[Major Tom is meatloafed in the cat stroller, one forepaw tucked underneath him, the other stretched out in front. His lovely amber eyes are half-open, ears and whiskers alert.]
Yes, this is still all about al-Barran Champions! Look, there’s been stuff.
Possibly Tom wore himself out with all the shouting Friday, because halfway through Saturday he settled down enough that he was willing to spend most of the afternoon in the stroller. It was very pleasant, & also MUCH quieter.
[A closer view of his handsome face. His eyes are gently closed.]
He napped a lot, even when the local pack of trans kids decided to spend the afternoon in my booth trying to set things on fire. (You know you’re the Cool Grownup when … )
I took him for a couple walks in the stroller, too, just to get him out & about some, & maybe used to all the noise & bother. He did okay, but didn’t want to go too far from the booth.
But mostly, he napped.
[Tom has flopped over to sleep on his side, head resting against the edge of the stroller.]
& best of all, we had cuddles. Tom’s rarely in the mood to hold paws for long, so this was extra-precious.
I love my great big tomcat.
[A very close view: one of Major Tom’s forepaws is resting on my finger. His toes are curled just a tiny bit, because he was holding on.]
He’s so very good. He’s the goodest.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is sitting in his crate, staring off to the left. There’s a blanket over most of the crate, but hints of the outside are visible on the left side behind Tom.]
Tom had to spend most of the event in the crate, because he refused to stop trying to get back into the van. This might not have been a problem if I hadn’t parked the van directly uphill from the booth, but even after I moved it, Tom was still very determined.
Of course he also didn’t love being in the crate. I was hoping he’d decide it’s a safe place, like the van & (sometimes) the stroller, but with the van as the easier option, he wasn’t having it. Ahh well, there will be more events, & more chances to get him used to the idea …
He did spend a lot of time watching the fighting, & watching people walk past. Of course he also spent a lot of time shouting, which did, at least, bring people over to pet him. That was perfectly acceptable in his world. Along with an audience for his complaints, of course.
He also spent a lot of time begging me to let him out. Or I guess that’s what this is?
[Tom is now sitting right at the edge of the crate nearest the camera. He’s got his muzzle wedged in between two of the crate bars. His eyes are squinched shut and his mouth is slightly open; I think I caught him on the edge of a shout.]
… I don’t know why he thought THAT was gonna work, I was laughing so hard I almost dropped my phone about six times. But he carried on with the combination of ‘existential screm’ & also ‘whack massive head into crate, thus causing clunk sounds’.
[Tom is caught in the middle of rubbing his massive head against the inside of the crate. It is, of course, blurry. His ears are tilted just slightly to the sides, his whiskers are perked very forward, one eye is squinched shut, and the other is just slightly open. Also, his bowtie is askew. Not visible is the egregious purring.]
There’s a whole lot of different kinds of purr. Most of you will be familiar with such classics as the quiet ‘I am very comfortable & at ease with my life’ & the loud, rattly ‘oh boy DINNER’; some will know, too well, the ‘everything is horrible but if I purr things might suck a little less?’. This is the ‘please give me the thing I want because I am the most adorable creature on the planet OR SO HELP ME I WILL–sorry see I’m the adorablest?’ & it is absolutely an egregious example of the genre.
Eventually, I got the shot I was waiting for.
[Tom, squarely facing the camera, mouth wide open, fangs bared. You can probably hear this photo.]
ANG ER EY. THE ANGIEST.
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the one that could be a blockbuster superhero movie, or at least the beginnings of one
so it started with a traumatized, misanthropic vet with small-scale superpowers who's just trying to live his damn life, he's DONE his fighting, but he gets into it with a supervillain a bit past his capability, & in the process of trying to lose the guy he leads him to a small town, where the bad guy starts just breaking shit
[My booth! It’s in a popup with a blue roof tucked under a big pinon pine tree, with more trees all around. There’s a table on each side, with shelves holding various products. In front on the left is a good-sized wire cat crate covered in a grey and brown patchwork wool blanket with a cat bed on top; Loiosh is curled up in the bed, and Tom is just visible in the crate. On the right is a set of shelves holding a couple of wooden boxes, and next to that is a dark blue cat stroller.]
Mom wanted pictures of the booth, so I took pictures of the booth. It looks … more or less like it usually does, which is nice; it had been so long I was worried I’d forgotten how to do the thing. But it went quick & looked just fine.
[A set of wooden shelves on a table. There are display boxes of soap in front of the shelves, and also on each shelf. Off to the right, on the white tablecloth, are a selection of pride flag pins.]
The soap! I had to mess around with the spacing on those shelves a BUNCH before I could fit the signs without blocking anything too much. Of course I’m going to be replacing them with folding shelves pretty soon, & I don’t think those are NEAR as easy to adjust as these shelves …
[A broad double set of shelves takes up the entire width of the other table. Purple display boxes hold a variety of tins, jars, and bottles. A rainbow pride flag hangs behind.]
Similar futzing here. Not sure what to do with that empty shelf, although if I’d remembered the big bottles there would have been things to go there. Next time!
I was RIGHT next to the A&S display, & that was AWESOME, I got time to actually LOOK at everything. One lady had supplies to make the easiest Turkish spindle imaginable, so now I have that, plus a tuft of wool & and a NICE little bowl for supported spinning.
[The spindle consists of a pencil-width dowel that’s been sharpened on one end, probably with a pencil sharpener, plus four colored popsicle sticks, paired off and held around the stick by tiny binder clips. Next to that sits a small white ceramic bowl holding a goodly hunk of grey wool.]
