#thankfully no er vet bill was had

[bigmammallama5]

If I had to find a religion in something, it would be the kindness of strangers born through fear in the emergency vet parking lot.

[borzoibabe]

hey, who remembers this shitshow from two years ago?: https://www.tumblr.com/borzoibabe/665024812393119744/here-is-her-vet-bill-of-this-i-have-paid-1889

tl;dr 2 years ago my dog and i had to flee for our lives from domestic abuse, and we're now learning the physical damage my dog sustained is much worse than we'd previously thought. she's back in the ER again to treat her aspiration pneumonia - going on her second overnight now - and once she's home, we're going to start exploring longer term options to prevent any more flare ups.

thankfully i was much more financially prepared this time around than i was back then, but so far i'm down $9100 and that number is likely going to keep rising. i am asking for anything, anything at all, to help us keep our heads afloat, especially as we start exploring surgical options after she recovers. donations are appreciated more than i can ever express. even more than that, just sharing our story means the world to me. please, please help us out. she's only 3. she doesn't deserve to live this way.

i have a gofundme, or if you'd prefer to donate more directly, i have paypal (paypal.me/rileyskennedy), venmo (@rileym_) or cashapp ($rileyy9). if you read this far, thank you so much. please spread the word. thank you. 💖💖💖💖💖💖

[creations-by-chaosfay]

Two Years Summarized.

This is lengthy because OMG 2022-2023 have been a cluster-F until this month.

I had big plans in 2022, but then we got notice I have to pay back the "no strings attached" money I (and millions of others) had received in 2021 because I'm "not a contributing member of society" according the IRS. That took months to pay back; I later learned that virtually everyone on SSI and SSDI were forced to pay that back. 

Then eviction notice without cause, had to find a new home, no affordable rentals with contracts were available, so we had to buy one. Thankfully, there are programs for first time home buyers, Disabled home buyers, and all sorts of other programs to help. There were major hiccups though, one of which cost us $500+ in food. 

Husband got a new, and well-paying, job, but contracted covid because it's a kitchen and no one wants to wear a mask. Covid tore through that kitchen, and no one seemed to care. We were sick for weeks, and my case was especially bad, lasting almost three months. The long term effects of exhaustion (both of us), brain fog, chronic eustatian tube dysfunction, and possibly developing POTS, have been something we've learned to live with. 

One of our cats, Jasper, had fallen gravely ill in 2021 from a mystery illness, and we had to open a Care Credit account in order to afford treatment. We're still paying that bill. He never made a full recovery, and exactly one year, right down to the day, he was sicker than ever. At the vet, we learned he had cancer, and had lost half his weight in three days. We had our baby boy, age 16, humanely euthanized. My eustatian tube dysfunction reared its ugly head the next day because of how much I was crying. 

It was not a good year.

2023 has been filled with it's own cluster-F. In February, my husband was experiencing intense pain, but refused to go to the hospital due to not having insurance. Then he woke up with a serious case of jaundice. Off the ER we went, and it was there he was diagnosed with diabetes type 2; his blood sugar was 652. That's deadly. He had an ultrasound to see what was happening in his gut, and we discovered his gall bladder was packed with stones. There were so many, they were being pushed out to make space for more. He had emergency surgery to remove the three stones in his bile duct, and we were informed he needed his gall blader removed immediately. Except that wasn't possible because he had to get his blood sugar under control and recover from this surgery first. We filed piles of paperwork to have as much of this bill forgiven as we possibly could. Two of the six bills were wiped out, and only a few days ago were we able to pay off the rest, thanks to the person who purchased the large quilt that had been in my shop.

The hospital itself was a wreck. The kitchen kept sending him applesauce and fruit juice, which were marked as DO NOT SEND THESE. Not a single nurse or doctor was wearing a mask, and they whined when we refused to let them near within 10 feet of us. After that, we knew we would have to transfer him to a different hospital because this place was incompetant.

He had to quit his job, doctor's orders. It was, in fact, killing him. Applying for new jobs had to wait for several weeks due to recovering from surgery, and he was denied Unemployment Insurance for ridiculous reasons. Neither of us had the energy (exhausted is an understatement) nor mindset (anxiety, stress, exhaustion, pain) to appeal the decision, but we did anyway. Twice. Denied both times. He was finally able to get a new job, which pays well enough but doesn't provide the hours he needs. It does, however, provide insurance and is significantly less demanding than working in a kitchen. 

After several months of hard work with going for daily walks, a drastic change to his diet (virtually zero carbs and sugar), he was able to get the surgery he needed to remove his gall bladder. His work insurance covered the cost, and the hospital we opted to have the surgery at forgave the entire bill. There was only one bill because everything is under a single business instead of the way the other hospital functions, which is a bunch of private contracts and services that happen to work in the same building. 

Over the summer, our water heater broke. It was 20 years old, so it's really no surprise. It simply cost us $3k to buy it and have it professionally installed. Yay for monthly payments! Our homeowner's insurance took $500 off the bill, but it still hurts. We also learned we need our plumbing replaced because the guy who owned the house before us was a landlord and installed illegal plumbing. The short version is it needs to be replaced and will cost ~$12k and our insurance doesn't cover this. The home inspector also didn't see it because the landlord had covered parts that were supposed to be exposed. To get this done, we need to make a 50% payment first. LOL!!!!!!

Then, in September, we received a court order for a hearing about his previous Unemployment Insurance. Money he received from 2020 to 2021 (because everything was closed) was now being challenged. Turns out we weren't the only ones dealing with the massive hiccup. Thanks to a supporter here, we were able to acquire legal aid and this whole thing was waived in October, aka we won the court case.

Now, at the end of the year, in the final two weeks, things are finally calming down. All the medical bills are paid off, and that was at the top of the list of worries. We still have the Care Credit bill to pay, and interest is collecting. I know selling just one of the three major quilts I'm gonna finish over the next three months will cover the bill, but that depends on someone buying it. For now, it's just us paying a little more than the minimum to keep the interest from growing too much. We also have the water heater that needs to be paid off. My hope is, by this time next year, we have these paid off. That'll make it possible for us to save money to get the plumbing replaced.

Here's to hoping 2024 is a gentle, boring, kind, and uneventful year. A year of paying off these two major debts by June so we can focus on saving money for new plumbing.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Here’s a few more I forgot to put in the original post:

There’s a total InfoWarrior who comes in to bum wifi off us. His car is plastered with shit like “Arrest Fauci” and “Alex Jones was right” plastered all over the car it looks like he lives out of.

A mean old lady who has harassed me for years, doing everything from cussing me out to throwing change at me. The managers refuse to ban her.

A cool dude with a cowboy hat who smokes a long pipe and always tells me to “have a blessed day.” One of my favs.

A nice old lady who always had to get coffee for her asshole boss.

An old Vietnam vet who asked me during fair week, “you get a lot of fairies coming through?” When I expressed confusion, he got annoyed and said, “I don’t mean fairies as in queers, I mean as in fairgoers!”

Another Vietnam vet, this one with a hat that read “Agent Orange.”

A customer who was so annoyed by the guy behind him he paid for and took the guy’s food.

A lady who left forty bucks and paid off a half dozen cars behind her with it.

A guy who said the number denoting a meal, rattled off a minute’s worth of customization before ending with “just the entree.” I work at a fast food restaurant and had no idea what I was talking about, so I confirmed he wanted just the burgers, but he kept smugly correcting me with “just the entree.” When I repeatedly tried to confirm, he said, “Are you ok?” in the most condescending tone.

A lady who was mad about something and tried to throw a can at a coworker (it hit the window thankfully). I turned around and threw her drink in her face.

A guy who was covered in growths that made him look demonic, but he had “God’s Not Dead” on his back window. He never once spoke to me.

Speaking of old people who refuse to acknowledge my existence, there’s another old man regular who gives me the silent treatment so much he paid for the wrong order and held up the line for at least five minutes. I’ve made sure to make his food as expensive as possible since.

A lady who my wife and I always seem to get stuck behind while driving or parking, she has a bumper sticker that says “I support traditional marriage” and another with a fake George Washington quote about God.

A customer who was going to call the cops on me because I accidentally handed her a fake ten without realizing it. She said I was suspicious because I folded the money… which I do so I don’t drop change.

A lady who refused to reach far enough to give me the money when we had plastic screen during Covid that made it hard for me to get out the window. She did an over the top fake scream while handing me cash to try and guilt me; I almost laughed.

A lady who pulled up and rudely responded when I read off her order, so I handed her back her card and deleted her order. She dropped her card, honked repeatedly, slammed on my window, but I ignored her.

A guy in a company van who was a regular until one day he said “I love you, guy.” Ne er saw him again after that.

A drunk guy who has a fit because management thought he was stealing our American flag.

These guys who threw rocks at the window because I wasn’t serving them (I was taking an order from another customer) and then tried to accuse me of being rude to them to them.

An old guy who regularly sits in the lobby pet a baby’s head on his way to leave. The dad asked a moment later, “Did that guy just touch our kid?”

SO MANY CUSTOMERS making a big stink over how we don’t accept bills over twenty dollar bills. Some even insist we totally do during the night (we don’t) or that a manager said it was okay (they didn’t).

A lady with a van plastered with conspiracy theory stickers, including a NASA logo that says “LIES.” I worry about her children.

Working on fast food I’ve met a lot of different people, especially when I worked overnights. Here are some of the customers I remember the best (some of them I still see around):

An actual Nazi with a swastika tattooed on his thumb. I always make sure he’s charged more when he comes through.

A guy who asked me to cum in his ice cream.

Two seperate old guys who harassed me while I used the bathroom. One gif banned for being racist to the cashiers up front, the other one tried to break into my stall.

A tired, bruised woman who seemed a bit on edge. There was a guy passed out next to her in the car. She told me to keep the change (it was a lot) and drove off. I never saw her again.

A woman who broke down sobbing because her daughter who had recently died of cerebral palsy loved the rain, and it was raining out.

A man who pulled up while on the phone and loudly shouted into it, “What do you mean I have AIDS?! …Is it the good kind?”

A dude on drugs who choked me against a wall because he thought I made a pass at his sister, smashed a window, got into a fistfight with a manager, and begged the cops to beat him to death when they showed up.

A couple who were exceptionally rude and harassed me, then tried to stalk me home. They got banned.

A drag queen who always wanted extra sauce. I gave it to them free even though the store I was at charged for it.

A kid with a confederate flag hat or shirt (this was over a decade ago, I can’t remember which). I gave him free sauce because I felt bad for him. If I saw him today, I’d charge him twice.

An anti-vaxxer who flipped out because we couldn’t do half hot, half iced water, got out of her car, and demanded to know what my problem was.

The main character of life, who came at a busy time, honked at everyone, and demanded I get a manager to move the line somehow.

A lady with massive breasts that were practically exploding out of her shirt who complained to a manager I was rude to her because I explained how a coupon worked.

A customer whose order was exactly correct, still asked for a manager, and then complained to the manager how I was rude because he overheard me explain to the manager I wasn’t sure what the problem was.

An old man who frequented the drive thru and was entirely innocuous until the day he harassed a woman to the point she was in tears and shaking.

An old guy who consistently pays for his order entirely with change and always drives off before I can count it. He is consistently short ten to twenty cents.

A man who insisted we served pizza.

A guy who tried to order lo mein.

A nice, sweet old Asian man whose initials are “KKK.” He’s one of my favorite customers.

A person whose name is “Barbarian.” Another favorite.

A person named “Icelyn Snow.” Yet another favorite.

A woman who comes through with her cats. Another fav.

A lady who came through with her pet skunk.

A guy with a bearded dragon in his cup holder.

An old man who held the line up for ten minutes because we don’t accept any bills over twenties. He insisted we legally had to and refused to budge even after two managers and I explained the rules to him, and who we had to walk around to get other customers. He finally left after the police were called.

A bunch of kids who jumped a teen in the lobby and ripped her earring out. There was blood on the floor.

A guy who tried to come through while being chased by cops. He caused an officer to chip a wall with their car before escaping.

A guy wit a studded hat that said “Hentai” with an ahegao seat cover to go with it.

A guy who insisted the confederacy weren’t losers and that they were making a comeback.

