Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@JulieSqveakaroo I do but I don't even know what I'd ask for. Maybe a hitman to quietly dispose of this woman if she ever causes us any trouble again. ;p

So the latest is that I got subjected to a lengthy tirade about "looking into her private affairs" and "prying" because during Ida she had texted us (WHY?!?) saying she was stuck with no power, phone battery, or lights.

We found her address with a very basic Google search, LITERALLY just her first name plus her phone number, and had her landlord come check in on her.

Because she'd asked us for help, we couldn't contact the other people she asked us to contact (who apparently ALSO barely know her). And we did what we could in a BIG FUCKING PANIC because this old lady came to us saying she needed help and then we couldn't contact her.

She swears this "prying" has opened up a "whole can of worms" for her and she's sounds like she's determined we hacked her or something. Maybe she didn't want her landlord contacted during the storm, maybe she has something in her past she wants to hide, IDFK.

I have blocked her number and told her that she can contact Peggy to arrange to pick up her food IF AND ONLY IF she doesn't harass her about anything else.

I am so afraid, given all the signs that this woman is an obsessive nutcase with a history of harassing people, that we are now on her Shit List and we or our cats are going to have to suffer more for it down the line-- for trying to help an old lady we didn't even WANT to get involved with.

you guys i think today finally broke me

i was already stressed as fuck over ear relapse (luckily mild), no home internet, huge backlog at work, a foot injury AND a missing piece of glass on the floor where the cats might get at it. Plus all my doctor's appointments-- and the attendant suspense over the state of my eye and some mildly abnormal checkup results-- have been bumped back a month or more.

The Crazy Cat Lady drama broke me, and I'm still sitting here twitching over the possibility that it's STILL not gonna be over somehow.

I am gonna have zero energy for anything for a while. I can also feel that I have lost my basic chill reserves and any protective layer of padding over my mind that holds back my Inner Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat.

I may be very clingy, or very unresponsive and cold, or even quite snippy over the next few weeks until/unless things get back to some kind of normal. I really apologize in advance.

I think it's time to concede that I was already Damaged before this. And now that the adrenaline and relief from wife/cats being OK has cleared and reality's setting back in, I am Really Damaged.

God my next therapy appointment is going to be interesting.

@zx3 Laika she is the verklempt. Please to talk among selfs. <3

@troodon @lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com Unfortunately either our net's too sluggish or awoo.space won't let me see the first part of this thread. Can you e-mail whatever you need to postvixen@gmail.com? Whatever it is, the librarian is [VERY FRAZZLED BUT IN] and I would be happy to help if I can fit it in! Or have Troodon drop the details in my Telegram.

So the neighbor down the street yelled at us AGAIN, even though we weren't even going to feed the cats, we were just coming home and unlocking the door.

So I used this as a pretext to text Crazy Cat Lady and say... yeah... we really can't keep this up.

I admit I used @anthracite's "feminine weakness" as a strategy card and invoked the magic words "I don't want My Wife involved with this man."

That seemed to finally get through to her. We got back a characteristically rambling all-caps text that first instructed us not to feed them for the next couple days and only THEN (*sigh*), for that extra little bit of ambiguity said in the same text not to feed them at all, she's taking over.

I would feel really badly about making an old woman with a bad leg go across town to feed cats, but... there have been so many red flags at this point, I think I feel pretty morally secure chucking her in the "energy vampire" bin and bailing on her.

We told her from day one that we were not willing to make an enemy out of a neighbor out of this. Her reply was "well, he's everybody's enemy, he's a maniac."

And that was only one of SEVERAL valid concerns I had answered with a distraction, empty assurance, or convenient Senile Episode. (Did I mentioned in the previous toot that I'm 80% sure she mentioned dating Harry Connick Jr?)

When I told her I am ALREADY BEING TREATED for severe anxiety, her reply was that she has an anxiety diagnosis too. HUGE red flag. Honey, you are in charge of your anxiety level and I am in charge of mine, and diminishing my problem by telling me you have it too is NOT AN OFFER OF HELP OR SYMPATHY.

I am really, really hoping that this is the last we hear of either of these people. We can at least tell the pissy neighbor we've washed our hands of the whole thing. Although... the plot has thickened there, too?

We talked to his neighbor (who apparently likes these cats fine and has been feeding them the whole time *RAGGED SIGH*) and he claimed that guy had moved out... even though someone on that same porch had DEFINITELY yelled at us just this morning.

I don't fucking know. We did our duty for Bast and for basic humanity and now I think we are absolutely done. I might even change my phone number after this. >___<

So apparently not enough of my pre-Ida worried had returned for the gods' tastes, because we FINALLY had that anticipated confrontation with the neighbor who doesn't want people feeding the cats down the block.

The Crazy Cat Lady was at her very craziest, reassuring us in a needlessly 20-minute long phone call that he's had the police and ASPCA both called on him and he knows that he's not supposed to bother us.

