Diego my dead bat, personal 'loot' from Hawaii, a week of poor health and 'small pleasures'

Thank you for the responses. I left myself vulnerable in honest feelings and you responded in kind, thank you. I have not been around on-line because Tuesday until today I was having a lot of blood loss in my lower intestinal tract. So between that and recovery, I was trying to decide how far to let it go before I went to the hospital and today I stabilized so I am very happy.

Basically something like the fresh made peanut butter cookies with peanuts in them must have had a shell. The shell irritated my upper intestine and Friday I had IBS clean-out. I stopped it with Florastor which unknown to me, captured most but not all of the unprocessed and very sharp shell pieces and then bonded to an intestinal wall, creating a blockage. Meanwhile the other pieces came down and when I decided to go to the bathroom for dump o the day on Tuesday what came out instead was blood. I had to find and isolate the pieces, then help the blockage to leave the intestinal wall, have that come down, which opened up all the cuts and fissures as the blockage was processed through. Boring, and embarrassing stuff. Also puts a crimp in reading all the yaoi when I have to have my fingers/hand up my own ass all the time. Little less ‘fun fantasy’. Ow.

So, let us forget that and return to normal gothness where I am the magic goth girl who doesn’t sweat, and of course never would fart or eat and is always pale and like a vampire gets my nutrition through drinking...the blood of virgins! Well more like Virgin Smoothies. And like Sherlock Holmes I take my opium and play my violin, ah, why are there no murders of interest......>

I wanted to show you my pre-Halloween travel plushie, which is the Skelanimal Diego, the Bat. The pillow is a micro-fleece and very fuzzy and soft, works great as a travel pillow, then you unzip it, and TADA, our friend Diego the Bat (with his little fangs and wings) emerges and the back zips closed giving you a huggable plushie. The plushie is about 16-18 inches high, so the pillow is over a foot wide and great for your head. I got him off Akadot for $24. I think they still have Jack the Rabbit there (I also got Kit the Kat – I love my dead skelanimals!).

Also in Hawaii I did get one loot for me. I was talking in the market with the woman whose uncle brought in jade for her to sell. She and her father and grandfather had been connected to the Big Island and Plantations for many generations. Her father had lived here and retired here. Her uncle and cousins came and went. She sold mostly bracelets of symbols – Hawaiian Petroglyphs with different meanings. I will let you get which one I got and post the picture of it next time (a prize for anyone who gets it!). I noticed this one item which was very different than the rest. It was, she said, Ivory, and for the women. Here it is. Well, as you may have noticed, it is a snuff bottle which puts it pre20th century, and with the engravings of the mountains, kimono’s and fans, it is for those who would travel to the ‘cooler summer house/palace’ which would be in the mountains. It is not elaborate enough for a daughter of royalty nor it is something a middle class woman would have, but some woman of leisure, like a lady-in-waiting. It was very affordable and I verified that it is ivory and intact.

It turns out it is the last of her Father’s lifetime collection. She sold most of it to a dealer or two but had this left over. I could not understand what was wrong with it that they should leave it behind. I ended up talking to the dealer who bought much of the collection and the Father had collected EROTIC snuff bottles of (I am somewhat guessing the date) 1770-1850. This was not erotic (of which I have no interest in carved erotic snuff bottles) and for woman, not men, smaller and thus left behind. The daughter was thus convinced that it was not valuable and charged very little for it, as it was the off season and no one had looked at it. I however was very glad to have a museum style piece from something I saw on the Antique Road show which now resides in my Ossuary by my desk. I was fortunate that I could afford it, the price of a couple McDonald’s meals and the snuff spoon was in perfect condition as was the stopper. I cannot tell if it is Korean or Chinese, I think the style of the Kimono is Chinese.

So that was my ‘loot’ – since I had to bring it back to Canada, I did not publish this while I was in Hawaii (not sure the rules on old Ivory). It is Ivory which I am against the killing of animals now for Ivory, but would not pass up a nice scrimshaw piece if I saw on in a garage sale. This being a snuff bottle of an upper class female from Asia was too much of a connection to my heart to say no. I think it is beautiful.

With fall and autumn here, those of us with chronic illness’ take our pleasures as ‘small pleasures’, the energy to have a cup of coffee out of the house, the ability to go out and see something. I have been worn down this week, and will not go out tomorrow, but I hope Sunday. And I want to try to catch up on emails and responses to the last blog as my ‘small pleasure’. I hope this weekend brings ‘small pleasures’ and good days or good hours to many.