...Because my Zazzle store just sold it's first product! Sure it's just one mug, but it's the official start of my art business...And my comic business! *does a dance*

Funny how the first product I make becomes the first product I sell. ^_^ After discovering this, I promptly did the following:

1) Fell over
2) Died
3) Came back to life
4) Was happy that I have a full $1.82 credited to my Zazzle account =3

I must celebrate this success somehow. I’ll find a way.

~Kyetsu

I got up this morning to find out that Kinzer has the runs...really bad. He's running to the litterbox every couple hours, and I can actually hear the crap coming out of him! *cringes* The smell is even worse. He's pretty potent when he uses the litterbox normally, with this he can clear the house!

...And then I found a packet of hot chocolate mix, opened, and about half of the contents missing. It wouldn't surprise me if the two are connected. Especially since Kinzer seems otherwise healthy. So I'll give it a day or two and see if it passes. I don't see a reason why it shouldn't, since he still has the same energy he always has.

In the meantime, I'll have to invest in some of those childproof locks for my cabinets, so this doesn't happen again.

~Kyetsu

I decided to sleep in this morning (or at least attempt to) after working over 12 hours yesterday. I was kinda half laying on my stomach, when Felix climbed up on the bed to sleep over my blankets, like he usually does. But I noticed that instead of just flopping his fat ass on top of me, he was walking over my back, and stopping every so often with all four paws gathered in one spot, so all of his weight was focused on that one area. And he was actually doing this where I had a lot of knotted muscles and tension, like my lower back and shoulder blades.

And you know what? It actually worked. The muscles actually relaxed a bit. I still have back pain and tension, but not nearly as bad as before. I don't know why Felix did that, though. Maybe he knew I had a rough day at work the day before, and wanted to help me. Maybe it's some psychic thing cats have with their owners...

...Or maybe he just wanted attention, and he couldn't sit on my throat like he usually does. ¬_¬ Either way, he accomplished something.

Speaking of Felix, I went to the vet today to get more of his special urinary diet food. They told me that his prescription expired, and while they're letting me buy this bag of food, they won't be able to sell me more until I take Felix in for a checkup. He just needs a regular, standard checkup, nothing big, to make sure everything's working properly. I just find it odd that Felix has been on this food for four years, and this is the first time I've heard of the prescription expiring.

But these things cost money. The vet I get the food from can give him a checkup for $60, but that's an actual animal hospital. I'll have to call around to some vet clinics to see if they can do it cheaper. I prolly have until the end of this month or the beginning of next month until this bag of food runs out, depending on how much the two of them eat. I'd rather get it done sooner rather than at the last minute, though, so I don't have to freak out and run around to get the cats fed. Kinzer can eat other food, and I do give him other food in the morning and evening because of his high metabolism, but Felix requires this food.

And if my mother keeps telling me to get rid of him for being "too expensive", I might have to scream. Cats = kids to me, and I don't see her giving up my sister for being "too expensive" for her.

~Kyetsu

I got up this morning feeling crappy. So I made some toast, thinking that maybe having something in my stomach would help. Unfortunately, it had the exact opposite effect. First off, I have a horribly sore throat, so it's really painful to swallow to begin with. I'm sure trying to swallow toast, as opposed to something softer and/or with more moisture, didn't really help that issue. Then my stomach started with this whole "DO NOT WANT!", and tossed itself around in a tantrum. Now it feels like it's trying to implode on itself. =P On top of that, my hands and fingers suddenly decided not to work properly, and it's hard to type/hold things/do anything involving them, but that could easily be caused by the fact that I just walked for two hours in the cold rain. So that should prolly improve once I warm up a bit.

I dunno if I'm coming down with something or what, but I'm really hoping it turns around soon, because I gotta get to work. For some reason, all the really bad things happen on days I have to work. It's not even 10:30 yet, and my day already sucks. =P I'm gonna get to bed early tonight, see if that helps anything.