A guy who tried to hustle us out of ten bucks. I caught him, but he kept insisting I owed him money. He came back months later still yelling about it; I pretended to not know what he was talking about.

A man who came back through after being given sweet tea he was told was sweetened artificially (he and his wife were diabetic). Despite having to take his wife to the hospital due to high blood sugar, all he wanted was his tea fixed and an apology. I apologized profusely. My coworker insisted he was lying for free stuff.

[chaoticreation]

@sonofawinchester

I'm disabled and on a low income. Please help me save my feathered daughter. Linktree in bio #foryou #cockatiel #help #vetbill #emergency #birddad

♬ original sound - sonofawinchester

PLEASE READ AND MAKE THIS GO VIRAL. 

I know it's a long read, but it's so important, and I am LITERALLY BEGGING YOU FOR HELP! (And including the link to the original tiktok video because apparently tumblr doesn’t want to show it: https://www.tiktok.com/@sonofawinchester/video/7139692736252349739?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1)

I have had nothing but hardships since June, and am on the brink of losing everything. Our well pump died suddenly, and I went two weeks without water, begging the local gov't to help, to no avail. Instead, I was met with ableist remarks. I was forced to turn to restaurants to eat once a day, and the nearby gas station to use the bathroom. None of which were in walking distance, which took a toll on my wallet between food and gas. Finally, we had to use the money we reserved for this year's taxes to pay for the replacement pump. While we now have water, we can't afford the taxes. That means we can lose our home. Taxes are due in October and December. September's already halfway through, and combined, they're over $5,500.

In July, my feathered son, Tazmania, got sick. I took him to vets, and he seemed to be recovering with some antibiotic injections. I had to postpone his follow-up appointment due to fraudulent charges on my credit card totaling over $300, which not only maxed it out, but also meant a freeze on it. But he seemed to be doing better, so I didn't think a week would hurt. Until it did. Just 2 days before the rescheduled follow-up, he presented as extremely ill.

August 3rd, he was real bad. But no avian vets had availability, and he wasn't stable enough for the 2 and a half hour drive to ER vets. So we stuck it out. I stayed up with him all night, and he fought hard to stay with me. August 4th, the local vets stabilized him for transport, and we went to ER vets. He was hospitalized and stabilized, tests were run, and he was eating again, though he was still too weak to be his chatty self. He was discharged on August 6th, with nearly $1,800 in vet bills on my care credit, which had a limit of $2,200. 

The first charge made to my newly replaced credit card was a cremation fee of over $200. (If you don't have anything nice to say, bite your tongue off, lest this happens to you. This boy means more to me than your useless opinions, and I'm tired of having to justify this charge. My other option was to keep him in the freezer until further notice, and avoid food because seeing him in there killed my appetite. So the other option was death by starvation.) The house is too quiet without his singing, and I feel empty, but I'm still fighting for Syd.

To be safe, I took his sister, Sydney, for a checkup on August 9th. The vets gave her a clean bill of health, but as soon as we got home, she acted like she was regurgitating. Rather than be helpful, this local vet refused to run tests, that are much cheaper for them to run than an ER vet to run. A few weeks later, Syd started presenting as ill as well, so I sought help from other local vets. This, in turn, has maxed out my care credit limit. That's right, we're past the $2,200 now!

Furthermore, I found out recently from my mom, that we owe the fuel company $900 for propane. If we don't pay this, we will not get a refuel, even if we have HEAP credits. You know what that means? No heat or hot water. My mom's still in a nursing home, and there's no telling if or when she's coming home. She's in 4th stage kidney disease. Thankfully, no heat or hot water won't affect her, but it WILL affect Syd and I (if, in fact, Syd survives.) The cold will kill her, and as someone suffering with Raynaud's, the cold is excruciating for me, in just the matter of seconds. Yes, seconds. Holding a cold drink for less than a minute brings tears to my eyes. No, there's no cure, and gloves only go so far. Within minutes, with gloves on, it's unbearable. Washing in ice cold water? It would feel like frostbite, and could take me a long time just to get feeling back to my fingers once I'm done washing.

At this current point (9/15/2022) Syd has a follow-up with her vet tomorrow. I don't have money for further testing, and care credit is maxed, so I can't even charge it to that. This means I have to refuse further testing if she needs it, which she most likely will, since tests have come back inconclusive. Can I afford $14 for another antibiotic injection? If I starve myself, yes. So I will allow myself to go hypoglycemic in order to give her her medicine. But I won't be much use to her, or anyone. I've been sacrificing myself for years. She's my daughter and she's worth it. I haven't eaten in days already. At this point, I'm lucky if I eat once a week, and it's not even a full meal because I simply no longer have strength or energy to cook, which doctors love to write off or plain out ignore. 

Syd's 11th birthday is September 18th, while Taz will forever be 10 years old. I can't even give her healthcare for her birthday, and it's killing me.

So now that I've explained what's been going on, let me explain something else. I am disabled. Permanently. (I'm currently in the process of fighting to keep my SSI, which is another long story.) I was disabled before I ever stood a chance, so I didn't "earn" the "rights" that you get with SSDI. So what this means is that I make less than $900 a month. In NYS, minimum wage is $15/hr. That means the average full-time worker earns $2,400 a month before taxes. Before this, minimum wage was $7.25/hr, leaving the average full-time worker with $1,1600 a month before taxes. Think about that for five seconds. If you're disabled, you get less than what minimum wage was in **2009**. In fact, the math adds up to roughly $5.55 an hour. You're talking income from **2005.** It's 2022! You're talking less than $900 a month in a state where rents start at $1,500, and gas costs about $70 per fill-up. Where car insurance is like $300, and there's no public transit, so your only choice is to own and drive a vehicle.

I rely on commissions for these kinds of emergencies, but let's face it, I'd need a LOT more commissions than I can ever take on. My commissions ARE open, but I'm slow. I'm struggling with my own health, my mom's health, and my daughter's health. I'm mourning the loss of my son, and if I don't get some SERIOUS financial help, I'll be mourning the loss of my daughter. I have three pending commissions as it is, and that money has already gone to gas or food.

I am losing all hope in any chance of survival for either of us. I can't pay these debts. I can't afford food. I can't afford vet bills for Syd. I can't afford fuel for heat or hot water. I can't afford taxes and can end up homeless. I haven't had time to look after my own health. Not only am I being punished for being disabled, but my daughter is, too. I lose sleep over this. Every moment I'm not distracted, I spend crying. I'm crying right now. It feels like all I do anymore is cry.

Please restore some hope. Please donate if you have the means. But no matter what, PLEASE MAKE THIS VIRAL! Look at this sweet little girl! Don't let her light go out like her brother's!

Here's a link to the gofundme I made in June to replace the well pump. It clearly hasn't worked out, but I don't have the energy to start ANOTHER one. So just... donate to this one, and help Syd and I survive. Especially Syd. I don't even give a shit about me anymore. I just don't want my baby girl to die.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-disabled-mother-and-son-avoid-homelessness

[annakie]

Patchy

A little under two years ago I made this post, a chronicle of Patchy, the outside feral, turned inside kitty who took ten years to learn to love being petted.

Today we got some bad news.

TW for pet illness under the cut.

Patchy’s always been a bit of a puker, usually oh, say, once a month or so she’d have a good puke for no reason.  I’ve had other cats that are pukers so it’s not that surprising.

In the late winter/early spring I started to notice more frequent pukes.

I’d decided around that time that I needed to find healthier food for my cats, with Leela, the oldest turning 16, Fry turning 11, Pemily turning 7 and Patchy turning, I don’t know, 12 or 13.  No way to really know.  They already got decent food, but I did my research and had started looking at Blue Buffalo, American Journey and Dave’s canned food. 

Patchy had been on a mostly canned food diet since she went to the vet back in early 2020 and had a bunch of teeth pulled.  Also, as a note, Patchy’s brief flirtation with hanging out in the rest of the house ended after like a month.  She and Fry fought too much, and eventually he claimed the rest of the house is his.  He also still thinks the master bedroom should be his, but, Patchy defends that territory well if anyone else encroaches. (The door just stays closed most of the time.)  I really wish they could have all gotten along, I loved having Patchy out, but both Fry and Patchy agreed it wasn’t going to work.

The food she’d been on was pretty junk-food-ish though, which she did love and eat. But I wanted everyone on more or less the same diet and the highest quality food I could readily get them.  So I bought a lot of cans of different kinds of food, and kept a list of which ones seemed to be hits and misses. (I still have a dozen cans of the kind nobody liked -- Blue Buffalo Wilderness Salmon -- I’ve been meaning to take to the city shelter).

Around halfway into this experiment I noticed Patchy puking more, so I decided to try to stick with her favorite kinds, which, I thought was helping.

But once I was fully vaccinated this year, it was time to get all the pets to the vet.  I noticed Patchy had still lost some weight, I thought it was due to switching around her food too much earlier, and tried to stick with the things I felt she really liked.

Then, of course, Leela got sick, spent two and a half days in the pet ER and almost died back in April, and then it was like... yeah we’re done being afraid of COVID, we’re done waiting.  It’s time to get them all their checkups.

My regular vet was doing COVID restrictions so no pet owners inside the clinic back then, so they took Patchy (and the others) in without me.  I thought Patchy had lost some weight, but Dr. B. sounded alarmed when he called me with how much lost she’d lost in the last year, about five pounds.  He wanted to do some bloodwork for Patchy, and I said of course go for it.  

He called back, sounding much calmer and was like “her bloodwork couldn’t be more perfect.  Let’s try switching up her food, get her on some sensitive stomach food and let’s see how she’s doing in a couple weeks.”

So two weeks later it did seem like she was doing better, I called Dr. B back and he said to bring her back in a month.

It was my plan to take her back next week when I had some PTO coming.  I admit, later than planned... my last couple of months have been mucn more focused on Leela... who, thankfully, continues to thrive.  But feeling like my time with her is running out, she’s been my main area of concern.

The last few days though, Patchy has really not been eating well.  Sometimes she does OK, sometimes nothing at all.  And then puking every day.  I swapped her back even to a few cans of the Junk Food (Whiskas) I still had laying around.  She’d eat it... and then puke it up.  And also she... stopped sleeping with me.  I thought... well, it’s summer.  It’s probably too hot to cuddle.  But she stopped laying on the bed.  She stopped coming up for pets when I come to bed and hang out for awhile specifically to spend time with her and pet her.  She runs under the bed again when I come into the room.  It’s like we regressed to three or four years ago... just two weeks after our two year anniversary of getting to pet her.

So this afternoon we went to the vet.  Getting her into the carrier sucked.  I tried nice methods, then I had to scare her into the closet by running the vacuum, and then pretty roughly grab her.  I have scratches and a pretty deep bite on my thumb which either maybe hit a nerve or is infected, may have to go to the doctor for it tomorrow. (Yes, washed it thoroughly with soap as soon as I could.)  I also hated betraying her trust that badly, but it’s for her own good.  But it was rough.

Dr B. wasn’t working so I saw one of the other vets.  I liked him. Also COVID restrictions are gone so I got to go inside. But after talking to him for a few minutes, going over her history and what changes I’ve made, he spent a long time rubbing her intestines (Patchy was perfectly behaved, at least.)   Then he looked concerned.  Then he said let’s do an ultrasound.

A few minutes he came back in and showed me her scans. 

Lymphoma.

I was a bit stunned for a second so I missed a bit of the technical speak he said next, but it came down to the best thing we could do is give her some medicine that may buy her more time.  It doesn’t sound like Chemo or Operating is even really an option.  I’m going to call back tomorrow and see if Dr. B or the vet I talked to can talk me through it a little better now that I’ve had a chance to digest.

If I can get Patchy to take the medicine, and if she responds well to it... she may have 3 - 6 months left.

If she won’t take it, or if she doesn’t respond, it’s at this point, a matter of her comfort and quality of life.  So... weeks.  And I’m worried about getting her to take the medicine, especially since she won’t even come let me pet her and we just had a huge trust betrayal today. I don’t know if I could take her spending her last few weeks hating me, especially if the medicine doesn’t work.

