Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@Austin_Dern Those are Eyebrows Of Power, too, and I definitely mean that as flattery. Those are, like, Alan Rickman-grade eyebrows. You could probably kill at 20' with waves of pure archness. <3

@Austin_Dern Oh, you got a VIBE there and I really like it. I hesitate to use this terminology, but you really look like a Player Character or at least a Fully Scripted NPC there. <3

"motherfuckin' terfs treating my best friends about the same way the Pythagoreans treated the square root of two-- with a combination of outrage, denial, and futile hopes that the gods will intervene"

@Phorm *loses it* :D

DR. REZEYA'S SUPER FUN SCIENCE QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Hey kids! Have you ever wondered how many consecutive times Dr. Rezy would need to call Joe Manchin's office and leave a recording of Kate Nash's "Dickhead" in order to be arrested? Let's find out! :D

(I'm not actually doing this. I'm just stopping at one.)

@JulieSqveakaroo @Austin_Dern "You're from Ohio? Oh, neat, I've got a friend in Indiana! Do you know Chuck?"

@JulieSqveakaroo Oh geez, I'm so glad you've got a good one too, I hear your work can be frustrating sometimes and you of all people really deserve someone good on your side! <3

@JulieSqveakaroo OK, that's kinda rad. :D

I was joking yesterdaybefore (time is a little loose right now) that I was gonna take the Artie rescue time off as sick days, because it's technically "Family Emergency Health Leave."

Well.

My boss had a friendly question about a project and I mentioned the Artie situation and asked to cash in some personal time while I had his attention.

He said this is clearly a family emergency. I should take it as family health leave if I need it.

FUCK I lucked out. I am increasingly nearing "would take a bullet for my boss." He is the opposite of the opposite of Kim Kitsuragi.

=== SHORT VERSION ===

Stressed but not frantic. Artie is HERE AND SAFE, that's the most important thing.

And I'm... okayish. I just asked my boss if I can take the week off, since I've got the time piled up. I can figure out Artie stuff, talk to the landlord about pet leases, work on That Parallax Opportunity, maybe clean the house up and regather a little sanity.

I'm okayish. I will probably be leaning on y'all for more support and advice soon. But Artie is safe. That's so important and good. (She is also an idiot who learned NOTHING for three days stranded. That is frustrating and bad.)

=== LONG VERSION ===

And if we do have to let her out and she does it all again, FOR NOW the solution seems repeatable.

For now we're probably gonna try keeping her in for as long as she/we can stand it. I'm kinda looking forward to it, honestly? She's a good kitty and has mostly been taking it well. Main lingering fear is landlord stuff since we aren't supposed to have pets on the premises. (Heh.)

But yeah. I'm okay. I'm mostly okay. Watching my funds drain kinda fast while we're in Just Get Through The Day mode. We'll be fine. Lots of good news on Peg's career front.

So here's what else I'm still ruminating about:

The door in the abandoned apartment gets weaker and weaker each time and might not be reclosable next time. We are pondering installing our own latch and key-- it's not like the rightful owners couldn't get in through the front if needed. And fuck 'em at this point tbh. Failing that... I dunno, a lot of good thick adhesive tape to keep it shut between break-ins?

I'm also not thrilled about asking the rental company for a pet lease, because there is a mention in their online docs about "pet rent" and... it's not like we need an increase in cost of living right now. It's definitely never gonna be a solution for all the cats-- they want the pets DOCUMENTED and VACCINATED and there's no way they'd let us have five in there without charging us a fortune at best.

The "bright" spot: I looked at the lease and unless it's a explicitly an eviction-level offense like non-payment or, like, meth lab, the process for violations is possible fine + a "written notice" that we have five days to comply with. We can only be booted on the SECOND offense and it looks like that might even be legally binding on them? So I'm taking that as "you have one freebie." :p

And we've gone, what, 2 yrs and 8 mos now and nobody's hassled us about the cats? The worst we've ever gotten is "Yeah, could you try not to leave so much extra food out? It's summer and there are flies. Thanks!" I like to hope that if we explained the situation to them and made sad enough eyes at them they'd cut us a break and help us work out a solution... Of all the tenant offenses to commit, I think "Broke lease because worried about cute kitties" is one of the more charismatic.

@Leucrotta I like the helmet design though!

Rezeya Montecore-St-Hobbes, Empress* of Mars offers the humblest available apologies to Shadow, Empress of 500-600 [REDACTED], Mid-City for mistakenly slandering her family for the, quote, "stinky stinky cat poot." Her Majesty* was unaware that she had left her weed vaporizer on.

We once again welcome the errant Princess Artemus back to our shared Terran domain and repledge our eternal devotion to our alliance.

You are kinda stinky though.

Dictated but not read,

​*

@Leucrotta this is the most nakedly self-serving "pics or it didn't happen" i have ever typed ;9~~

We hadn't really let the emotional impact of this hit because of Artie, but now that she's OK...

Yeah. We have news about Parallax that is good enough that we can't go into detail about it. It may or may not pan out, but we may have accomplished a major step towards actually getting this project recognized, here.

ARTIE UPDATE:

In case you missed the previous one... we are in CONDITION YAY. ^_______^

Artie is rescued. She is chilling out with us and we're thinking she's gonna spend the next couple days as an indoor cat. She seems (highly) energetic and healthy if understandably twitchy.

ARTIE UPDATE:

KITTY RESCUE VERY YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She's currently in our apartment having a monster poop. :)

also THANK YOU ALL for all the advice, concern, and help. we're so close and my hopes are at the highest they've been so far. we're taking a break-- we've been up since 7 am-- but might make another attempt tonight.

@JulieSqveakaroo nnnnope :) but see latest, we HAVE ACCESS to her, just can't get her down! she HAS FOOD AND WATER NOW <3 <3 <3 so there is lots of hope -- we're gonna knock off for the day and hit up Home Depot tomorrow in force, probably check on her tonight and make sure she's still intact and stocked up

ARTIE UPDATE:

We haven't rescued her yet, but we made face-to-face contact, even got her close enough for a scritch and a treat from Peg's fingers. She has food and water we have confirmed she has access to. Not remotely resolved yet, the hole we found in the attic is too small and she's SUPER skittish about leaping down (understandably, she's gotta do it from a rafter), but...

WE KNOW SHE IS ALIVE, FED, AND HYDRATED NOW. Tools and Attempt #2 tomorrow morning. May seek carpentry advice soon.