Scottish Fold kitten with stumpy legs.....!

It literally was so cute I could not make words when I first saw it. Sometimes mutations are absolutely adorable.

(The late, great Spooky had very stumpy legs and was somewhat Dachshund-like. Yubi also has very stumpy legs and runs like a badger. I may be pre-disposed to liking mutant cats.)

I am so loving Scottish Fold cats lately. I generally prefer my mutt cats, because heck, you can get them for free, and they are just as interesting. But if I was to buy a purebred cat, I would so be going for a Scottish Fold. Their little round heads are so cute!

Do not let the cute, innocent Indy face in the icon fool you! My cats are all evil.

Today is already sucking and it is 100% the fault of our cats. Batty is in a snit about being low cat on the totem pole now (this is a status that changes often, between him and Indy; Bandito is somehow now the default top cat at all times...), so he whizzed in the entrance of the hallway that leads to the back of the apartment. (Batty lives in the back with scheduled visits to the rest of the apartment, and Indy has the front end and never ventures into the back, which is Batty's territory.) There was a Mexican stand-off last night between Indy and Batty, with Batty as the aggressor, so I should have known there would be territory battles today in the form of surreptitious peeing. I woke up and immediately started cleaning the hallway entrance. Leaving the stuff to sit and work in (the various carpet cleaning cleansers), I decided to eat breakfast and let Batty have his out-and-about time, since I could monitor him. Well, Mr. Blacksie-Pants waltzes into the front entryway of the apartment, where we have some boxes of comics that need to go into storage, and proceeds to sneak into a corner next to them WHERE HE PEES AGAIN! AUGH! I catch him mid-squat and chase him away, so I can grab him and drag him into "his" bathroom where his personal catbox is. (We have two bathrooms, the back one is his, the front one belongs to Indy and Bandito.) Of course, he flees! And knocks a ton of crap over! And this scares fat, lazy Indy, who spindashes ACROSS MY TOES, CLAWS OUT. He rips giant gashes in the tops of two of my toes! Thus, Loving Patient Cat Mommy turns into cursing, yelling Terrifying Human Monster, so all cats go apeshit and flee for the hills. Indy gets put on the couch, Bandito hides under a chair, and Batty, the cause of all this drama, gets grabbed and unceremoniously stuffed into his bathroom, also known as Cat Jail.

Ignoring my foot, I run to clean up the pee in the entryway (fortunately, on a tile floor this time). Lucky for me, the comic box the pee got on is almost empty and only had dinged comics in it anyway, so the whole thing gets hucked into the dumpster. Meanwhile, my foot is bleeding like a stuck pig, so I run to Batty's bathroom (which is also my bathroom) to clean it up. Batty, who has been in Cat Jail alone for all of three minutes by this point, immediately sidles up to me and starts mau-ing about how he's lonely, so lonely and so sad to have been put into Cat Jail and won't I please let him out? He gets choice words from me about how he is being punished and how he's a pissy jerk. I survey the foot damage and it's choice. One scratch is fairly deep and bleeding profusely, one is shallow and mostly just stinging. But both, both are vertical along the tops of my toes, and I have a hell of a time applying Dora the Explorer Band-Aids (don't judge me!) so they will stay on and stop the prodigious flow of blood. Now Boots and Diego are staring up at me cheerfully from my Neosporin-covered toes. Once the toes are tended to, I go back to cleaning up cat pee, and scoop out Batty's catbox for good measure. Meanwhile, Batty rolls in the tub like he is being oppressed, and in a way he is, because he's going to be in Cat Jail for a good while.

Finally, I washed up and had my half-made breakfast. I have tons of errands to do today and this toe thing is going to make shoes a fun proposition. (I'll probably have to wear flip-flops.)

