Wolfie The Unicorn
Aug. 14th, 2022 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeIt has been a very busy few days since returning from the cruise, making me question whether holidays are really good ways to relax or whether they just postpone the inevitable shitshow that is day-to-day living. Still, I managed to get my tax return submitted, have a second job interview which seemed to go quite well, sort out my credit cards as my UK one will expire at the end of the month and go to the doctors to get the results of the blood which was taken two weeks ago. This turned out to be much better than I expected, with the only real issue being an elevated cholesterol level. Fortunately, this is easily resolved by reducing both meat and alcohol consumption, so we are going to the supermarket tomorrow evening to check out the vegetarain options on offer. Interestingly, we were told that some of the brown bread here masquarades as such as it is loaded with sugar to colour it, meaning we'll need to be far more careful when checking labels. Furthermore, it does mean that I'll have to cut back on the cheese cubes, which does me a sad. Still, my liver function is good and all other metrics are fine, so I am pretty content with how things are.
While doing the physical check-up, the doctor did notice the scar on my stomach, which started the topic of self-harm and depression. I am reasonably open about this and I didn't see any point in not being open here. This turned out to be a good thing as she highlighted some behavioural therapy which I could go on, paid for through my insurance, which may help. I'm going to consider this in the autumn. Talking about this did affect me quite deeply on Friday though, and it did highlight that this is something that I really need to sort. While I am aware that work is the primary trigger for depression right now, I worry about way too many things and this is working into higher stress levels too. None of this is particularly good, certainly with higher cholesterol than it should be, so it's something I do need to sort out.
I have decided to reward myself with a weekend off, largely because last week so busy. Yesterday, I headed out to Kangaroo's World again, bowling with Trax. He mentioned on the boat that he was arranging bowling for this weekend, but he didn't mention specifics until Saturday morning, which made everything rather tight, so much so that I had to meet him at t bowling alley itself rather than his house. Nine of us were there, and seven fursuiters, although I'll admit my competitive nature meant I didn't join the bowling too much. Indeed, in 14 attempts, I only scored four points, with the ball frequently veering into the right-hand gutter, no matter from where I bowled it. I tried putting my fursuit paws on the other way but to no avail, and this made me feel frustrated. I don't mind losing, but I do at least want to have a chance of winning, but I ended our first game with three times as fewer points as my nearest rival. This was 11 and seven of those was when Jesica bowled for me while I was taking a break. It was my worst bowling score ever and halfway through the second game, we all gave up as it was too hot. Still, we got a photo next to the depressed kangaroo mascot at the entrance, who clearly had the look of someone who was sick of 20 years of relentless children's parties.
The intention had been to go to the Greek place we visited last October but it was very busy, necessitating a switch to an excellent steak place. I had the rump steak with fries and gorgonzola sauce, which came in at a reasonable €26. It was great sitting outside in their little beer garden as the sun was going down, lit by a trail of blue fairy lights. Here I got speaking to Jazzy's Russian girlfrield who is an exceptional artist and Shorty, a fur from Hannover who really loves the UK. Indeed, Shorty and I went shopping for water together in a Netto earlier and found some raspberry flavoured tea that looks like pink cat litter. I liked it because it had a unicorn picture on the front and later in the evening, back at Trax's place, we made a cup and could see glittery sparkles in the mug (interacting with the soap scum in mine as the cup hadn't been fully rinsed out). It was also great catching up with Paco too, before he returns to Mexico tomorrow, with he and Trax both surprised to discover I was at ArFF in 2019. Apparently, they had been watching LATAM con videos on YouTube the night before and had spotted me in one of them.
We returned to Trax's to watch Robin Hood: Men In Tights, a film I thought I had seen but it turned out I hadn't. It was incredibly good and I am glad I stayed to watch it, despite thinking I should probably head off. I felt a little guilty as Wolfie had opted to stay at home, his knee twinging once more and him feeling bowling would only aggravate it. In the end, with a promise of spending the day with him today, I got back shortly before 2:30am. I knew he would be spending the evening in VR and the thought of that depressed me - I have always considered it a poor substitute to real-life interaction and it's hit or miss whether I have a good time on it. It should be better now Wolfie has installed a new function which muffles or mutes sounds a certain distance away, as there is often too much interaction in the program. Ultimately though we're dropping into the same weekend routine of always being on VR and I'm finding it quite depressing to be honest. Certainly, Wolfie is more enamored with virtual reality than I, but often I find myself with little else to do, spending many awkward hours on the game.
