Digital Eclipse

I'm home. I've actually been home since last Tuesday night, but finding time to sit down and type up a DW entry has been a pain. I left out around 7-ish AM and arrived home around 9-ish PM, which wasn't too bad for having to make a bajillion stops. See, the kittens are at the Escape ALL THE THINGS stage, and it turns out that there's few things more terrifying than going 80MPH down a highway and checking your rear view to see a kitten in your back window. AHHHHH. But we made it home, everyone's safe and snug, family driving me to contemplate murder, etc. So pretty much SNAFU. Which I've just decided needs to be a tag.

Kittens do well, and I really do need to take more pictures of them. They actually look like kittens now instead of rodents! Working on getting them weaned, because Duzie looks so pathetic whenever they nurse with their sharp little kitten teeth. So far, no dice. I'm keeping a close eye on them because the ever-present flea problem is still a problem, but flea combing is the best thing I can do right now. I need to chat with a vet about if some medication I have is safe for them. The box says it is, but I'd rather ask first.

( Discussion of pet death, family drama and illness )
Anyway, such was my return home. :\ Happy New Year, I guess. 2011 sucked, so with any luck 2012 will be different. Of course, I said that at the end of 2010. D:

Normally I do some sort of end of the year writing summary, but so much of my writing this year wasn't published, it would just be a mess to work it out. D: I'm just going to have to crack on finishing/posting stories for a while.

We lost one of our dogs today. It was Jace—the one with cerebral palsy. My uncle Richard ran him over while I was out picking up groceries for my birthday dinner. Apparently they weren't even going to tell me at first. I'm not even sure what to think about that. What am I, six? And Mary tried to hide that Richard was the one who did it. As if I couldn't make the connection between his drunken ass on the couch and one of the dogs dead.

No one else seems to really give much of a damn, and I'm the bad guy for being upset. Apparently I'm behaving childishly, and ruining my own damned birthday party. (I may have also told Richard that the next time he hurts one of the dogs I'd take a sledge hammer first to his car and then to him, but I was the bad guy before that so it hardly makes a difference. This is the second dog he's killed this way that I know of, and he's crippled three others.)

Anyway, I have jury duty tomorrow, and I'm waffling between incoherent rage and tears, so I'm not going to be good company for a while, when I'm available at all. Head's up and all that.

GO HOME.

My family still isn't completely gone. A cousin lingered, and as a result so did four extra dogs, on top of the three of their dogs that they are dumping on us permanently.

Yes, I said that right. Permanently. This brings our grand total up to twelve. Because I don't have enough trouble caring for nine, I guess. And one of them? Tries to eat my cats. We are so not doing this. :| This is the third week that my cats have been locked back in my bedroom, and I'm getting really, really sick of it. Steps are going to have to be taken, because my cats are not living in terror.

I have not yet begun attempting to knit. Instead, I am attempting crochet, because apparently I win that way. I keep bringing my shiny new needles and (admittedly cheap until I can manage decent stitch) yarn to work, and then keeping on with crochet because it still is wonky, which drives me wild.

That's... kind of it for me. I'm tired, sniffly, cold and frustrated, and that seems like it will continue until the last cousin is gone and I can properly train our new additions. I am making a half-assed effort towards NaNo, but I do not think proper writing is going to happen until things settle again. :(

Yesterday, I called Doggy Owner, verified that he owns the dog, and attempted to make plans to meet him and return the dog. On the phone he didn't even really sound eager, or all that interested in getting the dog back, but IDK. Maybe he'd just woken up or something. No matter, it's his dog and I'm interested in giving Doggy back. The problem? The guy doesn't have a car. Okay, I can deal with that. It just means I have to meet him somewhere within walking distance of where he lives. No problem. I asked him to e-mail me with a public place that was convenient for him, and we'd meet there before work (around 7:30AM).

