Tag: animals

Chrysalis

It’s been a hard year. Everyone I’ve spoken to has expressed that 2012 was a difficult year. I live in an area that was greatly affected by Superstorm Sandy, much of which is still struggling to rebuild, both physically and emotionally. While my home was not greatly damaged, I feel like I lost a large portion of my strength in that storm and every day I pick up a few more pieces. Prior to Sandy, though, I battled illness, lost a dear friend, and found myself facing some of my deepest fears. I feel like every last defense I had was broken down, leaving me completely exposed and vulnerable. And I know I’m not the only one who felt this way.

bobtriptych

Dear readers, 2012 has been a hard year. It’s okay to admit it, and it’s okay to stop fighting. Your energy is better used to transform the negative emotions, the pain, the feelings of weakness and uselessness into lessons learned–lessons about yourself, your coping mechanisms, your behavioral patterns, your surroundings. Reflect on those lessons and turn them into something useful, something you can apply to future situations and personal growth. You’ve made it this far: despite what you feel, you are very strong, and this will only make you stronger.

khepri

2013 is hours away. With each passing moment, I’m more and more excited to welcome it. Things are all ready looking up: I write this under the supervision of a scaly new friend who reminds me every day of simple pleasures and the rewards of caring for another living creature. Khepri reminds me to cherish every moment spent with loved ones, because that opportunity is not always certain. Even the simplest moments–car rides, dinners, lounging, shopping–can become beautiful memories.

khep&me

Expect changes in this space. Changes to content, graphics, titles, everything. It’s been on my mind for a while, but I felt it too big an undertaking to start on while I was so emotionally unequipped to handle anything. But 2013 is rising, and it feels soothing. Hang in there. I will be.

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Dewlap Valentine: a Reptilian Love Story

I was raised by animals. Don’t get me wrong, I had great parents, but for as long as I can remember I’ve been surrounded by animals of all kinds: cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, hamsters, frogs, turtles… My family and I have worked in rescue for years and opened our hearts and home to countless animal companions, some of whom have left for forever homes and some of whom have made their forever homes within our walls. I’ve learned something from each of them and loved every one.

Bob hugs in the hospital

Bob hugs in the hospital

Bob came to me as a baby barely longer than my little finger. His eyes were eager, his feet quick, and his scales impossibly green. He had a calcium deficiency that required a sweet-smelling syrup spoon-fed to him with each leafy meal for the first two years of his life and left him a little more sluggish than most iguanas his age, but it gave us even more quality time together. As he grew, he would sit on my shoulder while I watched television or surfed the internet; we sat together on the back porch in the hot summers; he even maintained a live journal in his younger days–many of the entries read “alkjdskllllllllllllll,” but he still acquired more friends than he had long, spindly toes.

Bob loves dinner

Bob with a favourite meal

We knew each other well: Bob knew when I got home from school or work, crawling off his Throne of Rocks to wait by the food bowl while I chopped up leafy greens–collard, mustard, dandelions–along with a finely-chopped strawberry or melon, all sprinkled with vitamin and mineral powders. His golden eyes would go wide, ringed pupils dilating as he stared down the bowl before his sticky pink tongue would dart out to taste the day’s offering. His preferences were red and yellow foods: berries, yams, squash, but above all bananas. Simply seeing a banana on the counter beyond his enclosure could send him into a fit, shaking his head, paddling at the tank, trying to lunge open-mouthed on it despite the glass between them. Yellow shopping bags, purses, flowers, and knick-knacks had the same effect.

Bob's insides and a bladder stone

Bob’s x-ray and removed bladder stone

It was the day before Easter when I noticed something was wrong. He was drinking excessively, moving as little as possible, drooling. My family vet had never seen anything like the x-ray image we took and we were referred to an emergency specialist who instantly identified it as the largest bladder stone he had ever seen. He went into surgery the next morning and had the stone successfully removed. A few weeks later, however, he suffered some complications of his condition and passed away at the emergency vet. I was fortunate enough to visit with him the night before he passed away, and I know he received nothing but love and care from the wonderful staff. I was heartbroken. He had fought so hard and come so far and even the doctor had expected him to fully recover. At that time, I was working towards my state board exams and graduation and I felt as if Bob had set the ultimate example for me: he just kept going.