The vet also told me that... I didn’t do anything wrong.  And we did the right thing six or so weeks ago by changing her food and seeing if a few other things worked. Especially with how good her blookwork looked.  He barely felt the cancer today, he said six weeks ago Dr. B wouldn’t have been able to feel it at all.  And for this particular type of lymphoma... there’s not a lot to be done, anyway.  That made me feel better, at least.

(As a really dumb side note, after I got her home, I sat down to eat dinner and watch an episode of Star Trek to take my mind off of all of this since I’d been crying since I found out, paid my bill, and drove home, stopping at a drive through so I didn’t have the mental load of cooking.  And I’m in the middle of my rewatch of Enterprise.  I bet any trekkies reading this can guess what episode was next in my rewatch because yep I’m in season two and A NIGHT IN SICKBAY started playing, of course, so obviously I NOPED THE FUCK OUT OF THAT EPISODE.  For the non-Trekkies.... the Captain has a dog on board, an adorable beagle, Porthos.  The dog gets sick and almost dies and spends his night in Sickbay.  He does pull through.  But the ONE episode centered around a beloved pet getting sick and almost dying... and that’s the episode that fate decreed I was supposed to watch tonight. I did not.  I don’t know if I can watch it anytime soon.)

So now for the next few weeks I will spend my time being grateful that Leela is alive and thriving and pray she keeps doing so -- I will continue to give her extra love and care and attention, and also I will need to do the same for Patchy.  I can’t even do it at the same time because Patchy will not come out here, and will not allow Leela in her room. 

I am low-key freaking out that there’s the possibility of the nightmare scenario happening to me again.  In winter 2016, after months of being sick, I woke up on Christmas morning and my 16-year-old cat Jim had died overnight.  It was terrible, and traumatic, and I had to deal with everything all alone because anyone who could support me was... well, it was Christmas morning and my family was all out of town, too.  Posting about it on Tumblr... actually really helped me, since it’s the only place I felt like I could talk about it.

That Christmas was on a Sunday.

Wednesday morning I woke up to hearing my dog, Cebu, moaning in pain.   I rushed him to the vet, but whatever happened overnight, it was too late, maybe there wasn’t anything we ever could have done even if I’d been awake when the puking started.  The vet said the kindest thing we could do was put him to sleep.  And we did.

Also I just, JUST now realized that the vet who helped put Cebu to sleep was the same vet who I saw today about Patchy.

But I lost two of my pets within 3 days of each other.  I was very lucky that my job let us have the week between Christmas and New Years off that year.  I had a few days to pull myself together, and I needed it.  It took months to recover totally, though.  Every once in awhile I think about that week and I still cry, though.  I miss them both so much and they both had deaths that were less than ideal.

I remember thinking then “I have like, five years of reprive.  Leela will be sixteen in five years, and that’s when I have to start to worry again, when I have to be ready to say goodbye again.”

I thought then that even after that I’d have two or three years until Patchy would leave me, and two or three years past that until Fry.  And then five more years with Pemily.

Right now I’m realizing that I will likely lose Patchy, very best case in six months, but possibly before July is over.

I need Leela to keep thriving.  I don’t know how I would handle losing another two so close together again.

Patchy is... she’s the one who chose me.  I chose my other cats.  Fry and Pemily I plucked from the backyard when they were tiny kittens and brought them inside.  They didn’t have a choice.  Leela I adopted from a rescue, she didn’t have a choice.  Patchy chose to stay.  She chose to stick around when she realized I’d feed her.  It took years but she learned to trust, she chose to come inside when it was cold, when it was hot, when it was storming, and when she was pregnant.  She chose me to help raise the last litter of kittens she’d ever had.  (My entire Rescue Kitties tag is full of adventures in finding, raising and usually adopting out strays. Lots and lots of posts about Patchy and her final litter.  Been awhile since I’ve done it, though.)

I used to joke that Patchy was my roommate, not a pet.  She ate, drank, did her business, and kept to herself for a long time.  Don’t get me wrong, she was a very good, quiet, considerate roommate and I loved her.  But it wasn’t until that wonderful day she let me pet her that I felt like she was my pet. 

I loved having her just hanging out living in the house since 2014, but the last two years especially have brought me such joy.  I’ve tried to never take Patchy’s trust in me for granted.  It was EARNED.  Every small step forward was a milestone to be celebrated. I worked for every bit of trust and love Patchy has given me, and have been rewarded.  And it was worth it.  Every minute.  Every long, patient year.

Even now I’m telling myself... without me, she would have died years ago.  Probably violently, or starved, maybe frozen to death.  Getting to die of cancer brought on by older age is not something that most feral cats ever get to do.  Getting to become an inside kitty where she’s loved, and comfortable for the second half of her life was something remarkable, brought on by her wiles and will to survive for so many years, bolstered by the food I left out for her.  She’s had this much time, this much life, this much comfort and love that she would have never had otherwise, and that’s something to be happy about.

I’ve watched dozens of ferals come and go through my neighborhood throughout the years.  I feed them, I work on seeing if I can get them to trust me enough to let me TNR them, but even those that I have, I don’t keep seeing for much longer.  There’s one right now, I jokingly call him Patchy’s Boyfriend.  He still won’t trust me and never has fallen for the trap when I’ve tried.  But he’s there most nights when I feed him around 11.  He’s getting terribly thin despite the quality food I leave out.  I’ll miss him.

But none of them were Patchy.  None of them became what she is to me. None of them survived long enough to adapt and decide to live another life.

Also?  I wouldn’t have Pemily without her.  Pemily is literally Patchy’s Granddaughter and that is one more thing I love Patchy for.

I feel guilty sometimes, both because I don’t spend nearly enough waking hours with her I feel, but I have three others who need me, as well. One who’s time is growing short, as well.  And they don’t get to sleep with me, she does.  What a joy it was all winter when I would wake up and she’d be sleeping on my chest.  I’d get a bit annoyed when she’d sleep with her backside to my face and her tail would tickle my face and wake me up.  I’m a side-sleeper half the night and she hated that it was harder to get comfortable on me that way.  She still doesn’t want to have my hand just stay on her, she wants pets and skirtches, no long-form touching.  That’s ok.  I sleep better with her weight on me.

I don’t know what the next few weeks or months will hold, but at least pet-wise, it’s going to be rough.  I’m going to wrap this up and give these three out here a good pet, then go hope Patchy comes and asks for love, too.  Tomorrow is one more day with all four of them, and for that, I’ll be grateful, for every remaining day.

[is0gild]

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 5

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 5,219

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

I had perfected a system.

A system for avoiding eye contact with him.

You know… him.

He whose lips that my lips were last seen canoodling with.

That is to say, Lea.

It’d been a few days now since the little kiss incident - or Kissident, as I had taken to calling it in my head. I had not listened to Rayne’s advice, so had yet to talk to him. I’d tried, believe me, I really had tried. But just one look at him and the Kissident would flash through my brain once again in high-def and stereo surround sound, causing my heart to leap up into my throat and strangle me, making getting any words out impossible. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t do it. No way.

But that’s where my system came in! So flawless, yet so simple.

All I had to do was… not look at him.

As one might guess, that presented a bit of a challenge, given that Pizza Planet was straight across from us and given that, due to some cruel, sadistic twist of fate, his shifts seemed to almost always line up with mine. But to someone with my determination and ingenuity, not to mention years upon years of experience of avoiding human interaction like the plague? No sweat.

He looks my way? Oh hey, that ice cream cone I was getting for this customer is just right for blocking his line of sight to me. A glance from him? Man, the lights in here sure seem extra bright today, I’ll just pull the bill of my Ice Palace cap way down to shield my eyes. So much as a glimpse out of the corner of his eye? Gee, Kristoff, you make the perfect boulder for me to hide behind while I focus really hard on not existing. Or, oopsie, looks like I dropped something, time to kneel down and spend, say, I don’t know, the next five minutes picking it up.

But always, always look carefully before standing again. I’d learned my lesson there. No need for a repeat of the Kissident, thank you very much.

And if all else failed and I caught even the slightest hint that he might be out from behind his counter and heading my way? Whew, look at the time, I need to go on my break! Let me just slip into the back room and chill there until the coast’s all clear once more.

What’d I tell you? Foolproof.

Not to mention totally and one hundred percent mature. Look at me adult like a pro.

Hey, don’t knock it. It was the only way I’d managed to survive the past several days.

In any case, it was currently late afternoon. The heavy chimes of the mall’s iconic clock tower echoed throughout the all but deserted food court. By now, I was almost getting used to the rushes that came with lunchtime. Did nervous energy still course through my veins the whole time we were slammed with customers? Yes, but it wasn’t too bad. Turns out people are pretty friendly when you’re the one handing out the ice cream and feeding their sugar addiction. Plus, ever since the Kissident, I almost preferred the busy times. The throng of people was just one more thing for me to hide behind.

But now that it was dead and I had no such cover, I had to resort to one of my more drastic measures…

...a scoop.

One eye shut, I held the little metal contraption up, examining it closely.  For stains, mind you. Having sparkling, clean, spotless tools of the trade at my disposal was very important to me. Your health and safety are my top priority, dear customers.

And the fact that I was lining the scoop up perfectly so as to blot out a certain redhead from my view? Well now, that was just a bonus. Purely coincidence.

...wait… was he even still there? ...it had been several minutes since I had begun, ahem, “inspecting” the ice cream scoop. Had he really not moved from that spot? Maybe he was sneakier than I’d realized and had managed to somehow slip out from behind his counter without me noticing. Even now, as I stood here completely oblivious, he could be stalking, prowling, creeping up on me, about to catch me unawares.

I gulped, suddenly nervous. Maybe a quick look would be good… just to be sure the green eyed devil hadn’t escaped his pizza-scented, space-age themed domain. 

Licking my dry lips, I carefully squeezed the scoop’s handles together, making it split down the jagged middle just enough for me to peek through. Immediately, my muscles relaxed and I sighed in relief. Yup, still there, assisting a customer at the register.

I loosened my grip so the utensil snapped shut again, blocking him from my sight once more. Now the only person I could see at the little pizzeria was his coworker, a short, blonde guy currently pulling a pizza out of the massive oven and-

Wait a minute…

My eyebrows knit together.

Hadn’t Blondie there been working over at the Lucky Cat Café before? My gaze darted over to the little coffee place a few spaces over.  There the blue haired chick was again, but today she was accompanied by a big guy with slicked back, choppy brown hair.

Huh. Perhaps Pizza Planet offered better benefits and he’d jumped the java ship to sling dough instead? Or maybe-

“Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

I squeaked, fumbling the scoop for a few seconds before managing to get a firm grasp on it once more, hiding it behind my back as I whipped around to face the voice.

Riku stood on the other side of the countertop, arms crossed and eyelids drooping. 

I managed a weak smile for him. “Yes?”

One silver eyebrow quirked. “Then what was I saying?”

“You, er… wanted ice cream?”

“Okay, what kind of ice cream?” he rolled his eyes.

Oof, this one would be a little trickier.

Fingers fidgeting with scoop, I pursed my lips to one side. “...the cold kind?”

There was a snort from Frozone beside me as he counted the register. “She’s not wrong.”

Riku, on the other hand, merely narrowed his eyes. Somehow, I got the feeling he was not nearly as amused. Just a hunch.

Taking a step forward, I said, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, tell me what I can get for you, I promise I’m listening now.”

He fixed me with that dull stare for a few more seconds before sighing and shaking his head. “Three scoops of the Spark Lemon on a cone and a bar of the Royalberry.”

“Coming right up!” I immediately set to work, grabbing a cone off the stack, sliding open the frosted glass, and plunging the (now thoroughly vetted by me to be completely hygienic and immaculate) scoop into the giant bowl of the lemony yellow ice cream.  It was just after I had plopped down the first orb onto the cone and was going to dig up the next one when I spotted it at my peripheral. A flash of that familiar blazing crimson. Aka You-Know-Who’s hair. Thankfully, he hadn’t budged from where he was last spotted, but still… a chilling reminder.

I hesitated for a heartbeat before stabbing down into the ice cream once more. Then my gaze shifted up to Riku briefly before flicking back down with a frown. “Um… do you think maybe you could… scooch a few inches over to your left? If you don’t mind?”

