Tag Archives: Frog

Week 9 Summary: Soots And Other Fun Things ๐Ÿ‘พ

March is here! It came so fast. March brings Christopher’s 39th birthday, Mwako’s visit, and the usual visit to the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition with my mom. Anyway, let’s get on with the summary!

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s begin Monday with a photo of Rosie chilling by my work area:

You might remember the little “soots” that took over our house quite some time ago. The following isn’t something that happened specifically on this day, I’m just picking this part of the summary to share it.

They now appear to be multiplying at Christopher’s workplace, with some help from him (though almost no one knows this for a fact, since he is very sneaky about it).

The colorful little soots have made their way all over the factory –even the CFO’s office! Christopher sends me photos sometimes, so here’s a few:

For the most part no one has removed them, though some HAVE moved a little. They seem to be amusing a lot of people, it’s pretty great! ๐Ÿ˜

You might also remember me mentioning that on Valentine’s Day, our partner got me a pair of headphones, but they turned out to be the wrong ones. So we returned them and I got to pick out a new pair. I picked the Razer Kraken x Doraemon 50th Anniversary Limited Edition gaming headset, which was only ever released in China as an exclusive promotion. They’ve finally arrived!

They are lovely. I adore this color scheme SO MUCH! Very kidcore-y vibes.

I would like to get some of the matching add-ons too, if only the mouse, because it’s actually my favorite mouse model, and it’s been discontinued.

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this day I was able to snap a pretty cute photo of Rosie and Tomoyo chilling out together:

Before grocery shopping, our partner and I went to get some wines. It was a nice little outing together, and he bought me a raptor wine stopper! It’s so cool.

I’m surprised to still come across brand new Jurassic World versions of these Good 2 Grow bottle caps/toppers/whatever they are. I found a pyroraptor one to add to my collection!

I forgot to post this on the day it happened, but a few days ago, the guys went to the grocery store and brought me flowers (the sunflowers, not the black roses, lol).

Sunflowers are my most favorite flower ever. They fill me with happiness. I wish I could always have some on my table, I’d never get tired of seeing them. It was such a nice surprise.

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Elliot has been enjoying the outdoor “hammock” a lot since I moved it to the sun, but in an unexpected way:

Oh well… at least it’s getting some use!

In a moment of weakness, after being informed that Dollar General can be a surprise treasure trove for dinosaur toys, I went and took a look. To my delight, I found a large stegosaurus of the same fashion as my large foam dinos (Mojito, Churrasco and Fuit Gummi) so I brought him home:

I also found some totally bizarre and hilarious tiny dinos that are very clearly meant to be Gon ripoffs:

You probably don’t know Gon, unless you’re a big comic and/or dinosaur fan, but it is a true underlooked gem in manga. I only own this one volume, it’s very short, and one of my treasures:

Drawn by Masashi Tanaka, Gon has no dialogue and no onomatopeias. Every frame looks like it would have taken a full day to painstakingly render–I say this as someone who has similarly spent pleasant hours absorbed in crosshatching a scene with pen and ink. This is to say nothing of the absolutely BONKERS full-page spreads:

Gon is some sort of vague Carnosaurs, with a more t. Rex-like head, although I’ve also seen him described as a Giganotosaurus. This is possible, since Gon was first published one year after the discovery of Giganotosaurus.

Somehow, Gon lives in a more modern world. He’s escaped extinction in some way. The manga follows his interactions with these modern species, which are never quite prepared for the force to be reckoned with that is Gon.

While often humorous, scenes of death (very sad scenes, really) can be crushing and sudden, only adding to the emotional intensity that this wordless manga provides.

Below are two examples from this particular volume –in one, a wolf-pup is completely crushed by a tiger’s gigantic paw. This comes immediately after the same tiger killed the pups’ mother:

In this other example, a bird steals a baby penguin and very cheerfully flies away to eat it. The contrast between the bird’s happy face, the terror of the chick, and the shared grief so eloquently depicted by Tanaka in the frame that follows, are impressively drawn and brimming with emotion:

There is an animated, CGI version of Gon. It is, in my opinion, a terrible adaptation in which all of the nuance and charm is lost. I mean… here’s a couple of GIFs from it…

You know what, maybe farts are in the manga too, I haven’t read all of it, it seems out of character for the manga though. I watched some of the anime and it was SO lame. Worst of ALL, the animals talk! Ugh.

I should point out that Gon also made an appearance as a playable character in the game Tekken 3:

He does have a fart attack in Tekken, so who knows, maybe it’s a thing. ๐Ÿ™„ In any case, it was very amusing to find this little toy set that basically shows Gon as a bunch of different species –including a parasaurolophus!

As a funny side note, when looking for Gon gifs I came an account on Tenor that clearly has a “special interest“:

So yeah, that was odd. Aaaanyway… on to Thursday!

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

Thursday evening the three of us went for a walk together. When we passed the local pond/lake/whatever you call it, the bullfrogs were LOUD. Our partner walked closer to the reeds and grasses by the water to find one of them for me. It was enormous.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

Friday was tank cleaning day, so I have a lot of photos to share. I also have some really cute lettuce-rasping action caught in video:

I ended up ordering a tree hide like the one the rats used to have. It looks really nice in the tank, and the snails seem to like hanging out inside it.

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

I continued to walk as much as I could, 4-5 miles every day. The weather is still mild compared to what will soon come. I snapped this pretty photo of a flower.

In the afternoon, I relaxed with more Legends: Arceus and a little snack. Then I had a nap.

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

Sunday evening I went on a walk with our partner and we hadn’t gotten far from the house when we saw this little (fake) LEGO table set out for bulk trash:

I don’t really have space for it indoors, so I put it on the porch with a pillow for the cats. It’s colorful and cute, I didn’t really want to just leave it out to be trashed.

