Ready to Sculpt

This year, my birthday gift from my mom (via the check she sent) was an online class on sculpting. (The polymer clay class here: https://verdantsculpts.thinkific.com/courses/polymer.)

I've never done any sculpting, and I'm not particularly good at any visual art, but what the heck, I've got #5 self-confidence, so sure, this is totally something I can do. (To be fair, the description does say the course is suitable for beginners, so I didn't just do my usual thing of skipping all the boring pre-requisites in order to fail spectacularly.)

This is how far I've gotten:

Guido was helping with the photo shoot. And by helping, I mean he refused to get out of the way. I fully expect the same level of help when I open the packages.

The instructor suggests watching all the videos first before starting, and for once, I'm following directions. This has been the progression so far:

1. Him: I'm not great at drawing, so I find a picture of the animal I'm going to do and start by tracing the shape at the finished size using tracing paper.
   Me: Holy cow, I can probably do this!
   
   
2. Him: Then I draw lines for the armature.
   Me: Still on board!
   
   
3. Him: Then I twist the wire into shape.
   Me: I think I can do that.
   
   
4. Him: Then I add a layer of epoxy clay to stiffen the armature.
   Me: Okay.
   
   
5. Him: Then I start building it up using Sculpey.
   Me: ... How did it suddenly start looking like a real animal? (I'm betting this is where mine completely goes off the rails.)
   
   
6. Him: And now I start adding details.
   Me: Holy cow. This is fun to watch. Mine will never end up like that, but this is really cool!

Anyhow, assuming the first four steps aren't harder than they look (which... they might be), I should get to step five before I create a horrific monster instead of the cute sculpture I'd intended.

I still have a couple more videos to watch before I begin, but this will be fun. And memorable, though possibly not in a good way.

Obligatory Picture

I do like all the leaves and berries falling from trees right now, even if they do make it harder to walk the dog.

Lemontina

Perhaps you've heard of a lemontini, aka the lemon drop, which is a vodka cocktail that has a lemon flavor. I'm not a big drinker so I've never had one, but it sounds pretty good.

That's not what we're talking about today. No, today's topic is the Lemontina. (Name courtesy of my friend Hilary, who doesn't have two kittens with ringworm living in her bathroom probably until the end of time.)

Please don't dunk me!

Her official name at the shelter is Tina. She was one of two unrelated kittens who came in with ringworm at about the same time. Keeping kittens separate is always sad — they end up poorly socialized and don't grasp the concept that biting others can hurt — so the shelter bundled them together to be fostered together.

Problem 1: Ringworm

Yeah. I knew that one going in. She had bald patches, though her other fur hid them pretty well.

Problem 2: Her right eye

I'd had her a couple days when I had the whole "one of these things is not like the other" thought. One eye was the normal kitten blue/green. The other eye was darker. Cats can have differently colored eyes, but I could also see a little wispiness on the cornea. And changes in the color of the iris can be a sign of uveitis, a form of inflammation that can often be caused by more systemic illness.

I was pretty sure this hadn't just happened because she wasn't squinting or showing any pain, and she could see just fine. In my defense, the kitten has ringworm, so I wasn't handling her as much. I felt better when I sent my "uh, is there something wrong with her eye?" email, and got back the response that nobody had noticed it in the shelter, but her eyes were different on her intake photo.

I was told the shelter's vet thinks it's a congenital abnormality.

Problem 3: Her weight

Margo was a week or two older than Tina, and a bit bigger, but they were close enough that it shouldn't have been a problem. Except then this happened:

This shows their daily weight in grams over the first week, Tina on the left, Margo on the right. Margo gained 210 grams. Tina gained 52 grams.

There was nothing obviously wrong with Tina — she ate and she had normal poop, but she just... didn't gain much weight. By the end of the second week, Margo was twice Tina's size.

Problem 4: Her leg

About that time, I was emailing the foster coordinator the latest update when I saw that Tina was only using three of her legs. I'm still not sure if Margo played a little too rough or if Tina got her leg caught on something, but she wouldn't put any weight on her right rear leg.

She's too small to safely anesthetize for x-rays, and too wiggly to get a diagnostic x-ray when she's awake. Plus, there's not a lot you can do to fix things at that age — a splint that slips can cause more harm than good.

I was told to keep her in a confined space, which was kind of funny since she's living in the bathtub and it doesn't get much more confined than that.

She's getting better! (Sorta)

I've had her for about two months now, and she's finally gaining weight. Her eye hasn't changed. Her leg is a little better, but I think there's probably some ligament damage — it's not slowing her down much, though. She can jump onto the top of the carrier now.