Bob makes a swan friend

Bob makes a swan friend in the hospital

I wanted to hang on Bob and his determined survival instinct desperately. While he will forever live on in my heart, I needed a physical memento. Enter Darling Clandestine. Owner Evonne knows what it means to love a lizard or two, and she worked tirelessly with me to create a blend I know Bob would have loved, appropriately named Dewlap Valentine. In its glimmering green bottle, it smells like ripe, fresh strawberries and yellow banana tossed with dark leafy greens. It’s bright, it’s fresh, it’s delicious. But applied to the skin, Dewlap Valentine comes to life. The greens grow darker, the fruit goes riper, and something beautifully animal comes through. It becomes musky, salty, organic-smelling, like bright green noses and spiny toes and stripy bellies, all smeared with fresh fruits and leaves. It is one of the most complex scents I’ve ever smelled.

Dewlap Valentine by Darling Clandestine

photo from Darling Clandestine

They say scent is one of the most powerful triggers of memory, and Dewlap Valentine is all of Bob’s scent-memories bottled. I know he would be proud to have inspired this scent–he’s even smiling on the bottle. I can’t thank Evonne enough for creating this wonderful scent and making it available to her customers. It touches my heart to think that people might wear this perfume and look at the little green bottle bearing Bob’s grin and smile themselves, imagining all the love and warmth that this cold-blooded companion contributed during his lifetime. I know I do every time I put it on.

 

(originally published on Bella Cantarella)

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Metamorphosis 143.0 – the Little Lizard with the Big Stone

If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you’ll know that I mostly blog about beauty products and style. Rarely does any bit of my personal life make it into this blog–I’m a fairly private person by nature and I think it’s important to separate my personal and my professional lives. But every once in a  while, an event so remarkable occurs that it affects everything.

Meet Bob. Bob is a green iguana that I got when he was about the size of his own head. He’s been a member of my family for eleven years, and I love him dearly. On Saturday morning during frantic holiday cleaning, I noticed Bob didn’t look well. He was laying head-first in his water bowl, gulping down mouthful after mouthful. His eyes looked sunken and his scales were greyed. The bowl of collard greens I had given him the night before sat untouched. To coax him into eating, I cut up a banana (his favourite) and some strawberries: he sniffed at them and promptly turned away, when I noticed his back legs appeared to be dragging.

I took him to the vet without a second thought. When the vet felt an irregularity in his abdomen, Bob was swept away for an X-ray. What they found was astonishing.

We couldn’t tell from the image whether the mass was attached to an organ or had caused damage of any kind, so we were unsure of how to proceed. I took the scans to the 24-hour emergency vet and waited to see the exotics specialist.

Luckily, he knew exactly what was wrong: Bob had a massive bladder stone. He was confident it could be removed but we wouldn’t know what sort of damage we would be dealing with until it was out. With teary eyes and a heavy heart I left my scaly green baby at the vet for fluids and antibiotics and waited for news.

I got the call on Sunday afternoon that Bob was out of surgery and doing well. No internal damage was caused and he was expected to make a full recovery. But the doctor couldn’t help but mention how shocked he was by the stone. It filled his entire bladder and was covered in nodules that were likely causing more discomfort than originally suspected. Needless to say, I feel awful that I didn’t notice this sooner. Reptiles notoriously don’t exhibit symptoms until things are very bad, but as a pet owner, it’s hard not to blame yourself for being negligent.

