My Journey

Much needed vid after digesting all the online toxic bullshit from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Awww :D

Yesterday (12-27-22) was the day, 26 years ago I bought home a three month old cockatiel. I was 15 years old when I became a bird mom in 1996, lol. After going back and forth between the names "Sunshine," "Sunny," and "Peachy" my older sister suggested "Peaches." I know, my sister was in rare form, she was actually helpful, lol. I loved the name and from that time forward he was known as "Peaches."

Prior to 1996, I was never allowed to own any pets (my dad was NOT an animal lover, but my mom was and still is!). My parent's divorce changed everything. Using the Christmas money my dad gifted me, I bought Peaches from the Magnolia Bird Farm in Riverside, CA. When my father found out what I used my Christmas money for, he hit the roof, he vowed never to give me money again (and he kept that promise 'till this very day, lol).

No regrets.

Having Peaches in our lives for the past 26 years has been a blessing. If I had to do it all over again, despite my father's unhinged response, I wouldn't change a thing.

In light of Cheesecake's passing this year at 24 years of age, we realize Peaches at 26 doesn't have much time left. Relevantly speaking, Peaches is in good health (especially for his age), we hope he will see 27 in 2023. Anything beyond 27 years is an awesome bonus. 

My sister sunk to a new low. 

Considering Cheesecake was HER pet, HER responsibility, I tasked her to find a facility that handles pet cremation. Also, I let her know she needed to step up financially and pay for it since she has skirted ALL financial responsibility regarding Cheesecake's care (this includes, feeding, housing, toys, etc.). This was the LEAST she could do for him.

Thinking she would finally do the right thing and get this done, I went back to work. How fuckin wrong was I.

After work I checked-in with my mom regarding Cheesecake's end of life care. My shock quickly turned to red hot anger when I found out my lazy, no good, cunt of a sister told my mom there were no facilities that would do pet cremation in our state and the only course of action was to dump Cheesecake in the fuckin dumpster like a piece of trash.

I knew that was a fuckin lie. Did she actually think I would believe that no one would offer pet cremation, in the entire state of California?! Really?! Did this bitch even fuckin try to find one? Or was this cunt trying to get out of paying for it? Probably both. When things are not a priority for her, she half-asses shit then washes her hands of it and leaves others to clean up her messes.

Even in my boiling hot anger, in UNDER FIVE MINUTES I managed to find a place that would cremate Cheesecake for $305 and it was less than a mile away. I phoned the animal hospital for confirmation, which only took less than three minutes. 

Just when I think she can't sink lower, she always manages to prove me wrong. She has done a lot of nasty shit, but this one, she can't come back from, at least not with me.

I drove my mom to the vet hospital where we completed the paperwork and dropped Cheesecake off for the last time. We will get notification when his ashes are ready to be picked up. 

Since my mom paid for the service, I'm willing to bet she'll give the ashes to my deadbeat sister. That is my mom's MO--the spineless enabler.

It's been a long shitty day. I'm going to workout to relieve some of this anger and stress.

 

Ok, well not entirely done, but I tweaked the style a bit, and I'm very happy with the look. Each hummingbird will have three different poses :)
 

 

I want to try something different for my first Creative Market product. So, I've decided to make a series of minimalistic vector hummingbirds. I usually do the naturalistic thing, but for the sake of time and doing something different, geometric birds are the way to go.

I haven't decided if I want to add textures or leave as is. The look and feel is basically finished, I just need to adjust a few things. I can't wait to create the other five or so cute birds.

He's alive.

According to the vet, Cheesecake has liver disease, which caused him to become severely dehydrated. The vet feels the liver issue is due to his advanced age. Ok..then why give him enrofloxacin, which is an antibiotic. My conversations with him never mentioned an infection. Covering all the bases I guess? Tomorrow I'll be talking to the vet again to clear this up.

He was rehydrated, got some goodies then got to go home.

I'm grateful for the positive outcome.

I'll be giving him non-alcoholic milk thistle and aloe vera for his liver.

DONE!!! Yays!

I enjoyed working on this, Muffin is too cute!


 

Still got to do some minor things, but this will be done by tomorrow :)

I took some artistic license regarding the shadows and the bread perspective. In the real world this setup wouldn't cast blue shadows, lol, BUT I love it, because it pulls the top and bottom half of the image together. Also the bread would cast a much bigger shadow, BUT it wouldn't look good aesthetic wise.

Will be darkening the banana peel that is in shadow. The feet need need color tweaking as well.

Last week was exhausting.

Two Fridays ago we received notice there would be mandatory spraying in all apartment units on Monday, February 8th. This put us into a panic because:

1) We have birds.
2) I have MCS (ok this only put me in a panic).
3) There is a hoarder among us *cough*my sister*cough* that hasn't cleaned up since being threatened with eviction years and years ago.

Thinking of the birds and me, I booked a four-day Airbnb rental 40 miles away. But before we could leave we had to clean (my mom and sister cleaned, my room was already clean), pack and make sure our stuff was protected from the poison. That took DAYS!!! I had to wrap my stuff to make sure when I came home I could just throw away the plastic coverings with the scent/fumes instead of having that crap off-gas for who knows how long.

To make matters worse my mom had a doctor's appointment on that Monday. UGH.

To make a long story short we all did what we needed to do to get ready for Monday. 

I accompanied my mom to her doctor's appointment, only to be told my mom was left a voicemail saying it had to be rescheduled. Her response was the predictable "I didn't receive anything." Understand she doesn't know how to access her voicemail. So I pulled up the voicemail and played for her. She apologized. Whatever, a waste of time and gas because my mom can't be bothered to freakin learn how to use something as basic as voicemail.

After that fiasco, we go and get food for the trip. We ate and loaded our stuff into my car then loaded the birds. OMG. The birds HATES car rides and that was a fiasco in itself.

After being stuck in traffic for an hour I get a message that check-in time has been extended for an hour, because the cleaning crew were running behind. So instead of a 3pm check-in time, it's now 4pm.

UGH.

Ok, whatever.

So, I found a nice place to park to wait out the extra hour. Finally after that hour was up we get to the apartment. It's full of headache inducing Febreze and glade scents.

NOOOOO!!!

Luckily, the solution was to place all that scented crap into ziplock bags for the duration of my visit. 

Other than that the place was nice. Two bedrooms and two baths. I took one room for myself  (since I paid for the whole damn thing) and my mom and sister took the other. Perfect. I placed the birds with my sister and mom's room.

Since they had to work Wednesdays and Thursdays the original plan was to take them back home the next morning. Saved them from inhaling the remnants of the day's pesticide's fumes. Or so I thought.

We received a text that the spraying would be RESCHEDULED for the 11th because someone didn't confirm scheduling with the company!!! My check-out date was on the 12th!!

OH HELL NO!!! I was beyond seething!

I PAID nearly $500 to specifically have four damn days to have that shit clear out. There was no way in hell I would return the next day. I made my anger and situation very clear to the property manager. She agreed not to spray our apartment. Good, we didn't have any bugs anyways.

I mean, after I dropped off my mom and sister and was left alone with the birds I LOVED it! But I had to spend money needlessly, because management couldn't be bothered to confirm an appointment. Or better yet they should have ASKED if we needed our unit sprayed in the first place!

The last full day of my stay I treated myself to some Pandera bread takeout, lol. Worth every penny.

Friday the 12th came and I had to check out. I was sad, because I loved having the place to myself, but I'm not made of money so off I and the birds went. Got home unloaded my stuff and the birds. The birds were predictably loud while transporting them back into our apartment, lol. 

After everything was done, I was extremely exhausted and took a nice long nap. I can't wait to move out.