The only real problem at this point is the ringworm. Despite twice weekly lime sulfur dips and daily oral anti-fungal medicine, her last two ringworm cultures have come back positive. She needs two negative cultures in a row to be considered cured. That means she's here at least another month. In the last week she's developed a huge bald spot on her ear.

Fingers crossed she doesn't develop any new problems...

PSA: Lemontina Tina will be available for adoption someday from the Yolo County Animal Shelter. She's very sweet and maybe she's burned through all her bad luck and will have no medical problems ever again! She could be your perfect companion!

Obligatory Photo

Hello, turkeys!

Empathy, My A**

Oh, look, I'm back for day two of Holidailies and I've had sleep AND a bunch of tea, so I'm not just giving away exclamation points today — no, you have to earn them.

(Rereading that sentence, I have no idea what that means. Perhaps I am a little overly caffeinated? Just roll with it.)

The topic of the day is Clifton Strengths; specifically, my top five.

What are the Clifton Strengths?

That's a trick question because I think they're actually the Gallup Strengths now. But anyhow, there are 37 personality traits (aka, strengths). You take a quiz and at the end of it, you have the trait list in the order that you have them, from strongest to weakest. The idea behind it all is that you should lean into your strengths instead of trying to follow a process that depends on your weakest traits.

They also clump the strengths into four categories (executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking).

Is this just astrology with a gilding of pseudoscience?

I mean... maybe, a little? But also, it's not like any one strength is better than any other. And I know I, a person who lives alone in my house with three cats, am definitely stronger at analyzing things (aka, strategic thinking) than relationship building.

So there may be a bit of woowoo in this, but there are also some practical tips for each strength that can help people juice it up.

Who uses this?

I'm guessing big companies, because they love to spend money on shit like this instead of just getting rid of half the management and giving people higher salaries.

But also, writers. Becca Syme has built an empire out of this. Her courses have become so popular in indie writing circles that there's a drinking game involving writing podcasts mentioning Clifton Strengths. Listening to any two podcasts in a row would probably send me to the hospital.

Can this be used for evil?

Probably. After all, big companies use it. That's a sign.

Go ahead, list your top 5 for people to skip over:

1. Empathy (???)
2. Intellection (introspective, need time to think about stuff)
3. Maximizer (like taking good to great instead of meh to good)
4. Learner (the process of learning, not the outcome, is the goal)
5. Self-Assurance (feel confident in their ability to take risks and manage their own lives)

What the hell is "empathy" doing at the top spot?

Right? But apparently being able to sense people's bad moods makes you score high in empathy even if all you do is turn around and leave.

Have all high learner people amassed as many useless degrees?

I don't know, but I bet most of the people with engineering and veterinary degrees probably have learner in the top 10 because there's no other way to explain it.

Is high self-assurance why you make such a terrible employee?

Almost certainly. I hate having other people tell me what to do.

What useful writing tips are there for your top 5?

I'm currently getting the most out of the intellection stuff. Instead of always listening to podcasts or audiobooks when I'm walking the dog, now I listen to silence or ambient music so I can think about what happens next in whatever I'm writing. And instead of waking up by checking my email, I think about what I'm going to write next.

I also had a book recommendation: Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland which I'll be looking into this month. (I started reading it at the beginning of November, but I couldn't do NaNoWriMo and the exercises in the book at the same time.)

Seriously, though, empathy?

Yeah, whatever.

Obligatory Photo

This is the super friendly cat that lives by the park I pass on my walk. He loves people. He loves dogs. He loves everything. I had a hard time taking a photo because he wanted to rub all over me. He has an excessive number of toes.

Welcome to December!

It's time for Holidailies again, during which I dust off the blog and write an entry every day through January 1st.

I'm feeling a little foggy today because

1. National Novel Writing Month just finished yesterday, and
2. My 65# dog developed a urinary tract infection and woke me up every hour last night to go outside.

Basically, I'm too old for those things to happen simultaneously, so here are a bunch of exclamation points for you to add anywhere you think this blog post needs more excitement: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Feel free to use them all.

About Me

Call me Theresa. I'm currently a full-time author (SF/F as T.M. Baumgartner, cozy mysteries as Tess Baytree, and one website for both because I'm lazy). If you read those genres and want to check out my books, great! (I added that exclamation point for you as an example.) If not, don't feel awkward. It's fine, I promise.

