Pets talk

I brought my fur babies into the vet for their annual yesterday. Keagan (my eldest) is hale and hearty save for showing the early signs of epilepsy. It's not too bad yet - a seizure maybe once every six or eight months - and the docs say that we can put him on meds but they usually only suggest that if the can is getting weekly seizures. So, we're keeping an eye on my Little Man. He's seventeen, so save for the seizures and a subcutaneous cyst, he's doing great. Not just for his age, but in general.

My youngest is a different story. Logan started acting funny three days ago. He was wandering around as if he was trying to pee everywhere but nothing was coming out. We figured crystals in his urinary tract and since he was going to the vet anyway, we decided to keep an eye on him. The next day he was peeing a little, but he stopped bathing and was just acting off. My boys are both Birmans and Logan inherited a lot of the Siamese blood. Meaning he's incredibly vocal. Only now he wasn't and he was moving very slowly. And he feels like he's lost weight. So time skip to yesterday, we bring him to the vet and get some blood tests done. He's dehydrated, his white blood cell count is high and his platelet count is down. So, it's either a bladder infection or cancer. The vet gave him fluids subcutaneously and a shot of a two-week antibiotic. Now we are giving him steroids orally and we've been told to come back in two weeks for a checkup unless he gets worse before that.

Today he's a bit better (though mad at us for stuffing things in his mouth) and he's bathing a little. He's hiding from us, so he's not back to 100% but he is better. So I'll take it. He's fourteen years old and I want to see him get to at least eighteen.

Snowflake Challenge - Day 7 and 9

Day 7

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 2 might be a good place to start.)

So I tend to stick to the fandoms I know. I mean, I know i like them, so why spread out? But I really do need to. It's like the old kids book "Peas, Cheese, and Chocolate Pudding"; if you don't open yourself up to new experiences, you might be missing out on something really good.

So, I started reading some fanfics that weren't in any of my direct fandoms and I was really, really happy that I did. So, this is going to become like a bit of a second rec list:

Empty Graves by Unpretty. Superman - Time travellers who plan to kill Superman never account for Martha Kent in their plans. She may not be the World's Finest, but she's a mother with a shotgun, and all told that might be scarier.

The Richest Men in Town by Copperbadge - It's a Wonderful Life - George Bailey, a year after meeting the angel Clarence (second-class), gets a message from Clarence via an unlikely third party: H.F. Potter.

I don't actively avoid Superman fics, but I don't think I've ever sought one out before and I can honestly say that I have never, ever read a It's a Wonderful Life fic before. I'm very glad that I read them.


Day 9

Commit an Act of Kindness. In your own space, share what you’ve done, talk about what you’ve done, or simply leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

And this was done. It really is incredible how difficult building designers and managers make it for those of us who are disabled in one way or another. When you have a group of seniors and people with walkers and/or canes wandering around desperately trying to find the working elevator because you have turned off the one escalator you have. ... Anyway, the act of kindness was leading a group of said seniors through the building, past the first set of doors, into the garage, past the second set of doors to the new elevator bay. I was heading that way anyways. I really need to send off an email to the place where I was to let them know that this really is unacceptable ...

Snowflake Challenge - Day 11

Day 11

In your own space, talk about your creative process(es) — anything from the initial inspiration to how you feel after something’s done. Do you struggle with motivation or is it a smooth process? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to pull out when a fanwork isn’t cooperating? What is your level of planning to pantsing/winging it?

There's supposed to be a process? ... Seriously I have tried to plan and I have tried to pants. I guess I might be a plantser? Generally I get an idea - either through a prompt or a scene from a tv show/movie/whatever - and I'll write it out is the most basic way in a new google document. Sometimes those bunnies just end up languishing, ever to be seen again; but others stick a little better.

When I do plan something the process is usually a simple bullet point list of the main things that need to happen in every chapter and nothing more than that. Sometimes I will get an idea for a scene and I'll write that out in hopes that I'll be able to use it later in the story, but those often end up in a folder just waiting to be remembered and used somewhere.

Lately I've been having a lot of trouble getting anything written. I'm full of self-doubt and that makes me second guess everything that I write, but now that I'm on some antidepressants it's getting better to ignore the "you suck" little voice in the back of my mind and I'm starting to allow myself to write again.

So basically this is a super round about way of saying that my process is generally - give myself permission to write garbage, open document, start typing, hope it isn't irreparable garbage.