One guy had made his own composite bow, horn and wood glued together, and arrows to go with it. There was some BEAUTIFUL Turkish (I think?) garb. One lady has done a CRAPTONNE of research into Roman cosmetics AND THEN went & made a whole bunch, & was offering people makeovers. SO MUCH COOL STUFF. I wish I’d remembered to bring my phone over, but, welp.
[A flat rock, roughly a foot across, with a small pile of partly-burned twigs, matches, and pine needles. A hand holding a lit match hovers over the whole business.]
The next day was me & my accompanying band of trans kids getting bored & trying to make a tiny fire so they could smell how awesome juniper berries smell when you burn them. This would have been far more effective if anything at all had been willing to stay on fire. On the other hand, apparently there was a burn ban, so it’s probably just as well. It was, at least, hilarious.
Also due to the burn ban, I made off with all the firewood various people brought & then left. A nice little haul!
[A pile of pine firewood. It’s a couple-three armloads, if you’ve got long arms. It’s sitting on the ground next to the van.]
The fun part was fitting it into the van. Especially fitting it into the van with enough room to lay the bed flat so I had somewhere to sleep on the way home. That was pretty tricky, ngl. But I managed it!
[The view from the back of the van, looking forward. The bed is just visible at the bottom of the shot, along with part of Loiosh’s butt. Forward of that is a veritable wall of stuff — shelves, a cat crate full of stock boxes, another set of shelves with the popup precariously perched on top, a long stick, and yet another set of shelves, this on its side atop the cat crate and stuffed full of firewood.]
It didn’t all fall down, but I do not know how.
I’d planned to stay until Monday, but most everyone had left by early Sunday afternoon, so I packed up & headed north. Not the whole way home — I NEEDED a Woods Day, so aimed to stop somewhere in the Carson National Forest off of 285 on the way north. Espanola’s mall wart has a parking lot I’ve slept in before, so I slept in it again, & anything past that is a later post.
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[Loiosh, an orange tabby, is standing with his forepaws up on a pile of stuff in the back of the van. He’s shoved his head under a grey blanket.]
We took the weekend to go to Champions in al-Barran over Labor Day weekend, & we had a GRAND time. Yes, even Major Tom, though I made him stay in the booth every day instead of just letting him live in the van.
I don’t know what the heck Loiosh was after here, but he had a good time with it.
[Loiosh’s muzzle is sticking out from under the blanket, whiskers back. He’s looking intently off to the right.]
This was one of the too-early mornings on the trip. To be fair, they were all too early; there wasn’t a good shady place to park nearby. Although given how much energy Tom put into trying to get back to the van, maybe I should’ve chosen the walk, instead …
{Loiosh is laying in a cat bed that’s sitting on a blanket. Next to the bed is a bowl of cat food. Loiosh is chowing down with his head flopped over the edge of the bed. No effort necessary, or desired.]
This absolutely cracked me up. Oh, my boy.
[Loiosh still has his head in the bowl, but he’s glaring at the camera. His mouth is still slightly open; he was still chewing.]
He was NOT best pleased with the laughing. I feel like he should be used to it by now, but here we are.
[He’s laying half-curled up on one of the display tables, getting orange cat fur all over the nice white tablecloth. There’s bits of jewelry all around him. He is entirely asleep.]
The next day he decided to occupy the jewelry department. Yes, the entire thing. There’s, like, eight pronoun pins under there somewhere. Fortunately the horde of trans kids who occupied my booth all weekend were perfectly willing to fish stuff out from under him.
[Loiosh is meatloafed right down the middle of my chair. His forepaws are tucked under, his tail is wrapped round, and he looks like he’s contemplating the universe.]
It got a little chilly while I was packing up, but Loiosh didn’t want a blanket, he just wanted to be the smallest meatloaf. As long as he’s happy!
It was too dark to get any pictures of the feast, but rest assured he ate an entire fillet of tilapia, plus probably half of my chicken. Plus, of course, plenty of love. He had a GRAND time.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[A basket filled with tools and a water bottle sits on the roof of the house. A coiled hose lays on the straw next to it.]
Time for plumbing!
… okay, this was, like, two months ago. Maybe three? There was a Battlemoor in there, I know that. ANYWAY.
Having succesfully moved a water tank onto the roof, the next step was to run a hose down to the kitchen. Which meant putting a hole in the roof, something which should never be taken lightly. In this case, though, we were stuck with it.
A hole right … THERE.
[The faucet at the bottom of a big water tank, which is sitting on the roof of the cargo container. Also on the roof is a whole bunch of straw.]
Now I just need to stick the fancy hole-drilling bit in my cordless drill & then —
[I’m holding the end of the fancy hole-drilling bit to the drill chuck. It’s completely, absolutely too big to fit in there.]
… problem is that the fancy hole-drilling bit big enough for the hose to fit through has a half inch shank. My drill, which is plenty enough for nearly all applications, has a 3/8″ chuck. There are adapters for this! I probably even own one! But it wasn’t anywhere I could find it, so I dug into my various lug wrench & drill bit supplies, & eventually, with some experimentation & a fair amount of cussing, came up with this.
[There’s about five inches of various adapters between the drill end & the drill bit end. I want to say there’s four separate pieces in there? Maybe?]
& of COURSE two of them don’t QUITE fit together properly. There was zero chance of that NOT happening. Fortunately it was close enough that things only slipped apart three or four times in the drilling process, which, when you’re working at this level of ‘hey at least none of it is duct-taped together’, is honestly pretty good.