I also foster kittens for the Yolo County Animal Shelter. Right now, I have two kittens (Margo & Tina) who have ringworm. Fingers crossed it clears up soon because they are tired of living in the easily-cleaned-and-bleached tub. Here's a link to the kitten cam: https://www.twitch.tv/tm_baumgartner

I'm also a municipal liaison for National Novel Writing Month, which sounds like more work than it really is. Basically, I cheer writers on and try to have write-ins at venues that aren't randomly closed at the time we've scheduled to meet there. (This is a bigger problem than you might expect.)

My Pets

Let's face it. They're far more interesting than I am. Ordered by descending age:

1. Freeway - the 20-something cockatiel. Likes to chirp loudly when I'm on the phone.
2. Guido - 19-year-old cat. He's reached the screaming houseplant stage of his life, when he mostly sleeps, I make sure he has enough water, and every once in a while he springs to life and howls his opinions about whatever he's mad about. (Long-time cat owners know this stage well.)
   He has lymphoma (of course) and may not be around much longer, but who knows? He's had lymphoma for four years and he's still here. I love this little jerk.
3. Georgie - 10(?)-year-old dog. The one who kept me up all night. Aside from that, he's a good boy. He's also just stupid enough that I can mold cheese around his antibiotic capsules while he watches, and he's still excited that I'm giving him cheese. Let's hear it for dogs that aren't rocket scientists.
4. Gin - 3.5-year-old feral cat. She lives in the house, but I can't get near her.
5. Tonic - 3-year-old feral cat. He's Gin's son. To him, I am the devil. Luckily the house is big enough for the ferals to avoid me. They seem reasonably happy.

Plans for Holidailies

I have a list which is six topics long and I've just used one. So this will probably get random pretty quickly. I mean, one year I blogged about things in my hotel room, so this isn't unprecedented. If that scares you off, godspeed, my friend.

I'll probably talk a bit of indie author shop and maybe play around with the 3D modeling program. Plus, I'm taking a sculpture class — no, I've never sculpted before, so this will likely be a complete disaster, aka perfect for blogging.

Obligatory Picture

Random sight from a walk in my neighborhood. Click on it to make it bigger. It's kind of cool.

Holiday Gift Guide

Background

I signed up for the Amazon affiliate program a while back for writing/marketing reasons. In case you're not familiar with it, if you click on a link and buy something at amazon, the person who created the link may get a few cents. (It doesn't change the price the end user pays.)

Every month Amazon tells me I didn't make enough for them to bother transferring money to my account.

From time to time Amazon sends me mail full of things they think I should tell my millions of followers to buy, as if I have a lifestyle blog showcasing articles like "10 Patio Umbrellas to Match the New Season". Their suggestions are pretty ridiculous.

But this seems like something to be mined for comedy gold. So I'm going to write the article they think I should be writing with their category suggestions... except with things that I would buy.

Once again, these are all affiliate links. If you click on them and buy something, I might get a commission. But it's not enough money to really get excited about.

Customer-Favorite Gifts

Some people hate them, but I got this air fryer for Christmas and I use it nearly every day, for everything from homemade pizza to fried tofu. But wait, you say. Isn't this just a small convection oven? Yes. Yes, it is. But I don't have a convection oven and this thing is the perfect size if you live alone. https://amzn.to/3V3ZQbJ

Electronic Gifts

This is the camera I bought for the kitten cam (https://www.twitch.tv/tm_baumgartner). My current kittens are a bunch of hooligans — I finally had to mount the camera on a weighted box so they would stop knocking it over. I've already gotten far more than $35 of entertainment out of this. https://amzn.to/3ElsVt1

The other thing I bought recently was this alarm clock that gradually lights up the room. I was too cheap to pay for the expensive brand, but this is better than nothing. Be warned — the user interface is horrendous. If you can get past that, it's useful. Because getting up when it's dark outside is bullshit. https://amzn.to/3C9cFJb

Fashion Gifts

This category... I'm just going to lean into my status as a crazy cat lady / kitten foster. That's fashion, right?

I love this cat litter. And it's easier to pay for someone else to carry 40# to the door instead of hauling it across my yard from the garage myself. https://amzn.to/3CdYWAC

I absolutely would buy this at the grocery store if my grocery store reliably stocked it. The 19-year-old cat finds dry food too much effort, so canned food it is! https://amzn.to/3SFsAG7

For those kittens that are supposedly weaned but don't seem to be eating, chicken baby food works like magic. Plus, it can be loaded into a syringe if necessary. https://amzn.to/3V9aXjJ

Beauty Gifts

Got me here. I don't use much that qualifies. Oh wait, here, does this count?