I'm starting to think I might have to permanently separate my cats, because I am tired of the constant dominance drama and Indy and Batty will *not* back down from each other and get along. I don't know what caused this endless hatred between them, either, they used to get along. I'm also sick to death of cleaning up cat pee. I don't know what kind of a solution I can come up with though, because Batty is bonded with me, Indy is bonded with PD and Bandito is bonded with willworks. When I am out of town or not around, Batty is unhappy. He's a sensitive, high strung, nervous cat, and also kind of prickly in the personality department, so I can't imagine giving him away to someone else. He'd be miserable and whoever ended up with him probably wouldn't have the patience to deal with him.

Follow ups on recent bouts:

--Horrible Hallway of Cat Pee: Well, I can't smell cat pee in it anymore. Possibly because the carpet corner now smells like white vinegar. It seems to be keeping the cats off of it though. I also sprinkled a ton of baking soda on the damp area, which the instructions (on a cat-cleanup website) say to leave there for a while, then brush and vacuum up. Seems to be working so far. The cats are unamused by this development, and are now scratching everything in sight to mark territory instead. They may all get some Soft Paws if that keeps up. (I won't have them declawed, it's cruel. And none of them will hold still so I can clip their claws with the clipper. I can get maybe half a paw done before they flip out and run away.)

--Migraines: subsiding. Fortunately, not a brain tumor but a combination of hormone related fun and the terrifying mold farm I found in the far back corner of the pantry. (Why was there water in the pantry? I have no idea! Who knows where it came from!) The pantry has always been rather oddly damp, I guess all the recent rain and humidity just kicked it into overdrive and it made some badness on a small stack of paper grocery bags. Yeah, I love living in a 35 year old apartment complex. Always an adventure! By the way, Lysol's Mildew Remover formula is brilliant and kills mold better than regular Lysol does. Since mold is my #1 worst allergy-inducing bugaboo, it's awesome.

Also did a ton of paperwork, mail order processing and subscription work with tabitharjones yesterday. We have much more to do, as we are rather behind. Flu season really made things difficult for us and slowed us down a lot, and the pounding rains we keep getting have made going to and from the storage with cardboard boxes of paper products difficult. (You can't sell people wet comic books, it doesn't work so well...) So we've been horribly behind on that stuff and it's really driving me crazy. It doesn't help that between us and the nearest post office (the airport one, which is open until 11:30 pm) there are like two low water crossings. Ah, the joys of living in a city with no obvious or planned storm drainage! We're just going to put our heads down and pound away on the mail order until we can get caught up again.

Off to work on a multitude of things... comic work, manga project work and mail order work.

Today's battles were as follows:

--Elin versus the Rent: I won this battle and the rent shall be paid. Yay!

--Elin versus the Allergens: Benadryl helped me win this battle. Yay again!

--Elin versus the New Postage Pricing System: nobody wins this battle, except perhaps the post office. The new system reads like stereo instructions, much like the Beetlejuice Handbook For the Recently Deceased. I shake my fist in its general direction! And now lighter packages will somehow work out to have a higher postal percentage increases than heavier packages?! Buh-what?!

--Elin versus the Horrible Hallway of Cat Pee: nobody wins this battle either! Boo! Batty and Indy have decided the hallway that separates the front and back of the apartment is Ground Zero for weekly cat pee territory battles. I am constantly cleaning this one corner of the hallway nearest the door, and they continue to pee there. I have tried EVERY single cat pee "odor eliminator" and "enzyme remover" on the market, including all the ones that claim that they will make cats never pee there again (lies). I have tried every single carpet cleaner. I am currently trying a solution of white vinegar and baking soda that was on How Clean is Your House?, my new favorite show on BBC America. (The ladies on the show used it on a house that had something like six cats in it, and it supposedly worked.) The cats don't pee anywhere else in the house (well, except their assigned cat boxes), just this one corner of the back hallway. It's driving me nuts! (And yes, all three of the boys are fixed. Batty and Indy just really despise each other.) It really sucks because I don't want to live in a house of cat pee smell like a Crazy Cat Lady. (It's been unusually humid lately due to all the rain, so it makes the smell stronger. Ick, I know.) If anyone knows any actual stuff or tricks that really will remove cat pee odors down to the carpet padding, by all means, let me know.