His brow furrowed, then he glanced over his shoulder towards the Pizza Planet.  Putting two and two together and releasing another sigh, he sidled over, obstructing Lea from my vision. 

“Thanks,” I smiled, carving out a nice big scoop for him.

“...you haven’t talked to him yet, have you?”

I winced, but said nothing as I plonked down the second ball on top of the first.

His face softened, “Well I did talk to him and-”

“Wait, you did what?!” I snapped, forcing Riku to jerk back in surprise.  My blood ran cold. Oh, not good, this was so not good! I groaned, “No! No, no, no! You talked to him?! How could you talk to him? Gah, now he’s going to know I’ve been avoiding him!”

A snort escaped him. “You think he didn’t know that already?”

“Of course not!”

“Says the girl who was doing this not two minutes ago.” He snatched the steel scoop out of my hand, twisting around to hold it out in Lea’s direction. 

“Stop that!” I lunged forward, stretching across the counter in a desperate attempt to get the utensil back, all while miraculously keeping the small stack of ice cream balanced atop its cone.  However, he simply hopped back out of my reach. Shoulders slumping, I looked to Frozone. “Little help?”

“Oh-ho no,” he chuckled, not looking up from tallying the munny. “I’m staying outta this.”

Gee, thanks.

Riku was still holding out the scoop as I looked to him again and hissed, “He’s going to see you!”

He bit back a grin. “And when you were doing it, you were, what, invisible?”

“No, but… but…” I released an agitated huff, “two people doing it is just weird!”

“Trust me, one person doing it was weird.”

With a tiny growl, I abandoned trying to get the stupid scoop back and instead straightened up to start pacing.  “I still can’t believe you talked to him,” I thrust the cone at him accusingly as I passed him on my little patrol back and forth. “I had a plan, it was a good plan, the perfect plan, a plan that was working, and now you’ve ruined everything and it’s all-”

“What was this oh so great plan of yours?” he asked, finally dropping his hand so he could fold his arms under his chest.

I froze mid-step, shooting him a flat look. “To not talk to him!”

He snerked. “And then?”

“And then to… to... continue not talking to him! Forever!” I stamped my foot down. “And we’d live happily ever after. Not talking. Ever. The end!”

So what if I was being a bit petulant? So sue me.

He’d frigging talked to him!

Riku could kiss my employee discount goodbye, that’s for sure!

His eyes crinkled as he shook his head, “Or you could try Plan B and do this crazy little thing called using your words to put this whole mess behind you two.”

I stared hard down at the cone in my hand, pursing my lips to one side. “But we never gave Plan A a real shot. I think it has potential, so maybe I should just keep working with that one.”

Riku puffed out a breath, handing me back the scoop. “Look, like I said, I’ve spoken to him, and he totally understands. Accidents happen. But you both have to work here, so you really should clear the air. Don’t you want to feel comfortable at your job and not have things be all awkward?”

“You do realize it’s me you’re talking to, right?” I scoffed as I took it from him and dug into the tub of Spark Lemon once more. “I’m the walking, talking human form of the blush emoji. Awkward is my middle name. At this point, I don’t think I know how to be anything but.”

“Well… you do you, I guess,” he shrugged. “Just know that he’s ready to talk whenever you are, okay?”

I paused, then slowly nodded as I topped off the cone with the third and final scoop. Then pulling a bar of the Royalberry from the compact fridges below, I handed both to Riku and rang him up at the register. As he quirked an eyebrow at me charging him full price, I shot him a blank look. “You know what you did.” 

He sighed through his nose, but a grin tugged at one corner of his lips as he paid. “Fine, whatever. See you later tonight,” he waved as he walked off, licking away at his ice cream.

“Is this gonna be a problem?” I heard Frozone ask and I glanced over at him.  He didn’t look up as he closed the register with his hip, instead just gesturing with his chin towards the Pizza Planet as he jotted something down on his clipboard.

Squaring my shoulders, I shook my head. “No, no problem, I promise.”

“You sure? Do you need me to bust any heads? Rough him up? Rearrange his face?”

I fought a tiny smile. “I’m sure. No face rearranging necessary, thanks.”

Now he looked up at me, eyes deadpan. “Am I going to have to drag you over there by the ear so you two can make up and play nice?”

All color draining from my face, I was rapidly shaking my head again. “N-no, that’s okay! You have nothing to worry about, I got it all under control!”

After all, I had my super great and totally amazing system that could not, would not fail me in any conceivable way!

His face broke out into a grin. “Good, that’s what I like to hear! Now you,” he pointed at me. “Tonight. Closing. First time all by yourself. You ready?”

“Absolutely!” I nodded. “I’ve closed with Kristoff the past couple nights now and I’ve got it all down. Seems straight forward enough, I should be fine.”

Frozone cocked his head, “Should be?”

“Definitely,” I hastily corrected myself. “I will definitely be fine. Better than fine. I will be perfection! You can count on me!”

“Fantastic,” he tapped a fist to the side of my arm before turning his attention to the second register.

Surprisingly, I actually wasn’t too concerned about it.  Like I’d said, it was pretty simple stuff.  Restock napkins and spoons, refill any empty ice cream tubs, wipe down surfaces, and so on. Sure, I was being given some responsibility, but I had zero problems with that. Responsibility was easy. Responsibility I could handle. It was people that I couldn’t deal with and that was the beauty of closing: there wouldn’t be a customer in sight. I’d be all alone, just the way I liked it.

Yup, I would be totally fine.

Not a single worry here. Nope.

Alright, one worry.

One big, whopping, massive worry that I really should have seen coming from a mile away.

Guess who also happened to be closing a certain pizzeria tonight?

That’s right! A certain redhead whose name rhymes with ‘flee.’

Which, coincidentally, is exactly what I wanted to do in that very moment.

But instead I took in a deep, calming breath and steeled myself as I continued to return our freshly rinsed and sanitized scoops to their homes on the Ice Palace counter so they’d be ready to go for the morning crew tomorrow. I concentrated very hard on not looking up, always trying to remain singularly focused on each task at hand. But as if my eyeballs had minds of their own, I couldn’t deny them a brief, furtive glance through my lashes in his direction every now and again.

Like right now.

Stupid mutinous eyeballs.

He was currently just in his work polo and khakis, having discarded his apron and visor. He seemed just as determined as I was to pour all of his attention into getting his closing chores done, never once looking my way… at least, not that I was ever able to catch anyway. Since Riku’d talked to him, he probably was fully aware of how uncomfortable this whole situation was for me and was now just doing his best to give me my space. 

Having just tied off a full garbage bag, he picked it up and I stiffened as he turned in my direction. But his gaze was everywhere and anywhere but on me, face impassive as he just kept pivoting into a one-eighty, slinging the trash over his shoulder and walking out the rear door of the Pizza Planet, probably heading for the dumpster. My whole body sagged as I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

Ugh, why did I have to be making this all so weird? We were just two separate employees working our two separate jobs at two separate corners of the food court! On the surface, you wouldn’t even be able to tell there was anything wrong. So why did I feel the need to spazz in utter terror every two goddamn seconds?

Grumbling softly to myself, I quickly deposited the last of the utensils into their spots. Maybe if I hustled, I could finish everything and split before he returned. Then this could be Future Elsa’s problem to deal with, because let me tell you, Present Elsa was feeling so done with it all.  Having already topped off the ice cream bowls in the display, I moved on to snapping their lids down before double checking that the freezers below were fully stocked. Then I began shutting everything down, starting with the registers.

It was just as I had moved over to the soft serve/milkshake machine and was reaching for its power button that it happened. That Pizza Planet door opened once more. He came back. I looked. Our eyes met.

Instant.

Panic.

My chest tightened and my finger slipped, pressing down on a button.

It wasn’t the power button.

A fact that I became immediately and woefully aware of as the machine let out a decidedly unhappy sound that could most accurately be described as a banshee screech, making me jump and stumble backwards. I watched wide eyed as it began to rattle and shake, its lights and digital display screens flickering in random patterns all over with no rhyme or reason.

I’d pushed that button. The one Kristoff had warned me about. The Anger Button.

Why’d they even put the dumb Anger Button right smack dab next to the Power Button?!

What was even the point of the Anger Button?!

Suddenly, the machine was spewing lime green ice cream at me. With a tiny yelp, I ducked, narrowly avoiding getting globbed in the face as it instead splattered against the wall behind me. Straightening up, I snapped at the machine, “Hey, stop that!”

Its only answer was to fling more ice cream at me, this chunk in a cotton candy pink. I managed to dodge that attack too if only just barely before making a dive for the power button, palm slamming down on it. And that… got me zilch. If anything, the giant tin can only seemed to rumble harder as it now shot out a neon orange gush that I had to sharply crane my neck to evade.

“I said stop that! Right now!” I scolded it. As if making demands of the thing would actually do any good. I mashed the power button several more times, to zero effect. Now in full on freak out mode, I desperately started pressing all the other buttons, flipping all the switches, and yanking all the levers as I continued to dodge the now rapid fire spray of chocolate-vanilla mixed bullets flying at me while its quaking grew more violent and its high-pitched shrieking just kept getting louder and louder.

I only seemed to be pissing it off more.

Like the legendary apple of biblical fame that never should have been eaten, I’d pressed the button that never should have been pressed. I’d enraged the ice cream gods and now they were punishing me. Smiting me for my foolishness, making me suffer their divine, sugary-sweet wrath.

“What do you want from me?!” I shouted at it in frustration, snatching my cap off my head and using it to smother the nozzle in a pathetic attempt to stem the never-ending flood of ice cream. “What will make you happy?! A ritualistic dance? An offering of my blood? The sacrifice of a small child? What?!”

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A blur of movement. A streak of crimson. None other than a very familiar redhead vaulting himself over the Ice Palace countertop and landing right next to me.

I only had time to gawk at Lea before he was grabbing my shoulders and yanking me out of the way. The second my hat was off the spout, he was blasted with what was now a vibrant rainbow torrent of ice cream, drenching him from head to toe. Using one arm as a shield, he groped around the machine with his other hand until he found the power cord, seized it in his fist and ripped the plug out of the wall.

Almost instantly the machine stilled and the metallic screaming died down. The hush that followed was almost eerie by comparison. Wringing my cap between my hands, all I could do was gape as Lea turned to me, cold iridescent slush dripping from every inch of him as he wordlessly held the cord out to me. I blinked down at it.

...well fudge, why didn’t I think of that?

I mean seriously, I’d tried to negotiate with the damn bucket of bolts and even suggested presenting an infant up in offering to appease the almighty dessert deities before the mere thought of pulling the plug had crossed my mind.

I really needed to get my priorities straight.

I slowly took the cord from his hand before hesitantly looking back up at him. Still he was silent. Maybe he was trying to let me take the lead on this, waiting for me to make the first move. My lips parted, but nothing came out.

...well? Go on already, say something! Anything! Stop just staring at him like a total goob!

“You…”

You helped me when you had absolutely no reason to.

You were amazing.

You’re a total hero.

“...are covered in ice cream.”

...ah, me. Master conversationalist. Queen of Wit.

Stating the super obvious was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

His head rocked back slightly at that. “Huh? Oh,” he looked down at himself with a soft chuckle. “Yeah, guess I am.”

Alright, Elsa, let’s try that again. Take two.

I cleared my throat and averted my gaze. “...th-thanks.”

Alright, so I’m not going to be winning any sort of originality awards there, but hey, I liked to think it was at least a step up from my last comment.

He gave a dismissive wave, sending a few multi-colored droplets spattering with the gesture. “Don’t mention it.” He rubbed the nape of his neck. There was a long, painfully awkward pause where neither of us spoke or looked at each other. Then he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “Well… guess I’ll be going... then...”

He turned, planting his hands on the counter, preparing to catapult himself back over to the food court side. But then he stopped, just standing there for a couple seconds before puffing out a low breath and glancing back at me. “Look, about the, ah… the-”

“Kissident?” I blurted out.

...what the hell, mouth? I’d told you that codename in confidence! I thought we were friends!

