Stop & Chat: September Shenanigans

The last time I left off with the blogosphere, I was dogsitting a beautiful great dane mix for about a week. It's been a little over a week since I dropped River off with her owners, and I've had enough time to get over the traumatic experience that was giving her back. :P



While we still had River, I decided to take the camera with me and take pictures of our area of the neighborhood while we walked around.

That is one beautiful poochie. <3 

My handsome goober.

While looking at this picture, I realized how bad it looked with the trash and recycle strewn about. From an American's eyes, this neighborhood would be viewed as bad. Watch your back, be careful of the alleyways, don't wander too far off the beaten path. There are older buildings with nonsensical plot layouts. Cars park on the streets and curbs frequently, and there are several small vendor trucks that drive around frequently.

In actuality, this is one of the nicer (ie: expensive) neighborhoods. The qualities that would identify this neighborhood as 'bad' in the states don't apply here. It's hard to explain, but all I can say is the atmosphere is completely different and I've never had issues walking through the neighborhood alone at night, imagined or real.

Have I mentioned that there is lots of construction going on in the neighborhood? New villas are being built. Fortunately, there isn't anything being built within earshot of our home.

Of course, I can't post without giving you guys an update on our little fluffybutts!

Hammy loves her some carrots.

Like, really loves her carrots.

Hammy has continued to make progress with her skittish nature. There are still random times where walking by the cage will cause her to scurry off to a hidey hole or she will run away if you try to pick her up, but more often than not she's curious enough to come over to the gate of her home and climb out as soon as you open the door. It helps if you have some food to entice her. :)

Bunny is still one of the most relaxed animals I have ever met. Pick her up? She doesn't care. Poke her in the face with a carrot? Oh look, food delivery! She is also an escape artist. When I take apart her home to clean it, she likes to crawl out and see what I'm doing. Hammy does the same thing. What Bunny does that Hammy doesn't, however, is partake in some extreme parachute-free skydiving.

Yes, I'm talking about you.

She has a habit of enabling hamster pancake mode, running around the table her home is on, picking an edge, and sliding her happy butt off the edge and flopping onto the floor some four feet below. I've had many a heart attack watching her butt disappear over the edge of a table. Would any one happen to know where I could get my hands on some hamster sized parachutes?

We had another Pathfinder get together last weekend. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well. There was some miscommunication between M and I, and I did not find out we were having this get together until less than an hour before everyone arrived. I wasn't up for socializing with others, much less hosting this gathering, but we decided it was too close to the start time to cancel. I figured I would suck it up and hope my mood improved.

Once everyone arrived, my mood for the day only plummeted further. Several situations came up where I was talked over. It first happened in some pregame talking between me and some of the players, where I tried talking and the person I was talking to completely cut me off and acted like I said nothing. I was slightly off put by it, but let the day continue on without saying anything.

A situation arose where a player argued with the DM over some technicalities on something the DM had said ("The mummy causes paralyzing fear when you see it, but my character didn't see it! How could I be paralyzed with fear?"). They argued back and forth, and I came up with a thought for the DM to make it easier. Instead of basing it off of sight, just say the mummy has an aura, similar to how powerful spiritual pressure is sensed in the anime Bleach. I tried to bring up my point four times. Each time I was completely ignored. It was like I had no voice here.

At that point I resolved myself to simply getting through the night and used my phone to surf various websites, only paying attention to the campaign when it was my turn to do something.

Outside of my issues with this particular get together, there had apparently been an incident between the DM and one of the players earlier in the week. A case of the player getting way too drunk while at the DM's house, earning him a permanent ban from the DM's home. This tension was palpable throughout the day, with the player arguing against the DM's every decision and complaining about his inconsistencies in sticking to the rule books. At the close of the day's quest, the DM explained his reasoning for why he would or wouldn't stick to particular rules. This was supposed to be a very casual campaign since it was so many attendees' first times playing, and decisions he made were to help maintain that casual atmosphere. If it wasn't to maintain the casual atmosphere, it was to keep the campaign going as some rules could extend a particular quest by several hours if followed strictly. I felt the explanation sufficiently explained any issues that player had with the DM's decisions. Everyone else agreed, except for that difficult player. He continued to argue, completely disregarding everything the DM had said. After a while of back and forth, the DM declared that he was done with this campaign and he would no longer be DMing.

The player and DM left, and M and I talked with the rest of the players and established that if we were to continue any sort of get together, it would be without the difficult player.

After everyone left, M's first words to me were "What do I have to do Wednesday and Thursday [his days off] to make this up to you?" LOL!

The rest of the weekend was thankfully very mellow.

Wednesday we went to Yongsan and Itaewon. A week ago I ran out of my Lush shampoo and decided to try using some of M's regular department store shampoo.

My scalp immediately flared up, creating loads of dandruff and becoming itchy enough to make me want to scalp myself. Since we were going into Yongsan, we decided it would be easy to stop by Itaewon and get me some shampoo.

Wednesday was a complete flip-flop from how Saturday went. Instead of feeling like I was invisible, I felt like I was getting all the attention!

While we were eating lunch, a woman asked me for some help in figuring out how to use the bus system. After talking to her and getting her situated, M and I left the restaurant. On our way out, an older gentleman pointed at me and exclaimed, "Sara Gilbert!" making me laugh and shake my head no. "I'm sure you get that all the time, though!" I've been compared to younger Sara Gilbert/Darlene from Roseanne several times. M was amused and called it "A very tactful way to tell you you're very attractive."

Saponé wasn't here this time, but the employee who was there recognized M and I and immediately helped us.

I had a funny experience with this employee. I was hanging around the shampoos and conditioners, asking about ones that were new to me, and she explained them all. The funny part was she kept directing me towards special treatments and products that were good for "chemically damaged hair." It confused me, and I wondered if my hair looked chemically damaged until she mentioned that a perm is damaging to hair. I giggled to myself, but never got a chance to explain to her that my hair wasn't permed.

I did ask for some products that would help with frizz, and she took that opportunity to apply some R&B hair moisturizer to my hair to show how much it helps with my hair.

As she did, she asked "Is this your original hair??" 

 "Yes, it is!" I responded.
She took a step back, shocked. "Original curly?!"
I nodded my head, laughing.
"It's so beautiful! I was certain it was a perm!"

M caught that moment on camera, so I had to include it here. :P

M had fun taking pictures of some roses in the store. While he was taking a picture, the employee (I feel absolutely horrid for not asking for her name after all these compliments >_<) teased him, asking "Why do you take pictures of those roses when you have a rose here?" and gesturing to me.

If I were a Sim and had a motive bar for self esteem, it would be absolutely full. It's funny how these days happen just when you need them, isn't it?

I picked up just a few things *cough cough* and we finally headed home.

My days since then have been spent trying to convince myself to clean. The last time I cleaned was last Friday, the day before that fatefully bad Pathfinder night. All week I've been telling myself that I'm not allowed to blog until I clean. That backfired, and the end result was a week of no blogging or cleaning. LOL!

So I'm prewarding myself for cleaning by blogging.