"Life is where we are now."

Amidst all the packing for a vacation I've not only been craving, but sorely needing, I decided to hop on here to update my readers and the huge audience of my imagination. Because I'm so generous....well, that and if I don't update soon, I'll have so much material in this little noggin of mine, that the information might just ooze out of remembrance; a beach vacation filling it's cavernous void.

July started out as most of my month's begin: full of hope and excitement. Naturally, the feeling's wrong because July is cursed for me. If July were to be conjured in to a comic world it would be a caricature of an over-exaggerated rich, British man with rat teeth and a monocle that has every influence on turning the universe against me; his reoccurring color is ruby, July's birthstone. Don't be mistaken though, I have nothing against British, rich people, or rubies. It's not a matter of asking why I see it that way, I just see it that way.

At the birth of every July, this imaginary enemy of my mind takes it easy on me, giving me a sense of anticipation for the oncoming celebration of my birthday. As the month nears it's middle, July starts to take a turn. Little, insignificant troubles begin to crop up. Arguments, money-issues and people problems are just a few examples. They're all very tiny on a daily basis, all hardly beginning to rate on a scale. That's when July takes all of these problems and dumps them on a woman's hardly private, very own "shark week" (as we will call it). 

Now disaster is imminent and the result is chaotic.

I'm not going to go in to detail with what happened because the bigger problem that fell resulted in both a huge struggle for me and a blessing in its own right. I will say I felt very lonely for the first time in my life, though. And I'm so emotionally independent that the feeling was downright confusing to the point of frustration. I often picked up Finn's face, scrunched it together in to his "meat face" and hurled "What the heck is wrong with me?!" many times throughout the month. All the while, he just panted, dropped his ears and then sniffed my face. He probably detected the smell of "crazy" through that bear-nose of his. His thoughts probably ran along the line of: "Mom's losing it again...what a nice scent".

Still, the loneliness isn't the type to just go away. It's not a "romantic" loneliness (I've never known a desire to have a "romantic" relationship), it's more of a "friendship" type loneliness. It's not easy being a wallflower. 

Then there's my family. In this last month I've come to appreciate them a lot more than I have in recent years. 

And I thought I couldn't appreciate them any more than I already do. 

When I was at my lowest point, wanting to cancel the party I was planning for my birthday (as my family were the only "guests" coming, I could cancel all too easily), my mom stepped in and said I shouldn't. She wasn't the only one looking forward to my new way of celebrating (which I developed last year and now just improve upon) and we've always been grateful for times we're able to spend together.

At the mercy of her prompting (and with great reluctance), I continued on as planned.

Now prepare yourself for the best birthday party idea ever and let me slowly blow your minds until nothing except goo pours from your ear holes. Sounds pleasing, no?

So, despite that I was still in the frock of emotional ups and downs, I prepped for a party.

I literally dove right in and got my hands dirty. In the way that I covered my skin with various food dyes and flour, I drowned the emotions by immersing myself in to something creative and fun. And what's more fun than creating home-made holi powder?! Well, lots of things.

But that's not the point.

In case you're wondering what "Holi powder" is: it's fancy talk. Holi powder is nothing short of colored powder that you can throw at people. Pretty great, right? In India and Nepal, people douse friends and strangers alike in water and colored powder during a festival called "Holi", to celebrate the welcoming of Spring. I had seen an ad and a few pictures displaying the celebration, but didn't know much else about it at the time (the details are still fuzzy so if any of my information is incorrect, I don't mind you correcting me). I looked up the simplest recipe to make my own powder and thus I began creating a monster mess with flour (if you want the recipe, I'll reveal what I used at the end).

After trial, error and plenty of perseverance: I made holi powder. It wasn't as good as it could have been, all the same though, it turned out to work amazingly.


For the table set up this year, I went simple. Last year I had candles upon candles, upon candles and some more candles. It might as well have been a candle orgy. I also had tiny decor items to make it beach themed (seashells, sea glass, sand, netting, etc). 

This time, I just wanted to make "not trying" look good. I think I succeeded if I do say so myself.

As we started out last year, we always serve the food first and then it's whatever activity I have boiling in my strange mind. I made a taco bar last year with my own money and it wasn't cheap. It was delicious! Just...expensive (with the recipes I chose, so be wise fellow budgeteers). We ended up having a lot left over once all was said and done, which made me opt for a cheaper "order from restaurant and bring it back" idea this time. Sadly, the food amount was smaller than anticipated and not nearly enough for four people. We ordered pizza to accommodate. 

Perhaps because of the Goldilocks theme going on here ("too hot, too cold, just right"), I'll get it "just right" next year. Still, I'll keep my fingers crossed just in case. 

Keith, my brother, turned on some Spanish music for us to all enjoy while we ate (Italian food), creating atmosphere and some head boogieing.

After we ate, I started "The Great Holi Powder War". At the table, no less. It's not like my mother ever told us "Kids, don't start wars at the dinner table", therefore there was never really any spoken rule. 

Keith and I fought for a little while at the table, but the obstruction was making our war nothing more than child's play. 

Because I wanted photo's of it all, but unable to photo it myself as I was involved in the battle, we moved the skirmish a few steps away from the table, off to the side, but still notably on the porch to enable easy access for my mother who now held the camera in her hands.

It was a lot easier to believe I was in a true battle this way. Fighting for territory, for freedom, for Tamriel as a Dragonborn; using the power of The Voice to Fus Ro Dah powders the colors of a well-saturated rainbow out of my mouth. I even smelled victory at one point...I just breathed it in a little too deeply. 

