Snell Slimesletter ๐ŸŒ ๐Ÿ—ž๏ธ

A random happy cucumber-eating photo to precede the less-than-happy State of the Snells.

๐ŸŒ Wild Snails + Snailio Iglesias Tank ๐ŸŒ

Doing well, knock on wood. Snailio Iglesias is growing.

๐ŸŒ Original Group Tank ๐ŸŒ

Only one Aspersa and two Otala Lacteas left. As you might guess, one died over the weekend. The others continue to barely eat. I donโ€™t expect them to survive. No more riccardoella is visible, but I continue to treat with hypoaspis.

๐ŸŒ Baby Aspersa Tank ๐ŸŒ

Not babies anymore, and have in fact begun to mate. I hoped to have culled the ones that werenโ€™t quiteโ€ฆ rightโ€ฆ for their own well-being. And some definitely arenโ€™t, but two in particular are struggling with serious deep retraction syndrome. One seems unable to โ€œrightโ€ himself within his shell, and canโ€™t come out most of the time. He is not sick, just not โ€œrightโ€. Iโ€™m guessing poor genes. I believe he is suffering as a result and I am considering possibly euthanizing him.

๐ŸŒ Helix Pomatia Tank ๐ŸŒ

After my horror of finding riccardoella there too, I began a very aggressive hypoaspis treatment. No news in that regard. Iโ€™m going to continue to treat aggressively for months going forward. Iโ€™m just sad about it.

Thatโ€™s basically it, I just wanted to give an update on snells. Itโ€™s been pretty stressful, I wonโ€™t lie.

State Of The Squelf: Almost September Edition

Hello hello, welcome to your grumpy Monday morning post. ๐ŸŒž ๐Ÿ’€

Itโ€™s almost time for our End of Summer LAN, and I am so sad that it wonโ€™t happen this year. ๐Ÿ˜žBut I did get to have my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the year yesterday, so not all seasonal pleasures are lost… ๐Ÿ ๐Ÿ‚ ๐ŸŽƒ

I went to bed with a headache and I woke up with one as well, but overall, it was a good weekend.

On Saturday I went to Hobby Lobby crossing my fingers Iโ€™d find everything on my list, which doesnโ€™t usually happen, but I did! I got a garland to decorate the library, some boxes to organize things there, pebbles to use with my snailsโ€™ water dishes so I can have more water in their tanks without risk of drowning and so improve the humidity, two necklace chains (one for a key my husband gave me on our wedding day, and another for a bunny key I got last year with my Charlie Bear Best Friends Club necklace from last year) and a cork board for the library also.

Here are some photos of the library remodel:

That afternoon our friends Kris and Fern came over to help us make a hole in the wall for our new cat door. ๐Ÿˆ ๐Ÿšช

We โ€œjokinglyโ€ call it my โ€œr*pe prevention kitty doorโ€ ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™€๏ธ which isnโ€™t something to joke about but the truth is my fear of that happening (or someone entering the house during the day and hurting me) is very real. Iโ€™ve been keeping the back door to the porch open for months during the day so the cats can come in and out at their leisure, and this is just not the kind of neighborhood to do this.

Itโ€™s not a bad neighborhood but crime does happen, as well as breaking and entering, and an open door while I am upstairs, sometimes showering or napping, is an invitation to a tragedy. Iโ€™ve been very worried for a long time, but a lot of the stressed and destructive behavior of the cats improved so much when I began to keep the porch door open, that it seemed worth the risk.

Installing the cat door was no joke; it took both of my friends and my husband hours, with all kinds of power tools, and between buying tools and renting them, and the cost of the door and the tunnel segments to go through the thick wall, it ended up being a painful close to $300. ๐Ÿ’ธ๐Ÿ’ธ๐Ÿ’ธ

The guys worked really, really hard. They had to go through solid block. But they did an awesome job. Now Iโ€™m trying to get the cats used to it. The tunnel is a bit long, so I worry about our older cat, Kotoko. But so far all other cats have at least come out on the porch.