By midnight last night, I had still not received an email. I emailed him twice asking him to contact me, and once telling him that I was going to bed and to contact me. As of this moment, I still have not heard a peep. No call, no email. I've just deleted the Craigslist ad because I don't want other people seeing it and getting hope for their lost dog (it's sad how many chihuahuas went missing from their homes this month). But he still has two email addresses and my phone number. Son of a %$#&*.

At this point, I almost think he doesn't want the dog back. And if that's the case, why contact me at all? I am incredibly close to emailing him and saying that he can either contact me by tonight, or I'm keeping the dog. The only thing I am asking is that it be before work, and he said that was fine. I don't want to be an ass, since I know how much most people love their pets. But I am really questioning if this guy cares. The dog is sweet, but clearly not well socialized or at all trained, and pretty quick to growl if you do something he doesn't like. No biting, but I don't put up with aggression at all, and IDC how teeny they are. (For example, he was burrowed in my sweater last night, which I needed, and growled when I took it away from him. Should have seen his face when I flicked his nose. Shock.)

TL;DR, I am annoyed that this guy doesn't seem to give a damn about his dog. Am I over-reacting? It's only been a day, yeah, but if he couldn't meet me for whatever reason why didn't he call/text/email?

Update on the car: it turned out to be a radiator hose. Altogether, this mess cost me a bit under $300 (for the fix, the part, antifreeze and the tow). On the plus side, I'd been told by another mechanic that the motor on my radiator fan was going, but after the hose was fixed that problem seems to have vanished. Maybe it was a domino effect of some sort—I don't know cars well enough to be certain. But fixing that could have run me over $600 (the part seems to run about $300+), so this is very good news. I had $800 in savings that was supposed to help me get through the holidays, so money will be tight, but I'll be able to keep eating. \o/

The foundling is still with us. We looked around for his owner, but no one had had put up signs in the area we found him or called the shelters, and he didn't have a microchip. The people at the shelter took my information, and said they'll contact me if anyone calls looking for a lost chihuahua. Tomorrow I'm going to put up ads on Craig's List and in the paper. On the advice of the shelter people, it'll only say "lost chihuahua", so no one calls and fraudulently claims him. A real owner should be able to identify him by his markings and what he had on him.

In the meantime, he's been following me everywhere, and may as well be attached to my hip. My right arm aches from trying to type around a lap full of puppy. Also, he insists on sleeping under blankets, and does not appreciate it when I leave openings for air. Breathing is optional, I guess. My aunt has taken to calling him Bum, and it seems to be sticking. x.X

Speaking of typing, I have finally finished the rough draft on my fic. (I say "finally", when it's really only been a couple of weeks.) Is there anyone out there in Cyberspace whose goodwill I can shamelessly take advantage of? It's roughly 22k, and probably PG13 at the worst. A few curse words is all. I'll need it done inside a week, to meet the deadline. Anyone want to help a Faerii? :D?

She's home! Finally. (collapses) Today went... badly. Not terribly, because she's home, but badly. First, I got to wake up at dark o'clock to swill down coffee like a pirate does his rum and stagger out the door to the vet's office. Got there and waited for a while before actually getting to talk to anyone. Zena was fine, she was being fed and they were doing some chesks on her to make sure everything was normal. We could go home!

As soon as someone came in to handle my paperwork.

For, you see, because the the insane hours this lady works, I got there before the clinic was technically open, and no one knew how to check me out. (twitch) So I set around for a while and as soon as someone came in, I was at the desk. I put down a year's worth of car payments (no, this is not an exaggeration, though I should note that I have a low car payment), signed away a spare soul, got The Lecture ("keep the cone on, high protein food only, here's the pills, here's a razor we have a handy bucket if you want to suicide") and I finally got to see my baby again.

They had the cone attached to some gauze around her neck. I thought it looked kind of unsteady and easily removed and asked if I should put it on her harness instead. See, Zena is a bright puppy. The kennel she was in probably didn't have room for her to work at the cone, but running free she would have a lot more tricks at paw. I was reassured that it was fine, the cone wouldn't come off, etc etc. So we finally escape to make our way to a pet store to purchase her food and maybe a little puppy-retail therapy. Zena curled up in the back seat on a blanket I'd brought for her.