The only other thing to have happened last week was a Ukrainian friend of mine, who I had met at WUFF in 2016, got back in touch telling me he'll be at Eurofurence. He is coming from Lviv, where he had to relocate from Odesa due to the war, and he told me a number of other Ukranian furs with whom I had lost touch are safe and have relocated there too. I felt quite emotional about this and soon we were reminisicing about the con we attended six years ago. He initially got in touch as he is interested in attending the Furry Brew Crew event, which annoyingly clashes with the Ponyplay one, on the Wednesday evening of EF. He said he would try and bring some Ukrainian beer but he may not be able to bring four. I told him to bring what he can as it would be great just seeing him there.
Sunday update: Having spent little time with Wolfie on Saturday, I wanted to have the whole day with him today. This saw us head over to Spandauer Havelfest, a little festival on the banks of the river, very close to where we live. We saw them setting this up on Thursday when going down to the Paketstation to pick up a parcel for Wolfie and we were intending to go on Friday. However, Wolfie's knee wasn't too good and we didn't want to risk it. This meant we did miss the fantastically named Wiggly and Friend, but we did see some good live music on each of the two stages, as well as try some fantastic food too. We had sausage and empanadas, which I ordered in Spanish as the staff were clearly Peruvian, while we also got a beer and walked around in the sunshine. The atmosphere was great and although every seat was pretty much taken, we did manage to eke an hour out of there.
After Pony Chat, I started to feel stifled by the 30C temperature in the house, so we decided to head to BRLO for some dinner. On the way, at Zoologischer Garten, we encountered a gentleman who had fallen asleep on the stairs leading up to the platform. We helped a concerned old lady try and wake him up, fearing he was injured, before going to the security staff and informing them. We didn't want people tripping up over him. The old lady clearly wanted to chat, but my German wasn't good enough. This was particularly the case on the U2 platform at ZG, as we were headed to Gleisdreieck, but I couldn't hear her through her mask and the noise of the train.
BRLO was good - luckily, we just got there before food service was stopped. Sadly, they had no more ribs but we did have mac and cheese along with a snausage. We also grabbed two of their standard beers and sat in their pleasant beer garden, with the temperature more than pleasant enough. A soft breeze really cooled things down and it ultimately was a more pleasurable two hours than what we would have spent in the house.
While doing the physical check-up, the doctor did notice the scar on my stomach, which started the topic of self-harm and depression. I am reasonably open about this and I didn't see any point in not being open here. This turned out to be a good thing as she highlighted some behavioural therapy which I could go on, paid for through my insurance, which may help. I'm going to consider this in the autumn. Talking about this did affect me quite deeply on Friday though, and it did highlight that this is something that I really need to sort. While I am aware that work is the primary trigger for depression right now, I worry about way too many things and this is working into higher stress levels too. None of this is particularly good, certainly with higher cholesterol than it should be, so it's something I do need to sort out.
I have decided to reward myself with a weekend off, largely because last week so busy. Yesterday, I headed out to Kangaroo's World again, bowling with Trax. He mentioned on the boat that he was arranging bowling for this weekend, but he didn't mention specifics until Saturday morning, which made everything rather tight, so much so that I had to meet him at t bowling alley itself rather than his house. Nine of us were there, and seven fursuiters, although I'll admit my competitive nature meant I didn't join the bowling too much. Indeed, in 14 attempts, I only scored four points, with the ball frequently veering into the right-hand gutter, no matter from where I bowled it. I tried putting my fursuit paws on the other way but to no avail, and this made me feel frustrated. I don't mind losing, but I do at least want to have a chance of winning, but I ended our first game with three times as fewer points as my nearest rival. This was 11 and seven of those was when Jesica bowled for me while I was taking a break. It was my worst bowling score ever and halfway through the second game, we all gave up as it was too hot. Still, we got a photo next to the depressed kangaroo mascot at the entrance, who clearly had the look of someone who was sick of 20 years of relentless children's parties.
