A little lighter

It's been a bit of a rough week. I don't mean just the turmoil in the CDC (which worries me for future vaccines) and the horrific school shooting, but also a good friend of mine who is in her 70s fell and broke a hip. She had surgery Tuesday but I didn't hear she was okay until Wednesday evening - she's already up doing PT, and is apparently going to get to go home soon, by virtue of having a good, supportive husband, two grown daughters who can help her, and a single-story house that she and her husband live in.  But it did worry me a bit for a while. There are also ongoing IT issues (right now: only one printer is usable by faculty on my floor, and it's almost out of toner. I pulled the cartridge out and shook it today and I think we can squeeze out a few more pages, but...)

Also I scheduled my pneumococcal vaccine for Friday. I was going to do COVID (I am very nervous that they'll be yanked from the market by Mr. Didn't Actually Major In Biology But Now Heads An Agency Where Having Done So Would Be Valuable) but the place I normally get vaccines is dissembling on whether they have it, and if it's a new formulation. I might ask when I go in.... but it's better for me to take one vaccine at a time, as I get chills and sometimes hives from the immune system ramp-up, and I like to have a lighter reaction than what multiple shots would give 

So something a little lighter. I was thinking the other day, "What is the plural of Mothman?" Mothmen seems logical, but then if "Mothman" is a single word and it's not "man" being modified by "moth," the correct plural might be Mothmans. And then I thought of "Batsman" (a cricketing term) and laughed to myself and thought "maybe it's Mothsman" except the plural of batsman turns out to be batsmen

 But I admit I like the idea of "mothsman" as the plural, even if it's probably not correct.

Anyway. I have three plushie Mothsman now - the original "tiny size" "baby Mothman" I bought a few years back as a Halloween decoration. This came from Squishable, which is an excellent source of stuffed animals (I have pretty much only mail ordered, but they do have some stores in bigger cities, and you can very occasionally find them in some shops, like Books-a-Million)

So I get e-mails from Squishable, and I admit more than once it's tempted me into buying one.

Earlier this year, they did "alter egos" (Variant forms") of Mothman, but in a mini size. One of them was "Professor Mothman," which was both funny and cute, and of course, as a professor, I wanted one. So I bought one.

 You can't see it but the outside of his wings are argyle, they match the little embroidered on "breast pocket" he has inside them. And he has a tie and saddle shoes. Recently the name "Dr. Harlan J. Mothman" popped into my mind, so that's his name now. (Harlan sounds like a Southern-professor sort of name)

And then a few weeks ago, on a trip to Books-a-Million, I found their "exclusive" (to that chain) purple Mothman and decided to get it

 so now I have Mothsman:

So: Dr. Harlan J. Mothman, Hyacinth (what I am calling purple Mothman; Hyacinth HAS occasionally been used as a male name; there were a couple male Saints Hyacinth, apparently), and then "Baby Mothman," which is what I always called the original one.

Baby Mothman and Hyacinth have funny, birdlike feet that kind of crack me up, I can imagine them walking and the feet making "plap plap" noises on the floor. 

Hyacinth is nice to hug because he's bigger and round; I keep him on my bed (with many other stuffies, to be honest) and Professor Harlan and Baby Mothman live on my sofa. 

I don't know. I know it's silly and immature but these days you take comfort where you can get it...