahahaha! Poor Wraith!

I always feel a little bad giving her baths when she hates them so much, but in this case she really needed it

 

19 hours ago, shaar said:

OMG Wraaaaith that picture is precious!!! Hehehe poor thing~

 

Your new Friday football tradition is also very wholesome ❤️ 

#nomakeup #nofilter  

 

It is shaping up to be a great tradition

 

------------------------------------------

 

Yesterday the three of us went over to an educational convention over on the East Side where the international schools were doing a recruiting fair.  Ghostlet is in an interesting place education wise because he is in the public school system but is ineligible for public high school.  That leaves us with 3 options: 1) a pure international school, 2) and international/public school joint venture, or 3) the international department of a public school.  After attending the conference, we were able to determine that option 2 is the worst of those, because they are designed for Chinese kids that want to go to university overseas (or don't have good enough grades to get into high school and need  backup option).  Option 1 is a good option but those schools are primarily for international kids  of expats who are here working in China and want to keep up their kids education in the same system they had back home.  This option is great for kids who want to go to university overseas but isn't ideal if they want to leave the option open for studying in China.  This leaved option 3 as the best choice for us, but there was only one such program at the fair but the feedback we did get was positive.  MY work now is to contact all of the public high schools within a few miles of us that have international departments (there are probably 5 or 6 of them) and start working on applications.  Ghostlet has his first practice exam for the National High School Entrance Exam the end of this month and we can use the scores from that to start submitting applications.

[Rhovaniel]

On 4/1/2023 at 4:19 AM, WhiteGhost said:

When Ghostess got home we gave Wraith her bath.  She hated the bath as much as Phantom did and hated the dryer as much as Lich did   

Oh dear! But she does look adorable in it!

 

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

MY work now is to contact all of the public high schools within a few miles of us that have international departments (there are probably 5 or 6 of them) and start working on applications.

Best of luck with the progress. It seems so drawn out and arduous 

[WhiteGhost]

12 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

Oh dear! But she does look adorable in it!

Right?

 

12 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

Oh dear! But she does look adorable in it!

 

Best of luck with the progress. It seems so drawn out and arduous 

Thanks, it is a process but still better than what the local kids have to go through.

 

-----------------------------

 

Yesterday Ghostlet and I went to the barber for a haircut.  On the way, we decided to walk there without our masks on.  The lilac bush outside our front door is in full bloom and I really enjoyed being able to smell it as I walked past.  For the last 3 years I have missed it because they only thing I could smell was my mask.

[juliebarkley]

On 3/19/2023 at 11:26 PM, WhiteGhost said:

I have been thinking about my own life and I have posted very little here recently because I felt like I had nothing interesting to say.

  I have felt this way many a time, but I have never been uninterested in your thread. And having read through all of this one, I can assure you that you and your life are most interesting, my friend.

  

On 3/19/2023 at 11:39 PM, WhiteGhost said:

RIP Hammarfist.  You have died twice now, and each time alone without your friends nearby.   You will be missed    

RIP. (Did he die the first time?) A good reminder that a fun character concept need never be truly dead. (Perhaps there will be another go-round for Tr'leek T'k?)

 

On 3/24/2023 at 12:10 AM, WhiteGhost said:

And cat stories you shall have!

 

On 3/29/2023 at 11:50 PM, sarakingdom said:

There's a particular size of baby shirt that fits cats well, and some people use them instead of cones. (I forget if it's 3-6 months or 6-9 months.) A long sleeve one might protect her infected bits, depending on exact location.

On 3/31/2023 at 12:12 AM, WhiteGhost said:

I had never thought of that, but thinking about it I am sure they have clothes specifically designed for cats here.

Please do tell more about this. Because as someone who dabbled with dressing her cats in doll clothes in her childhood, my first thought on combining a baby shirt with a cat, especially a sore one, was hope that you had leather gloves and prayers for you and your family's continued survival.

 

On 3/31/2023 at 12:12 AM, WhiteGhost said:

I don't know how single people do it. 

My cats have learned that the less they struggle the sooner it is over. Really it's all in how you hold them, and getting them used to having their feet touched. I love touching cat's feet, and they grudgingly tolerate this occasionally for brief periods. We have reached an understanding.

 

On 3/31/2023 at 11:19 PM, WhiteGhost said:

Pwease hoomin, release your pwisoner!

 

22 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

MY work now is to contact all of the public high schools within a few miles of us that have international departments (there are probably 5 or 6 of them) and start working on applications.  Ghostlet has his first practice exam for the National High School Entrance Exam the end of this month and we can use the scores from that to start submitting applications.

Glad to hear that you have a direction to work in now. Must take a lot of the stress off. It can be tricky to have a child who doesn't fit into the standard educational pattern, but it sounds like you've got it well in hand now.