B12 gummies. Think about it if you're a vegetarian. https://amzn.to/3ECpPBp

Home Gifts

Furniture in my house is mostly just for the animals even if it didn't start out that way. But I did buy a big magnetic whiteboard recently, and it... seems to be working? I put my weekly tasks on there and it helps me remember I'm supposed to do them. https://amzn.to/3SHKoQL

Toys Gifts For Everyone [sic]

Books are pretty much the only things I buy for myself in the entertainment category. (So go buy my books!) But I bought these for the cats...

Springs! Cats love them. Kittens love them. One person recommended getting two bags in her review and she probably has the right idea because they fit under the couch. Whoever cleans out my house after I die will probably find 50 of them. (Springs, not kittens.) https://amzn.to/3fJt67l

Summary

Did I do the capitalism right?

The Aftermath

 Fostering! Kittens grow into cats, but if you foster for the county shelter, you have a never-ending stream of cuteness invading your home.

So cute, right?

There is a cost, though. (Not monetary — the shelter pays for everything.) Before you bring new kittens into the space, you have to clean well enough to make sure you aren't adding new diseases to whatever they already have. 

Plus... I don't know how else to say this — kittens are gross little mess machines. I took that picture just now. I've had these kittens for two days, and I've cleaned the bathroom twice since they got here. To be fair, there were originally six of them in the room until another foster picked up three yesterday, but still.

Here's a better view of the room...

If you click to make it bigger, you can see there's litter scattered over the floor, some dried food near the plate, some dried something-that-isn't-food near the cardboard litter box in the top right, and various other bits of debris. (Just assume all kittens will have diarrhea. It's often just because they've changed food sources three times in as many days. But also, parasites...)

After these guys leave, I'll do the following:

1. Throw out all the used litter and cardboard. (If there is leftover kibble in the bowl, the dog gets it. This is the highlight of his week.) I use a lot of boxes for hiding spaces and playgrounds because they're disposable and carpeted things are nearly impossible to disinfect. Someday, there will be a litter of kittens with ringworm and I'd like to keep that contained...
   
   
2. Shake out the towels and run a load with detergent and bleach.
   
   
3. Sweep up all the loose litter. Now sweep again. Keep sweeping. Litter is everywhere!
   
   
4. Scrub / wipe down the surfaces with water to get the organic material off. (There's no point in bleaching or disinfecting if there is still organic material present.) By surfaces, I mean the floor, yes, but also the walls (where kittens will have magically flung poop up to my waist height — I don't know how they manage it), the side of the tub, the door, etc.
   
   
5. Mop & wipe surfaces with water and a bit of bleach (1 ounce bleach in 32 ounces water) — this is quick because all the food and poop was removed in the previous step. Let everything dry.
   
   
6. Wash the litter boxes, food bowls, and plastic toys.
   
   
7. Set everything back up for the next bunch: clean towels, new boxes, washed bowls, toys, clean litter boxes with fresh litter.

It takes less than an hour. I put on an audiobook from the library and clean.

Have I sold you on fostering yet? Seriously, though — the cute levels are off the charts!

Still Twitching

 As a member of Gen X, I "get" some social media (FB, twitter) and absolutely don't understand other parts (TikTok, I'm staring at you here). Instagram is another thing I don't really get, but I think that might be because I'm not super visual and not just because I'm old.

But since I set up the kitten cam (https://www.twitch.tv/tm_baumgartner) to showcase the foster kittens, I've joined the world of Twitch.  And that's just kind of funny because Twitch is mostly used by gamers. I do not game. I have never been able to get into any game. Every time I've tried, I've bumbled around for anywhere from 2-60 minutes until I've given up in frustration. And yet Twitch provides free streaming, so there I am with my kitten cam amongst the Destiny and Warhammer folks. (Did I get either of those names right?)

This leads to some hilarity because people who use Twitch will sometimes go look at other channels en masse. So suddenly there will be a comment on the kitten cam feed saying "A raiding party has arrived." (Yes, I talked to my teenaged nephew to get the scoop on what that meant.) And then I get questions like:

"Bro, where are the kittens?"

I... have never been called "Bro" before, so this has been a new experience. Also, have you ever tried to set up a camera in the guest bathroom so the kittens are always in view? It's just not possible. It was especially problematic with Humphrey, who was old enough to jump onto the counter and spent most of his time up there.

Anyhow, come check the stream! The current foster is Poppy, and she is adorable and incredibly soft. She also likes to stand right next to the door (out of camera range) calling for me to come pick her up, so I fully expect more "Bro, where are the kittens?" type comments.

She fell asleep on the back of my office chair today...