“...sure? Okay, yeah, I guess that’d be a word for it,” he rubbed a curled knuckle along his lips, hiding a tiny smile. Or maybe he was just wiping some of the frozen muck away. It was anyone’s guess, really. “Whatever you want to call it, do you think maybe we could just... forget it ever happened? Hit the rewind button and do this whole first impression thing over again?”

Could… could we even do that?

Was that, like… allowed?

Realizing I was twisting my work cap to the point now where it was going to be filing charges against me for domestic abuse, I loosened my grip on it slightly as I gave a slow nod. “I would… really like that, actually.”

Would you look at that? I’d not only managed to string more than two words together, but in a way that suggested some form of minor human intellect no less. Progress!

Wiping his hand off on one of the few dry spots still left on his pants, he stretched it out to me. “Hi there, name’s Lea. Got it memorized?”

I stared at it for a second, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth. Then shifting the cord and hat to one hand, I reached out my other one to tentatively shake his. “Elsa. It’s... a pleasure to meet you.”

He grinned, “Likewise.”

And just like that, a weight had been lifted. All that stress and anxiety shrank down to next to nothing. Not completely gone, mind you. It’s not like you could totally erase something like the Kissident, not with a simple handshake anyway. But still, it was suddenly a lot better than it had been over the past few days. At least I could once again breathe in the presence of this man.

He also seemed to sense the tension banishing. My hand tingled a bit as Lea released it and he beamed at me, bouncing on his toes slightly. But then he frowned as he seemed to abruptly remember that he was still caked in sugary goop as he glanced down at himself again. “Shit, it really got me good, huh?” Hooking a finger in his collar, he tugged it out wide so he could look down inside and grimaced. “Ick, even managed to get all in my shirt. I love ice cream more than the next guy, but even I have my limits.”

And then, I kid you not, right then and there, still standing beside me behind the little Ice Palace counter, with all the scoops and cones around to bear witness, he reached over his shoulder, grabbed the back of his polo and pulled it up over his head and off.

A tiny noise escaped me that may or may not have resembled a “meep” as I dropped the cord and hid my face in my hat.

...had he really just done that? Surely not! I had to have imagined it! Although if it was just my imagination, why my brain felt the need to supply the picture at this exact moment was a whole other can of worms that I wasn’t particularly prepared to deal with at this time. But putting the Why aside, an overactive imagination would be the only thing that would make sense! I mean, it made more sense than some presumably half-way sane person just starting to strip in the middle of a public mall literally three seconds after being formally introduced to an all but total stranger!

Get a grip. It was all in my head. I had to be seeing things.

With a firm nod and a fortifying huff through my nose, I lowered my cap just a smidge to take a peek.

Then right back up the hat went.

Yeah, no, it was real. There was totally just some topless dude standing two feet away from me using his balled-up shirt to wipe ice cream off his abs.

...his well-sculpted, leanly muscled abs.

...not that I particularly paid attention to such things.

“Sorry,” I heard him say, my spine snapping rigid at the sound of his voice. “But this stuff’s gonna get super gross super fast unless I take care of it now. Hope ya don’t mind.”

Heart spasming and face sizzling, I shook my head quickly and opened my mouth to respond but-

“Hey! What are you doing back there?!”

I jerked my head up at the new gruff voice and looked out into the food court where two men now stood, one with his arms crossed, both scowling. The guy on the left was a big, stocky fellow with a square jaw and chiseled features, his ginger hair kept short and slicked back. His partner, who was almost just as big, had thick sideburns that hooked around his cheeks and wore his black hair in long dreadlocks tied back into a ponytail. They were dressed as mall security, the names on their uniforms reading Aeleus and Dilan.

As they both slowly stalked towards the counter, eyes narrowed on Lea, the one with dreads, Dilan, asked me sternly, “Is this degenerate bothering you, miss?”

My gaze just darted back and forth between the two of them as Lea threw his hands up, “Hey, woah now, you got it all wrong! I was just helping her out!”

Aeleus gave him a dull look, eyeing Lea’s current state of partial undress then curling his lip slightly. “Sure you were, buddy.”

“Oh come on! I don’t recognize you guys so you must be new, but I work here! See?” Lea unfurled his polo as evidence, only to discover the Pizza Planet logo on it had been hidden by a thick coat of ice cream. With a groan, he tried to swipe it clean, but the stuff had already hardened into place. Facepalming with a growl, Lea then looked to me. “Go on, tell them!”

...me?! He wanted my help?

Hadn’t he learned by now what a complete and total disaster I was in social situations?

No, don’t think like that. The guy had just rushed to my aid a few minutes ago and now it was time to repay the favor. I had this.

...I hoped.

“I-it’s alright,” I stammered out to the security guards, “everything is fine! This is all just a… a big misunderstanding! It’s actually just so silly, really. It all started earlier this week when he caught me off guard and all of sudden we were kissing and-”

“Excuse me?” Dilan asked coldly, turning his glare full blast on Lea. “Are you telling me this lowlife assaulted you?”

Paling, I rushed to reply, “No, no! It’s okay! It’s all good now because, see, just a bit ago, he charged at me, threw himself over the counter, slathered himself up in ice cream, took off his shirt and-”

Wait.

This was all coming out so wrong.

“That’s it, I’ve heard enough,” Aeleus ground out through his teeth, pulling a pair of handcuffs off his belt. “You’re coming with us.”

With a snort and a smirk, Lea pulled down his left lower eyelid with his middle finger and stuck his tongue out at them. “Fine then, be that way! But you meatheads’ll have to catch me first. Here!” He chucked his ruined shirt at Aeleus’s face. Then shooting a wink my way, he turned and bolted out the Ice Palace’s rear door.

“He’s trying to escape out the back!” Dilan catapulted over the counter as Aeleus snatched the polo off his face with a snarl. As he barreled through the same door, Dilan called back over his shoulder, “I’ll chase after him, you go around and try to cut him off!”

Aeleus gave a stiff nod before running off to the left and out of my sight.

So there I was. Soggy cap a crumpled wad in my tight, white-knuckled grip as I now just stood there, frozen and blinking in the middle of the Ice Palace, ice cream splashed across the walls and dripping from the machinery and ceiling.  And all I could do was wonder…

...how on earth I was going to explain all of this to my boss.

Author’s note: Oh em gee, at long last, HE SPEAKS! Not only that, he has absolutely ZERO shame! But that's okay, Elsa's got more than enough shame for the both of them xD And of course, I had to insert his obligatory catch phrase along the way xP But what’s this? The small, tentative makings of a possible friendship has started to form? Madness! And wouldja look at that… a certain pair of castle guards are now mall security, but Lea’s still giving them the ol’ runaround… guess some things never change xD Side note, looks like in this AU, Elsa is just as bad at controlling her ice cream powers as ever (buh dum tss!). And for those who don’t remember from BBS because it’s been too long or whatever, minor fun fact: Spark Lemon and Royalberry are ice cream flavors from that game! Worry not, I’ll exhaust the whole BBS ice cream list before long in this story, mark my word!

Next chapter, will this delicate new friendship blossom even further? Will Lea safely escape the clutches of mall security? And just how WILL Elsa explain the Ice Palace ice cream mess to her boss? Stay tuned to find out! Thanks for reading, I super duper appreciate it! And an extra BIG thank you to those of you who’ve started following me, seeing that always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

[margaritabloom]

This just has not been a good month. 😞 First my mom had to go to the ER for a UTI for 5 days & came back with a slew of new medicine and issues. I didn't mention it cause I didn't want to bring anyone else's Christmas down. And now I spent my Christmas night at the emergency vet for my little baby James. He's been lethargic, not eating and turns out he had a temp of 104! My anxiety has just been in overdrive worrying about what could be wrong with him. Felt like I was having panic attacks all night. They wanted around $800 at the vet which I didn't have so they helped out a little bit, took off some discounts etc and got it down but still $385 is a lot of money! He's worth it but I'm going to have to be late on some bills. Thankfully, my mom is pretty much covered except for the $35 for her prescriptions. I'm still waiting to hear back about the urinalysis they did on him. James drank a bit of water earlier which is a good sign but still hasn't eaten. :( I'm making him some chicken now. I hope he even just nibbles on one piece. He hasn't eaten in about a day! I'm so freaking worried about him! This was really a kick in the patootie having to spend all this money so if anyone is so inclined to help my little James out it would mean the world to me and my little sweetheart. You can stop by my shop www.margarita-bloom.com and place an order or just feel free to donate towards his vet bills via my paypal if you prefer: margaritabloom@yahoo.com 💗💗💗 Any little bit would really help....I just really wasn't expecting all of this. I'm so overwhelmed. It really feels weird asking for help and I don't usually do this and just struggle through whatever issue I have but I'd do anything for my little kitties. They're so full of love and just so pure. They deserve the best of everything. . #margaritabloom #kitty #cat #sad #Christmas #kittycat #cats_of_instagram #loveyou #iloveyou #mybaby #bills #worried #kittylove #pure #sweet #mylove #december #anxiety #family #furbaby #sweetheart #casanova #purelove #pet #sick https://www.instagram.com/p/B6jQvX2gxPj/?igshid=8i9o8c9s6338

[hellotinywonder]

ten years later...

[Česká Verze] This has been kicking around my head as of late, I have a dear new friend who doesn’t speak much English, and I’ve wanted to tell him about this weird, terrible moment in my life that fundamentally changed who I am and how I will forever interact with the world (both in good ways and bad). But I don’t know how to.  So I am writing it all down, which is something I have never done. And then I will leave it here, and of course, once a year I will remember and shake my fist at the world for myself and all the other victims of violent men, and then I will put my fist down, and get back to living my life.  It’s that time of year, though...

I’ve been thinking about this a lot.  It comes unbidden in the middle of the night.  When someone is walking too quickly toward me.  When someone says something inappropriate online or in person. When too many of the boxes, of that pattern of violence I have permanently etched in my head, get ticked… I think:

“Ten years ago someone tried to kill you... maybe you should run.” (Obvious content warnings apply, readers: Violence.)

Ten years is so long.  I have adapted.  I have moved past it.  But the parts of that night, those horrific hours in the morning… 4am. 5am. In the ER by 6am… the parts that are left, I feel are going to stay with me forever.

They don’t haunt, so much.  They are just there.  In the corners.  They keep me aware.  So in some ways, they keep me safe.

Daniel Rhinehardt was my housemate.  (How do I refer to him?  There is nothing colloquial about him at all, but since this is going up online, as a statement of public record, as a possible search result for Google, that might warn some poor woman who doesn’t know… Daniel Rhinehardt is his name, and I will refer to him as such.)  We did lots of things together, because I am the type, I have discovered, who likes housemates as community.  I have had many successful versions of communal housemates, who cooked together, or went on mundane errands, that sort of thing.  With no hidden agenda, no sense of obligation… healthy relationships between people.  This was not one of them.  But I was too young and naive to figure that out in time.

I won’t go into too many details, but this man became obsessed with me.  I remember being on tour for a month, bills paid in advance, and I received harassing phone calls from him because I hadn’t called him, or some nonsense like that.  We did our first Dragon Con (major convention in Atlanta, that I performed at or now do puppetry at) that year, and he came with us to sell merch.  I woke up one morning in my band’s hotel room to find him in bed next to me, which unnerved me (I had specifically requested my female friend sleep with me, to keep this weird toxicity I was starting to pick up on away).  I was looking for apartments in September of 2008.  I was looking. I hadn’t said anything, but I knew I had to leave, but I just didn’t pull it all together fast enough.

On September 20th, 2008, at my friend David’s birthday, Rhinehardt got drunk.  At the time I did not drink and was babysitting friend of mine on the roof.  They were a bit touchy feely as they were on some other substances, but I didn’t mind. I trusted them and I knew I was in control of my situation.  When we decided it was time for me to go to bed, we all cuddled a bit and they each kissed me goodnight.  They were a married couple, and there was nothing untoward with silly friendly kisses, but it set Rhinehardt off. He started yelling nonsense and threw a chair off the roof (it was caught by a lower tier, and did not fall to the street).  He stormed off screaming garbled obscenities and was gone.  The night was thrown into disarray.  We tried to call him because we were all concerned.  But I was also starting to panic.  I took a hit of my inhaler and we went back downstairs into David’s apartment.  I sat on her bed while some friends talked me down and told me I really needed to move out. I agreed and told them how I had been looking, but couldn’t find anything at the time.  I don’t know how long we were there in the apartment when Rhinehardt came back in, yelling nonsense, walked straight in at me and stabbed me in the side.