The next day Kris and I went out on a long drive to Ft. Myers. We never really went out just the two of us to talk and have fun before, and it was really enjoyable. ๐ŸŒˆ ๐Ÿ’•

The drive was wonderful, we had lunch at a great little Tex-Mex place in Downtown Ft. Myers, I checked out a small toy store that had some Jelly Cats and evening a single Steiff bear, and then we went to Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve. That park is supposed to have plenty of wild life, even bobcats, deer and black bears! But we didnโ€™t see any. We could hear the otters in the distance but didnโ€™t see any at the otter pond. We saw some turtles, and some colorful locusts and butterflies, and some apple snails. Oh, and a woodpecker, too.

Mostly, it was too hot for any animals to come out. The water was perfectly still. Even though we didnโ€™t see many animals it was a wonderful time and I hope to go again. Kris told me many stories about fateful animal encounters in his youth as we walked.

Here are some photos I took during our walk:

Once we walked through the trail, we began to drive home. Kris tried to show off his truckโ€™s four wheel drive but the truck got immediately stuck in sugar sand which was hilarious. We were incredibly lucky because we had not even been stuck five minutes when a Good Samaritan stopped by to help with a chain, and we were soon on our again.

We stopped on our way home to look for gators, and we found one!

You can barely see it in this photo:

That whole area was pretty in a way. Florida can be very pretty at times.

I also got to chase some vultures, but secretly I was afraid they would chase me back. ๐Ÿ™ƒ

We stopped by Tijuana Flats on the way back and brought back dinner for us and Christopher. Kris left soon after we ate.

It was a really good day but by the time I got home I had a headache and was too exhausted to think. I went to bed early, and I am still tired. So with this post written, Iโ€™m going to try to rest a little more before I start my day. This cat has me trapped anyway (and sheโ€™s made typing this post really hard):

๐Ÿฑ My Rosie Was Featured on The Crime Reel’s Petty Crime! ๐Ÿฑ

You may remember the keeper of my heart, my little Rosemary:

Well some weeks back I submitted her to my favorite YouTube crime channel, The Crime Reel, and today, she was featured! If you click below the video will start at the moment her feature begins.

If you enjoy true crime stories, I really recommend The Crime Reel. He posts interesting stories that I’ve often never heard of before, and what really sets the channel aside, is that he narrates them with so much empathy, truly humanizing the victims. I look forward to every new video.

Itโ€™s Another Day Of Some Sort ๐Ÿ—‘๏ธ

Time for an update.

My mood isnโ€™t any betterโ€ฆ if anything, itโ€™s worse. Lol. ๐Ÿ™ƒ But I do appreciate the kind comments I got yesterday over on FA even if I havenโ€™t replied to them all (Iโ€™ll try, I just have no energy.)

My original snails havenโ€™t shown signs of mites in a week and a half now, but cannot be coaxed to eat. I am seeing them waste away before my very eyes, so slowly. Itโ€™s breaking my heart every morning I see all the food uneaten. ๐Ÿ˜ž

My poms are now being treated for mites also. Iโ€™m so gutted about finding mites in them that I can hardly bear to look at them. The idea of them wasting away like my other snails makes me sick. Iโ€™m just devastated honestly.

Yesterday was date night and a bright spot in an otherwise terrible week. We watched the new Aggretsuko season, though we are not done, so NO SPOILERS, please. ๐Ÿ™…โ€โ™€๏ธ We also watched some really old Doctor Who episodes, and played Puyo Puyo Tetris. We got takeout from one of my favorite Argentinean places and that really helped to cheer me up a lot.

Other than the snail situation making me terribly sad, today is a day like any other โ€”like the blur that has been this year, full of disappointments and stress. Iโ€™m trying to allow myself to express that here, since itโ€™s not like Iโ€™m so grumpy 100% of the time, or so depressed. A lot of the time, this is a really happy blog. But right now Iโ€™m not happy at all.