[WhiteGhost]

On 4/3/2023 at 2:53 PM, juliebarkley said:

I have felt this way many a time, but I have never been uninterested in your thread. And having read through all of this one, I can assure you that you and your life are most interesting, my friend.

Thanks, I appreciate that.  It feels boring sometimes because I see it all the time, although I know that objectively it really isn't..  That said, at one point in y life, my nickname was "The Boring Guy"...

 

 

On 4/3/2023 at 2:53 PM, juliebarkley said:

RIP. (Did he die the first time?) A good reminder that a fun character concept need never be truly dead. (Perhaps there will be another go-round for Tr'leek T'k?)

Not technically, but when our last session ended he was bleeding out in a mud put surrounded by angry lizard men while the rest of the party fled to safety.  

 

On 4/3/2023 at 2:53 PM, juliebarkley said:

Glad to hear that you have a direction to work in now. Must take a lot of the stress off. It can be tricky to have a child who doesn't fit into the standard educational pattern, but it sounds like you've got it well in hand now.

I don't know that I would describe it as "well in hand" but at least we are not floundering directionless   

 

-------------------------------------

 

Not much to say story-wise for the last few days.  It has been cold and rainy and I didn't leave the house.  The only thing I did was troubleshoot my game.  

 

For anyone who cares about the details, I was having trouble with save files getting corrupted and I couldn't figure out which mods were causing it.  My mod manager tool had a number of error messages that I spent time trying to decrypt and then resolve and as of this morning I had resolved all of the error message but the problem wasn't getting any better.  I finally found out just about an hour ago that my real problem was simply because I had more mods than mod slots for the game and it was overloading the game engine.  I quick adjustment to increase my mod slots and everything seems to be working smoothly now.  Unfortunately, I will need to start a new game now that I have everything up and running properly.

 

 

[darkfoxx]

9 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Thanks, I appreciate that.  It feels boring sometimes because I see it all the time, although I know that objectively it really isn't..  That said, at one point in y life, my nickname was "The Boring Guy"...

 

 

Not technically, but when our last session ended he was bleeding out in a mud put surrounded by angry lizard men while the rest of the party fled to safety.  

 

I don't know that I would describe it as "well in hand" but at least we are not floundering directionless   

 

-------------------------------------

 

Not much to say story-wise for the last few days.  It has been cold and rainy and I didn't leave the house.  The only thing I did was troubleshoot my game.  

 

For anyone who cares about the details, I was having trouble with save files getting corrupted and I couldn't figure out which mods were causing it.  My mod manager tool had a number of error messages that I spent time trying to decrypt and then resolve and as of this morning I had resolved all of the error message but the problem wasn't getting any better.  I finally found out just about an hour ago that my real problem was simply because I had more mods than mod slots for the game and it was overloading the game engine.  I quick adjustment to increase my mod slots and everything seems to be working smoothly now.  Unfortunately, I will need to start a new game now that I have everything up and running properly.

 

 

Dude. Totally not boring - coming from someone whose godson just asked his mother what exactly it was that I do all day … based on my highly repetitive Picture Of The Day blog posts and knowing the general broad strokes of my life. *SMH*

[WhiteGhost]

9 hours ago, darkfoxx said:

Dude. Totally not boring - coming from someone whose godson just asked his mother what exactly it was that I do all day … based on my highly repetitive Picture Of The Day blog posts and knowing the general broad strokes of my life. *SMH*

Sometimes I ask myself that very question  

 

-------------------------------------

 

Yesterday was another day mostly full of troubleshooting my game (still not 100% there yet) but I have a story about something else

 

Yesterday was a holiday here (QingMing aka Tomb Sweeping Day) and it is about as close as we get to a Spring Break over here.  Unusually, it just happened to coincide with the Spring Break for the international kids here so everyone had the day off.  This year was really unusual, though.  For the first time in a long time (7 years?  I don't feel like looking it up) the holiday fell on a Wednesday.  This is important because in China they have a policy of forcing almost all holidays into a pseudo long weekend.  It is fine if the holiday falls on a Monday or Friday because they just take the day off and call it good.  If it falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, though, things get messy because they will then add on the connecting Monday or Friday to make it a "long weekend" but then make you go to work/school one day from the weekend to make up for the "extra" day of holiday.  So if it falls on a Thursday you would get Thu-Sat as the holiday and then have to work on Sunday.  This is annoying enough, but if the holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday things get really messy, because in that case you have a holiday double counting with the weekend and we can have that now can we?  No.  So what they will do is pick another day to be the makeup holiday and usually they just pick either a Monday or Friday and have that off, but sometimes it gets really messy and for some reason they pick a Thursday or Tuesday.  I remember one year the holiday fell on a Saturday but for some reason they deemed the next Tuesday to be the holiday, gave us all Monday off to go with it but then made us come to work on Saturday to make up for it.  If I recall correctly, the last time this holiday fell on a Wednesday they gave us Wed-Fri for the holiday and then we had to work both Saturday and Sunday to make up for it.  