& hey, at least none of it was duct-taped together!
(it honestly might’ve worked better if I’d duct-taped it together)
[The entire process is attached to the drill, now, and is partway through drilling a hole about an inch and a half across in the cargo container’s roof.]
After all that, the actual drilling part was pretty anticlimactic. I didn’t even need to break out the earplugs. (_Should_ I have broken out the earplugs? I mean, obviously, yes,)
[There’s a nice hole in the roof, about an inch and a half across.]
Now, the easy part!
[There’s a lovely white garden hose stuck through the hole. Of course, this leaves a lot of hole still open.]
Now, what to do with the REST of that hole … ahh yes, cheat.
[A stack of various sizes & colors of rubber washer have been wrapped around the hose, and are blocking most of the hole.]
Then I dumped half a tube of caulk over the lot of it, the end.
[The inside of the cargo container. A lovely white garden hose hangs from the ceiling, falling in graceful spirals. There is absolutely some sunlight also coming down through the hole.]
It is SO nice to have running water over there, y’all. Yes, even though it’s only cold water. Half a step at a time!
I do need to dump more caulk around that hole in the roof, though. Pretty sure the other half of that tube is around here somewhere …
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[The bottom half of the photo is blurry, mottled grey and black; the top is mostly white, except for a small curled bit sticking up from the center of the bottom half. It’s an extreme closeup of the top of Major Tom’s head, with about the last five inches of his tail showing behind it.]
It’s so bad it went all the way around the circular scale & registered as ‘great’.
So’s this one:
[An extreme closeup of the bottom half of Tom’s face, blurry and elongated, above his chest and front legs. He’s standing on my lap, and I’m sitting in the drivers seat of the van. There’s a lot of whiskers going on.]
& the classic ‘alien’ shot
[Tom’s moved his head down enough to block most of his front, except for his toes. Most of his face is in the shot now; it’s elongated from being too close, again, and also his eyes are very wide, and he looks like the classic grey alien, just with tabby stripes and a pink nose. Also he’s staring directly into your soul.]
The rest are just your run-of-the-mill cute cat pictures, but they’re run-of-the-mill cute cat pictures of my tomcat, & that makes them better than anyone else’s.
[Tom’s sitting fairly comfortably on my lap, looking up at a sliver of something held over his head. I think it was some kind of lunchmeat.]
We were TRYING to get him to do something for the hypothetical hilarious pictures we would hypothetically get, but that didn’t happen, because he’s a cat. But these are pretty cute.
[Tom’s stretching his head up to reach the food item between my fingers, with the result that you can see the entire neck and chin. It’s a little stretched out, not as much as the alien face pic, but okay, it does still look kinda funny.]
Finally, the epitome of dignity.
[Tom’s curled up on top of my purse, between the van’s front seats. His purple bow tie has migrated to the back of his neck, as it often does.]
… that’s my tomcat.
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[Loiosh, an orange tabby, is curled up asleep in his cat stroller. Most of him is in the sun, and he appears to be pretty okay with that.]
Random cat pics! As you do! There are SO MANY cat pictures in my ‘camera uploads’ folder! It’s a problem!
… but it’s a hard problem to avoid, because I have the bestest & most photogenic cats in the world.
[Loiosh is meatloafed in a cardboard priority mail box, once again asleep.]
He does things other than sleep, I swear. It’s just that when he’s running around I usually don’t have my camera to hand. I really need to just dig out an old phone with a not-too-awful camera & keep it downstairs …
[This time he’s asleep in a cat bed that’s been tucked into the green rectangular basket that lives on my bed.]
Behold! Loiosh! Conscious! & apparently also angy.
[Loiosh is standing on the van’s center console, glaring off to the left.]
What was his whole thing there? I don’t even remember, but there were sure Opinions about whatever it was.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby wearing a purple harness, is laying on his side in the grass, displaying vast tracts of pale belly. His forepaws are curled, mid-knead. A hand reaches down from above, dispensing belly pets. His expression is blissful.]
Once Tom started showing himself in the booth, he didn’t want to stop. He’d come out for just about anyone, demand love, & generally receive it.
[Tom’s rolled the other way, transported in the joy of a good belly rub.]
& if the people wouldn’t come to him, he’d go to them.
… as long as he was still pretty close to the booth.
[Tom’s standing just outside the booth, between two people who are only shown from about the waist down. One of them is leaning down to pet him, bracing themself on their walking stick. His tail is caught midlash, as it often is.]
& so went the war, Tom getting love, Loiosh getting love, me selling things, CJ having a WONDERFUL time at his first event, & so it went until Friday getting on towards evening, when a friend of mine wandered past the booth walking someone else’s dog. “Oh,” she said, “it’s just there’s a bear in Corvus, so we evacuated the children and animals.”
a WHAT, WHERE,
I camped right NEXT to Corvus two years ago. They’re pretty close to the middle of site. That was … not good.
[Tom’s turned to face the camera, though his back is still arched up into the petting fingers from above. He’s aimed perfectly to walk back on the other side of the walking stick, thus wrapping his leash around the bottom of the thing.]
Things escalated quickly from there. I’d shoved the boys into their crate at the first word of bears that close, & quickly pared down everything else to two small bags I could easily toss in with them, but past that, there wasn’t a lot I could do — merchants weren’t supposed to start breaking down until 8PM, & I don’t think it was later than maybe 6.