The next day, assured he was doing well and able to return home, I went to pick him up. I was greeted in the lobby by the exotics tech. “Hold out your hand and close your eyes,” he told me. This is what I received:

This grew inside my iguana. From the x-rays, I had anticipated something monstrous but this was beyond anything I had imagined. It was dense, irregularly shaped, and shockingly heavy. The animal hospital regularly removes bladder stones from all animals, many far larger than my (relatively small) iguana, but this was the largest stone they had ever removed. Some of the nodules are as big as stones removed from cats and dogs.

In case you thought my hands were just really small, here is the stone next to a quarter. It weighed in at around a third of a pound. While I had asked to keep the stone for my collection of odd and slightly morbid things, the staff had hoped to add it to their Museum of Things Retrieved from Animals. When I saw their jar of bladder stones, I felt an odd swell of pride knowing that Bob would go down in history as the Little Lizard with the Big Stone and donated it to their exhibit. The tech said Bob would get his picture on the wall next to it and promised to e-mail me the shot the doctor had taken after surgery.

Bob is home now, and while he’s still lethargic from the anesthesia (reptilian metabolism is so slow that it can remain in the system for days), he’s all ready looking better. His back legs seem stronger than ever, and he’s moving with more agility than I’ve seen in a very long time.

Needless to say, this is why I have not written about lipstick or clothing or shoes or any of my regular material these last few days. I’ll be back to my regular posting schedule shortly. Thanks for understanding.

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Metamorphosis 122.0 – Astonishing Evolution: more from Linnaeus Cosmetics

Back in February, I reviewed a fairly new company with a great concept: makeup inspired by some of nature’s most unique and beautiful creatures. Since my initial purchase, the company has grown immensely with collections based on birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, even insects. Earlier in the year, I placed an order for some of these new colours but never got a chance to post them before the shop closed. But with Shopping’s High Holy Day upon us, Marin is selling off her remaining stock of shadow in order to make room for bigger and better things in the new year. It’s going to be an amazing sale on some truly amazing colours!

Despite the company’s growth, everything is still so incredibly personalized that it’s almost hard to take in all the little details. As usual, everything arrived in a hand-stamped muslin bag and tied with raffia.

If I recall, Linnaeus was moving away from the hand-stamped lids and towards the printed labels when I ordered. I personally think both are cute, but I think the labels really bring the branding together. All shadows were heat-sealed and sealed with paper sifter stickers. From the top right: Anomaly, Aberrant, Myth, Scuttle, Vex, Cyranose, Alacritous

Cyranose and Alacritous are two of four shadows from the Ruby Throated Hummingbird collection. Cyranose is a deep, forest-y green with sparkling green glitter, where Alacritous is a pink-toned red with sparkling red glitter. In the jars, these both look a little dusty but they truly come to life on the skin. Together, they perfectly capture the shimmering, scale-like feathers of the male hummingbird.

(photo source)

Above, Cyranose and Alacritous are swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion (top), bare skin (middle), and MAC Painterly (bottom). Because of the amount of glitter in these shadows, it is absolutely imperative that you use a sticky base. Not only does the glitter stay put, but the colours are too stunning for words:

 

Above, Cyranose and Alacritous are swatched over Darling Girl’s Glitter Glue. You can see how it not only keeps the glitter in place, but also really pops the base colour. These two are absolutely breathtaking colours, and must-haves for lovers of glitter and colour alike.

(photo source)

The Rose Chafer is the first insect to have a Linnaeus collection, and despite being the bane of rose-gardeners, they are indeed worthy specimens. I’m a sucker for metallic beetle-back shades, so there was no way I was leaving the site without these greens in my cart.

Scuttle is a mossy gold-toned green, reminiscent of the highlights on the beetle’s back. Vex is a shimmering green-turquoise, almost blue depending on the light.

Scuttle and Vex are swatched above over Urban Decay Primer Potion (top), bare skin (middle), MAC Painterly (bottom). These are intensely pigmented regardless of what primer is used, and you can see the sparkle adheres to all primers just as well.