Five minutes later, she had the cone off and had popped the stitches on her ass end. Fucking hell. If I hadn't stuck a hand back there to pet her and gone "wait--cone? NO CONE?", it would have been much, much worse. I, being the panicky puppy-mommy I've been this week, almost caused a crash getting my car off the freeway and into a parking lot. It was pretty much like I'd worried. The gauze was good to keep it on in the kennel, but once she had room to move all bets were off. I think what she did was put her paws on the collar-edge and pushed until it popped free. That's what she started trying to do when I put it on her harness.

So, back to the vet we went. I got another Lecture (because the surgeon refused to believe she could take it off), and she went back in to have her stitches taken care of. (For those interested, the khaki-colored jeans I was wearing are going to be ruined, unless I can get the blood out.) A few hours later, we were free once more, and I footed another, thankfully smaller, bill. This time, the cone went on her harness, even though I got amused looks from the nurses. Then we went to the pet store, and I got her a new collar, a new tag, pill pockets and her food. Yes, I should have saved the money. But it made me feel less inclined to throttle her, so I consider it well-spent.

Now, I am home again, and any good will I'd gained from the initial rescue from the vet was squandered in the return. She won't even share a couch with me. Still, she's home, I'm poor, and we have another appointment next week. All's well that ends well.

Now, I have a few thousand words to write before I crash and burn. Not to mention an entire writing system to rethink. Oi. Perhaps I will post about comics bang later, if I'm not passed out in exhaustion. We'll see.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY coiledsoul & sherriaisling!

I have LJ userpics I haven't used. Huh. /random

Okay, less bang-specific rambling than recently posted. Reading up on the 1940s has made me incredibly grateful for modern advances, and also reassured me that if it's useful yet disgusting, the Egyptians did it first.

I have read Sleeping Beauty porn and it makes me want to write my own. (facepalm) It was really bad porn too. Aching manhood and internal "shield" hymen bad. So bad that it even managed to butcher some of the most famous lines of the movie. This makes me want to do it right. I'm a bad, bad person. And I was just given the DVD for my birthday, so I could even watch it without risking my ancient VHS tape.

Cheese & crackers = nom.

I seem to have been adopted. o_O We've had two dogs wandering around our property for more than a week now. They have collars, but no tags, and we can't find any trace of their owners. There's not a no-kill shelter anywhere even remotely close, and they seem content enough to hang around on our porch. One's a big black rotty-mix, and the other is a brindle pit. They're both really sweet, but the black one is going to need some work on the inter-pack dynamics, because he gets psuhy and agressive with the other animals. (My horse has tried to kick him several times and he hasn't learned yet.) We're trying to find their owner, but if no one shows up, I guess that's it. I'd love to keep the brindle, because he's a cuddly little doll and I miss having big puppies, but the black one is going to be A Problem.

So... Yeah. Been adopted. We'll see how this works out.

In bang-specific notes, I've touch 16k and Stevie has yet to even get out of her dirty, stolen Evil Nazi Ducky scrubs and meet a Significant Plot Point. Actually, it's only just about two days since she was hacked out of an ice cube. She still has soul-searching to do! People to talk to! Teeth to brush! Incredibly slimy CEOs (Tony) to threaten! I think I've under-estimated a word count somewhere. D:

At least I've got the break-down under control?

Also, can I get someone from the other side of the Atlantic to take back their spelling? Today I've misspelled not only donut, but also theater and favorite. I'M CONFUSED NOW.

Jace is coming home! \o/

In short, he was anemic. The vet claims fleas and I'm inclined to agree. He likes to crawl under the house and shed, which is precisely where the sand fleas lurk. Worse, our fleas laugh at our control methods, since it's 29 acres and we can only even attempt to keep 1 acre clear. He also had an elevated white blood cell count, so he's getting antibiotics for that. (A cold..? They didn't say.)

