Given to me on my birthday last month by a co-worker

 

Well, I'm ready for Halloween

It took me a while to figure out my Halloween costume for this year. (I didn't want to do Maleficent or my skeleton costume again since I did them the last couple of years. So I'm going to be a butterfly. It's pretty, doesn't involve makeup, is one-size-fits-all, and it didn't cost much. I just needed a black T-shirt without writing and this. I will not be in high heels. :) It does require a choker around the neck that I don't like, but it's very stretchy and got better even after a couple of minutes. It all folds up nicely. The mask is just embroidered floss, and the bulkiest item is the antennae. The colours are beautiful. I'm very happy with it. Also, there is no wire, just finger loops, so I can both put out my arms and type at my desk with no problem.

Just to leave you on a happy note

I took this five years ago, when I was walking to the bus stop. Isn't it pretty, the flowers plus the butterfly? :) Good night!

Saturday and Sunday were crazy busy

so I didn't blog, didn't watch 'Doctor Who' (even though it was the mid-season 'finale'), and didn't get much on my agenda done. I did spend some time with friends and did laundry on Saturday, so that got done, although I schlepped it across town and back (thank goodness for my little utility cart). Sunday was the cleaning, the Kroger run, and the game, which features an extremely difficult opponent and ended with Brenda and I begging to stop so we could regroup and think up something to deal with it, as we were becoming frustrated with our lack of progress, and several characters were incapacitated or near death. Afterwards the game master and I had a very good yet painful discussion on how I might be able to increase my effectiveness (my character was in charge), not only in the game, but in real life, by tackling a particular fault I have.

Last night I was awoken about 2 am by a dog barking furiously, something that in the eight years I've been here just doesn't happen. There's not much noise in my complex, there's a firewall between my bedroom and the next apartment, and I actually ventured outside to see if there was a dog in distress, it was just so unusual, and it sounded just like a friend's dog (for non-'animal people', each dog has a 'voice' of their own). I'm sure it was just a neighbour's dog. But it was a little difficult to get back to sleep.

Despite getting to bed at a reasonable hour, I'm having some difficulty with just how dark it is when I wake up, particularly on a day such as today, which was a soggy, rainy mess. I was not a zombie today. I went in and got a lot accomplished, including the book review I needed to get in.

Thankfully I was able to get a ride home, and I opened the windows and then promptly took a nap. (Not a sleep, but a reasonable nap. I find that if I lie down right after getting home, while the afternoon is not too late, I am much more likely to wake up and be productive later, rather than the scenario where I do things, play on the computer, and then peter out by 8:30 or 9 pm.) Now I have to get some things done around the house and if I have time, I'll watch the first of two 'Doctor Who' episodes I need to catch up with.

By the way, I meant to write the other day that as I stood at the bus stop Thursday, I was accompanied by a pretty orange butterfly who spent the entire 20-25 minutes in one place, fanning its wings (I think it was drying off; we'd had some rain.) I love butterflies (Eilir actually means butterfly), and it was nice to see one up close for such a protracted time. That is one nice thing about being a paedestrian rather than a driver; you get to see the details along the road.

I know a dog that is terrified of butterflies

But these Humboldt penguins really, really want one...



No butterflies were harmed in the making of this picture.

Interesting trivia regarding Humboldt penguins, from Wikipedia:

In 2009 at a zoo in Bremerhaven, Germany, two adult male Humboldt penguins adopted an egg that had been abandoned by its biological parents. After the egg hatched, the two male penguins raised, protected, cared for, and fed the chick in the same manner that regular penguin couples raise their own biological offspring.

This is nice

. E I L I R . by ~HyperStrudel on deviantART

On a lark, I was looking for a Twitter post of mine via Google and found this instead. See, my middle name, Eilir, means butterfly, although in Wales it is normally a man's name, but according to a Welsh baby name book it is now used for both sexes. I'd like to have a poster of this (and not just because it has my name on it). :)

Yipee! You actually get textual content tonight!

I'm home at a semi-reasonable hour tonight. So, here are some random things I needed to blog about:

1. Shane Ragland, who had been convicted of murdering UK football player Trent DiGiuro in 1994, but that conviction had been overturned because a forensics expert lied on the stand, was set for his second murder trial when he copped a plea for second-degree manslaughter instead. The authorities are recommending an eight-year sentence, but with credit for time served, so he'll be out in three days.
   
   I can understand why he took the plea bargain--he was facing life in prison for using a scoped rifle to shoot and kill DiGiuro who was out on a balcony with friends celebrating his 21st birthday. My first thought was why on earth did the Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney offer it? Apparently it was to protect the main witness, who had been under the protection of state and federal agencies, but this could be done only once. Still I don't get it. Wouldn't she be safer with Ragland behind bars?
   
   The defence of course maintains Ragland's innocence, saying that he had to say he did it to get out of jail, basically. What a load of crap. Either you plead guilty because you did it, or you plead innocent because you didn't.
   
   At the time of DiGiuro's death, I lived two blocks away, near campus. It shocked the community that anyone would do this. Now the guy's going to just walk? Argh. My thoughts are with DiGiuro's family. It's been an emotional rollercoaster and I'm sure this isn't how they wanted it to end, although I guess it's good he did serve some time.
   
   
2. On a lighter note, the moon is high and beautiful and full overhead, but later on tonight there will be a full lunar eclipse. It'll be near morning, which might affect viewing. I'm not sure if I want to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to watch, but thought I'd put it out there for any of you who want to watch it. The high point I think is 5:52 EDT.
   
   
3. My neighbour across the hall, who is Hindu, came up to me and told me that in her religion they feed animals because they are close to God, and she didn't have any and neither did her friends. Her family is far away. So she wondered if it would be okay to get food for my dog and if so, what kind do I feed her? I told her that would be fine, but I was pretty sure it had beef in it and I didn't know if that would be a problem. I looked at the ingredients and there it was. She said she'd check with her mother (she seems pretty young, in her early 20s). Apparently it was alright because this morning next to the newspaper there was a bag of food for Cerys. So Cerys benefits and so do we. That's very nice of them. I must find a way to thank them (although I wish they'd feed me; I constantly smelling wonderful smells of Indian food when I pass their apartment). :)
   
   
4. I worked 10 hours Saturday but I'm off from the store today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Yay! Maybe I can get some rest.
   
   
5. Despite the heat and drought, I've seen lots of butterflies lately. I love them. My middle name, Eilir, actually means butterfly in Welsh. They're wonderful examples of transformation.
   
   
6. I'm beginning to get stuff out of the library. I have boxes of books in my new closet, and I'm putting the journals that have been weeded on a cart to go back to the compactor (and yes, I did offer them to other libraries first). Emptying that shelving unit gives me room for things that were on my small bookshelf, which will be going away. Eventually my desk will be back with that larger shelf. I need to keep room for acquisitions to be processed, though.
   

That's all I can think of right now.