Anyway, that’s it for this week. Next week is Christopher’s birthday, and tomorrow I’ll be taking Kotoko to the vet right by our house to do some more looking-into her vomiting that won’t go away and see if she’s actually lost weight or it’s all in my head. I’ll update you all next Sunday. Until then, I hope you have a happy week!

Here Comes Dat Boi ๐Ÿธ๐ŸŒˆ

I am now the proud parent of a Spring Green BAB froggy!! Guess what I’m naming him.

I had a $10 coupon so he was pretty affordable. I will say, I was assisted by the most “done with life” Build-A-Bear employee EVER. It was like making a bear with Daria as the employee. No smiles, no nothing. Lol. Anyway, I bought the boots new, but otherwise dressed him at home. This is what I first dressed him in:

After that I made him his name necklace (and yes, his name REALLY is “Dat Boi”), gave him a bandana, rainbow leg warmers, a rainbow frog pin, some colorful chain to decorate his straps, and a froggy onesie to wear underneath his overalls. Plus, of course, the shiny red “wellies” as the Brits call ’em. Now he’s ready to go on an adventure! ๐Ÿธ๐ŸŒˆโœจ

Will you go with him? He wants to hold your hand, and hopes you won’t be too grossed out if he sneaks a fly or two during the walk. ๐Ÿ™Š

I have griped often, and repeatedly, about the terrible quality of Build-A-Bear toys. There are BAB fans these days who did not get to experience the BAB plushies I got to make, 19 or so years ago. The quality was on a very different level.

But once in a while there’s still a winner: like my Ricky Parky, and now Dat Boi, who is also very much a keeper. I am expecting my Bear-Lien (who is arriving Thursday, and I am naming Orion) to hopefully also measure up!

Busy Thursday ๐Ÿ˜–

Today was a bit rough. I was up early, did some artwork in the morning and helped Christopher be off to work. I worked some more on art after that, but eventually developed a really bad headache. As soon it started, I took something and lay down, and was drifting in and out of sleep for a couple of hours, but it hurt a lot all of that time.

Eventually I couldnโ€™t keep wasting my day anymore. The worst had passed but it still felt as though someone had dropped a bunch of bricks on my head. I went around the house dazed for a while before I could properly restart my day.

I had a snack, and continued reading this book:

Itโ€™s a real gem. I say that both sarcastically and also not. I really like to collect books meant to indoctrinate children, for a variety of reasons. For one, that single solitary book can no longer be used to teach wrong things. Two, sometimes theyโ€™re unintentionally hilarious (this is one such case). And three, because I was exposed to such stuff a lot in childhood, it makes me nostalgic.

I’m going to let this excerpt speak for itself:

Bleetle-brows, amirite?

Anyway, it’s equally hilarious and sort of infuriating, but definitely entertaining. After my snack, I decided to take another two Advil because my day was still too full of work to do and I felt too sore and out of it. Then I mowed the lawn.

When I was mowing the lawn, this froggy was out in the sun (because it had just rained):

Thatโ€™s right against the side of the porch, and the froggy was upset by my moving around and wanting to escape. So it went inside one of the drainage holes (into the porch) which you can see to the left in the photo above.

We did this little dance where I kept going on the inside and the frog’s head or butt would be poking out of the hole into the porch, but it would quickly move a little more toward whatever side I wasnโ€™t on (I was just trying to protect it from the cats, but also from the lawnmower).

Eventually I shooed him into a large hole under the house so he was safe from both. ๐Ÿ˜

Then, I did my houseworkโ€ฆ beds, laundry, litter boxes, dishes. I cleaned the fridge and took care of the snails. After that, I did the grocery shopping and got what I needed for the weekend, including the empanada ingredients. I’ll make the empanadas tomorrow morning so I donโ€™t have to worry about that on Saturday, since we will hopefully be out having fun.

Today had ups and downs too, as all days do lately, but I really enjoyed our date night. I felt closer to Christopher tonight that I had in some time, on a really deep level, and it was pretty fun, too. I’m going to bed on such a high, that it’s going to be difficult to actually get to sleep. ๐Ÿ˜…

Goodnight, everyone.

Froggy Neighbor ๐Ÿธ

In our yard we have lots of little neighbors. Geckos, huge iguanas, squirrels, bluejays, curly-tails, some snails (tiny ones) the occasional opossum or raccoon, a few cats, some mice, hundreds of spiny-backed orb weaver spiders, and TONS of little frogs!

Today while watering the grass I came across one such froggy –a rather big one– who was acting sort of lethargic. These frogs generally jump away as soon as I walk near. But he stayed, even as I poked him a little, which was concerning.

He was on the side of my house (no grass near him) and with the sun rising, which can easily bake such a small critter to death here in FL, I could not leave him there. So I grabbed him and misted him with spring water, and then released him in a cool area of my garden, where he lives. But not before taking a lot of photos and video!!

I suppose his dignity may have taken a hit…

As soon as he was misted he perked up.

I had never been able to see such a perfect little frog so close up. It was wonderful!

Just look at his lovely perfect skin. He looks like a tiny dinosaur creature!

Last video… I really couldn’t pick one, I was just so pleased with what I’d captured…

After I was done harassing him with my camera I misted him once more and released him in a shady spot with taller grass (where I most often see these froggies). Hopefully he had a good rest of his day! ๐Ÿ˜Š

New Friend ๐Ÿธ

Iโ€™ve wanted this @affenzahn_official froggy backpack for the better part of a year and itโ€™s finally mine! ๐Ÿธ

Itโ€™s not big, so I canโ€™t fit my iPad in it, but itโ€™s perfect for small basic necessities when out and about. I canโ€™t stop smiling looking at it! Itโ€™ll complement so many of my outfits.