As someone who 1) had two snack-sized mammals to keep safe, 2) was close to the edge of site — there was the whole equestrian field between the booth & the edge of the woods, but bears are FAST, & 3) had a booth full of VERY interesting-smelling stuff, I had STRONG opinions about being required to wait several more hours to be allowed to pack down my stuff & shove it into the van. Word of the bear, by now several bears, was circulating, as such things do, & while panic will multiply the number of the enemy regardless of species, some of this was coming directly from people I knew well could keep their heads in a crisis.
I’d just given up on finding the merchant coordinator to ask permission, having decided to err on the side of seeking forgiveness, & set out to get a ride to the parking lot (having asked CJ & Lyssa to shove product into boxes in the meantime — bless you both!) when there was a whole lot of shouting & pointing. Up towards the equestrian field. Where there was, just at the edge of the woods, with nothing between it & my boys but a couple hundred yards of grass — & y’all, bears are FAST — a bear. A really, really BIG bear.
Nearly immediately the cry went up — To the King! To the King!
[Tom’s walking off the left side of the shot, blurry, and trailing his leash, which is, indeed, wrapped around the bottom of the walking stick. Only the one time, fortunately, but still: he’s a problem.]
Oh good, somebody in the back of my head said, the King will send his knights to slay the monster, & all will be well.
… look. I’ve read a WHOLE LOT of fantasy fiction in the course of my life.
ANYWAY I grabbed one end of the crate, CJ grabbed the other, & we BOOKED IT. There was a whole big crowd of people already there when we arrived, & we wormed our asses to the MIDDLE of it, because why YES I’m gonna put all those people between the bears & my boys.
The King didn’t send anyone to slay anything. The King, once everyone had gathered, explained that, what with one thing & another, the least bad idea they had (in consultation with the park rangers) was to evacuate site, let the park rangers chase off the bears overnight without having to worry about all the tasty people, & come back no earlier than 8 the next morning to pack stuff up.
Wheeee! Let’s evacuate nearly a thousand people, many of whom are disabled, down a one lane dirt road, starting just around sundown, with most of the cars parked a mile or so away, bears lurking around, & no evacuation plan whatsoever! What could possibly go wrong?
… it went TERRIFYINGLY smoothly. Yeah, a bunch of people bitched about a bunch of things, I heard about one(1) shouting match, traffic was slow, & not everyone COULD leave site, but people helped people pack up what they needed to, gave each other rides to the parking lots, calmed each other down, held each other’s dogs when they got too bouncy, paused to let other cars into traffic, told horrible jokes, changed tires, gave hugs, & helped those who’d drunk too much to leave or didn’t have anywhere to go to the center of camp where they could be kept safe for the night (guarded, so I hear, by the King’s knights, or at least a bunch of squires). One person, not too far from site & in possession of a pretty big fenced-in field, offered space for all the horses & their riders. Another, no more than an hour away, someone who hadn’t even GONE to Battlemoor, housed probably upwards of a dozen people in her small home. & so on. & so on.
Y’all THIS is community. THIS is how it’s SUPPOSED to work. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, it was a little slice if Terramagne right here in this shitpile dimension we’re all stuck in. I’m sitting here crying as I type, because THIS is what ALL of us need to be doing, not just in the SCA but EVERYWHERE, & it was SO good to see it happening.
Anyway, what with one thing & another, we got everything but the tents & booth furniture into the van, got Ivar on the road, got Megan some help with packing up HER booth (& kept Alexx safely in with the boys for a while), & headed out. CJ stayed at the nearby Love’s truck stop (which I hear became basically the postrevel spot); I had to head home, because the van is still more mouse-laden than I wanted to be sleeping in.
I’d planned to head back down the next day to finish packing up, but my legs didn’t want me standing, much less moving. CJ got everything turn down & packed up, then went on to help a bunch of other people with their camps before heading him. I owe both him & Lyssa a LOT; you two rock!
& thus endeth Battlemoor Whichever Number That Was, henceforth to be known as The One With The Bears.
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[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is hunkered down behind one of my display boxes in the booth. He’s got one forepaw stretched out in front of himself, and the tip of his tongue is sticking out. My hand is resting on the table in front of him, forefinger tipped slightly up in hopes of a boop.]
Towards the middle of Battlemoor Tom realized that there was room on top of the tables for a tomcat. So, of course, he started spending time on top of the tables.
The ideal spot was right behind a display box, usually, & with part of himself tucked under the bottom shelf. Perfect for petting, sheltered enough he couldn’t be grabbed.
[He’s settled, a bit, and is sniffing one of the shelf uprights, preparatory to giving it a good headrub.]
He marked everything in the vicinity, of course — with his front end; SO glad he stopped spraying when I got him fixed — & left little dirty cat pawprints on the white silk tablecloths.
[He’s turned his head, and is now rubbing his face against the price sign on the display box in front of him. A couple of dirty little pawprints are visible past him, under the table.]
Having claimed everything in sight, including me, it was, apparently, time to settle.
[He’s flopped now, both forepaws out in front of himself. He looks very pleased with his life.]
& then, it was time for a love.
[His head is stuck out, resting on one of my fingers, while the others give him a good chin scritch. One eye is wide open, the other is squinched halfway shut; his whiskers are perked forwards while his ears stick out at various angles. He is extremely happy.]
Then there were customers, which is how this goes.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, lounges on his side under a camping chair. Sparse, yellow-green grass grows around him. He’s staring just to the right of the camera, whiskers perked but ears at ease.]
Major Tom did really well, & I’m proud of him! But it took him a couple of days.
