A few months ago I bought some hermit crabs. I got all excited because I've wanted hermit crabs since I was about 10 years old. I got them a big tank, some fancy coconut substrate and extra shells, water and food dishes, some rocks and –most recently– a compressed coconut fiber wall for them to climb and get some privacy. Also they enjoy eating it.
But hermit crabs are vicious creatures.
You wouldn't think, looking at them, that these adorable little guys & gals will tear each other apart every time they get bored (or PMS or something) but as I type this, there's only two-and-a-half hermit crabs left from the original family of five. That is, two live ones and one that got savaged and ripped in half, and is in the process of dying.
I googled how to put a hermit crab out of its misery, but the only helpful suggestion was "shoot it".
So I'm just letting him stay in his corner of the tank until he kicks the bucket. I feel crappy because I can't help him, neither by sewing his lower body and missing legs back on, nor by putting him in an upside-down jar with a cotton ball soaked in that stuff we used to kill Mousey the Dissected Lab Mouse at school... (was it formaldehyde? I don't remember).
Anyway, I figured that if I take him out of the tank and put him in an old cottage cheese container it'll just be even more stressful, plus he wont have his shell to hide in.
I just have to intervene and scoop out his dead body before he gets ripped in even smaller pieces, the way it happened to Bobby last week when he got "voted off the island".**
**my Mom said that and it cracked me up at the time.
I've been having some episodes of insomnia recently. One night, I went to bed at 10 pm, and fell asleep seven hours later.
Major suckage.
It had also happened to me a few months ago, when I was still in school. I'd get very little sleep, have a lot of trouble getting up in the morning because I just felt sooo heavy, and generally have a crappy time. Of course I couldn't just take it lying down (ha!), so I conducted what passes for research these days** and then tried any combination of the below:
1. Not look at anything bright/be in an illuminated place for about an hour before bed 2. Listen to soothing/classical music 3. Not listen to anything 4. Stimulate my brain (or something) by reading, doing puzzles, etc. before bed 5. Not do any strenuous thinking before bed 6. Read something very boring (The Silmarillion) 7. Warm milk before bed 8. Tea before bed 9. No caffeine 10. Not eating anything a few hours before bed 11. Eating a lot before bed 12. Meditating 13. Counting sheep 14. Exercise before bed to tire myself out 15. Shower before bed
The above is a load of crap. I came up with some of them, and found most of them, but it's all still crap. I'd drink warm tea with milk, spend an hour in the dark before going to bed and meditate and then I'd just stare at the ceiling for hours.
Agggh!!
But no more!! These days, or at least yesterday and the day before, I've been falling asleep within half an hour of going to bed. Do you want to know what it is that just sends me off, that is as effective as hitting me over the head with a ukulele, what's the stupidest yet most effective cure for insomnia?
DEATH METAL!!!!
Seriously. Three tracks into the Dethalbum and I'm knocked out***. And probably snoring.
**Research these days = several hours on the Internet, with Google majorly involved
***Some might argue that I'm falling asleep to a cartoon soundtrack. To them, I say ptooie! It's still death metal.
I always seem to waste my summers (I mean, I can't remember anything terribly worthwhile I've done with them in the past), and this is the longest summer holiday I'll ever have, between high school and university. But for the record, I'm not lying on my laurels all day here. Well, today I did just sleep, read and peruse websites that sell plugs for stretched ears. But not all days.
EDIT: I made this into a list. As in, I added numbers.
1. Let's see, I went to the movies that time, by myself and in the morning to watch Oceans. I was feeling totally awesome because it was like I had the whole theatre to myself, but then this couple walked in. Not that that was bad or anything–the more people see that film, the better. But it did annoy me when the girl laughed at the bit where a huge shrimpy thing snaps off a crab's claw and then leaves it to die on the ocean floor, whereas I was nearly ready to shed a manly tear (having hermit crab pets must have made me more sensitive to the crab's plight or something).
2. I've also been to Starbucks a whole bunch of times with my sister to have frappuccinos. I don't really care for their prices, other beverages (like their coffee, actually) or the type of people they normally attract around here, but they do have really tasty frapps and comfy couches.
3. I went with my friend to see that movie, some romantic comedy that he wanted to watch... and also go some frozen yogurt with him a few times...
Okay, I'm stretching it here, but if I don't write down coffee outings and frozen yogurt consumption it'll fade out of my memory because it's not significant and I'll feel like I just lay on my couch all summer and watched Law & Order.