(photo source)

I have a thing for monotremes–who doesn’t? Whether they’re short-beaked or long-beaked, the echidna is an adorable mash-up of porcupine, ant-eater, and kiwi. When Marin asked me what animal I’d like to see a collection based on, I never dreamed she would take my echidna suggestion seriously. How wrong I was! Marin generously gifted me these echidna shadows, and I am thrilled to have them in my collection.

Aberrant is an almost metallic, soft beige, Myth is a shimmering chocolate brown, and Anomaly is a multi-toned taupe-grey shimmer. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know I really don’t do neutrals. But like the echidna, these neutrals are so full of surprises that they deserve their own order.

Aberrant, Myth, and Anomaly swatched above over Urban Decay Primer Potion (top), bare skin (middle), and MAC Painterly (bottom). Aberrant is a perfect my-lid-but-better shade for me. It’s a beautiful peach-toned beige that makes a fantastic base for other shadows as well as a subtle blender. Myth is a deep, warm brown with gold and white sparkles. This can be either as intense as the swatch above or blended out to a much softer shade. Anomaly is not quite brown, not quite grey, but sort of a cool-toned, dark taupe with metallic sparkles. When I use these three together, Anomaly is usually my crease shade since it can really pop the contour of the eye and blend out into a smokey taper. (No one said neutrals couldn’t be dramatic, right?)

I also received samples of Branchial, from the Axolotl collection, and Swoop, from the Ruby Throated Hummingbird collection. Branchial is a bright red-toned pink with silver sparkles, while Swoop is a velvety moss green.

Branchial and Swoop swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion (top), bare skin (middle), and MAC Painterly (bottom). The sparkle in Branchial is far more intense on the skin as it is in the bag, so I tried it over Darling Girl’s Glitter Glue to see how it might look.

Not only does the silver sparkle look even better over the super-sticky base, but the base shade looks even brighter.

While Linnaeus Cosmetics is still currently closed, you can purchase stock shadows beginning the 25th. Make sure you grab some of these before they’re gone! I know Marin will be putting out great things next year, but can you really wait until then?

Stay tuned this week–I have a big monotreme-themed surprise for my readers!

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 22.0 – Surviving the Snowpocalypse: an Eye of the Day and the Last Olive of 2010

As many of you have heard, those of us here in the Arctic Wasteland now known as the East Coast were slammed with snow on Sunday. My neighborhood got about 32-34 inches of snow, and with the 40+ mile-per-hour winds we also experienced, some snow drifts were even deeper! My lawn furniture was eaten; our Christmas lights were lost to the drifts; our cars were barely visible in the driveway.

This is my house, the day after, after about four hours of blowing/shoveling/salting the snow. You can see our light-up reindeer are neck-deep in snow, and the drifts come to the top of our porch.

This snow drift looked particularly sinister, and instantly began growing deadly ice-barbs. It fell some time last night, after a four-day Reign of Terror over any life form that passed our front porch. I have the sinking feeling it didn’t go out without a fight, and took some poor soul down with it–a stray cat, hapless sparrow, or neighboring child, perhaps.

Considering that New Jersey is typically thought of as a chain of grungy highways, here is one of them, still covered with snow and practically abandoned. On any other day, this stretch of highway would be full of warring vehicles, competing with one another to take up the most space possible and prevent everyone from arriving at their destinations in a timely manner, this sight spooked me beyond belief. I am fairly certain that this is what the apocalypse will look like.

Not a lot has changed this week, except that the aforementioned highway has been more or less cleared, unless you want to use an exit ramp. Then you’re out of luck. It’s supposed to warm up significantly (read: rise over freezing), but I have officially been struck by the Winter Blues. Every year, I feel that winter is an unfairly arranged season: winter “officially” begins with the Solstice, some time between the 20th-23rd. You then have the Holiday Season, Christmas, New Years, and then… nothing. Nothing fun until February, and then it’s only Valentine’s Day, which we all have mixed feelings on anyway. Everything fun comes within a week or two of the season’s beginning, and then you have three long, bleak months to brood.