I would like to take a brief moment to mention a memory that I can never shake.  One day, apropos of nothing, Daniel Rhinehardt told me that if he was ever going to stab someone he would make sure to swing in from the side.  That is where all the organs are, defenseless.  It was so much more work to stab from the front or the back because of the ribcage.  He *told* me that once.  Well before, I think, he had any designs of stabbing me… but he told me that.  He thought it was impressive.  This vast knowledge of violence.

“...stabbed me in the side.”  It looks so small to read it back.  Such a small action.  How does it reverberate even now?

Thankfully I had enough reactionary sense to move as much as I could, being seated on a bed, and turned myself away so that his fist, no, knife… both... hit my hip and lodged there 3 inches, (8cm or so), instead of my side.  My organs were spared, and while the scar tissue presses against it, my sciatic nerve and artery were both missed.

I screamed.  He pulled the knife back and tried to stab me again, but was pulled off by someone else.  Matt McCorkle, David Forbes, and Luke Withrow all had a hand in saving my life that night.  Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if they weren’t there, if I had gone home.  Best not to think about it, not now or ever.  It would not have been good.  As fucked as I was, I was still somehow, always, lucky.

Then came the insanity that was bleeding all over my friend’s bed and floor.  Rhinehardt was pushed out of the apartment, the door was locked.  Every time someone knocked on that door I lost my shit, completely terrified.  But at the same time I was in shock and trying to sort out how I could avoid going to the hospital, one seemingly completely logical thought was: Matt’s dad was a vet… so we had access to medical supplies?  My health insurance did not start for another TEN DAYS.  (Thank you for absolutely nothing, America.)  911 was called, because of course it was. I had been stabbed right in front of a group of friends and party-goers.  I was left, lying on the floor, while Luke and Danielle held towels against my hip and thigh to try to stop the bleeding.

That’s how it went for 20 minutes? 2 hours? I could not tell (of course it couldn’t have been 2 hours, but I lost all track fo time).  Eventually paramedics arrived, cut my pants off, staunch the bleeding as best they could (my inhaler I took during the panic attack was working as a blood thinner, so that was miserable) and whisked me away.

Shock is a wonderful feeling.  I mean, it’s horrible, but it does keep you calm.  I “made friends” with them, they were very excited about their new sealing product for puncture wounds.  They whisked me into an ER.  Where I was photographed, documented, scrubbed, sutured, stapled, and asked a million questions I didn’t know how to answer.

Meanwhile everyone was sort of detained at the apartment -now crime scene- to give statements.  More photographs were taken.  I’m told they are available somewhere, public record, but I’ve never seen them.  I’ve asked once, but was unable to track them down.

I was told by the detective on my case, no, *the* case (it would become very apparent that this was not MY case, rather I was the VICTIM in the STATE’s case) that I could not go home.  It was not safe.  Did I have anywhere to go?  Anyone I could stay with?  I didn’t know.  I had friends… but I knew Matt, Amanda, David, Luke, Danielle… but I didn’t know anyone’s last names, didn’t know how to contact anyone… I am not sure if I even had my phone, no… now that I think of it,I think my phone and my bag were left behind on the floor of the apartment.  I was given crutches, scrubs (again, my pants had been cut off), and my shoes, and a voucher for a taxi, and discharged around 9am.

I was given back my shoes.  Little beat up black ballet flats.  I just stared at them.  They were splattered with blood.  I stood there in what must be one of the most cinematic scenes of my life, a mess, leaning on crutches, completely alone in a hospital lobby, as the sun crested the mountain and poured over me.  A man offered me a wheelchair, but due to the location of my wound, I was unable to sit down.  I hobbled to the sidewalk… I had no bag, no belongings, just my shoes in my hands, and as the cab driver came over to me I saw Luke and Danielle turn the corner.  They had come to find me, and subsequently adopt me.  We went back to Matt and Amanda’s apartment, which was in the same building as mine. Rhinehardt was still in jail at the time, so we went through my apartment and grabbed some essentials.  Some clothes, my laptop, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (a book I had been meaning to read), Agatha (the cat I had been cat sitting) and some other items I forget.  We sat around Matt and Amanda’s apartment for a bit, then, exhausted, back to Luke and Danielle’s where I would live for the next few weeks.  Daniel Rhinehardt would be released on bail that night, and he would never go back to jail for this crime.  Because that is how the system works in North Carolina.

When I made it back to Luke and Danielle’s house I remember calling my parents. Calling my friend Tom in the wee hours of the morning, because of the time zone, and leaving a message saying something like “you should call me back as soon as you get this.” I called work and asked to not come in for a bit.  I tried to explain.  

These mundane exercises.

I needed to inform my people.

I started using Facebook for only that reason.  To tell my people from Charlotte, my hometown (no, I don’t claim that often) that I would be back for a short stay, couldn’t drive, needed help.  Needed people around me… I don’t know.  I do know that Erich Moffitt, an ex -but I thought friend- never returned my call.  Just left me out there, drifting in the darkest void I’ve ever drifted in.  So... yeah, a polite fuck you, dude.

Everything went from bad to worse as I tried to recover, but there were still wonderful highlights to cling to.  My friend Tom created a paypal donation site for me, as I was uninsured and would need help covering the medical bills (though in the end Victim’s Compensation would cover them, but not before they went into default and cruel creditors would harass me and call the incident of someone stabbing me an “accident”), I was caught by an incredible network of friends in Asheville, who I am forever overjoyed to see, who I can rely on to this day, and I love dearly.  My birthday, 2 days later on Sept 23rd, I spent in Charlotte, my parents collected me and took me to their home a few hours away for a few days following which made sense.  It was during a gas crisis, but I didn’t know.  My friend Mike Walker and his wife Mary came to my parent’s house, collected me in the back of their car, and drove me out for Ethiopian food on my birthday.  It was truly special.

I bonded so much with Agatha, the cat, who I was cat sitting, in Luke and Danielle’s little guest room.  She was my constant companion as I recovered.  I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  It is one of my favourite books to this day.  It is easy, beautiful, densely illustrated, and I would get lost in it.  I would read it over and over, or just open it and look at it.  It’s still a comfort that I can’t quite describe.  Calm, dark, stable.  An adventure, but a safe one. (Fun fact, I buy copies of that book whenever I see them in second hand shops, to give to friends.  I have one now that was just unknowingly claimed by someone.)

I was wearing my punk rock jacket, covered in patches and badges, when I was stabbed, but thought nothing of it.  When I was in the courthouse, filing for a temporary restraining order, I put some coins in my pocket and they fell out onto the floor.  The knife had gone straight through.  I later stitched it back shut in red, and then silver thread over where the staples had gone.  The punkest punk rock jacket.  I still have it, but I don’t wear it anymore.

I came back to Asheville too soon, to do a Hellblinki show.  I was incredibly out of it.  I remember Ian (who I would date for 5 years, much later) visiting that show and hugging me and having no earthly idea what I had been through.  (It should have been a warning, really, I think now, but from a place of happiness, love, and sarcasm.)  I passed out on the couch at the venue.  The bar staff and owner knew what was up and looked out for me, and told me if I ever needed anything, ANYTHING, just come to them.  Just go to The Rocket Club and they would sort it.  The Rocket Club is gone now, but I think to think that the offer still stands with Ken.

I recovered physically.  I used a cane for a while, but eventually, now, I am 99%.  That 1% shows up now and again, excruciating pain if getting a massage, or just weird weather patterns and scar tissue.

Emotionally and mentally I am okay.  I have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), but that’s not surprising.  If and when I run into Daniel Rhinehardt, and I have the unbelievable misfortune of doing so now and again, I sort of “blackout”.  I go into this incredible fight or flight response moment, and I always choose flight.  It’s not an option.  It is done for me.  I “come to” as I am running down a street, hiding in a bathroom, or driving away (it’s terrifying to sort of “wake up” in your own body and find you’ve been driving a car.)  These blackouts aren’t black, but I become much more a passenger and my lizard-brain takes over.  I’m mostly aware of what is happening, but I am not the one in control.

Daniel Rhinehardt received no jail time.  He was given probation, required counseling, and is a convicted felon.  It’s not much.  It’s not much, but at least it is not nothing.  He does have a record.  And he’s added to it since me.  That’s the main reason I am writing this.  Because he attacked women after me.

I would later have several women come tell me how he had abused them or been violent, but they were always too afraid to go to the police.  This breaks my heart and makes me incredibly angry.  I would have never been put in this danger if there was some record, if people warned each other about violent men.  Thankfully we as a culture are better about that now, ten years later.  The sentencing hearing at court would be laughable if it wasn’t so goddamn tragic.  Rhinehardt's lawyer claimed he only drank that night because he didn’t want to be rude to his host, then asserting that his drunkenness somehow means his violence wasn’t actually him.  David grabbed my hand.  I could tell she was furious.  I was in a weird state of disbelief and also just acceptance that the NC Court System did not and does not give a fuck about me.

After the court hearing I was dazed.  But I remember we walked out into the gray February day, and got coffees.  What else can you do?  I had gotten knocked about so much over those 5 months that nothing shocked me.  I just accepted it as best I could.  And had coffee.

I got a restraining order, but every year when I went back to renew it some judge behind a desk made me feel like I didn’t deserve it, because if it had not been violated, why did I need it?  One of them, the last one (before I stopped going, not needing to expose myself to that trauma over and over) called me “Miss Rhinehardt”, just truly horrible people who absolutely did not care about me.  Again, North Carolina, I am looking at you with so much contempt for how you treat women.

All of my legal work was handled pro bono by Pisgah Legal, and I am thankful to them forever.  I was terrified I would not qualify or I would have to prove this happened, or I don’t know what, but no, I was firmly supported and told that the 911 call and the photos were terrible, but also incredibly damning in my favor.  An odd benefit, I guess. Also, since my attack is technically domestic violence, I had access to counseling through Helpmate and OurVoice, who are both fantastic resources.

I applied for a passport.  Just seemed the right thing to do. I wanted to leave the country.  I wanted to leave it all behind for just a bit.  The passport came in the mail, but on the same day, a check from Victim’s Compensation reimbursing me, finally, for all the medical bills I had been forced to cover, arrived.  I put the two together and a few months later left the country to go do a festival with band family in London and Whitby, and visit my dear friend Xavi Quero in Barcelona, Catalonia.

There’s more mess afterward as well...  I can never quite write it all, and maybe what is left out will just fade away into obscurity.  But this is enough.  Except it is worth saying: a couple years later a woman reached out to me on Facebook because she was dating Daniel Rhinehardt and he was scaring her.  She heard about me and wanted to know if “it was all true”.  He had told her that he had a record, but said that I had cheated on him or some other nonsense, which is ridiculous for several reasons (we were not dating, gross, and if ever we were- HOW DOES THAT JUSTIFY ATTACKING A WOMAN!?)  lots of red flags on that one, but this woman didn’t see them until too late.  I did warn her, and she got away, or so I was told.  But a few months later he was arrested for assault on a female, and she had a broken jaw.  I don’t know if they are the same, but I’ve got decent powers of deduction.

He was arrested another time as well, as I was informed via mugshot (I don’t ever need to see that face again, thank you, but there it was) for another assault on a female.  I don’t know the story, I don’t want to know… and I probably already know.  It’s a pattern.  I recognize patterns.

I mentioned that I’ve run into him.  That’s god-awful.  I have another friend who looks vaguely like him, which leads to a cute comedy of errors, that still involves a PTSD meltdown for me.  I am getting better about it, and this friend knows what I am really asking if I say “Are you at Restaurant X? Or Hey, are you downtown?” because I am giving myself a precious few seconds hoping for a “yes, that’s me!” and then relief… though usually it ends up with me hyperventilating somewhere else, after having run off, literally without thinking.

But, Valerie!  You’re usually so positive about things!  What is the silver lining of all this?