He didn’t want to leave the van at all, during setup. He was perfectly happy there — purring, kneading, entirely content with his life — but actually _leaving_ the van was apparently Right Out. I had to pry him out eventually, of course, but I waited til it was time to park the van, & he had his Uncle Ivar to keep an eye on him. Once I was back, he actually came out far enough to realize that Uncle Ivar has a vardo, & decide that it was just as congenial a spot for a tomcat as my vardo is.
The next day he barely left the sleeping tent, but I hadn’t expected him to. He peeked out a couple times, & ventured over to Ivar’s vardo again, thus setting the pattern for the rest of the week, which was ‘spend as much time in a vardo as he’s allowed to’. Alas, the vardo in question is enough smaller than Tyrava that it heats up quite a lot more, so we had to pry him out in the early afternoon every day. He didn’t love it, but he accepted his fate.
… what worked to get him to actually stand up & head outside every time? Me telling him that his public was waiting for him.
He’s getting the hang of it.
[Major Tom, seen from above, is flopped on a pile of red, white, and grey fabric. His ears are firmly stuck out to the side.]
He also, of course, interfered with my sewing, but that’s what he’s a cat for.
Loiosh had his usual excellent time, spending most of his days asleep, & also a lot of his nights, but then, he’s an old man.
[Loiosh, an orange tabby wearing a green harness, is half-curled up, asleep, on top of a patchwork wool blanket. The end of his tail is curled round til it’s almost a spiral.]
He did have his usual shenanigans, which I mostly failed to get pictures of, but he did enjoy thwarting CJ’s attempts to keep him from being A Pest.
[CJ is sitting between the display tables; he’s wearing a long blue tunic and a white linen coif. Loiosh is standing on his lap, wiggling to try to get free of CJ’s arms, which are loosely wrapped around him. One of Loiosh’s forepaws sits right at CJ’s elbow, a claw stuck in the fabric; his head, twisted around to stare grimly away from CJ, is all the way over at CJ’s hand.]
But then, that’s the boy.
[Loiosh has unstuck his claw, and is now leaning dejectedly against CJ’s arms, head turned just far enough that he’s still not looking at CJ’s face.]
He also got to meet Marisol’s sister Alexx, who travels with Morgyn’s mom, & instead of promptly chasing her out of the booth he gave her a good long sniff — she actually growled at him first! So she absolutely smelled familiar. Alas that Alexx wasn’t feeling near so potentially friendly …
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Loiosh, an orange tabby, is sitting on the top layer of the double decker cat bed, which is in turn, sitting on the van’s passenger seat. He’s looking out to the front, whiskers perked.]
The boys were both SO EXCITED.
Loiosh expressed this by staring forward, then napping on my lap for hours.
Major Tom expressed this by hunkering up between the front seats & shouting a lot.
I didn’t manage to get any pictures of Tom that weren’t blurry, alas.
[Loiosh is now in the lower level of the double decker cat bed, neatly flopped, with one forepaw stretched out to rest on a five gallon jug of water sitting in the footwell. His head is dragging low and his eyes are almost closed.]
& then we arrived! Loiosh was very excited! Tom got out of the van, ate some grass, & then went back in! Loiosh & I checked in, found the merchant coordinator, failed to understand our booth layout, & discovered a great big hole in the top of one of the popups.
… okay, I did most of that. Loiosh ate some grass & then fell asleep under a popup. Major Tom stayed in the van, purring his head off & air-kneading.
Eventually, with some help from Megan of White Wolf & Phoenix, I got the hole fixed & the popups up.
After a lot MORE time, further misunderstandings of the layout, & a break to negotiate a space for Ivar, I even got the booth set up!
… yeah, I know. It’s been a hot minute. I’m working on it.
[The booth from the front. The formerly-white top of the popup is dirty, and not even uniformly so; it looks like it’s been out in the weather for a year or two. with reason. There is a rainbow flag hanging up against the back wall, which is, at least, white. Both tables are covered with white cloth, but neither piece of fabric is long enough to hide the clutter underneath. The table in the back stands at a visible angle, and the shelves atop it, holding the soap, are at a slightly different angle. My sleeping tent is just visible at the left, under the other popup, which is, also, really dirty.]
I need to take the top of both popups to the car wash & power wash em. & then I need to properly fix all the little cuts and holes, instead of just slapping tent-fixing tape over them. At least the walls are clean? But that’s only because they’re new; the original walls for both popups are in storage. Somewhere. Along with all of my garb & my really nice booth sign.
[Half of a table holds six flavors of lip balm, plus a selection of jewelry: five necklaces, a pair of earrings, and a variety of pins with pronouns and pride flag colors on them.]
Rose’s jewelry! She’s got an Etsy shop but a broader audience is never a BAD idea, & I love her work, so I set aside some space for it. It sold really well! I’m definitely hoping to keep working with her.
(I might possibly have taken one of the lapis & pearl necklaces as part of my take)
[The other half of the same table. A set of shelves holds soap in a wide variety of colors. There’s also a small pot under the bottom shelf. The shelf uprights are stained with long streaks of black … something … and the tablecloth is an unhealthy-looking shade of yellow. ]
That top shelf is too high for most people to really see what’s up there, but if I lower it at all, there won’t be space for the signs on the shelf below. I’m gonna need to redesign most of the price signs to go horizontally. It’ll be fine! Also screech!