The intention had been to go to the Greek place we visited last October but it was very busy, necessitating a switch to an excellent steak place. I had the rump steak with fries and gorgonzola sauce, which came in at a reasonable €26. It was great sitting outside in their little beer garden as the sun was going down, lit by a trail of blue fairy lights. Here I got speaking to Jazzy's Russian girlfrield who is an exceptional artist and Shorty, a fur from Hannover who really loves the UK. Indeed, Shorty and I went shopping for water together in a Netto earlier and found some raspberry flavoured tea that looks like pink cat litter. I liked it because it had a unicorn picture on the front and later in the evening, back at Trax's place, we made a cup and could see glittery sparkles in the mug (interacting with the soap scum in mine as the cup hadn't been fully rinsed out). It was also great catching up with Paco too, before he returns to Mexico tomorrow, with he and Trax both surprised to discover I was at ArFF in 2019. Apparently, they had been watching LATAM con videos on YouTube the night before and had spotted me in one of them.
We returned to Trax's to watch Robin Hood: Men In Tights, a film I thought I had seen but it turned out I hadn't. It was incredibly good and I am glad I stayed to watch it, despite thinking I should probably head off. I felt a little guilty as Wolfie had opted to stay at home, his knee twinging once more and him feeling bowling would only aggravate it. In the end, with a promise of spending the day with him today, I got back shortly before 2:30am. I knew he would be spending the evening in VR and the thought of that depressed me - I have always considered it a poor substitute to real-life interaction and it's hit or miss whether I have a good time on it. It should be better now Wolfie has installed a new function which muffles or mutes sounds a certain distance away, as there is often too much interaction in the program. Ultimately though we're dropping into the same weekend routine of always being on VR and I'm finding it quite depressing to be honest. Certainly, Wolfie is more enamored with virtual reality than I, but often I find myself with little else to do, spending many awkward hours on the game.
The only other thing to have happened last week was a Ukrainian friend of mine, who I had met at WUFF in 2016, got back in touch telling me he'll be at Eurofurence. He is coming from Lviv, where he had to relocate from Odesa due to the war, and he told me a number of other Ukranian furs with whom I had lost touch are safe and have relocated there too. I felt quite emotional about this and soon we were reminisicing about the con we attended six years ago. He initially got in touch as he is interested in attending the Furry Brew Crew event, which annoyingly clashes with the Ponyplay one, on the Wednesday evening of EF. He said he would try and bring some Ukrainian beer but he may not be able to bring four. I told him to bring what he can as it would be great just seeing him there.
Sunday update: Having spent little time with Wolfie on Saturday, I wanted to have the whole day with him today. This saw us head over to Spandauer Havelfest, a little festival on the banks of the river, very close to where we live. We saw them setting this up on Thursday when going down to the Paketstation to pick up a parcel for Wolfie and we were intending to go on Friday. However, Wolfie's knee wasn't too good and we didn't want to risk it. This meant we did miss the fantastically named Wiggly and Friend, but we did see some good live music on each of the two stages, as well as try some fantastic food too. We had sausage and empanadas, which I ordered in Spanish as the staff were clearly Peruvian, while we also got a beer and walked around in the sunshine. The atmosphere was great and although every seat was pretty much taken, we did manage to eke an hour out of there.
After Pony Chat, I started to feel stifled by the 30C temperature in the house, so we decided to head to BRLO for some dinner. On the way, at Zoologischer Garten, we encountered a gentleman who had fallen asleep on the stairs leading up to the platform. We helped a concerned old lady try and wake him up, fearing he was injured, before going to the security staff and informing them. We didn't want people tripping up over him. The old lady clearly wanted to chat, but my German wasn't good enough. This was particularly the case on the U2 platform at ZG, as we were headed to Gleisdreieck, but I couldn't hear her through her mask and the noise of the train.
BRLO was good - luckily, we just got there before food service was stopped. Sadly, they had no more ribs but we did have mac and cheese along with a snausage. We also grabbed two of their standard beers and sat in their pleasant beer garden, with the temperature more than pleasant enough. A soft breeze really cooled things down and it ultimately was a more pleasurable two hours than what we would have spent in the house.