4. Oh, yeah, I watched some Law & Order. On the couch.
5. And I got my ears stretched some more. The dude who did it the first time actually remembered me and we chatted a bit. Not chatting as in talking about the weather or how Mexico's doing in the world of soccer, but chatting as in talking about scalpeling bits of ear off while he was doing my ears. Also I got to observe dudes with bunches of tattoos and other body mods hanging out and doing stuff and they were kind of fun to watch. They seem to be more in touch with their inner children than most people are. And nicer people.
6. Oh, that time I was with my sister and I was craving a chocolate donut so we went to a bakery, and on the way there (and back) we saw this totally smokin' hot dude sitting on the base of a pillar of the bridge in front of the nearest mall. It was magical because I was a) with my totally cool sister, b) holding a donut, c) on the way to get a frappuccino, d) in possession of $2 I had just found on the street, and e) looking at a smokin' hot dude. It has all the makings of a magical moment. Which is probably why it has inexplicably stuck in my mind.
7. I bought some red jeans! They were on discount and lovely. :D And the shop assistant looked like Lady Gaga.
8. I made cookies with Bailey's Irish Cream in them. I based it on a recipe I found on several websites (apparently there's one Bailey's cookie recipe out there. Weak), except I doubled the booze and they came out TWICE AS GOOD!!!! YAY!!! I put some other stuff in there, too, but mainly I owe it to the alcohol.
9. I'm going to my cousin's house to play Wii and sleep over. ...yep.
I'm writing this at 2 AM because I couldn't sleep. My sister is crashing in my room because she wants to sleep in, but her room has a window facing east so the morning light always bugs her awake. My room, however, is always dark and gloomy and sad because my only window faces north. The point of telling you all that is so I can also inform you that she just made a snore-ish noise, said "Nyarhusum!" and rolled over.
I just gave my hermit crabs a piece of rice cracker lightly sprinkled with cheese powder and they went NUTS. The bit of bell pepper I put in at the same time was nibbled on for about ten seconds before a big fight over the cracker ensued. Ultimately the winner dragged it off to a corner of the tank, while I ran downstairs to get more cracker pieces so that nobody would lose a leg if they fought again.
Lesson learned: crabs might kill for cheesy rice crackers.
Yes indeed, a new accordion was purchased today! When I saw it before, I'd thought it was pretty ugly, not to mention crappy quality. But once it was mine, it was suddenly absolutely beautiful. I wonder if that's what it's like when you have babies. All babies are uuuugly, but if it's yours you're apparently supposed to think it's really cute.
Ha! I bet not.
Since it's a pretty bad accordion, if I do say so myself (and I do), upon arriving home it was discovered that it has a broken reed (or stuck or fallen off or something. Anyway, that reed is f***ed up), and it makes this weird kind of... well, farting/stuttering noise when it plays this certain note. The shop was called and an appointment has been set up for tomorrow, so let's see when I can get it back.
Please enjoy a short video I made. It's called I love my accordion but after a few hours I made next to no progress and I think it's pretty hard but not as hard as I'd thought it might be, so I'm going to keep at it and hopefully I can play something really cool in not too much time.
Mother: After You're done fooling around** with your accordion, you should try to learn some actual songs. Me: I am!! I'm learning The Chicken Dance!
**She didn't say "fooling around", I think, but it was something to the effect of getting acquainted with it and not playing real music.
EDIT: This post is pretty long. I won't erase it because I spent ages writing it, and I may want to read it someday, but you can just not read it. The gist of it is, I'm going to get an accordion. Knowing this and watching the video below is all you really need.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For a few months I'd been thinking it would be cool to play the accordion. Yes, I think the accordion is cool, as opposed to the guitar, bass, drums, recorder, trumpet, tuba, clarinet, oboe**, violin, cello, harmonica, kazoo, sitar, banjo and the oh-so-popular ukulele***.
No, I'm kidding. Kazoos are cool.
But anyway, back to the accordion. A few weeks ago I started to think seriously of learning to play, so I conducted a little Internet research, established a budget, picked a type of accordion, and set out to find one to buy. I'll have an Italian one, I thought. A piano accordion, and I'll spend about 3000 pesos.
HA!!! HA HA HA!!
Here, let me give you a brief lesson in accordions. This will be boring and maybe a bit unnecessary fun.
