la_belle_laide | Nii-san no katana*

Here's what blows: Sano is sick again. The ITP came back. I took him and Haku to the vets last Thursday b/c Haku's seizures just continue, and because Sano has lost most of his hair. He was otherwise fine that morning. By the time I got him there, he was covered in bruises. Fortunately this time he was not bleeding internally, but after all he is back on megadoses of pred, doxy and famotadine because the pred and doxy can wreck his stomach lining and if he does start to bleed, that would be really bad. So now along with the massive hair loss, he also has all the other lovely prednisone side effects as well.

Mom took Belle to the vets too, and the three of them cost over a thousand dollars. (Which I doubt I will get back from the college. I'm supposed to find out tomorrow. I feel like this is going to go really badly.)

And, I never got my check from the town for all the classes and the show. I was told it was sent out on the 10th so I sent an email. Finally yesterday I got one in reply. “Oh, uhh, well we forgot to enter your information in the computer, and then went on vacation for a while. And didn't tell you about any of this. How about we send it out next week?” I should charge mothereffing interest, no?

Oh, and my froggie Laguna I guess has moved onto wetter pastures. At least I hope he has. I built him a little house and a huge elaborate ladder so he could get out. He managed to get onto the rocks and I took a cute picture:

After that he was gone. Maybe I'll get some frogs, or fish or something.

This past weekend was a nice weekend. I came left school a little early Friday and my Mom went to pick up Jo-chan. We had pizza, went for a walk with the dogs, played video games, and then watched Degeneration. Then, the next day I gave massages to Mom and Jo-chan. After that we had lentil soup dinner, finished playing FFVII and then showed my Mom all these Compilation scenes. We ate huge amounts of ice cream and watched Advent Children Complete on my computer which I brought to Mom's. At the end, I turned the sound down so's not to hear the lameass new song that bumped “Calling,” and played “Calling” on iTunes instead. ^_^ Mom really liked FFVII and Advent Children, and Jo-chan and I were just in our glory. I hope we can have more weekends like that one.

On Monday my brother came to visit. I picked him up at the train station and it was a beautiful day. He had a wrapped gift package with him and TBH, I totally had a feeling about what it was but he told me, “I baked you a pie!”

It wasn't a pie, it was his katana set that he's had for fifteen years, and a letter to go with it.

Here's the letter:

These are the katana:

A detail of the blade and scabbard:

It's not only that they're so gorgeous, but it's such a huge honor I can't even begin to describe. My brother did Japanese martial arts for years—our Dad was a martial artist, too—and a gift like this is beyond value. Once I get to work on renovating Gran's apartment for my massage studio / thingie, I'm going to put them in there and put the letter behind the stand so they're always together. (I ordered for him Nick Cave's “Murder Ballads” because it's out of print and my brother doesn't go to Amazon and he LOVES Nick Cave just like I do, and I also sent Leonard Cohen's “Various Positions” just because it's awesome, but those don't add up to the katana; nothing can. Still, I hope it'll be a nice surprise for him.)

Anyway, my brother, my Mom and I had lunch and bawled our eyes out for a while, then I took my brother to the train station and saw him off.

“Train, train, take us away. Take us away, far away. To the future we will go. Where it stops, no one knows.” (Lately, Mom is watching me play FFVIII. I hope she likes it.)

Today I called the vet about Sano's blood test results since he's been on pred for a week. His platelets rose to 187 and that's pretty good, about normal. But he still has to stay on the pred for months upon months, and then after that, we can try to tackle the hair loss which might be related to thyroid problems which might be related to the ITP or it might be related to the pred. Who knows.

Right now, I just got back from my job training. It went pretty well and I got to pick out some pretty sweet hours. So my first official day working by myself is on Saturday. I wish I could publicly talk about the company because I really like it and because the name of the company gives me some LULZ in reference to possible nicknames for its reps, but alas, Nasties still hang about my LJ and we all remember what happened last time. (Although that only helped in the long run, still, I'm sure they're not finished and still quite peeved that they only did me good. You never know.) Anyway, I get paid for the orientation and for the training tonight, and then I work Saturday and Sunday so I should have a decent check next Friday and I'll be so relieved.

Now I'm going to wait till 9 then go watch Fringe with Mom. Tomorrow is Friday and I have Asian Bodywork 1 and 2 and then the rest of the night to study / do whatever and then work Saturday and Sunday and hopefully sometime I can do some work around the house. Heigh ho.

*"The swords of my brother," that sounds like a good title for a story, right? Like some kind of Samurai or Bushido story. :)