We're still working on comics and the like. The usual grind. It's kind of sad, I am finding it harder and harder to get excited about comics lately, which is not a very happy-making thought. I probably need a vacation or something.

Much work going on around here. It turns out we don't have to order adjust Milk #58, so we have to scramble to get it finished and turned in. This would be much easier if all the stories for it would come in before the next millenium. ^_^; Or heck, at this point, even stories that weren't actually scheduled for this specific issue... We're also working on the next Furrlough (#171) and the next issue of Genus (#83).

Work continues on the adult website (NSFW!) and it now has a forum up and running! PD worked hard to get the forum loaded and working, and after much deliberation, we have the forum outside the members-only area, to foster a better sense of community. ^_^ tabitharjones is moderating it for me, since I have my hands a bit full with other work and with trying to keep the Radio Comix forum moderated. (We get an awful lot of spam bots on there...) The Sin Factory Comix forum is probably not going to be work-safe, so browse at your own risk. (It's probably work-safe right now though, it's brand new...)

Work also continues on Manga Project Y, as the pages are finally ready for us to download. DD is still working on the translation for Manga Project Z, so we're working on Y in the interim. We're also still waiting to hear back on corrections for Manga Project X, which we'll need to be ready to do as soon as we get them.

I did get to see Hot Fuzz this weekend due to the kindness of friends, and it was totally awesome! I loved it!

I saw Yubi this weekend as well, and she lost the tooth that was giving her the most trouble. It just fell out. O_o She's eating with gusto though and acting like nothing is wrong, and there's no swelling on her gums or lips, so I guess she must be okay? She's certainly eating like she's totally fine. Cats, I swear.

Obligatory auction plugs, since the taxes are still a very pressing concern:
eBay auctions are here!
FurBid auctions are here!

Currently reading: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld; currently watching: Gilmore Girls Season 3

I am in the middle of tax-time hell here, which means I am in a fine mood. The accountant was scheduled to come by today, but due to a bunch of bizarre happenings (detailed below), we had to call him to re-schedule, which I guess has occurred, since he hasn't bothered to call us back or show up. Hopefully, he's not dead, which is a definite possibility since he's very old.

Bizarre Happening #1: The front door is completely screwed. No, seriously, screwed. Several months ago, we had to change the lock because the apartment foundation had shifted so severely, the deadbolt lock broke. Then, once we replaced the lock, the door had to be locked in order to stay closed- if you didn't lock the deadbolt, the door literally would not line up properly to stay shut. Well, suddenly about a week and a half ago, the door changed its mind, and then decided to start sticking shut once it was closed. This culminated in the weirdest of happenings in the last couple of days, where the door literally refused to open unless you threw all your weight at it, and then would refuse to close again unless you did the same. Investigation of the door frame area last night showed that suddenly, we have a weird bubble in the concrete of the foundation right along the line of the door. Oh boy! The maintenence men have come by to "fix" this, which meant they took the kickplate off the door, pulled up the tile that was being pushed up by the foundation, and pounded the concrete foundation down with a sledgehammer. No, I am not kidding. But hey, we can open and close the door now, and the apartment management is coming to investigate what the hell is going on in the scary foundation under our entry. (I'm telling you, it's a Hellmouth...)

Bizarre Happening #2: Some of you will remember that on the plane trip to Further Confusion, the ledger book that I keep all the Radio bank information in got soaking wet due to a faulty water bottle cap springing a leak on the plane while in my totebag. Well, because of this, I had to buy a new one and re-enter all the financial data by hand from the bank statements and receipts. This took forever, but I was still missing some bank statements. I went through every file, every receipt box, every batch of mail. Apparently, the bank statements for January through April 2006 were just completely missing. Either we never got them, due to the crappy mail delivery here at the apartment, or they vanished into the ether somehow. But, fortunately, I was able to go to the bank and get them to print the statements out for me again. Hooray! So, now I have all my financial information, and thus can turn it all over to the accountant and get the taxes figured out. (Alas, not paid yet, but they can at least be filed...)