~Kyetsu

I've been feeling unusually lightheaded since I got up this morning, and it's slowly getting worse. I thought I was gonna pass out during the walk to work this morning. I can't figure out why it's happening, though. Other than the dizziness, I don't feel sick or anything. And I at least got a decent amount of sleep last night, so it's not from being overly tired, either.

Hopefully, I can make it through the work day today, and I really hope that it passes after a while. I'll see how it goes.

~Kyetsu

I just can't catch a break with this thing, especially in the past month or two. First, I burn the elbow with hot oil. Then the burn itself got infected, making it take longer to heal. Then I did whatever I managed to do to the wrist that makes it painful to move. Then Kinzer clawed me on my hand and forearm when I tried to free him from being tangled in the straps of my backpack.

And now I have this big, open sore on my elbow, and I have no idea where it came from! I just touched it on the back of the chair, felt pain, and when I checked it out, there's this sore there. Like the sprained/twisted/whatever I did wrist, I can't think of anything that could have caused that. >.<

That does it! I'm wrapping my arm in bubble wrap!

~Kyetsu

My wrist has been in a lot of pain for almost a week now, and I can't figure out what I did to cause it. I can't think of any major accidents I've had, or at least any that might cause an injury. There's no swelling or discoloration or anything like that, but I can't move it in any direction without it hurting like it's sprained or twisted. Trying to turn it from side to side hurts even worse. It's my left wrist, which is good, since I'm right-handed, but not so good when I can't even factor in writer's cramp or similar dominant-hand injuries as possibilities.

At least I have the day off from work today, so I can rest it a bit. If that doesn't work, I might have to invest in one of those wrist split/brace things. And maybe while I'm at this resting thing, I can finally heal up the muscles in my legs that keep giving out on me. All this walking to and from work/anywhere outside my neighborhood is gonna kill me, I swear.

~Kyetsu

Yeah, I kinda-sorta got myself sucked into RuneScape suddenly and randomly. Seems like fun so far. If you're on there at any time, find Kyetsu Fox...For some reason, Kyetsu was taken already. 0.o

Off to improve my cooking skillz!

~Kyetsu

I've been wanting to organize a furmeet for quite a while now. I tossed a bunch of ideas around, one of them being mini golf. Sounds like a fun activity, but I didn't know where to find a location to play. After a quick search, I found this:

http://www.vincessports.com/MiniGolf

Open year round, $5 a person to play, apparently allows nighttime play, and it even has an OMG animal and safari theme. And it's right off Route 4, so I can take a bus there when I don't have my truck/alternate ride, since there's a bus route within walking distance of my home/work.

So, just as a general question to the crowd of readers, does anyone think this is a good idea? Great idea? Horrible idea? Should it be a regular meet, or just a random one-off thing? If I decide to do something like this, I'll prolly have to team-attack it with someone, since I can't get two people to gather in one place to save my life.

But yeah, right now I'm just in the general thinking stage, and I'm not sure how far I'm gonna get in planning it, but I figured that it's at least worth thinking about.

~Kyetsu

Step 1: Burn each end of a hot dog with a lighter

Step 2: Use a candle and burning paper to cook/burn random parts of the hot dog

Step 3: Wash hot dog with a bar of soap

Step 4: Place another hot dog in a blender with peach juice

Step 5: Light stove on fire

Step 6: ????

Step 7: PROFIT

Step 8: Get sick from drinking raw hot dog and peach pulp

Full instructional video here:



~Kyetsu

Anyone who knows me can tell you I work a lot. In fact, up until relatively recently, I pretty much only knew "working" and "not working". I pull extra hours, come in early when I'm asked to, and even go in on my days off if they need me. Unfortunately, work tends to abuse my overreliability.

Take today for example. Whoever was responsible for making the schedule had everyone leaving at 4:00, but only one person coming in between 4 and 5. So they were going to be shorthanded for an hour. This has happened several times before, and the managers just decide that I'm okay with staying there for another hour, and don't bother telling me this until we're getting ready to leave. Bonus points if I told them at the start of the day that I had plans for the afternoon. Extra life if I'm dealing with the manager I was with today.

She has a habit of not even offering a lunch break*, even though she lets everyone else go, on the assumption that I'm just going to say "No". She also has a habit of asking me questions without waiting for me to answer. So she comes up to me with stuff like this:

"Hey, you're okay without eating, right? Can your ride can wait another hour if they have to? You see, I don't have anyone coming in between 4 and 5, and I think I'm going to have you stay and cover for us. *walks away* "

Never mind that 1) I literally thought I was going to fall over from starvation, since it had been so long since I ate last, 2) My ride was actually nonexistent, and 3) I could have had plans at 4. Thankfully, there were no plans for today, but she's screwed me over with stuff like that in the past.

Thankfully, though, there's people at work that are actually having some pity on me for not being able to eat or even sit down my entire shift, so they occasionally give me the mistakes and extra meals that were about to get tossed out anyway. So at least I'm not passing-out starving anymore.

*And if you're wondering how she's getting away with not giving me a lunch break, I work under the minimum amount of hours I have to be working in order for them to be legally forced to give me a break. Until I'm scheduled more hours in a day, they can deny me a break all they want without legal repercussions.

~Kyetsu

I prolly shouldn't be up and on the computer at 1:15 in the morning. I've been getting 3-4 hours sleep in the past two or three nights, and I gotta be at work at 10am tomorrow.

But you know what? I don't feel like going to sleep yet. So *neyah*.

Besides, I can get coffee in the morning. It'll make me somewhat functional, at least.

EDIT: It's 3:30am, and I'm finally going to bed. Not so much because I'm tired, but because nothing's going on in the internets right now...at least, not in the places I visit.

~Kyetsu

I have all my IM accounts attached to it now.

Alright, so that's just AIM and Facebook, plus the Meebo chat itself, but it's handy to be able to log into all of them at once, in one window, and being able to chat with almost anyone. I'll eventually add other chat clients as I sign up for them (there's a few others I want to do), but for now I have these three to use.

And I'm making it a point to log into Meebo a lot more often, so if you ever need to talk to me, just give me a yell.

~Kyetsu

My mother believes I hang out with people "too much". She's making constant attempts to prevent me from speaking to or being around anyone outside of family and work, because she so strongly believes that I can't have friends. When asked why, she tells me that I'm incapable of making friends, I can't talk to people without making some catastrophic mistake, and I'm actually sitting in the corner alone and not talking to anybody whenever I'm with a group of people.

She always "knows" this, despite never meeting anyone I know, or even remembering their names. She remembers "Those people you were with last week" or "That guy that fixes your truck", but she can never remember one name, even though I've mentioned names multiple times before. She has no problems remembering pretty much any of my siblings' friends' names, however.

When asked why anyone would hang out with me if they didn't even like me slightly, she claims that they either "feel sorry" for me, or that they're "using" me. When I ask what they could possibly be using me for, she claims that they use me for a lot of things, but I don't know what they are, because I don't know anything about people. She seems to know a lot about my life, even though she sees very little of it.

Bonus Rant: Work doesn't want me having friends, either. Having a social life means that I'm not available all day every day to come in and cover for someone. Seems everyone wants me to be alone or something.

I just had to get that out of my system. I'm feeling kinda *bleh* right now.

~Kyetsu

I got caught in it. It was nice and sunny when I left this morning, but halfway through my walk, the sky get dark and decided to make the rest of said walk miserable. I was wearing a jacket, but I still got soaked. And my holey shoes got water all in them. Now I'm freezing and shivering. FML.

Also, Joe Biden's teeth.

~Kyetsu

I get random muscle knots in my back, which get worse when I'm under stress. The worse the stress, that more painful the muscles. It's been getting more frequent since the car accident I was in last year. Usually, the pain is in my lower back, and a quick self massage can relieve at least some of the pain.