[The other table holds two sets of shelves; together, they’re just a bit too wide to comfortably fit, so they’re bungee-corded together in the middle. Plus the table dips in the middle, so everything is at interesting angles. The display looks pretty good, though, especially as there’s a piece of black cloth with bright embroidery hung up along the back of the shelves. It does a pretty good job of hiding my sleeping tent.]
I didn’t want to connect those shelves, they’re just a bit heavy when put together, but it needs to happen. Plus the top shelf is again too high. Plus the sign problem again. Little steps! Little steps!
Given how much running around & screaming I had to do in the several months before Battlemoor, everything really looked kinda not too bad. But I can’t wait to get everything looking GREAT again.
Someday. In my copious spare time.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[A set of wooden shelves, crowded with shipping boxes, padded envelopes, rainbow packing tape, and other shipping paraphernalia. Major Tom’s hinder end is sticking out of a semi-empty space at the end that’s up against the wall.]
He took his sweet time wandering all the way across the table, but I didn’t manage to fumble my camera out until he’d commenced inserting himself into the only place over there that had ANY space left.
[Tom’s stuffed all but his tail into the space, and is in the middle of turning himself around. It’s a bit of a process.]
& by then all I could do was take pictures, intermittently grumble at him, & laugh. He’s the horriblest.
[Tom’s sitting neatly in the space, his head sticking out. He’s gazing contemplatively towards the door, ears perked, whiskers relaxed.]
He’s also the very handsomest, & yes, he WILL use that against you.
[Tom’s now looking up & to the left, neck stretched out. Contemplative, but more in the ‘contemplating shenaniganry’ kind of way.]
YES, there are shelves up there. NO, there is not space for a tomcat. I explained this to him in very clear language. Some of it, I admit, was also fairly rude.
[Tom’s looking down now, in the general direction of the camera.]
He did take a moment to scout a good path, instead of immediately scramming. He’s remarkably calm about being hollered at, despite having grown up feral. I think it’s because he knows I’m full of shit.
[Tom’s making his way out of the corner, now, one paw placed precariously on a fortunately double ziplocked bag of soap.]
He NEVER stays on the rare occasions when he makes his way back to that spot. I don’t know why he bothers going at all, but if he’s having fun, more power to him.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby wearing a purple harness, is laying at his ease on the examination table at the vet’s office. A section of pale belly fur is visible, and one of his hindpaws is pointed almost directly at the camera.]
… well. Tom doesn’t dread it. Tom flops on the exam table, gets immediately bored, explores the countertops, weighs himself (with only a moment’s assistance from me in turning on the scale), has another flop, perks up when the vet crew comes in, & demands a lot of love from everyone in range while I explain cooperative care & note that it’s polite to ask first before you manhandle someone, even if that someone is a cat.
[Tom’s on the exam table again, but this time he’s in a perfect meatloaf. His ears are slightly perked, and his whiskers are relaxed.]
“He’s not stress-purring, is he,” notes the vet. “Nope,” I reply, “he’s just purring. You’re petting him, of course he’s purring.”
Tom _does_ love a love.
[Tom’s in the same spot; that’s my hand, there, reaching up from the bottom of the photo to gently scritch his cheek.]
Loiosh … Loiosh dreads the vet.
[Loiosh is hunkered down in the stroller, ears down, tail slightly poofed.]
I’m not entirely sure when he got this bad about it; he was fine at the vet visit where we talked about getting his teeth cleaned. (Partway through the chat, the vet looked over my shoulder at Loiosh, Tom, & Hades, all of whom were curled up napping on the bench behind me: “How. How do you do this.” I shrugged; I just get lucky I guess?) It might’ve been the teeth thing itself, come to think of it; I really need to start bringing him to the vet when he doesn’t need any treatment at all, so he can get used to vet visits that don’t involve getting stabbed again. Of course, the stabbing happens monthly these days, which makes it harder to schedule further visits on top of that …
… might need to apply some churu to the situation.
[Loiosh is looking off to the left; my hand emerges from the bottom of the photo, again, to scratch his cheek. He looks slightly less entirely unhappy.]
Applying some love to the situation never makes things worse, either.
[Loiosh has turned his head so my hand is under his chin. His ears are still unhappy but his whiskers are starting to perk forward a bit.]
… might take a whole LOT of love.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[A mockup of a sandal built from pink card stock. It has two straps across the front, and a single strap at the back, across the heel.]
So what with one thing & another I am now limited to only wearing shoes that work with my suddenly VERY picky feet. This is not awesome! I’ve been lucky enough to be able to wear basically whatever shoes I wanted for most of my life! (Okay, it helped that I’ve never liked wearing high heels, or shoes with pointy toeparts that squish your toes. But STILL). Suddenly I need to wear the right kind of shoes or my feet will become Very Angry!
That’s the down side. The up side is that the fancy, special shoes my feet need to be functional? Shoes with absolutely the fuck no foot support whatsoever.
… look, I don’t even know.
These days you can buy barefoot shoes lots of places, which is pretty delightful. Down side? Sixty bucks a pop, minimum. & I’d already spent a fair amount of money on shoes trying to find SOMETHING that would work.
Up side? If you don’t have to worry about anything but a flat sole, shoes are pretty easy. & it’s not like we don’t have any leather kicking around.
So I made myself some sandals.
[One of the straps from the pattern sits next to a strap cut from lapis blue leather. Sitting on top of both is a black metal tool rather like a vegetable peeler, but with the blade perpendicular to the handle.]
I only had to buy one tool, a skiver, seen above. One uses these to thin out the ends of the straps, in a case like this, so that one does not have lumps of strap sitting underneath one’s feet. That blade? _Extremely_ sharp.
