My birthday month

Yes, it continues. Next weekend is already (sadly) spoken for by work and the like (though perhaps I could make another flying grocery trip Friday afternoon if I need to, or maybe even consider going out for a lunch somewhere). My birthday shopping day will probably be March 3 at this point. (Potential plan is to, as I have the past several years, go to Whitesboro for a yarn shop and a quilt shop, and then swing back through Sherman for groceries. One upside: I'll have been paid then and it may feel more comfortable to get some cash out of my account and just spend cash on stuff).

But I am already accruing some goodies. A package came from Bas Bleu today which I am guessing is a book I asked my parents for (I am leaving that to open until my actual birthday). And a box came from a Twitter/Ravelry friend - she told me it would keep, so I might save it for a bit as well. And Lynn sent me a card.

An aside and a comment: Cards are really important to me and I really love getting them for holidays. I could probably be content without presents on my birthday as long as I got cards: to me a card symbolizes that someone is thinking of me enough to go to the effort to put something in the mail. And also, cards are nice mail: they are not bills that must be paid or obligations that must be met or junk mail that must be disposed of.

And earlier, I got a surprise Amazon box, from loyal blogreader Angie. Two quilt books from my wishlist - which I have not even had time to glance at, but maybe this evening when I get into my pajamas and want to relax, that would be a good time. And this:

A dragon (Asian style rather than Western style) neck pillow. I have already named him Haku because he looks like a baby version of the river-guardian dragon from Spirited Away. He's nice and soft and squishy, and yes, that kind of tactile thing seems increasingly important to me - having soft nice things around me.

I also bought myself a little present today at Mart of Wal. I've taken up the habit, especially when there early on a Saturday morning, to run through the toy aisles just for fun - to see what they have, and once in a while I will buy something.

They had those "Fingerlings" toys today - monkeys, sloths, and (relevant to my interests) unicorns. Well, one of them - the purple one, named Alika. I had thought about these off and on, the idea that they supposedly respond to your touch and to motion interested me, and at $15 it was cheap enough for a silly thing.

After playing with it a bit first thing this morning, I thought, "Maybe she's just doing random noises and motions, and the idea is people THINK she's responding, she's too small and too inexpensive to actually have sensors" but I've looked at a couple articles about these and apparently, yes, these have touch and sound sensors (I noticed she did seem to make a lot of noise when I had her on while I was practicing piano, and right now she's reacting to the Gottschalk piece I'm listening to). And perhaps positional sensors? One article said they respond differently if held upside down....

She seems to sneeze a lot? And if you hold the top of her head for a while she makes a sound that sounds like passing gas. (Well, a very dainty and delicate passing-of-gas). And she plays music if you hold her like a baby and rock her....and it does seem that if I pet the back of her head, she coos - and the articles did say they had sound sensors.

It's an incredibly stupid thing but again it's kind of fun and I can suspend disbelief enough to take some sort of comfort in a tiny robot that coos when I pet it. (And yes, I thought to myself: what if these have tiny transponders in them, where they pass some kind of information on to the NSA or somewhere. But all they'd pass on from mine is that I like stroking the back of her head and her back, and rocking her, and playing music for her. I can't tell you how they'd respond if you mistreated them, because (a) I don't want to break her and (b) I can't bring myself to mistreat something that is even a plastic replica of a mythological beast).

And yes, I've seen the "robot cats" and the like and I confess, I think these are sort of a good idea in specific applications - I have heard of them being used in nursing homes with patients with things like dementia where caring for a live animal might be more than they can handle, and where caretakers are already stretched thin, but having something that would (at a minimum) purr when you pet it would be comforting. And I would kind of want a robot animal like that - for one thing, it would be less allergenic, and for another, with my weird schedule, I wouldn't feel bad leaving it alone for long periods of time during the day (I could even switch it off). And yes, if this little creature gets too "demanding" I can switch her off until I'm ready to play around with her again.

They take batteries, and presumably the batteries can be replaces (the cover holds on with screws). But there's an on-off switch so I will leave her off when I'm not actively interacting with her, so the batteries will last better.


Edited to add: a day later and I don't reject the purchase. Me chillin' with my robot unicorn: