Ranting about my Blessings

I try not to write lengthy sagas about the troubles of my life, especially since I'm trying to promote a cheerful, upbeat webcomic like Furry Experience. (Shameless self-promotion, check.) But the past week has been pretty stressful, and I'm having trouble maintaining a positive presence online-leading to almost no presence at all. So I'm writing a journal entry to vent and recharge my optimism batteries.

To provide a background to this, a few years ago my husband and I moved into a basement apartment. We were grateful to have it-for a rent within our small budget we not only had a landlord who lived in the same building as we did, (as opposed to our previous landlord, who lived in another state,) but she was handy enough to completely remodel the basement herself right before we moved in.

As time went on, we noticed that remodeling everything by herself might not have been a good idea. The house itself was pretty old, and several problems that had been building up started becoming apparent upon our arrival-such as none of the doors closing properly, ant colonies invading, spiders coming after the ant colonies, the heating vents that didn't work, cracks in the foundation causing melting snow and rain to drip down and leak into our home. Every time a professional came in to inspect things, they found code violations everywhere. The cherry on top of it all was when we started having blackouts. The electrician pointed out that everything in our apartment was wired to the same circuit, except the stove. This meant if we ever wanted to use the microwave, (a major appliance that sucks a lot of power) we'd have to make sure all other major electronics were turned off. Otherwise, we'd lose power again.

This last week was the straw that broke my back. Our kitchen and book room got flooded twice, within days of each other. We found the source of the problem-our landlord's water softener is sharing a partially blocked pipe with our sink. The water that couldn't get flushed down the drain was getting pumped up into our sink. It's another code violation, and it's going to take another professional to fix it. In the meantime, we've been spending our week pulling up carpet to dry out with our space heater and shop-vac, running up our electric bill and eating up the circuit-so we can't have much more major electronics going. Our landlord originally had her heater plugged into her circuits, but then got frustrated at how expensive it was costing to dry everything. *angrytwitch*

As of tonight, we've started making progress on drying everything-but the hot air the shop vac's blowing around and cold air outside has caused water to condensate and run down our cement walls. Instead of catching up on comic work like I'd been hoping, I spent tonight making sure nothing's against the walls, nothing's plugged into the wet outlets, and trying to save our soaked posters, artwork, and mementos from being completely ruined.

AND SO, I've done enough griping. Now I need to come up with ten positive things that this mess brought about. Things I'm grateful for that these events brought on or made more apparent.

1 - I'm grateful I have a caring father who, despite just getting off a graveyard shift, immediately volunteered to come over and inspect our apartment to find out why the flooding kept happening. He was also generous enough to bring over the shop vac and other tools for us to use.

2 - I'm grateful I have a caring husband who, though just as stressed as I am about this, stays calm and comforts me when I getting upset.

3 - I'm grateful most of our wedding gifts were sets of towels.

4 - I'm happy the shop-vac is so loud that I can sing at the top of my lungs and no one will hear me.

5 - I work for amazingly kind people. When I explained I would be late coming into work because our kitchen flooded, they responded 'Take as much time as you need to put your life back together.'

6 - It is awesome that my Aquaman poster was not affected by the wall water in the slightest. Aquaman is way more powerful than people give him credit for.

7 - I am grateful I am still friends with the awesome folks who gave me the postcards, artwork and mementos I had displayed on my walls in the first place. (C.C., we WILL drink Moxie when we are old women to give us bitter old faces!)

8 - I am grateful I have my Mom's quilts to keep me warm while the space heater is otherwise occupied.

9 - I'm grateful my husband's and my efforts to build a better life together have been fruitful. Though we moved into this apartment out of necessity, we can afford to start looking at other places to live.

10 - I've finally been able to get some reading done this past week.

11 - I'm proud of myself for tackling these problems head on, and not trying avoid to shift them to someone else like I would've when I was younger. Most of the time I feel like a kid, with my juvenile passions and childish means of expressing myself. This week's been a nice reminder that I am capable of being an adult.

Thanks for letting me vent and recharge-I'm gonna try to get the next FE page ready in time for Friday, but if it's not I'm also scraping the barrel for comic detour ideas. If there was ever a scene you wanted to see in the FE Universe, now's a good time to speak up!