… it took a while to get the hang of it.
[The skiver sits on a piece of white card stock, along with the blue strap and a whole lot of tiny crumbs of blue leather. The card stock has been cut into in several places.]
Turns out if you start on the smooth side (& also hold the skiver right), you can start taking off bigger pieces. & also that if you work on a metal jewelry anvil instead of a hunk of card stock, you won’t make such a mess. (Probably not the best thing for the blade, but, welp)
Anyway I pushed through the ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, I am so bad at this, I will never learn’ & started getting the hang of it. As witness:
[The skiver is sitting on top of a flat steel jewelry anvil, along with a bunch of much larger pieces of blue leather. The end of the strap is sitting under the skiver; it looks pretty thin at the edge.]
Once I was through all of that it was time to glue the straps on, which required me to mark where the straps GO, which is a whole lot easier with a metallic sharpie than with a black one if you’re using black leather.
[A leather sole sits on my desk, with a gold metallic sharpie sitting on top. Short gold lines have been drawn along the edge of the sole in a couple places.]
& then I had to sew everything together, which was painfully tedious, so I didn’t get any pics of that process at all. Lastly I glued two more sole layers to the bottom of the soles, sandwiching the strap ends between the layers — you don’t want to sew all the sole layers on, as the stitches will wear through really fast as you walk. Those get glued on, too.
[A finished sandal, seen from above. The lapis blue straps sit above a brown suede insole. Slightly paler brown stitches run around the entire outer edge of the sandal.]
It’s a good thing that contact cement cures quickly, because I had maybe a half hour between glueing the last bits on & running out the door. But they look great!
[Sandals on my feet! They’re held on by lapis blue laces around my ankles. The edge of one of them, where the front straps run between the sole layers, is already pulling apart slightly. But they look pretty!]
Of course I already have plans for my next pair, & of course, there’s things I need to fix. But they work, & I have shoes again!
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Marisol, a tiny longhaired calico, is curled up in a dark den. She’s looking directly at the camera, ears and whiskers perked forward.]
We had Marisol visit us in the house for a day! She usually lives in the cargo container with Morgyn & CJ, but they were going to be away overnight & it was forecast to be cold, so Morgyn wanted her to be somewhere warmer.
The above picture, where she’s so happy & at ease, was obviously not taken during this situation; I got it a week or so beforehand. She’s a lovely little girl who just really wants to be with her Mumma.
She did NOT like being away from her Mumma.
[Marisol is curled up on top of my blue sweatshirt and a pile of books, all on top of a set of shelves. She is glaring at the camera. She is ANGRY.]
I do feel bad about scooping her up to bring her over. She’d finally decided to trust me again after mostly not seeing me over the winter, & she reared up to rub her head on my hand, which is the MOST ADORABLE & SWEETEST THING EVER, & I grabbed her & stole her away. SO MAD.
(She did come over for love a couple times while she was visiting, but I didn’t get any pictures of _that_, I don’t want to _die_.)
She did better in general than she has on previous enforced visits, & did a fair amount of exploring, instead of just staying wedged under my bed the whole time.
[Marisol is standing on my extremely cluttered floor with her head stuck under my comfy chair. The space beneath it is also full of things. I need more place to put my things.]
But eventually it was time to stomp off & sit in the window.
[She’s stomping off, through my extremely messy room, in search of a window from which to view the world.]
Fortunately for all her Mumma was only gone for ONE night instead of NINETY THREE nights (that’ll be in August, when Morgyn goes to Pennsic).
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[The top part of the eastern wall of my room, above the newish window, is now (mostly) covered by two pieces of plywood, cut to more-or-less follow the shape of the ceiling, and painted pale turquoise. There’s about an inch vertical gap between them, right above the middle of the window.]
The space issue in my room had finally gotten to the point where I really needed to do something about it, right when I had an iota or two of spare energy. so I did something about it.
It was kind of a process.
I am honestly pretty impressed by how close I got the shape of that plywood — yes, that’s pretty damn GOOD for me, I am NOT good at this stuff. It covers the insulation! & mostly stops the drafts! Kind of!
I knew I wasn’t going to have any luck filling that narrow space without making it worse, so instead of that I wound up cutting a wider piece & putting that over the gap. Successfully!
The next two pieces were much easier to cut, but much harder to install, since I had no plans to move either the bed or the black shelves out of the way. But I managed it, after several attempts.
[The same wall, now with painted plywood on either side of the window. A couple of boxes and a basket are visible on the left side.]
& then I took no pictures at all. because I have gotten out of the habit of chronicling projects the way I used to, but there was a lot of measuring, cutting plywood & 2x4s, painting the cut plywood & 2x4s, & then a long afternoon of installing the lot of them.
Then I got to put things on the shelves, which is absolutely, entirely the best part.
[There’s a long shelf, spanning the width of the room, just above the window; on the left side, above the head of the bed, is another shelf that runs from that side of the window to the edge of the wall. The other side, where the matching shelf would be, has a set of black shelves taking up that space. Every inch of both shelves is covered in semi-organized stuff, but the top of the headboard is empty save for a towel at the right edge, where the sun will hit it in the mornings.]
… what a RELIEF. It’s so much easier to keep the floor cleared off, now, & my shelves are all much less cluttered. There’s even more room under the bed, though I’m contemplating ways to make that space easier to use, too. & I can GET to stuff, which is kind of new. I’m really enjoying it.
& of course SOMEONE had to be the first to explore.