 

I don't like this policy they have of moving around holidays to endure you get 3 days off in a row. I know the rationale for it (stimulating the tourism business) but I still don't like it.  Not one bit.

[Rhovaniel]

4 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Yesterday was a holiday here (QingMing aka Tomb Sweeping Day) and it is about as close as we get to a Spring Break over here.  Unusually, it just happened to coincide with the Spring Break for the international kids here so everyone had the day off.  This year was really unusual, though.  For the first time in a long time (7 years?  I don't feel like looking it up) the holiday fell on a Wednesday.  This is important because in China they have a policy of forcing almost all holidays into a pseudo long weekend.  It is fine if the holiday falls on a Monday or Friday because they just take the day off and call it good.  If it falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, though, things get messy because they will then add on the connecting Monday or Friday to make it a "long weekend" but then make you go to work/school one day from the weekend to make up for the "extra" day of holiday.  So if it falls on a Thursday you would get Thu-Sat as the holiday and then have to work on Sunday.  This is annoying enough, but if the holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday things get really messy, because in that case you have a holiday double counting with the weekend and we can have that now can we?  No.  So what they will do is pick another day to be the makeup holiday and usually they just pick either a Monday or Friday and have that off, but sometimes it gets really messy and for some reason they pick a Thursday or Tuesday.  I remember one year the holiday fell on a Saturday but for some reason they deemed the next Tuesday to be the holiday, gave us all Monday off to go with it but then made us come to work on Saturday to make up for it.  If I recall correctly, the last time this holiday fell on a Wednesday they gave us Wed-Fri for the holiday and then we had to work both Saturday and Sunday to make up for it.  

 

I don't like this policy they have of moving around holidays to endure you get 3 days off in a row. I know the rationale for it (stimulating the tourism business) but I still don't like it.  Not one bit.

That feels... awfully complex. I would hate that so much. 

[shaar]

I remember you posting about TOMB SWEEPING DAY before!!! I still love that name heheh

 

That really is a weird thing about the holiday schedule... now you're stuck working on the weekend and your whole brain is gonna be thrown off for a while I'd bet. Lame.....

[Shello]

On 3/31/2023 at 10:19 PM, WhiteGhost said:

When Ghostess got home we gave Wraith her bath.  She hated the bath as much as Phantom did and hated the dryer as much as Lich did  

The best ... err worst of both worlds...

 

11 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I don't like this policy they have of moving around holidays to endure you get 3 days off in a row. I know the rationale for it (stimulating the tourism business) but I still don't like it.  Not one bit.

That sounds extremely inconvenient

[RES]

18 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I don't like this policy they have of moving around holidays to endure you get 3 days off in a row.

That sounds very confusing...

[WhiteGhost]

On 4/6/2023 at 3:41 PM, Rhovaniel said:

That feels... awfully complex. I would hate that so much. 

I really hate it

 

On 4/6/2023 at 9:06 PM, shaar said:

I remember you posting about TOMB SWEEPING DAY before!!! I still love that name heheh

 

That really is a weird thing about the holiday schedule... now you're stuck working on the weekend and your whole brain is gonna be thrown off for a while I'd bet. Lame.....

Every country should have a Tomb Sweeping Day  

 

On 4/6/2023 at 10:11 PM, Shello said:

The best ... err worst of both worlds...

She is definitely not a fan

 

On 4/7/2023 at 5:42 AM, RES said:

That sounds very confusing...

It is, but there are apps that track it so it isn't something you really need to think about.  Mostly it is just annoying

 

On 4/6/2023 at 9:06 PM, shaar said:

now you're stuck working on the weekend and your whole brain is gonna be thrown off for a while I'd bet

The worst is when they do it for the "longer holidays" where they stretch a 3 day holiday into 7 days off.  The offset is that you have to have two 8 day weeks to make up for it and working 8 days in a row sucks bigtime

 

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

I didn't post a story for Thursday because I was busier than usual yesterday.  Not much happened anyway as I spent the whole day cleaning up all of the mods for my Skyrim game only to realize that I don't like the game it has turned into and I am probably going to go turn most of them off

 

I do have a story for yesterday.  A couple of weeks ago Ghostess and I went to the international Jewelry fair here in Beijing.  Walking around these huge halls filled with precious gemstones was surreal, but we ended up walking out with some pretty nice rings for Ghostess.  One of them was a ruby ring that had a full circle of alternating rubies and diamonds.  She realized that if she paired it with a couple of simple diamond bands on each side, she could duplicate the effect of a much more expensive ring for less than half of what it would cost if you bought them all in a single ring.  Unfortunately, the place that sold the diamond bands only had one so we had to order another to made to the same specs as the first so she could wear them as a pair.

