Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

I do have to say... I'm not only less stressed out than I was this morning after the first round of conversations with her, I'm less stressed out than I was *before* it.

I feel good. Peg and I got a little heated at each other during the whole mess and... I am so different from who I was at Transliminal. I stayed calm. I kept my sense of humor. I felt my temper starting up and I smushed it within seconds.

And I was SO DIPLOMATIC AND CHARMING with this old lady. I think I really did a good job of turning myself from an Untrustworthy Young Person who might endanger her cats by slacking off, to a stressed-out potential friend who really just wants to help but is in over his head. What can I say-- I know crazy old Catholic ladies, grew up among 'em, they always freakin' love me. :D

I should talk more about Brill, my punky anthro Australian Shepherd demonslayer headfriend. I summoned her up to get me through last winter's kitten crisis and she stuck around. She was so much help. It's good to have a self who is calm and mature yet a little fierce. Fearless. I love all my previous attempts at a Counselor Headfriend and we still have visits, but NOBODY has been able to wrangle me like her. Best puppy.

(Mне жаль, Laika, you know I love you too! <3 )

OK, I think my last couple conversations with her-- and Peg's admirably firm and adamant texts to her-- have made her see the light. She's promised to limit herself to texts except in true emergencies and she gave us some moderately clearer feeding instructions, plus some (detail-free, sigh) promises that the neighbor issue is a Resolved Matter.

She also apparently knows and really likes Peebles. So goddamn it, she's found my biggest vulnerability. We will continue trying to help her however we can. She really does seem like a very sweet lady who is passionately kind towards cats.

I have still written a very, very polite and diplomatic draft letter to the cat charity that shanghaied us into this mess, waiting on my desktop in case we end up needing to bail. She has also been warned that we will do this at the FIRST sign of neighbor drama.

@Austin_Dern Same here.

i signed for leaving some food scattered for some fucking cats, not an 18-step process and DEFINITELY not being a crazy old woman's main social support structure >_________<

AAAAAAND another 25 minute phone call with MORE instructions for the feeding the fucking cats, and when I tried to complain that it was getting really complicated she blew me off with "it's not really complicated at all" and... gave me another instruction.

Then she launched into some old lady nonsense about her family which is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to feeding her fucking cats and when I told her we REALLY DO NOT HAVE TIME for 3-4 rambling phone calls per day, she apologized profusely, told me she really needed my help, told me she completely understood... and then proceeded to launch into ANOTHER ramble about her family.

(otoh peg just got another rambling barely comprehensible voicemail from Crazy Cat Lady, and it sounds like she may have found someone to take over at least half the feeding days from us...)

(captioned for the Utena impaired: this is a snippped from "Virtual Star Hasseigaku," one of the Utena themes. The song is deeply philosophical, very Buddhist and Western-esoteric, and a bit nihilistic.

The lyrics in the previous toot translate as "A single organic engine, a single perpetual motion device: Ah, it is empty motion
Yes, it is empty motion, motion."

This is how I'm CONSOLING myself today. 100 years from now nobody's going to know or care any of this happened, if there's even anyone left to know or care.

Hitotsu no yuuki teki na kikan
Hitotsu no eikyuu undou souchi

Aa kudou nari
Sora, kudou nari

So I don't really have much energy left, but this is so crazy and I need to vent about it a little.

We got roped into feeding a houseful of feral cats down the street. The woman we're taking over for is an ancient Catholic lady and she is CERTIFIABLE, just the stereotypical nutty rambling old lady in every way.

And every fucking day we hear from her with another bit of the full story, 13 years worth of drama with the neighbors over feeding these cats, all of which was conveniently omitted when she first called asking for help.

And every time she calls, she has a more specific instruction for How Her Babies Must Be Fed.

And I have been conditioned over a lifetime to have no resistance at all to sweet but insane old Catholic ladies.

And this is getting to be a lot. A lot, lot, lot. We have the sense to bail the moment it does start to lead to any actual conflict, but... the guy on the corner has apparently been a vindictive bastard about these cats in the past and some paranoid part of me is TERRIFIED he'll take it out on OUR cats if we get too wrapped up in this.

Which would mean swift death for him in the middle of the night, of course.

I really, really, really wish this whole burden had been dropped on somebody else. But dammit, it's a good opportunity to learn some adulting, crisis-management, and boundary-setting skills, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let a bunch of cats starve.

Bast give me strength, and if this really does come to some kind of massive neighborhood cat drama, please also raise me some bail money and a good lawyer.

Theoretically this is only for a month. And nothing bad has really happened so far. But man, this has all been a colossal anxiety trigger I did not need.

There was an Amish restaurant in my hometown that was owned and operated by Romanians and I miss the shit out of it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Thank you. I have had a lot of free-floating anxiety lately and basically can't figure out how to turn any of my inner alarms off, even long after the problem's been resolved.

I just really needed to do that. I need to find a good place in realspace NOLA (to whatever extent such a thing exists in this fucked-up fae freaktown ;) ) to have an ACTUAL good scream.

Maybe I'll take my large wood stick buddy Stick down to the park tomorrow and hit sturdy things with him and yell a lot while Peg assures passers by "don't worry, they're harmless."

@spacewastrel@yiff.life That's a good sentiment and I should follow it more often. Thanks for being around hun. <3

The more of those little daggers* next to your karma total on Reddit, the closer you are to winning.

(*marker for a "controversial" comment, which I seem to attract O:) )

@zx3 i know you're SUPPOSED to squeeze their heads and suck out the juices, but i'm...

wait, that's crawfish anyhow, isn't it.

i've made some terrible mistakes recently.

@zx3 what i'm saying is i promise only to eat trump voters, and that probably won't last long either because i KNOW i'm violently allergic to them, at least to what they got between their ears >______<

@zx3 also i like most of our neighbors, i'd pay NOT to eat the cats or the dragoness, and i've long since come to see you all here as emergency rations at WORST friends at best. ;) <3

@zx3 It's OK, there is so much cow and bird in this town still left uneaten. :) (And actually, tiger jokes aside, I have veered slightly towards eating vegetarian since moving to NOLA, maybe 40% of the time, so I'll be OK. ^___^ It's been more due to the difficulty of hauling meat from the grocery in 90 degree weather on foot, than any grand moral issues, but I'm coming to realize I kinda like it?)

@Phorm That is actually really comforting and I'll do more research into it! I definitely intend to seek an <s>immune lawyer</s> allergist about it.

I'm OK. It's tragicomical that the Empress of Mars can no longer conquer shellfish, but it's not like I contracted something truly horrible like a dragon allergy. n.n;

yup

dammit

i think i'm turning allergic to shellfish

this is an intolerable biological slight against the Empress* but we will soldier on with the grace and bravery you have come to except* from feline royalty*

*disputed