Can you tell what my least favourite season is? On that wonderfully uplifting note, I give you today’s Eye of the Day.

I say “Eye” of the Day because that’s all I really focused on today. I’m trying out a new foundation, and so far I think I like it, but I sort of blew off blush and hair today for who knows what reason. Actually, I apologize about that hair. I think it’s time to whip out the dog clippers again.

This entire look uses my new Sugarpill Chromalust eyeshadows, which I am absolutely loving so far!

For this look I used:

Kat von D eyeshadow primer in Starry (sheer shimmering pearl)
Sugarpill pressed eyeshadows in Tako (matte white) and Afterparty (sky blue satin)
Sugarpill Chromalust eyeshadows in Lumi (sheer white with blue/green shimmer), Royal Sugar (sparkling electric blue), and Magpie (dusty black with blue/green shimmer)
NYX Lip&Eye Pencil in Sapphire (rich deep blue)
MAC Superslick Eyeliner in Nocturnal (bright metallic silver)
Maybelline Volume Express Falsies Mascara

Basically, I covered my entire lid with Tako, brushed Afterparty on the outer corners and up towards the temples. Using a flat, densely bristled brush, I packed Royal Sugar on the outer corners and into the crease, creating a kind of sideways, rounded V. With the same brush, I deepened the crease with Magpie and blended outwards. Finally, I loaded a large, fluffy brush with Lumi and dusted it all over. I lined the top lid and waterline with the NYX pencil, and then created a thin cat-eye line on the top lid with Nocturnal.

What I really wanted to use was my Urban Decay liquid liner in Radium, which is a rich royal blue–but I couldn’t find it. I think it would have made the entire look much more dramatic. I’ll have to try it again when that liner turns up.

And there you have it. The last post of 2010, the last FOTD, the last everything. I have big plans for 2011. A new style directive, lots and lots of reviews (I love doing reviews), exciting new events and maybe some photojournals, and of course, MORE OLIVE!

I look forward to it, and I hope you’ll stay tuned for it. And now, I give you the last Olive of 2010:

Olive loves shoes almost as much as I do.

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 19.5 – Purple Tang, a Fish-Face of the Day!

I really wanted to give you all a full week of Holiday-themed posts, but I barely got through the holiday tutorial I plan on posting for you all on Wednesday. So instead, I took a queue from a Formspring request and present you with the following Fish-Face of the Day:

I owe you an explanation. This whole look is based on one of my fish, a Purple Tang. Purple Tangs are truly beautiful fish, with deep blue and violet bodies and yellow fins–but they have this kind of stupid, painted smile.

 

Photo from Sea and Sky Gallery

My sister does a fabulous Lawnmower Blenny impression, and I really can’t make fish faces as well as she can, so I’m stuck with the Purple Tang face. It seemed entirely too appropriate that I make that face while posing in my Purple Tang-inspired makeup.

Anyway, to the makeup itself!

I apologize for the quality of colour in these photos. With my current camera, I have to choose either decent picture quality or accurate colours. I guess I chose decent quality here. Eventually, I’ll figure out how to work this camera (I’ve only had it like what, five years now?) and learn how to work with both the light settings and the image quality without making it explode.

Full list of products used:

Mary Kay Cream-to-Powder Foundation in Ivory 1
Makeup Forever HD Setting Powder
MAC Blush in Her Blooming Cheek
Tarte Shadow Primer
Sugarpill Pressed Shadows in Buttercupcake, After Party, and Poison Plum
MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack
Sephora Atomic Volume Mascara
MAC Pro Longwear Lipcolour in Goes and Goes

I would like to re-do this look sometime in the summer, when Tropical Looks are much more “in.” I mean hey, I wore my Goldfish Dress with this look, but it just didn’t fit in with the holiday atmosphere everywhere else. The cat seemed to like it though….

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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