Thursday evening things

* Just tired after this week. I don't know why. Also thinking about some people I've lost contact with over the past couple years and feeling sad. Thinking again about how my life has contracted down and is much smaller than it once was (and it wasn't EVER "big" at all, anyway) and it makes me sad. I don't know how to fix things or to improve things, so I assume the answer is I just get used to it being like this and accept it.

* I plan to get my flu shot tomorrow. I'm apprehensive given the strong immune reaction I had to the second COVID booster (that one was before the bivalent came out; it was another dose of the OG shot). I'm hoping it was just my body reacting to THAT and not that I now have some autoimmune thing going on that will make me sick with any vaccine. (I will also be due soon for a tetanus booster). I'm going to get it right after lunch and then go back to campus because if I start to have big problems there will be someone else there. 

* I am taking home more stuff from the storage unit. I'm running out of room for fabric but decided that all the Christmas themed fabric will live in a big plastic tub in my closet since it's more "specialized." I do have a lot of big pieces of solid colors that I now know where they are. So at least I won't have to buy any fabric for a long time. 

* I also have more of my yarn home and found a couple balls of a nice crunchy cranberry colored tweed I probably bought for a hat, and I'll have to figure out a good pattern for it. (I don't remember what pattern I was going to use). I also found some sportweight alpaca from "Texas Alpacas" (Kaboodles in Denison used to, and might still, sell it). One thing I like is they put a picture of the animal the fiber was shorn from on the label - this one came from Pluro (and is mixed with some other fibers). I want that for fingerless mitts so I'll have to figure out a pattern for THAT.

* Something odd happened this week.

I had seen the "Shinada Global Otter" plush referenced somewhere, and decided I wanted one. I ordered one from Amazon (it might not be echt, as some of those things on Amazon aren't, but I wasn't comfortable trying to order through the website of the company in Japan (even if you COULD). 

It came on Tuesday:

Yes, some stuffed toys Amazon sells come like this, vacuum sealed. (There's an infamous "Garfield-but-not-really" cat that lots of people have posted photos of how weird it looks in the packaging, and how janky it looks out of it).

But I pulled the otter out and tossed it in the dryer on air fluff, and it came out fine

I hadn't named the otter, I thought about calling it Shinada, after the original company that made them, but I didn't think too much about it.

Then, yesterday, after class, I got a text that my UPS package (probiotics that need to be refrigerated - they are shipped with a coldpack but I didn't want to risk it) had arrived so I ran home to put that away before going back to campus to do my systematics prepwork.

But. In addition to my September doki doki crate (Good on Japan Crate - they sent me two August crates by mistake, and when I contacted them they shipped out a new September crate to me. I get to keep the second August crate and already passed one thing I wouldn't use from both of them ("swimsuit bags" that are waterproof) to someone else who can), there was a large, puffy, white shipping bag. It felt like it contained something soft and I was excited, wondering if (a) my brother FINALLY sent the birthday present I was supposed to get the end of February* or (b) someone decided to surprise me with a gift. 

So that buoyed me along through my hour or so of prep, then I came home and opened the package.

Wait.

Another otter. Packed slightly differently?

I looked at both mailers - they were different - one was the flat Prime mailer, this one a big white bag - the shipping addresses were the same. I checked my orders and I only paid for one otter. 

I consulted with people on Twitter and their suggestion was if I tried to RETURN the otter, they'd refund my money and then the third-party seller wouldn't get their cut. And another person said that the cost to them to ship it back and restock it in the warehouse was probably more than what it was worth to them. And I know from prior experience trying to explain "hey you sent me two, can I at least pay for the second one" they tell me not to bother. So even though my ethical sense was a little uncomfy I decided to keep it.

Which then suggested names

In Animal Crossing, Tom Nook (the tanuki/raccoon, depending on what part of the world you're in) has twin nephews named Timmy and Tommy. So these otters must be twins, except I think Original!Otter is a girl, so her name is Tammy, so it's Tammy and Tommy, the twin otters. (Tommy has a tiny bit of damage to the stitching on one hind leg, so I can tell them apart, though I'm thinking of making a hair-ribbon for Tammy and gently stitching it to her head, next to one ear)

(*In a very small and very petty way, and I know it is, and I know in most families adult siblings do not to birthday presents, but: it bothers me. It bothers me that he apparently bought a gift back in like MARCH (yes, it was late to begin with) and had not been able to bother to mail it to me for, what, nearly seven months? It tells me that I don't really matter. Because if I am sending something to someone who matters to me, I MAKE time to get to the PO. And while my brother is busy, I don't think, from what he's said, that he's really any busier than I am - and they sure to go and do a lot of FUN things as a family, things I don't get to do. And I admit I was thinking about this today, and it made me sad: once my mom is gone, I will have no one to exchange Christmas presents with or get birthday presents from because while I do send them presents, they maybe don't want to do it for me, so maybe I suggest we just stop? But that makes me sad and once again I was sitting there at my desk dreaming of alternate universes where I actually found someone to marry and had kids and then WE could exchange gifts, instead of me eventually just giving the practice up altogether. And I know: it shouldn't matter. Except it DOES. It really does when my life is always just me taking care of me and me only and also no one ever taking care of me so I get a respite from it. And even more - I do a lot of care taking that's not reciprocal; I help students and stuff but there's never really anything concrete I get back in any of those interactions and while I am happy to do it and I get that it's my job to.....still, to come home every night to an empty house, and to have to figure out what to cook myself for dinner based on what I have in the kitchen and to have to constantly cheerlead and rally myself because there really isn't anyone doing that on a regular basis.....well, it gets hard and the occasional promise of even a small gift - heck, even a freaking BIRTHDAY CARD would be enough - but  yeah. Again, I wish I were good enough at being "enough" on my own, but I'm not, I'm really not, and it wears on  me. So it's bigger than just "ha ha I guess he can't be arsed to send my gift to me," there's a lot more there and this is just symbolic)

* At least the student who was being a bit of a problem for my chair and me dropped my class. So I don't have to worry about them and their attitude.