DENIED!

Here I am, as Link, hiding from the Monster Forces. I was halfway through the slaughter when the blood moon arose. This means the monster I wasted my good weapons and items on (eg. bomb flowers and shock fruits) respawned.

Gah!

I returned to an earlier save point: problem solved. However, the health bar for the Lurelin Village Monster Force had a trace of red remaining, signifying a straggler. I went on the prowl, climbing a ladder to the highest vantage point to scan the area with my scope. From up there, the coast looked clear, so I returned to the beach to sniff out this aimless soul on foot.

I must’ve ventured a trifle too far from the combat zone because when I turned back, the Monster Forces were IN FULL FORCE. There was no blood moon, yet they all respawned anyway!

I should have stayed hidden in the pithos. It also symbolizes how I feel about the state of the world.

I’m not going to the US anytime soon. Shit, I’m on board with the idea of boycotting goods from the USA. No more connecting with the energizing power of Guayakí Yerba Mate. Fortunately, the one drink I depend on the most as a source of caffeine, Guru, is Canadian, which means I won’t have to test my will against my addiction.

Until I can get my garden going again, finding local alternatives to green vegetables will be a struggle. All the leafy greens at my local grocery store are California-grown. I got excited when I noticed the asparagus was grown in Peru until I went to the self-checkout, and it rang up to $8.

EIGHT DOLLARS? THESE ASPARAGUSES BETTER MAKE MY PEE SMELL EXTRA-FUNNY.

It did not; however it paired nicely with my BC Sockeye Salmon fillet.

It’s infuriating coming across online comments pointing out the hypocrisy of still depending on US social media platforms such as Meta and Reddit.

Yes, I think about deleting the Reddit app often. Not so much because it’s an American company, but because I find it so goddamn grating encountering those edgelords. How utterly USELESS. The cruel “fuck everyone else, I got mine” mindset isn’t conducive to a productive civilization.

What can I do apart from shell out big bucks for asparagus grown in the Andes? For starters, I went out to vote in the Crystal Pool referendum. Now, if you don’t live in Victoria (and you probably don’t), we have an ancient pool that we’ve been putting off replacing. Instead of replacing the pool, the city has been repairing it, which is only cheaper in the short term. Finally, the mayor and councillors, rather than make a decision that would piss off a lot of people, decided to hold a referendum.

The options are:

• No new pool. When Crystal Pool dies, it dies.
• New pool replaces the existing one at a cost of ~$162 million
• New pool is built to the south of the existing pool at a cost of ~$168 million.

I’ve never gone inside Crystal Pool, even though I lived two blocks away during my original Victoria era (2004-2008), nor when I lived across from it (2022-2023). I swim elsewhere. Still, I believe recreational spaces, public pools, parks, and the like are essential to a healthy community. Not just physically but also in spirit.

It is a lot of money: over 20 million bunches of Peruvian asparagus. It is also a good use of money.

My determination to support the Crystal Pool replacement project was thwarted by the fact that I live HALF A BLOCK outside the boundary. Four people struggled for fifteen minutes to determine my voting eligibility: it was that vague. My address on my government-issued mail reads Victoria, not Saanich or Oak Bay. Alas, I am about three doors shy of being a true Victorian.

On the upside, Jordi got his vote in, and I seem to have whipped at least one vote from a friend who hates swimming.

Per my last post, I secured an appointment at the clinic for a bloodwork requisition form. They don’t take blood samples at the clinic, so I had to take this form to a lab. This was yesterday: it took an hour before a nurse could draw blood samples from my arm. It’s not just hospitals and clinics that are short-staffed. There aren’t enough people with the needle-jabbing know-how. Although this was a less-than-fun experience, I noticed a recurring symbol yesterday that brightened my day:

🙂

I interacted with three strangers yesterday: none of them had an issue communicating by paper and pen when I gestured that I was deaf and needed them to write. All three added the happy face at the end of their notes, including the guy at the weed store who really wanted to help me choose the correct strain.

“Sativa or Indica?”

“Honestly, weed is weed.”

He laughed. The flowers I bought, he claims, smell like blueberries. I’ve yet to open the bag.

A few days ago, I received an unexpected personal email from an old friend. I’d say it made my day, except it was nighttime when I received it.

When I’m not overwhelmed by anxiety, I am thinking up ways to uplift people. Sending an old friend an email saying hello has made it on my list. Send a postcard or handwritten letter if you have their home address. Compliment a stranger. Bake cookies (or whatever you’re good at baking) for your co-workers and friends. Offer to give a friend a ride someplace (which I cannot do–Alexa did this for me on Thursday, and I really appreciated it!).

Rather than expecting anything in return: ask people to pay it forward.