 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and they have another jewelry fair in the same place.  We aren't sure why, but we are guessing it is probably some tactic by the government to promote domestic consumption.  Anyway, the place we bought the diamond bands was there so we went again to go pick up her matching band.  When we got there, the lady hands us the ring and says something like "here you go, you're all set" or something similar.  Luckily we brought along the original ring and when we compared them we discovered that the new ring was half a carat lighter than the original.  When we asked about it, the lady admitted that she knew about but was waiting for the right time to tall us.  It was obvious to both of us that this was a lie and she fully intended to cheat us and so we got pissed off and returned both rings. They offered to give us a discount but we refused to have anything to do with them.  The problem was , that we then had just the ruby ring and nothing to pair it with, plus we were both in a bad mood.  We decided to check around and went to all the booths trying to find someone selling something similar but apparently diamond rings with diamonds going all the way around.  We were quite disappointed and thought about just leaving but decided that since we were there anyway we might as well enjoy ourselves and look around at all of the booths just to see what was there and have fun trying on various items of jewelry.  We ended up having a pretty good time, and right as the place was closing down and they were starting to shoo people out we found a place that had 3/4 coverage rings and were a little smaller than the ones we originally wanted but were significantly cheaper (1/4 the price of the other rings) and still gave us the effect we wanted. 

We were extremely happy with our find and came away from the fair in a great mood.  We were reminded that sometimes bad things happen but in the end those bad things can turn into even better things*.

 

When we got home, Ghostess discovered that she could pair these new rings with several other rings she has, but if we had gotten the original rings they would have been too big to pair with the other rings at home, making the whole thing so much better,  

 

 * There is a famous Chinese parable about this call "Mr. Sai's Lost Horse" about a man who lost his horse but it ended up being a blessing in disguise

[shaar]

This is the best challenge topic ever. I'm loving all these little slice of life stories!!

[Emma]

These little slices of life may be quite boring to you, but to me, as someone who has never been to another country, it is fascinating to hear how other people live.

[WhiteGhost]

13 hours ago, shaar said:

This is the best challenge topic ever. I'm loving all these little slice of life stories!!

Thanks.  it is also interesting for me because it makes me think about and try to notice more of what is going on around me.

 

9 hours ago, Emma said:

These little slices of life may be quite boring to you, but to me, as someone who has never been to another country, it is fascinating to hear how other people live.

It goes both ways.  It is also interesting for me to see how others are living in places that are different from me.  For example, I am always fascinated by @Shello's posts because she often mentions all kinds of sweets that I have never heard of (and subsequently really, really want)  

 

------------------------------------------

 

Story for yesterday is about Wraith.  Her leg is looking much, much better and we can't see the infection anymore and her fur has started growing back.  The most telling sign that she is getting back to normal is she has stopped moping and is back to her normal activities.  We were hoping the infection was all cleared up so I ran her over to the vet to get her checked out.  The rash itself is all cleared up, but they used a special light that showed she still had a big patch of infection that we couldn't see with our naked eyes.  It looks like she is going to have to wear her neck device for another week at least.  

 

She really hates the neck device because on the one hand it makes it so she can't see her food when she is eating and often ends up pushing her bowl away and out of reach.  Another reason is that she can't turn around and smell her poop (which she needs to do to bury it) without it invariably getting covered with poop.  This means she has started not buying anything in the litter box so we need to come in and help her do that.  The worst for her is that she can't clean herself and she really hates being dirty.  We are probably going to have to giver her another bath soon, but I prefer to do it once she is cleared of the infection and doesn't need to have the medicine one her leg anymore.

[WhiteGhost]

I woke up this morning and saw that my post from yesterday was still hanging and hadn't uploaded yet so today will be a doble posting

 

Folks, there was a murder in our yard yesterday.  A murder of crows, that is.  It is normal to have one or two flying around but yesterday there was 15 or 20 of them flying around making tons of noise.  Big honkers too, quite a bit bigger than the normal crows we get.  I'm not sure what they were doing there and they are gone today, but boy were the cats interested.  Phantom is normally afraid of everything (maybe PTSD from getting abused by Wraith all the time...) so he will flinch when even a sparrow flies by the window, but Lich will lunge at even large pigeons.  Not yesterday, though.  Whenever a crow would fly past the window he would run and cower.  Not really surprising given the crows were at least twice his size and super loud, but it was funny to see him afraid of something for once.  Wraith didn't seem to have much reaction to them, but I think she is back to moping again about having to wear the dang neck device.

 

 

[WhiteGhost]

Quick short story for today.  Yesterday I made it out to the park and the flowers were in bloom and it was wonderful to be able to stop and smell the flowers along the way