Not yet inked

Sooooo... I was supposed to get my tattoo done tonight, but it has been delayed. Basically, the initial design she showed me had some things I didn't really like, so we worked on it a bit, changed it a little this way and that, and then she sent me home with photocopies for me to edit further if I wanted, and for me to get used to. I'll call or email her tomorrow to give her my further thoughts and we'll make an appointment for really doing it this time. She said she should be able to do it next week, but I probably won't be able to due to previously planned stuff on Monday and Wednesday, and then leaving for Glasgow on Thursday. So maybe the week after that. Bah. I was majorly depressed and deflated on the way home; the date finally arrives after 5 1/2 weeks of waiting, and then it doesn't go quite as I had hoped and I have to wait maybe a couple of weeks more before I actually get it done. I'm trying to be zen and patient.

Another disappointment this week was that our jack o' lantern didn't quite survive til Halloween, which sort of defeats the purpose. O came home Monday night and he told me on the phone that the pumpkin had gone all squishy and he tried to move it, but now it was sinking to one side. It looked like this when I got home:



I had already thrown out the lid because it had mostly turned to pulp and wouldn't stay in the top anymore. The paper it was sitting on was soaked with nasty rotting-pumpkin juice, which you can see also puddled a bit behind it and to the left. So I was throwing out a smelly, mushy jack o' lantern on Halloween, rather than setting it out, lit, on the balcony. I learned my lesson: next year I'll buy one much closer to the date, and hopefully one that doesn't look like it was actually picked weeks ago.