However, I had to have a long, involved argument with the vet about his condition. ( Warning for Strong Language and F-Bombs )
TL;DR, my dogs are my children, and you do not fuck with my children.

ETA: Vet called back and tried to prescribe it again. KSA;FHDKLJHLADFHJKHEW'HFDSJKDSJK STOP THAT. Worse, this time they couldn't even tell me why, which I suspect translates as "we know you'll refuse". There is also a mystery Third Medication which no one seems to be able to tell me what it's for, never mind why I should pay $100 for it.

BRB Raging

@.@ I hate writing on weekends. BAH, family. Okay, so they need me, and I love them, but one day I'm going to lock my door and do the emo "playing music really loudly to ignore them while I write angst-tastic things" thing, and that will show them. It might be more effective if the music weren't highly likely to be country.

I meant to post about this before, but it completely slipped my mind. We lost one of the puppies. :( As far as we can tell, Zippo accidentally suffocated and then ate him. (We are assuming he was eaten, seeing as we can't find a body, but we did find a mysteriously bloody spot in a box of old rags, and Zippo had bloody paws.) At least, we're hoping that's the way it happened, because if she just ate him then we're likely to lose another one, and maybe both. She's really bad about not laying on them, though, so maybe...

Anyway, less depressing news: NaNo. Writing wasn't easy today, even taking out family-based reasons, but I think that's because it's combining my two weaknesses: Steve PoV and Action. We are now firmly in the Dramatic Climax arena, though, so there's nothing I can do about that except slog onward. Using the reward system helped a bit (every 100 words I gave myself some mint M&Ms), but not much. The End Is Nigh, however, and it looks like I am actually going to write my very first story that tops 50k. \o/ Unless all of my characters mysteriously die sometime soon, there's almost no way I can tie up the loose threads in less than another 5,000 words. This is very exciting, since previously all of my stories topped out at roughly 20k.

This has been incredibly different from normal writing. Not just in the "sit down, stop whining and keep going" way, since I got used to that back in college, but in the way it developed. Looking back at my now almost completely redundant outline, I had a ton of filler material. The story itself is really pretty straight forward. I also picked an event driven plot, when usually I go for character driven, so that was new (and painful), so I did need a hard outline of what happened in what order, even though I ended up veering wildly from it. But I had room to play, to toddle after a tossed one-liner and see where it went. The characters had room to expand, and dear gods did they expand. I'm noticing patterns in my writing that I never have before (I need to stop using the "he did X, and then he did Y" sentence format), and also finding out things about my own headspace that actually make me feel a little uncomfortable (I enjoy hurting my characters in creative fashions way way way too much).

Even if I end up sitting down in a year, when I have some more objectivity, and deciding that this story is utter crap, I'm glad I did it. It broke my head open and let me poke at all the gooey things that spilled out.

Okay, now that I'm done rambling, totals! Total word count: 46,740, which means I wrote 3,722 words today! Tomorrow, assuming all goes well, I will top 50k. *\o/* I barely managed to touch three quotas, but it counts, so ha! Spoilers, ect, does anyone care or am I just paranoid? Also, warnings! Torture. Violence. Blood.
( Almost there! )

Trick or treat!

It'll be cross-posted later, probably. :x

Yesterday was very much a Monday. x.X I walked into work and my main monitor wouldn't turn on. WTF. Okay, so I have two, but I actually need two. So I got to toddle around, and the result is a new widescreen that is just a little weird to look at, but works. (I know, bitch bitch bitch.) I also remembered why I hate Spidey's costume. Damned toga. (This will make sense come Friday.)

In more headdesky news... Zippo is pregnant. VERY pregnant. She needed help getting into my very low-set car. She bulges. (facepalm) This, sadly, is the unfortunate result of my grandfather forgetting that she was in heat and my Uncle just not caring enough to leave the puppy-panties on her. I am not doing "up all night with the puppies" again. Do you hear me, dogs?

(sighs)