[Seen from immediately below, Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is sitting on the headboard, hunkered down a bit so his head doesn’t hit the shelf above him. His ears and whiskers are perked forward; he is curious and alert.]
… well. He explored the parts he could get to, anyway, which didn’t involve the new shelves at all, but at least there was space on the headboard for him.
[He’s hunkered down on the headboard, facing towards the lamp, eyes squinched about halfway closed.]
& then? He took a nap.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is curled up in a (relatively) tiny ball, surrounded in all directions by sage green flannel sheets. He’s awake, though, and pointedly looking away from the camera.]
Over the years Tom has become more & more willing to skip the excuse that he’s cold, & simply demand to get under the covers because he wants a cuddle. I love this habit of his dearly (except for when he demands that I lift the covers, then stands there staring at me as if he has no idea why I’m doing that). He’s delightfully warm when it’s cold, & when it’s not, at least he’s got fur, so we’re not sweating on each other. He’s even learned that kneading on my skin will cause me to make displeased squawks, & thus, he mostly kneads on the sheets these days.
[Most of Tom is still under the covers, but his massive head is resting on my bent elbow. The flannel sheet is tucked in around his head.]
Usually when he’s done, he’s done, but sometimes he’ll extricate his head & then snuggle back in. I love this even more than the under-the-covers snuggles, except for the part where it’s very difficult to use my phone (taking this picture was NOT EASY). Which would be fine, except that he usually does this when I’m trying to get up, & if I put my phone down I’m going RIGHT back to sleep. Especially when there’s Tom cuddles!
[There’s a piece of plywood on my bed, the end propped up on a pallet board and a 2×4. Sitting on top of the board is my cordless drill, & also, a tomcat. He’s looking off to the side, because he clearly has nothing to do with any of this.]
Tom was also very helpful when it came to putting together the shelves that now sit under my kitchen table! & by ‘helpful’ I mean ‘I had to threaten him with trepanning by cordless drill before he would get out of my way’.
My friends, he tried to shove his face into the cordless drill. While it was running. Because I had this APPARENTLY RIDICULOUS theory that he would not wish to be very close to a running power tool. (He was fine. My nerves recovered eventually.)
[Tom is looking up, somewhat to the left of the camera, an extremely innocent expression on his face.]
… what?
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is sitting in a yellow Tidy Cats container. Jasper, a white guy, is holding the container up with one hand, and the other is giving Tom a gentle head petting. Tom’s head is slightly blurry, since he’s shoving it up towards Jasper’s hand.]
Sometimes you just gotta put a cat in a thing, & once we explained to him what the thing was & why we wanted to put him in it, Tom was perfectly pleased to sit in a Tidy Cats container in exchange for love.
Yes, it was off the ground. Yes, Tom was good with that part, too.
[Tom’s turned his head so that he can shove his nose against Jasper’s finger. His ears are stuck out to the side a bit, but his whiskers are perked VERY far forward.]
Tom, it turns out, understands a LOT of what we’re saying when we talk to him. Which we’ve been taking advantage of, doing things such as asking if he’ll allow someone to wipe the eye goob off his face, or if he needs a face-squishin (it helps unclog his sinuses). He’ll give the asker a headbonk for yes, & if he doesn’t that’s a no, & it is SO VERY NICE to be able to take a tissue to his face without him trying to pull away. (He’s also fond of it, because if he really WANTS boogers on his face, I will leave the boogers on his face — though if I ask again a couple minutes later, he’ll often let me deal with them.)
[Jasper’s got his hand down in the bucket now, giving Tom a good cheek scritch, and Tom is making a goofy face about it: one eye is half squinched shut, the other wide open; one set of whiskers is pointed FAR forward, the other is in a neutral position.]
We worked all of this out several months ago, in an effort to convince Tom to let us brush the mats from his fur. In the process, we discovered a couple of things: one, that Tom’s preferred brush is one of those cheapass black plastic combs they give out on Picture Day in elementary school; & two, that if you ask first, he’s a lot more willing to cooperate. Imagine that!
AND THEN we found that once he understood what the whole comb things was about, he would come to me or Jasper and inform us that a particular spot was feeling funny, & could someone take a comb to it. Which means that these days, he has no mats, & his fur is DELIGHTFULLY smooth.
Also, now we can ask him if he’ll let us put him in a plastic bucket for the lulz.
[Jasper’s hand and Tom’s head are in basically the same spots, but the camera is looking down, making it quite clear that the yellow Tidy Cats bucket is held up off of the floor. Also Tom’s face is a bit less squinchy.]
This is making a whole lot of things a lot easier for everyone involved. He can come to us with a problem, & while it might take us a bit to figure out what he’s asking for (Jasper’s a lot better at that part than I am), once we figure it out, we can fix it for him. & we can ask if he’ll cooperate with a thing — say, checking if his ears need cleaning, or if he’s got something stuck in a paw — & chances are pretty good he’ll allow it. (& if he’s not willing, sometimes the offer of some treats will change his mind — bribery works!)
Also, I can get pictures like this one:
[Tom’s handsome face takes up nearly the entire shot. He’s gazing off to the left, whiskers and ears relaxed, head leaning into Jasper’s hand, which is curled under his chin. He’s an extremely happy cat.]
Think I’m exaggerating how well this all is actually working? A lot of vets are using these techniques, too — it’s called cooperative care & you can teach your cats, too. Remy’s pretty well versed in it already, & I’ve been working on it with Loiosh, as well. & it is making SUCH a difference for all of us.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
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