Oof, that sounds like a pain to deal with. But I'm glad to hear that you have wonderful friends, family, and coworkers supporting you. That, along with the determination to keep moving forward, makes all the difference in the face of adversity, I think. Also, I'd say that "juvenile" passions and forms of expressions are part of what it means to be human. From the start, people think and feel, and while people gain more complex reasoning and wisdom over time, those pure, simple emotions and expressive abilities remain; I think that they're supposed to, that still having that inner child is a fundamental part of enjoying and experiencing life to its fullest, y'know? I think folks are supposedto still feel like a kid, at least sometimes. It doesn't make you less of an adult to be "young at heart" (to use an old cliche)... 'cause if it did, well, then, I'd be at the maturity level of a five-year-old, probably. And, uh, I'm in college. /unwarranted philosophizing and rambling

Detour ideas? Hm... Maybe a couple of the characters playing videogames? Or feasting on Thanksgiving food? Or squirting each other with water guns? Or putting up Christmas decorations? Those are just a few ideas I spawned off the top of my head, so you can take 'em or leave 'em, whatever you wish.

Oh gosh. I'm gone for a couple days to visit grand parents and come back to find this. I do so hope things are getting straightened out and nothing expensive and/or irreplaceable was damaged.

Also, the Aquaman poster made me chuckle.

As for detour ideas... Do the ladies shave their legs/arm pits? And how about how much shampoo/conditioner would get used? Can/do the guys grow beards? Would hooved characters use heavy farrier tools instead of a 'normal' manicure set? How often do hairballs have to be cleaned out of shower drains?

Latrans wrote:Oh gosh. I'm gone for a couple days to visit grand parents and come back to find this. I do so hope things are getting straightened out and nothing expensive and/or irreplaceable was damaged.

Also, the Aquaman poster made me chuckle.

As for detour ideas... Do the ladies shave their legs/arm pits? And how about how much shampoo/conditioner would get used? Can/do the guys grow beards? Would hooved characters use heavy farrier tools instead of a 'normal' manicure set? How often do hairballs have to be cleaned out of shower drains?

You'll probably have your questions answered tomorrow afternoon.

Latrans wrote:Oh gosh. I'm gone for a couple days to visit grand parents and come back to find this. I do so hope things are getting straightened out and nothing expensive and/or irreplaceable was damaged.

As for detour ideas... Do the ladies shave their legs/arm pits? And how about how much shampoo/conditioner would get used? Can/do the guys grow beards? Would hooved characters use heavy farrier tools instead of a 'normal' manicure set? How often do hairballs have to be cleaned out of shower drains?

Nothing expensive was permanently damaged, it all just had to be completely dried out before being plugged back in. I did loose some of my artwork and mementos, but the most important ones were saved. I appreciate how kind everyone's been while I was down-things are doing much better now, and I can get back to drawing! (We have dry carpet again! I love dry carpet!)

I've already drawn up the next (and last) Flood detour, but I can answer your questions:
American ladies trim their legs and pits-shaving is one of those weird European things. And they use about as much shampoo and conditioner as human gals do-since it's primary purpose is to make headfur more manageable. But every grooming company knows the real money is in selling high-quality body wash. What furry gal doesn't want a silky, glossy coat?

Males can grow whiskers and beardfur as normally as they would headfur-whether they do or not is a matter of personal preference. (Some females can, as well, but they're much harder to notice, and easily trimmed off.)

Hooved mammals do require a heavy-duty manicure set for grooming. Some hooved mammals have tried to press lawsuits of discrimination at how much more salons charge hoof-oriented manicures than claw-oriented one, but usually the courts agree it takes more time and effort to polish a hoof than a claw. Many females learn how to give themselves manicures at home to save the expense. Picking out the dirt and grime from hooves is a practice that many claw-oriented furs will agree is rather disturbing and disgusting to watch-so cleaning your hooves in public is considered to be the equivalent of picking your nose. If something uncomfortable does get wedged in a hoof, a polite mammal will find a bathroom stall to take care of it. However, there's a growing market of shoes for hooved mammals to wear, to reduce the amount of cleaning required.

And fur needs to be cleaned out of drains quite often. Especially when longer-haired furs are living together.

Since the comic's back on track, this is a little late, however...

A person on FA wrote:Bicycle bells as horn jewelry should be a thing.

I think an 'antler fashion show' would make an interesting filler.

Just because I thought of it and it kind of fit in with my 'furry hygienic practices' ...

Do the guys have to worry about male pattern baldness?

Latrans wrote:Just because I thought of it and it kind of fit in with my 'furry hygienic practices' ...

Do the guys have to worry about male pattern baldness?

It depends on their genetics and how they take care of their fur. While it can happen, it's still pretty uncommon in most societies.