No. I’m not there yet, but I am getting there.  There is something horrible about having someone try to kill you.  Someone you trusted.  Something that breaks inside you and will never be the same.  It’s strange to have a moment when someone else decided they wanted to control your fate, your life, and by control I mean try to fuck it up horrifically, or just… end it.  Someone tried to end me.  Me.  That damaged my psyche for a long time… maybe permanently, though I have put my own spin on it.

There is something about this incident that left me feeling like less of a person, I was to another human being (no matter how terrible a person): dispensable.  I will always struggle with that, copying it over to other relationships with decent enough people, this disposability.  I don’t have inherently low self esteem or anything, but as I mentioned before, something, some trust in human decency… broke.  And I’ve never been able to put it back together right.

I worry that I give this incident too much weight, but I swear to you, fereverently, it weighs only as much as it does.  But that fluctuates.  Am I digging up the past to make drama? No.  I am trying to explain how I got here, how I became the person I am.  I am always trying to accept this.  Accept the reactions of the people around me. (The local paper referred to me, anonymously, as having been “stabbed in the buttocks”.  This led to a weird sort of dark comedy, because how silly it all sounded.  Some people would latch onto that, I would sometimes try to laugh about it too, a forced laugh.  It was really horrific to have some friends very close to me miss the seriousness of my situation because of one shitty line of reporting.  I laughed along, but I was really, really broken about that for a while.)

Trying to explain to a beautiful new friend that I am fine now, but I was not always fine, and that I fought like hell to be the shining happy blueberry girl that I get to be today. But I, like any woman who has ever stepped forward and said: “Hold on, this man did X to me”, I feel like I am fighting a world that will not believe me, despite as my lawyer mentioned, the overwhelming amount of proof, evidence, the fact that this did happen, is documented, and yet people still turn a blind eye, or make excuses.  It is maddening.  It is soul destroying.

I have people I meet who inadvertently overstep. (I have a creepy neighbour who was following that pattern of violence I mentioned, and I am completely terrified of him.)  I still have trouble dealing with them.  Almost always men.  Men who want to get too close, who miss social cues, who are creepy, who seem to want something from me. I am working on accepting that a man who is interested in me, when I am not interested in him, is not necessarily a threat. They are not all threats.  They are not going to try to murder you just because you turn them down.  But I am not there yet.  I am still working on that.  It’s a work in progress...

My positive spin?  Pragmatism.  I have a deeply ingrained understanding that tomorrow is promised to no one.  So now, while I do so responsibly, I am pretty good about going after what I want, in good ways.  It took me awhile to work back to this, but I have found a healthy balance of being responsible, and chasing after whimsy because who knows, the world could end tomorrow.  My friend, who I mentioned at the top, told me once that I was brave, having caught up to him on a random adventure by myself on the other side of the world.  Bravery never occurred to me.  It was a factor, sure, I’m brave, but it was really: “No, I want to see this friend.  And I could die next week.”  I don’t think like that… not really, that I might die next week, month, year… but at the same time I do, but with different wording.  I just think “I want this experience in my life, and now might be the only chance I get, so I am going to make it happen to the best of my ability.”

Also, I adventure.  I do incredible things, and my life has been pretty spectacular so far.  I am proud of the work I have done, the art I have made, and I treasure the friendships I’ve found and the experiences I’ve had.  That is my revenge.  Daniel Rhinehardt tried to end me.  Tried to irreversibly ruin my life, and he failed.  And, while it took some time to pull my parts back together, I have done more than just survive him, I have thrived.

A friend mentioned that to me after I had a particularly good day recently (I played puppets with my art hero and fairygodfather, who I will not mention here for the same google search result reasons), she said something along the lines of “You’re doing a lot more than just surviving.” It caught me off guard, I forgot she even knew about my whole getting-stabbed incident… I don’t mind people knowing, it is a part of who I am now.  I thought about it, and said “yes.”  It’s true.  That’s my goal.  That’s what I am doing.  And I’m okay with that.

I have mentioned a few times that one of the impetus of this tirade of tragedy is this new friend of mine, who is learning English, so I wanted to have this written down, messy as it may be, so that I am not dumping a bunch of English words on him with a context that is not easily understood with new words, (and made up words as I try to describe messy feelings not found in a textbook)… but also for my English speaking friends, because I’ve never really unloaded the whole story, or even this much of the story to anyone… I am open to sharing it, but really, sharing it is exhausting.  I get a weird surge of adrenaline when I explain it, but that adrenaline is coming from fear, mistrust, vulnerability… and it just vibrates through my system with no outlet until I realize I don’t want it.  I don’t need it.  I’m just wiped out.

But this friend.  I am going to visit him and others in a different location, still on the other side of the world, in a few months.  We met in Japan, so why not continue meeting in far off countries where I have a clumsy or nearly nonexistent grasp of the language?  What could possibly go wrong? I was explaining this to my mother a week or so ago, my trip plans, dates I’m looking at, etc, and she asked me (supportively) a very motherly question:  “Do you trust this person?”

And I answered without even thinking, or maybe I did think, but it was reactionary: “Yes. Implicitly.”  I told her.  And he’s not the first stranger-turned-friend that I have trusted implicitly, there have been several over the past few years.  Like-minded individuals who I am introduced to, or who I stumble upon and I get them, they get me, and I trust them inherently, implicitly, and with all my heart.  This has been years in the works, to get back to this point, where I can just accept a person who is good, who will look out for me, who cares for me without wanting anything in return.  A mutual trust and vulnerability.  I am lucky to have this back.

I am in a good place now.  I have been in a good place for a while.  This series of terrible moments from ten years ago left a mark, and changed who I am, but also changed me into who I am today.  And I am happy with the person I ended up as.  I’m not thanking any horrific person for trying to kill me, goodness no. He’s a terrible human being, and every woman should stay well away from him. 

I guess there is one thing undeniably positive thing I have taken away from this horrific series of events.  I’ve been through some rough times in my life since then, but nothing ever like that.  And to all of it I have been able to say: “I’ve survived worse than this.”  

And it’s gotten me through a lot.

It has sort of changed my perspective, it can sometimes be a comfort or a place of strength.

Also, I quietly know that I would win every argument of “worst housemate ever”.

That’s it, really. ��No overarching summary or call to action… maybe “be kind.” Try being a good person to each other, and if you see someone leaning towards violence, stop it.  Call the cops, I don’t like cops either, but you shut that down when you see it.  Put it on their record.  Give them a record.  They’ve earned it. Make them show up in that cursory google search.

Give the next woman a fighting chance.

afterward, another reason why I wrote this, as I explained in my letter to my aforementioned friend:

...and I remember thinking to myself: "oh, scars..." and looking at you and wishing this information was already in your head, but no, I would have to put it there.   So I said something like: "there is not enough time" and I left it there.     But I hope you also know, from having met me, that I'm alright now.  I wasn't for a while.  But I am now.

I hope you all understand.

[porchwood]

I wish I could even begin to articulate how difficult things are in my life right now. I’ve admitted to depression in previous posts but that’s barely a fraction of the picture. In mid-December I lost my just-barely-sustaining-me job because my boss closed her bodywork practice, and if you live anywhere with seasonal traffic, you know that the off-season is the worst possible time to find work, especially if you’re in a tourism-fueled industry. I was able to cobble together two days a week each at two different places (a spa and a yoga studio) but traffic is still painfully slow and no matter what the law says, no one wants to pay their therapists if there aren’t clients coming in. I’ve been creeping by on about $250 a week at a time of year when it costs $300-400 a month to heat an apartment to 60 degrees. (That’s the lowest possible temp at which I don’t have to keep Lucky in a sweater. :/ I can’t begin to comprehend why propane is so inefficient.) Thankfully I have a roommate (and a good one) to help offset utilities, but unfortunately, I’m dealing with a lot more than that.

There was a glitch with the direct deposit at my second job and I only just received all my wages for the month of January, which will significantly help out for the moment, but that money would have been awfully nice to have for groceries (and heat bills) in January. I’m not starving by any means, but I’m truly living week-to-week and I can physically tell that I’m not getting enough protein (because meat is expensive, even for a bargain shopper).

Right after Christmas I had a terrifying episode of chest pain and wound up in the emergency room at 1am. (I don’t go to the hospital for anything, so that should tell you what a desperate situation this was.) The hospital experience was terrible to say the least, and about three weeks later I got a bill for $1,343 (and a subsequent smaller one for my chest x-ray), because my Obamacare policy covered nothing. (Let that sink in, okay? They “adjusted” the fee but covered no part. Of an ER visit - in-network, no less! - which is the end-all reason everyone tells you that you need health insurance.) I applied for financial assistance right away, which required exhaustive paperwork, only to be informed that they need my 2017 tax return (this was before I’d even received my W-2s) or they would automatically reject my application. Which means I now have to come up with a couple hundred dollars to have my taxes done in order to - wait for it - qualify for a payment plan. It’s pretty clear that I’m not going to receive any assistance or bill forgiveness (if your income isn’t below a particular number - and ironically, my 2016 income was - it’s an automatic rejection), but they won’t even let you have a payment plan (for a $1,343 bill) unless you send them gobs of paperwork demonstrating sufficient financial need.

Lucky’s separation anxiety is relentless and responding to nothing, and I spent the month of January making weekly 90-minute round trips to a veterinary acupuncturist, to the tune of $400+ (maxing out my credit cards in the hope that finally, this would help). Lucky hated the treatments (and I hated myself for putting her through them), her anxiety only got worse and the day before my birthday, the downstairs neighbors left a note implying that if I don’t put her in daycare (which is a whole other mess of a subject), they’ll report us to the landlord.

That night was the lowest I think I’ve ever come in my life. Thankfully, my sister must have picked up on this somehow because she called to chat for a little, but it was the first time I actually looked up the contact info for Lifeline (didn’t call but looked it up), and when my poor roommate finally got home I broke down in ugly tears and told her about something bad that happened to me a long time ago that I’ve never told anyone.

Right now I’m...coping. I guess that’s the only word for it. I’m eating, bathing, dressing, going to work, going outside, etc - and most importantly, taking care of Lucky, who is my literal lifeline. I’ve found one last vet to try and we’re going in tomorrow for a consult, but my roommate is dubious about the chances of success and concerned that the neighbors will flip that I’m not putting Lucky straight into a kennel this week. But right now the future boils down to two equally awful prospects:

1) I get Lucky vaccinated for bordetella and board her at the safest place I can find, to the tune of $20-30 a day (plus round-trip drives of about 30-40 mins twice a day), and try to function at work. There’s no way I can afford those rates, of course, and most of these places only take cash, so I’ll have to get another credit card to pay for living expenses while my wages go to daycare. Or I could look into getting a third job, but that would mean another day or two of daycare to pay for, so I wouldn’t be getting ahead, I’d be exhausted out of my mind, and I’d never see my little girl, who is not a young dog anymore.

2) I move permanently back to Nebraska (in stages, because there’s no way I can afford a U-Haul anytime soon) and continue to pay my half of rent and utilities as long as my roommate wants to stay here. (That was our arrangement last winter and remains the only fair thing to do, really, especially as subletting is forbidden.) My sister would take me in at her tiny house and probably let me stay rent-free, but now my aging father is back in Nebraska, and while my sister and I would buffer each other as much as possible, we’d be expected (read: pressured) to serve as caregivers to some extent, especially me, because I’m a massage therapist. And there aren’t a lot of resources to help you deal with an elderly narcissist. (Fun example: Dad ranted to my sister that he didn’t know why I moved to Maine right before he returned to Nebraska because, and I quote, “She only went to massage school so she could take care of me!” He also lamented to a friend - in front of my sister - that he’s not going to get any more grandchildren because my still-unmarried sister is about to turn 40. Which is a horrible thing to say in and of itself, but I don’t think it even occurred to him in the moment that his youngest child doesn’t have a reproductive system anymore and that the loss of it made her want to die.) Someday I might tell you about the rift with my parents, if I haven’t already - it’s not the aforementioned bad thing from my childhood, but it effectively means that I don’t have parents anymore, not in any kind of supportive sense.