Other things I dealt with today: processed some orders, answered some email, did some paperwork, and paid the electric bill. The rest of the day has been taken up with constant mathematics as I add up all the yearly expenses for the taxes. Yes, I am already sick of doing math, but it will take a little more hammering to get all the stuff ready for the accountant. The taxes are really consuming all my waking thoughts at the moment, so I'm really distracted and hyperfocus-y right now. I'm also working to get Milk #57 ready to go to the new printers this week (yes, running slightly behind on it, not everything is here for it yet sadly...), so that's also got me chewing my nails and stressing.

Bizarre Happening #3: While I was sleeping, Indy decided to scratch me on the cheek. Yeah, it's real pretty.

New eBay auctions are up here!
New FurBid auctions are up here!

Today has officially been A Day.

Yubi is finally eating food with no coaxing and demanding her water be changed every time she wants a drink, like a little water princess. This shows a definite improvement in her health and behavior. So, big ups on that front, hoorah.

This morning, right after I woke up, I was called by our printer (Brenner Printing) and informed that as of March 31st, they were no longer going to be printing *any* adults only material, period. They were very apologetic, but needless to say, this was very upsetting and shocking news. We've been printing the adult books there for ten years now with no issues whatsoever, but apparently, the owner has suddenly decided that he doesn't want such material printed there any more. (This is also sudden and odd, because the whole time I was at Antarctic Press, they also printed adult comics...) I don't know how many other publishers will be affected by this new change at Brenner. The only ones I know of for sure who print there are Eros Comix (since they get their catalogs printed there and the occasional book), Avatar (since I always see their nude variant cover stuff there on the docks) and White Lightning (since I see Bootleg on the dock there when we go pick up our stuff). I know Drama Queen and Yaoi Press have also done adult yaoi stuff there in the past. Who knows what kind of schedule conflicts and snafus this new edict will cause- it is really sudden and it's kind of a pisser that they couldn't give us any advance warning that this was coming down.

Either way, this meant I spent most of the day on the phone (which I love, heh) getting price quotes and finding a new place to get the current issue of Milk printed (which was scheduled to go to press on the 9th anyway, but if it was to be printed at Brenner, we would have had more leeway on that date since it is local to us...). It looks like we have found a solution at the moment, hopefully it will work out in the long-term. Our future (far, far, far future) planned adult graphic novels will probably end up having to be done by Quebecor/Lebonfon now though, which means extra budgeting to cover the high cost of shipping things from Canada to Texas.

Other fires put out today: paid the rent and water/gas bill, shipped a Genus reorder to Diamond (since the L.A. warehouse seems to have mysteriously disappeared an entire box of their original shipment, again), got some restock from the storage, did a bunch of paperwork, and set up the appointment with the accountant to get the taxes handled. Now I am off to do more work.

I swear I did not cheat and answered all questions honestly.
( Read more... )

Yubi had kitten milk force-fed to her last night, and kept it down. This morning, she ate some of her favorite kind of wet cat food and has been drinking water like it is going out of style. Hooray!

Yubi was responding well to the medicine for the first five days. The fifth day (Wednesday), she started throwing up. Thursday, when we went to get the refill of medicine, they gave us a different kind that was supposed to be milder on the stomach. She barely ate Thursday, and threw up again. She's been throwing up every time we give her the medicine. Now she refuses to eat and will only sip water. She doesn't act like she is in pain, but she is a bit wobbly and weak. I have been at suarez's ever since Wednesday night, because I just can't stand the idea of her being alone if she's doing really badly.

She has her next vet appointment on Tuesday, but I am afraid of her condition deteriorating between now and then, especially if she refuses to eat anything (dry food, wet food, etc.) We will buy some kitten milk tonight most likely, and see if we can give her some with the eyedropper.

I also must remember to get the Further Confusion paperwork ready to get postmarked tomorrow. thank god we have a post office that is open on Sundays. I've been stressing about the tables since January, since I am responsible for both the Radio Comix one and the one for Trump and Team Shuffle.