But I've been noticing recently that it's moving to other areas of my back...Places I can't reach. My shoulder blades seem to be a popular choice now. I can't reach back there, so I gotta deal with my shoulders feeling like they wanna bend themselves backwards. Or it will still be in my lower back, but in a spot that's awkward to reach, so I make my arms sore trying to help my back. Stretching doesn't seem to help all that much, and I'm trying to avoid pain relievers, so I don't get another ulcer. =P

On a more positive note, I get to hang out with  sontock and  chibikitsune after work today, so that might help with the "stress" part of the situation. =\

~Kyetsu

As a lot of you know, I've been without a vehicle for some time. This means I have to walk around more often than usual. I usually have to walk to and from work, unless I get lucky and get a ride. I found some pros and cons to this...

On the plus side, it's amazing excersise. I've lost a good chunk of wieght from this. On the downside, though, it's tiring, especially when I have to immediately start working after I walk for two hours to get there. =P

And I'm wearing my shoes down like you wouldn't believe. First, I wore down the treading on the bottom...Then I wore holes in the shoes themselves...

And now, I'm apparently wearing holes in my feet. Which is odd, since I go outside barefoot on a regular basis, on concrete, without problems. Something about walking in shoes that have parts of the soles missing starts issues.

I guess this is where that pain resistance I mentioned before can come in handy, because grinding holes in your feet hurts like a MoFo.

~Kyetsu

...might be getting infected now.

It was oozing some clear stuff pretty bad last night, and it had funky puss-looking colors coming out today. Looks like it stopped doing that now, but I'll have to keep a closer eye on it. Use the antibiotic ointment a little more often and whatnot. It is a hot oil burn, after all.

Doesn't stop it from being irritating as hell, though.

~Kyetsu

So the blister from yesterday's hot oil burn broke open, and half of it ripped off, actually. It doesn't look nearly as bad as it did yesterday, though. It's so small and...not the big, red, horrifying burn it was after it happened. Just a tiny spot of discoloration next to the open wound part. It's a lot more irritating than it looks, though, especially when someting touches the ripped-open part of it.

But hey, it's not infected, so at least I get to keep my arm.

~Kyetsu

I burned by arm pretty bad today at work.I was deep frying the chips, and after I put a fresh batch in a bin, I tried to put the wire basket back on the hook to fry some more. My grip slipped for just a second, and the basket swung back and hit me on the arm. A hot-oil-dipped metal basket whacked me just above my elbow. >.<

What kinda surprised me, though, was that I didn't even flinch when the basket burned me. I was all "Oops. Scalding hot metal to the arm. Another day at the office, I guess." I knew I could tolerate a bit more pain than average, but I didn't know I could shrug off hot oil. So long as I don't, you know, dip my hand in it or something.

I have a pretty mean-looking blister on my arm right now, but it it looks like it'll heal alright. So long as it doesn't get infected or anything, I should be good.

~Kyetsu

Got to go hang out with  sontock and  chibikitsune yesterday. It was a day of much fun. And chatting. And Rock-Banding. And quotes like this:

Sontock: What was that six star instrument?
Chibikitsune: The bass.
Me (who was playing bass the whole time): Well, eff that, I'm playing guitar.

...or...

Chibikitsune: Did you forget to eat all week again?
Me: *psh* No. I'm not getting yelled at again...

And I forget how many "Dirty..." comments me and Sontock made. It all made for a really fun day, and a great way to destress after everything I went through over the past several weeks. I'm kinda relaxed now, actually.

~Kyetsu

I was walking down the sidewalk this morning, when I found a deer on the side of the road, apparently hit by a car. I live in a heavily wooded area, so this is unfortunately not an uncommon sight. I frequently see deer that have been hit by cars or even trains. Thing is, 99.99% of the time, they've already passed on by the time I see them...

So needless to say, I was pretty shocked when this deer suddenly got up and tried running...with both its back legs broken. So I called Wildlife Control, who sent someone down to take care of her. I knew they would euthanize her, but it's much better than how she would have suffered had I not called it in. Shock, starvation, or even infection, since one leg had a bone sticking out. I can't even imagine the amount of pain she must have been in.