A wall of blue powder obstructed my vision as I inhaled the intoxicating scent of success. Mixing with success was the awful stench of failure and powder as I snorted the blue cloud like a two-dollar crack-ho convulsing wildly on the ground from withdrawals. And while I hadn't actually been on the ground at the time of said snort, I might as well have been by the time that powder was up my nose and entering my esophagus.

Burning like no other, I ended up having to call "mercy" during the middle of battle. Luckily, the other party was my brother and he stopped. It took me a while to regain my breath without feeling the need to gasp for air or cough. Even then, I was still smelling and tasting clumps of flour. On the bright-side my boogers were a pretty blue for the lot of two days.

Having been forced to surrender during battle to call an intermission (and potty break for a few), Keith and I were ready for War. Taking the child's play from the table, we moved it to the porch and created a battle, now we were fully encompassing our war by moving to the yard.

I'll admit: I flinched a little after that huge colorful snort up my nose, but we were on point. And I had more colors in my hands than Keith. More ammo for a secure victory. As his bag dwindled to holding only air though, a peace treaty was called forth and thus we decided to toss the rest of ammunition in the air to celebrate our awe inspiring forgiveness and the world's fastest war.

Disguising my happiness as a hug, I hugged Keith and promptly rubbed all my beautiful cool colors all over his warm color coordinated shirt and face. My revenge for the peace treaty and his running out of colors (so what if I made the powder?!).

The end to our feud was simply a means to move on to the next activity which involved a very unfortunate piñata, candy guts and powder blood. Keith named the ill-fated piñata: Steve.

Dad tethered Steve to a tree limb in the yard, picking a place particularly high for my reach. I had given Keith the piñata buster and he was going to hand it over so I could take the first swing at Steve, when my dad revealed another weapon. For some unknown reason my father was housing one end of a scooter handle in his garage. Putting suspicion aside, I took the lethal-looking metal handle as my weapon of choice. 

It's pretty amazing how quickly a scooter handle can make you go from feeling seriously tough to slightly (if not more) retarded. I mean, think about it for a second: I got giddy over a scooter-handle.

In the end the giddiness was much for naught. Not trusting myself, I decided to take up the buster for...everyone's safety. In any case, a flying plastic rod would hurt a lot less than a metal one.

I swung once: hit it barely, swung twice: missed, by the third time I was just winging it and upper-cutting where I could, slashing how might. I gave up my right to swing to Keith and as soon as he swung: Steve saw his short piñata existence flash before his paper eyes. 

Steve's leg was brutally separated from his hind-quarters at an alarming speed. Injured, seeing stars, dropping candy guts and powdering profusely, Steve thanked his lucky stars when Keith missed the next frenzied swing. Until the third when that piñata buster stayed true to its deadly name. Steve's body fell apart upon impact, his neck severing from the paper flesh of his back and shoulders, yet managing to retain attachment by a piece of cardboard at the front of his chest. The paper that use to grace half of his back was now torn off as if he had been skinned for his confetti fur.

Keith reveled in the accomplishment as we tore Steve from his branch and took the beating to the ground. Candy and powder was everywhere. Poor Steve never stood a chance.

We took photos of our savagery. 

And with the adrenaline pumping through our veins we couldn't help it when our killing sights were set on each other. 

 (scooter handle! Scooter handle!)

We cleaned up Steve's remains quickly and easily before going inside to have cake. 

I also managed to bring my fur-babies in on the act throughout the whole process with Keith's help.

No, we didn't beat them. I mean, we poured powder on them and made them pretty. Like four year olds might do to walls with markers. 

In the end, despite having a less than satisfactory July, August turned out to be a great time to celebrate a birthday. I can't convey what my heart was feeling through a photo, but this was the absolute best reassurance that everything is going to turn out just fine. 

Everyone has something to fall back on. For me: it's my family. 

Aside from the birthday antics, Finn has more or less degenerated back to a position where he is morbidly terrified of people. All of the work that Emily did with Finn (and that I did shortly after adopting him) has gone to waste after being cooped up with his mom for two months when I had to take care of those kittens. 

The other day Ashley (the one who adopted Nube': he's doing fantastic!) came over to the house to pick a few things up. He was his usual scared self, meeting a stranger. I had him outside, anticipating that he might release all those bodily functions when approached by someone other than his inner-circle of family. For a while, he didn't; then he tried to book it to the house and once he got on the porch, expelled all the feces and urine he had stored up. 

I cleaned him and the mess as quick and thoroughly as I could, reassuring him the entire time that everything was okay. 

Obviously, I have my work cut out for me. The only thing that worries me is my loner status. I don't have many people to introduce Finn to; in or out of a controlled environment. 

I'm still holding high hopes that I'll soon have an outlet I can work with him on that doesn't require regular Petco visits where he'll potentially dump a load in the store.

For now, his next biggest test is the beach. That's right: we're taking Finn to the Outer Banks. I'm curious to see how he'll hold up, plus I'd love to get some choice photo's with my boy, the sand, the sun, the ocean and his fancy new hair-do. 

You'll just have to wait until the next update to see his handsome new look.

 

(HOLL-IAH)

 In memory of Steve

Still wondering about that holi powder recipe? Look here:
http://www.littlepassports.com/blog/2013/03/celebrate-holi-with-a-colorful-powder-recipe/