Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Also some of you may be pleased to know that the first thing I did when I came home from the supermarket with cat litter and supplies in tow, which I hand-carried rather than wake Peg up for bike services, was storm into the bedroom and announce "ENOUGH OF YOUR THESEUS, ACHILLES, AND ULYSSES! THE MIGHTIEST OF HEROES IS REZEYA MONTECORE SAINT HOBBES, NOBLE HALF-TIGRESS HALF-DAGO OF LEGEND! I BRING MAGICAL BOONS TO WARD YOU FROM THE IMPENDING STORM OF CAT!"

Apparently, as far as my incredibly soft-hearted boss is concerned, taking care of eight rambunctious cats in a hurricane counts as "family" for Family Health Leave. <3

@JulieSqveakaroo And yeah. she's doing a lot better today! Has been sharking my ankles again and seemed to enjoy a scritch while she was in the Mother Box. Still trusts me to pet the kittens, too, which is a good sign!

@JulieSqveakaroo re-kitterate? <3

My day so far: walk halfway to Petco, realize I forgot my mask, feed cats in exchange for permission to enter my own home, walk back out, discover Petco is closed, hustle to supermarket for the closest thing I can find to a litterbox, then carry that and some toys and a 14 lb. box of litter home.

(This is your donation money at work. <3 <3 <3 <3 )

Yeah. So, Zeta's gonna hit us right on the nose. We should be OK, but at a likely Cat 2, this is my first real hurricane and we are definitely gonna try to rustle up the cats for it. Which is gonna be fun, since Shadow and Shemp have both been bullying the younger cats and we'll probably have to have two different Cat Refuges set up (hence the extra litterbox).

Luckily, the storm seems to be a line drive and should pass overhead fairly quickly. Biggest concerns right now are power outages and OH GOD SO MANY ORNERY CATS.

Sugarfoot has settled down, though. Over the last 12 hours her record for not trying to slash me when I scriffle her neck is 4-1. :) I'm just so grateful the kittens have NOT apparently picked today to learn how to jump.

Pray to Bast for us. :)

Meh, Sugarfoot is still hissy and bitey and not receiving pets. She's *never* hissed at me before today, and it's really upsetting.

It's triggering the hell out of my neuroses, honestly. The three rules of stress according to my brain are:

(1) It's your fault
(2) It's going to happen forever
(3) If you fiddle with it obsessively right now, maybe you will fix it and I will stop tormenting you

This clearly does NOT work with cats. Giving Sugarfoot space and not testing the waters has been the most difficult thing, especially because I'm as much worried about her as I am annoyed, and very concerned that I did something wrong.

I know, I know. Other Cat People have already assured me this is fairly normal, but I've never had to deal with it in Sugarfoot before and... honestly, I miss scritching her and getting a purr.

"STRE-EH-EH-EHS EATING?"

(yes i think i'm hitting up grubhub for a very foolish peer-2-food life choice behavior)

i'm having kind of a stressful day but it was distinctly improved by these two gay lion boys on a discount store in yamagata, japan, who I think may have both just taken some kind of ghost pepper challenge.

https://goo.gl/maps/JY4PY9BukU6oYwm66

@Phorm @anthracite I'm still hopeful and VERY cautiously optimistic. Trump's last couple of attempts at an October Surprise flopped big-time and I definitely smell weakness. Plus Biden's polls are at least out of standard margin-of-error and 2016-error ranges, though I don't like how close things are in Pennsylvania one bit. I'm ready for anything, but still very tempted to place a large wager on Trump winning just to get Murphy's Law on our side...

From the producers of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot comes a bewildering existentialist kids' movie for all ages:

Schrodinger's Cats Can (Not) Dance!

Hey, folks. Peg sent out another round of requests for comments and opinions from some of her comic-industry friends, so I thought I might as well share the request out and see if any of you would like to give our current work a skim...

https://egypt.urnash.com/parallax-1-preview/

In particular, if any of you care one way or the other, we're thinking of rewriting and expanding the first-encounter scene(s) to clarify them a little bit. Any details you can give us about any part of the plot you had trouble with would be very welcome. <3

I'll be really honest, I love these guys, but I really kinda miss when it was just Shadow and Sugarfoot and we had the full run of the house and didn't have to worry constantly about the emotional state of one more being and the physical state of three.

But what the fuck else were we gonna do, leave them out in the cold? Just two more weeks until they wean, probably, and then we'll have a whole new set of problems...

Huh. It's almost time to close up my 2020 electoral time capsule folder and start up the 2024 edition.

I see all. And in just a few days, I get to see how wrong everybody (including me) was over the last four years...

I won't shame anybody individually -- well, OK, only public figures -- but I will probably post some summaries of what I find in the capsule. I know *I* started 2020 off with a lot of skepticism that the Russians trollfarms were really that big -- I blew that one completely!

Stressy this morning. Need a kittenproofing solution SOON and we're kinda stuck dithering. (We've got some ideas, don't really need any advice currently.)

Shemp is being a butt and roughhoused with Sugarfoot when he visited, and she's been sullen and jumpy ever since -- scratched me twice while trying to pet her, and that is not really like her.

Really worried we are just not on friendly enough terms with Shadow right now to get her anywhere to get her fixed. Vet wants TWO appointments, a pre-exam and an actual surgery visit. I am honestly not sure if we can even get Shadow to the first one.

We are gonna call this week or next maybe and see if they can get her a sedative or something. We also need to get a bigger cat carrier to have any hope of doing this comfortably. Everybody but Artie's outgrown the one we have.

All in all, this has been a lot of work and your donations have been helping a LOT with materials and supplies. Thank you all again. No pics today, really don't want to bother Sugarfoot until everyone's chilled out.

Kittens seem to be doing great.

mew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0sFQnPAAbM (CW: KITTENS IN MELEE COMBAT)

yes sugarfoot i realize you are the child of underprivilege and did not receive the sort of catting education your younger siblings now take for granted

but yes as a matter of fact the difference between "my feet with socks on them" and "a scratching post" is one of those things i did expect you to puzzle out on your own

this is the closest thing to a picture of a kitten holding still that we got, so you'll just have to deal <3

apologies for lack of kitten pics -- they're doing great, they're just at that stage where it's not apparently possible to take non-blurry photos XD

@JulieSqveakaroo Only their stylist knows for sure!