They came down, thanked me for calling them and sticking around to show them where exactly to find her, and I decided it was best to GTFO at that point. I wasn't serving any further purpose there, and I certainly didn't want to watch the poor thing die. So I started walking off, and hardly two minutes later, I hear a gun shot going off in the general direction of the deer. I'm not sure if that was a tranquilizer gun, or a shoot-bullets-that-make-you-die gun, but either way, I was really glad I wasn't there to see it.

But I'm just glad that she's not suffering any more. I feel like I did the right thing, at least.

~Kyetsu

* Skating makes a great workout.

* I'm better at roller skating than I thought.

* The party's not here until furries are involved.

* Apparently, I have a well-muscled, well-built ass.

* Though I still need to work on the muscle tone on my right leg a lot more.

* I don't check the Furst State forums for meets like this often enough...Or ever in the past 2 months or so...

I'm really just feeling it in my bad ankle. The jolts of pain I get in it are noticeably more frequent than usual. Other than that, I feel alright. I'll prolly go for another round if it's happening again in the near future. As long as I don't hear about it at the last minute again...

~Kyetsu

I ended up going to Furbowl. Nearly backed out at the last minute, though. Not only because I was feeling uneasy about the whole thing, but my mother was fighting until the end about how I should drop my entire life to be at her convenience.

In the end, I'm kinda glad I went with it. I actually ended up being useful at this one. Someone had to be in charge of keeping the fursuiters hydrated, so I spent the night filling up cups of water for everyone. Okay, I'll admit that it's not the biggest, most awesome thing evar, and it's not like I'll get any recognition for it (nor do I expect it), but at least it gave me something to do for once, other than sitting around doing nothing or wandering the bowling alley aimlessly...The latter of which I was spending the first half of the night doing.

I'd prolly do it again, assuming there's still a need, and I can request evenings off from work on a monthly basis. I'm sure my boss won't flat-out refuse, but I don't know how she's gonna react to me suddenly going from requesting off maybe once a year to requesting a night off once every month. I'll have to talk to her about it.

Unrelated note: Truck repair got delayed again. Circumstances beyond anyone's control, so I just gotta deal with it and be without a vehicle for a bit longer.

~Kyetsu

Alright, tell me if this makes sense to you:

My mother's going to my sister's place to drop some stuff off to my brother in law*. My sister's place is literally right down the street from my home. As in, you go in the main entrance to my neighborhood, drive down to my street, and then you can turn one way to get to my sister's place, or turn the other way to get to mine.

She's going down there to drop some things off, and she absolutely refused to take me down to feed my cats. My two cats are going over 24 hours without seeing me, getting fed by me, or making sure Felix didn't sit on Kinzer's head or anything. =P

Why would she do such a thing? Why would she go all the way to my neighborhood and not let me go to my place to feed my cats?

Because it's "too much of a hassle" for her to bring my nephews along, and she'd rather have me stay at her place and watch them then go through the trouble of taking them along. Also, she wants me to stay here and do her laundry and other housework.

Thankfully, I kinda predicted that something like this would happen, and gave my cats twice the food I would have normally. Since I measure out their food every day, they're used to eating a certain amount of food every day, so if I give them extra, they won't eat it all in the first day. Unfortunately, the reason I know this is because this is far from the first time she's kept me away from them for over a day.

Speaking of nephews, one of them turns 5 on the 20th of this month. He threw a tantrum today because he found out that my birthday's tomorrow, and he doesn't want anybody else to have one when his is so close. So everyone's going to these great lengths to tell him that my birthday's not nearly as important as his, and he'll have this great party that I won't even be at, so nobody's gonna be giving me presents/cake/etc.

Srsly, now, I know he's just a kid and all, and birthdays aren't that important to me or anything...But if they're spoiling him this much at age 5, and telling him that nobody will ever be as important or special as he is, what's he gonna be like as he gets older? I shudder at the thought.

~Kyetsu

{*If anybody's wondering why my borther in law's at home and not watching the kids his own damn self, it's becuse he's working long hours to pay the bills and take care of himself, his unemployed wife, and two kids, so he's only at home late at night. Not saying this is right...I'm just saying that's how things are.}