This here, children, is called a piano accordion (it says "Hohner" because that's the brand; 'tis a good brand). There are other accordions, which have buttons on this side, but since I already play some piano this is easier for me.
Now, on the side that doesn't have the piano keys, you will notice a series of white dots. Those are buttons, and they are the bass buttons. If you press them (and move your accordion around), this allows you to create harmonies thatwill come out of the accordion! Just like magic!
See, the more bass buttons you have, the more stuff you can play. There are some with as little as 12 buttons, which are really useless. You can play basically anything with 72 bass buttons, and any extra ones after that are repeated so that your hand doesn't have to jump around so much to reach distant buttons. 12o buttons is the most there can be.
120 is very expensive. I settled for 60 or 72 bass buttons.
I suppose I was even lucky to find accordions at all. Fortunately, here in Mexico accordions are widely used by homeless people who play them on the street to earn money, and by bandas, the likes of Los Tigres del Norte:
Lovely.
THIS IS WHY I WANT TO PLAY ACCORDION!! NO NOT REALLY!! Hell, no.
But anyway, since people that play in bandas are apparently the ones who buy most of the accordions around here, what they sell is mostly 12-bass accordions. This is because in banda music, the accordion player only uses the keyboard side of the instrument, since there's no point in using the bass buttons because there's already 15 more members of the band that are playing bass instruments (really, those groups are huge).
Come to think of it, they could just use a keyboard with a patch. But whatever.
Add the bass lackage to the fact that nearly all the accordions available for sale were Chinese. The Chinese have accordion factories, so their product lacks a special ingredient: love. The Germans and Italians don't just slap them together with machines and enslaved children, but rather with wise old accordion experts that work 20-hour days, so their instruments are way better quality. Also they cost a lot more.****
So I'm going to buy a Chinese accordion with 60 bass buttons for more than double of what I was originally hoping to spend. Although I'll only be paying two-thirds of the price, since my Dad hopped in to save the day. Well, not really, it's because I caught him in a good mood one day when he was listening to a podcast that said we should all take time to enjoy the little things of life! Like playing childrens' games, and learning an instrument! He went, "Oh, this is true! You should listen to this podcast!"
I seized the opportunity, and sidled over to him, and was all, "Well, actually, Dad...". So he offered to pay for a part of it. Whee!
But it's okay that my accordion won't be a good one, because it's not like I've ever played before. I won't be needing anything very good, you know? It would be a bit of a waste, I suppose, to buy a complete beginner something along the lines of a 25,000+ peso Hohner accordion with the 120 bass buttons. Which was the only non-Chinese accordion I found.
WHEE!!
** actually, I think the oboe is cool. It sounds like it should make a low, tuba-ey sound, but it's all high and melodic and sweet.
*** I do have a ukulele. I can play one song on it. Well, not really-- I can play half of one song and half of another.
**** It is a widely known fact that accordion experts can eat only caviar and truffles, the expensive kind. Their employers are obligated to provide lunch and dinner, so it costs them a lot. I mean, this is the only way I can explain the price tags on their accordions! Oh, it might have something to do with all the work it takes to assemble a good instrument, too, but I'm not too sure.
Anyway, today I went over to the crabby-tank to give the little decapods (deca...paw-feet-claws?) some fresh water. Someone was sitting in the food dish, and it made me realize that I haven't actually given them fresh food for a while, about two weeks. I don't need to do it that often, because a) they eat their coconut substrate, and b) in the wild, they eat rotting fruit that falls from trees, so as long as the food stays in the dish and doesn't get mouldy or something, I let them keep it.
But anyway, this afternoon we'd bought 2 kilos of mangoes and 2 honeydew melons for the grand sum of 4o pesos**, so I soared to the kitchen, fast as a speeding bullet, and hacked up some melon to put in the crabs' food dish. Then I went and got them a little piece of mango –variety is important– and came back to find two crabs already gorging themselves on the melon. Which was very quick of them.
**With 40 pesos you can buy any of the following:
1. Four ice cream sandwiches
2. Not quite two toothbrushes
3. Twenty pens
4. Four (kinda small) hermit crabs
5. Five glasses of orange juice (or enough oranges to make more than that)
6. Five mililtres of chocolate praline fragrance from Sephora
7. One fifth of a hamburger-shaped pillow that I really want
8. Six point six six six six six six cans of diet Dr Pepper from OXXO
9. One fifteenth of my shoes (some lovely Converse)
10. NOT MY DOG BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T COST ANYTHING, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