Anyway, I’m scared and weary and hopeless and I hate the assumption that when someone isn’t engaging through social media or responding to messages that they’re self-centered, snooty, having too much fun to bother, etc. My life began to crumble four years ago and has continued at a relentless snowball-roll ever since without getting minutely better or even letting up a little, and I can’t swim a lick so I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep treading water indefinitely. And I don’t want to talk about it because even the nicest of those conversations start with “Are things getting any better?” and the answer is always, ALWAYS, “No.”

I don’t expect sympathy or support, because four years of relentless crap have taught me that the worse your life gets, the less people care. It becomes part of your identity to them (”Well, sounds like Elisabeth’s having some trouble again...”) and, I suspect, starts to paint you as a person who just can’t figure it out/get on in the real world, not someone who’s being subjected to an inordinate amount of bad fortune. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail just to survive these past four years, and if God and the world could agree that, just maybe, I finally deserve a little break, maybe I could stop subsisting and start rebuilding from the wreckage.

[ghostlaundry]

Hey guys I've tried making this post a couple times but Tumblr wouldn't post it for some reason??? Anyway, a couple days ago my cat Merlin got very sick, he started throwing up and acting very strangely. It was clear he was upset - which is unusual. We took him to the vet and turns out he ate something he shouldn't have - for a while we were concerned it could be intestinal blockage because the X-rays suggested that could be the case. We ended up having to leave him at the pet ER overnight which cost us way much more than we could afford. They gave him medication, multiple X-rays, and kept him on fluids through the night. The poor baby had a very rough time. And unfortunately the whole ordeal cost us $1500. Thankfully our boy is okay now, but we are just struggling a lot financially right now.

 If you guys didn't know I just moved recently to Atlanta from Miami, and this week my roommates and I are moving into a different apartment. We don't make a ton of money or anything, we're just a few recently graduated young ppl working to pay our bills and our basic needs. We are sadly just not in any place to be dropping $1500 so suddenly. If you guys could please reblog this I would greatly appreciate it, or if you have the means and are willing to donate, we would be so incredibly grateful. You guys know I've never made a post like this, and it's because I don't like asking for money, but we really need the help this time. Thank you so much for reading!

www.youcaring.com/merlinthecat

[charamath]

Hello everyone!  Sorry for the lack of posts recently.  Things were already pretty darn crazy around here this month, but last week things really took a turn for the worse.  I had to rush my fluffy derp, Zena, to the vet ER last week.  Two emergency surgeries, a removed septic spleen, dozens of staples and tubes, four days and a fun hunger strike later and she’s finally home.  She still has a super complicated care schedule for the next month, however, and I am officially super in-debt to my wonderful partner for his help with the extremely costly bills. 

I’m attempting to catch up on things, but the book, commissions and show prep are currently my priority so I can start paying him back.  But the craziest part is thankfully past so I hope I can get back to operating like normal.

Thank you everyone for your patience!  I’ll be posting more soon.

[wholeasscoyote]

They fuckin complained about $400?!?!?! A dear friend of mine just lost her greyhound because he randomly had complications where he ate, threw up, then didn’t want to walk/get up and didn’t wanna eat. It was a weekend. They called an ER vet (we thankfully have a couple in out area) and JUST to see her pup for an exam and testing, $400. Basically to walk in the DOOR it was that much. They found out he had liver cancer and intestinal bleeding and wouldn’t live past the next few weeks so he was humanely put down. Their bill ended up being over $900. I understand that expenses come from the cost of tools/chemicals/time, but some of that shit is still stupidly ridiculous in pricing. A lot of people themselves avoid going for help themselves because of that shit. But we take our animals to get help and they get REAMED. Its not fair to the animal nor the human.

My best friend sent me a snap of her vet bill (from the clinic I worked at) saying “$300, what an expensive dog” (for a normal once a year checkup, all 3 year vaccines, and prednisone). Then said she should have gone to the SPCA as it was cheaper. I said “I’m tired of people complaining of the cost of vet care, it’s that price for a reason and it gets old fast when that’s all you hear”. To which she told me I was being “defensive” and “taking things personally”. I’m quite mad. Did I overreact?

(2)  And I forgot to say - I’m in vet school, second year. I also worked at that clinic. And she constantly asks me for free vet advice.

This is a situation that comes up a lot in a range of situations, and it SUCKS. People in general do not understand why vet bills are expensive, which I can kinda get, but they also don’t seem to understand why it’s rude to say that! 

I don’t know where you’re from, but where I’m from the main source of these complaints is the difference in price between our vet bills and our publicly funded health care system. On top of this, people here usually have some form of health insurance so if they want to get private health care, they can do so in a relatively affordable way. 

But I also know that in countries without public health care (cough USA cough) you still hear these complaints. And I have a theory that it’s related to the difference in how people view vets and doctors. Doctors are usually viewed as these amazing intelligent lifesavers (sorry for the pressure guys, that sucks in a whole different way) while vets are these people who know stuff, but they are very much there to provide a service to the pet owner. I also think we invite clients more into some of the “simpler” aspects of veterinary medicine, while maintaining SUCH mystery around the more complex things that the complexities almost cease to exist in the client’s mind.

So to answer your question, I don’t think you overreacted. This is a problem that’s rampant in veterinary medicine, and one of the worst parts is that it often comes from the people closest to us. If she’s really your best friend, she should be able to listen to and respect your feelings - especially when you’re telling her something she said about your profession hurt you! Unfortunately this is a deeply ingrained opinion in our society, so I can also understand why she got upset being called out for it - it’s hard to be told that you’re wrong when it’s an opinion you’ve never stopped to question. It’s the same with the free advice thing, people just expect it and don’t stop to think about what it means to the people behind the veterinary qualification they want to exploit. 

One of the most valuable life skills I’ve learnt from vet med is the ability to explain things clearly and calmly even when I’m feeling very emotional. That will come with time as you move through your degree, and I hope that you’ll be able to use that skill to educate this person in a way that will help them understand

[chaoticreation]

idk what to do anymore. Over $2200 was due for taxes on November 18th. Wasn't paid because we don't have it. Another $2000+ will be due in December.

My van's warranty expires December 3rd and it's $2500 to renew it.

If I lose my home because we can't pay taxes, I'll be living out of my van, which I can't afford to repair if I can't renew the warranty. Even if I don't lose my home, I live in a place with no public transit or deliveries. I can't afford to lose my only means of transportation. It'll be a death sentence.

Meanwhile, I still can't take Syd the Cockatiel ( @sydthetiel ) to the vet because they want money day of visit and I don't have it. I've gone through 3 nebulizers that haven't worked so I can't give her treatment. So it's only a matter of time before I lose her. I owe $2000 for Taz's medical bills because his pet insurance is pulling a bunch of bullshit with both of their claims.

I'm begging for help. If you can't donate to https://www.gofundme.com/.../help-disabled-mother-and-son... at the very least, SHARE THE SHIT OUT OF IT. EVERYWHERE, EVERY DAY. SHARE THIS POST.

I'm feeling so hopeless. I'm ready to give up.

Reasons I’m in this mess under the cut:

June - Well pump broke. Gov’t wouldn’t help, so we had to use our saved up tax money to pay to replace it. Me, Syd & Taz went two weeks without water. It cost over $2,000 to replace it, but also put a huge dent in my credit card because it meant I had to use bathrooms at gas stations and eat at restaurants. July - Taz had a sinus infection. Got him treated. He was getting better. August - Taz got seriously sick in a different way (but insurance won’t cover it because they’re claiming it’s preexisting conditions) and spent 3 days, 3 hours away from home. Strangers gave me money to eat because my Credit Card was in the process of being replaced after fraudulent charges were made on it. After we got home, he passed away. The ER bills were over $2,200 and another $200 for his cremation. September - Syd got sick. We’re at well over $1,000 for her, and insurance keeps claiming they don’t have the documents that we sent. I’ve since stopped taking her because I can’t afford it. I have no choice but to accept her death once she stops fighting. She’s trying hard. She deserves better than this. October - we were without heat for 2 weeks when the furnace broke. Thankfully, that was covered by HEAP. But I’m sure it didn’t help with the electric bill to run the space heater.

[hawkland]

sigh

Going back to the vet with Mischief tonight - she still doesn’t want to eat and barely moved off the sofa. Finally got her to drink water this morning, which she did so ravenously, and then went and peed dark blood. Called and her bloodwork was inconclusive but with a lot of problems, I’m hoping now it’s just a bad UTI but they are probably going to want to hospitalize her (this after me arguing on the phone about how, no, I really don’t think I should have to pay another $100 emergency vet exam fee tonight when she doesn’t NEED to see the ER vet again, the regular vet had appointments available, and she just had a full work up done yesterday. And then they weirdly tried to cancel my appointment and thankfully the receptionist called me back like, “Did you cancel that appointment to see the ER doc again” and I was all NO.)

Sigh. I normally like this vet hospital a lot but I feel like I’m getting shenanigans to jack up the bill right now. And meanwhile I’m just hoping when I get home from work today my poor girl will still be alive (I would have taken off but literally there was no one to cover work, and I didn’t know HOW bad things were until I already left the house.)

[charlesjening]

Oh Hey, We Found the Absolute Worst Partner in All of Public Accounting Right Here

I wasn’t gonna write anything today and I definitely wasn’t going to write up something I found on Reddit, but when I spotted this post on r/accounting, you know I just had to. I’m passionate about two things when it comes to content on this website: cats and creeper dudes who can’t keep it in their pants. Thankfully, the following is about the former:

Writes OP:

So I posted earlier about my cat. She had seizures last friday so I missed work to bring her to ER vet. They found out she is in congestive heart failure due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I stay home from work on Monday because I was devasted and wouldn’t be able to concentrate at work and would probably spend most of my time crying in the bathroom. I go to work Tuesday and the partner chews me out saying that he is not going to have some cat stop him from making his millions. I wanted to tell him where he can shove his millions but I didn’t because I just spent $2000 in vet bills. Weds. my cat has breathing problems and take her to ER again. She had to get a surgical procedure done to remove excess fluid from her abdomen. Vet tells me she can breathe much better but I need to monitor her for 24 hours to make sure she remains stable. So here I am afraid to tell the partner that I need to work from home b/c of surgical after care.

Now you say, why don’t you put her down? My cat is stll being her cat self with a voracious appetite. She is still doing her cat thing other than the excess fluid. The vet says she is nowhere near the end…yet. I can’t give up on my cat. She was there for me when my mother was dying from cancer. I can’t abandon her. She is my fur baby.

It’s not likework is not getting done. It is. Partner is just antsy. He expects me to just go to work and leave my cat to die or put her down cuz its inconvenient for him? What would you do?

Look, I get it, there are people out there who think “it’s just a cat” and don’t understand why you have one in your home at all, much less clean up after it and put up with it constantly ruining your shit and flinging hair everywhere. But you don’t have to be a cat lover to understand why this is messed up.

And I’m just gonna say it: personal circumstances are personal circumstances. I’m not going to say that a sick kid is equivalent to a dying cat, but both situations involve personally-important causes and are, hopefully, rare occurrences that shouldn’t often affect your work life. But sometimes they do. In those rare cases, is it really too much to ask to be able to work from home just that one day?

Now, I suppose it would have been possible for OP to keep kitty at the vet for observation, but anyone who has ever funded even the briefest of stays at the emergency vet knows that ain’t cheap. And everyone here knows public accounting salaries aren’t so great across the board that we can expect the average grunt to be able to fund extraordinary vet care, including boarding and observation. Asking to work at home so OP can keep an eye on kitty per doctor’s orders is not at all extreme, nor does it warrant an attitude that basically implies a sick cat is inconveniencing the firm somehow.

I of all people can recognize that sometimes cats can interfere with one’s job, like that time I ran off to Connecticut to go rescue cats from a hoarder house with zero notice and made Colin do my job for four days while I paraded around in a hazmat suit. But assuming we’re getting the full story here and OP is otherwise a hardworking, valued contributor to the firm, then the partner is a dick.

Paws up if you agree, but feel free to express opinions to the contrary in the comments if you so desire. Except “dogs are better than cats,” that’s gonna get ya banned, end of story.

*cat in photo not actual cat in Reddit post