That does not reassure me in the least. She was absolutely insistent that there was nobody else who could feed these cats, and that this guy has never been more than all talk.

I REALLY do not like the number of times she contradicted herself or went into irrelevant details when she was asked to explain how this was all OK. I am still just BARELY willing to chalk it up to senility -- I could have sworn I heard her say something about Harry Connick Jr. during the call. *sigh*

If we disappear, this is why. If I kill him, it's because he tried to hurt one of OUR cats and I regret nothing.

I did not need this shit one tiny bit, not on top of our home wifi being down until at least Thursday, work piled up something fierce, my ear starting to bother me again, and my vaporizer tube shattering, leaving a glass shard somewhere on the floor we could not find.

I am really starting to lose it here. Next step will probably be contacting the people who "volunteered" us to feed these guys in the first place and asking if THEY can get us out of this 'cause THEY got us into it.

@PennyPennyPenny leave it to you to be the first one to pull it off in real life... 💜​

@PennyPennyPenny It makes me smile every damn time someone on a Very Serious political thread totally fails to comment on the slinky rubber zebra who slid in to argue. :D :D :D

Dunno if I'm the only one here watching this, but... I just want this down for the record so I can bookmark it and come back to it later.

Everybody seems to have settled on it being Jan, Theo, or Teddy. I think they've fallen into the classic trap: they've assumed it's just a single person.

In my experience, "multiple people did it" is a VERY common murder mystery trope and they're ignoring it at their peril.

It's also generally the most satisfying option-- it's complex, it's poised to take maximum advantage of all the clues, and it drastically lowers the chances of fans getting to the solution before the show.

This is going to have been a team effort. I'm betting Tim was killed by a series of events with multiple agents, possibly a Repo Man-grade chain of weird coincidences. Perhaps, for instance, Teddy poisoned some dips and Jan (unwittingly?) conveyed them to Tim?

I just don't buy that someone like Steve Martin would be unaware in 2021 that the fanbase could get way ahead of him. He was one of the very first stand-up comedians to approach his art with an abstract philosophical theory-- *specifically* one about depriving audiences of their natural expectations for as long as possible.

Of COURSE someone during the production of the show, if not necessarily Steve, would have noted that fan communities are *incredibly* aggressive and effective puzzle solvers. So there is just no freaking way we are going to get a single-variable solution to Who Has Done Did The Bad Murder Thing.

Yup, looks like the New Orleans ecosystem missed me so much that it reinfected my ears promptly on return. It's OK, I know the issue this time and already have the drops and a great ENT so I'm not really stressing.

On the other hand, my boss successfully sparred with HR on my behalf and got me the whole week of Ida as well as my travel day last week as "office-closure" vacation hours. In other words, I don't even have to spend any PTO hours on them...

We're still way behind, though. I really NEED a normal fucking week so I can catch up. This is probably going to hinge on whether our network comes back up by Monday. *sigh*

Also, Peebles and Artie remain adorable. If you were hoping for more interesting cat news, I apologize. I'll post some pics when I'm not stuck on mobile Internet.

@eredien right?! perfect aesthetic for me!

oh no

come on doordash i just got back home and i'm fuckin tired

i don't want to have to match wits with a sexy trickster, i just want my fucking dinner

@Phorm You will ALWAYS be categorically welcome on Mars, and woe betide any of my subjects* who stands in our way. Gonna eat their face up rawr rawr. <3

Don't make me show you The Thing again and make you wake up in a warm cozy harem with a big vacant smile, geniefox.

- ear is bothering me again
+ it's stopped itching so it's probably just grumpy from the prodding, not a return of The Ick

- paysheet was $600 short this week
+ boss got right back to me and I *might* be getting the whole Ida week off as vacation as originally understood -- looks like we just miscommunicated

- brain feels like it's 95% catecholamines right now and maybe 400-500 lucky surviving neurons
+ dealer should be available tonite

- way too much random fucking noise at the airport
+ part of that is an adorable little girl meowing very loudly at me <3

- missing the everliving fuck outta Peg
+ plane home boards any minute

was wondering why i hadn't heard back from our dealer since Ida

poor bastard's bedroom ceiling caved in :(

he's still coming by tonight after my flight back to NOLA, what a trooper. i think he's getting a hell of a delivery tip

@Phorm *interacts with some documents on her clipboard for a minute* That one is DEFINITELY getting saved to desktop.

@Phorm Hmmm. That's a keeper.

*saves file to disk; ponders if she can get it printer on a catsuit*

Oh, you can stop playing with yourself in front of everybody and wake up now, Phorm. <3

@anthracite @frameacloud I should really move to dragon.style. Awooing just feels... WRONG for a proud member of Genus Panthera. Even degrading, dare I say.

@Phorm Huh. That's a start, but I don't think it really takes advantage of the rich possibilities inherent in the geniefox autonomic system.

Here, look at this one for a while. If I RTFMed correctly, it should hit a bit... lower.