Iโ€™m not really looking for anyone to cheer me up. So if you read this, please donโ€™t feel bad for seeing me be sad or upset. It actually does mean something, that someone is reading this. And if youโ€™re having a bad week too, hang in there. I may whine a lot, but deep inside I know Iโ€™m still trying. You should too as long as youโ€™re alive and kicking. ๐Ÿ’•๐ŸŒˆ

Iโ€™ve started taking a morning nap, so as a result of getting up a half hour earlier, I basically lose and hour and a half later. But it makes me less grumpy. ๐Ÿ˜’

Ordering more bears would be great and it does keep me cheerful while I wait for one and then for a while after it gets hereโ€ฆ and I have been eyeing Anniversary Graemeโ€ฆ ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿ‘ˆ๐Ÿ’ง but Iโ€™m trying not to owe any more art. So no more bears for now. ๐Ÿ’”

I did finish another draft for a chapter of Meganeea so now I should have two more chapters to draft before normal updates can resume.

I guess thatโ€™s all Iโ€™ve got for you for now.

I Just Kinda Hate Everything ๐Ÿ™ƒ

I do try to remain positive on here, and when I donโ€™t, to not follow it by another negative post, especially when my life is so good overall, but I need to vent somewhere, even if I feel my problems are all first-world, and they are, so please bear with me as I scream into my privileged void.

We are going to bed a half hour earlier and getting up a half hour earlier, and for both my husband and me, it has created no end of misery. I do it because if I sleep, I lose my chance of 15 minutes with him in the morning as he gets ready, and right now every minute with him feels precious. But I am irritable and tired, and he is just tired. Then he leaves, and I donโ€™t see him again til 9:00 pm when we have dinner the moment he walks through the door.

By then, Iโ€™ve been so hungry, snacked so much, that I continue to get heavier and more unhappy about it. I want to exercise to balance this out, but even as I wake up today, at 7:15 am the temp was 81ยฐ, or 91ยฐ with the current humidity, an utter misery and in the hundreds by the time I want to exercise.

It seems so petty to be irritated by waking up at 7:15 am, perfectly normal time that it is, and a half hour longer I am a different person. Itโ€™s also not like I donโ€™t know what truly waking up early is: it is waking up at 4:30 am to take a bus, a train, and another bus, to make it to work before 8:00 am and with 45 minutes to spare until your workplace opens, because if you miss a single bus or train youโ€™d be late so you need that buffer. I did that, for months, so I know what that feels like, and how ridiculous our current complaint is. But for some reason, it really, really is very hard to have a good morning as a result. Even though I sleep well enough, and certainly enough hours.

Compounding my bad mood, yesterday I noticed a single mite in my most precious snails, my poms. I wanted to cry. Itโ€™s possible however that they too came with mites, likely being wild snails. Only two weeks ago did I put them in soil without hypoaspis since their arrival, so it could be I had been treating them all along without realizing it and stopped too soon. I donโ€™t know. But, more hypoaspis are arriving today and Iโ€™m going to be very aggressive treating these snails because if these die, I wonโ€™t want to have snails anymore or ever again.

Meanwhile, the four left of my original group havenโ€™t shown mites in well over a week, but they are weak and will not eat. So the prognosis is bad.

In spite of all this I am still trying my hardest with everything. Work on the book continues, with another chapter completed; commission work continues with a comic for Snowthebear now in process of inking and Islandโ€™s commission being shaded. I keep up with my housework. I keep doing my best.

Above all, even though he mostly lays on the couch in the evenings (or used to) while I go about my business, I miss Christopherโ€™s presence in the house very deeply. We spend, on average, two hours a day together. Due to his snoring, we currently donโ€™t even sleep together. Iโ€™ve gotten used to the loneliness caused by the pandemic, to almost not seeing my mom at all this year, to not having our dinners or parties anymore. Mites aside, the snails help, as do the cats, as do my stuffed animals, and books. But for all I have, without my husband I am so unhappy. Not being able to sit in a coffee shop, people watching while I work, makes it much harder, as this helped my loneliness a lot.

All plans canceled and nothing to look forward to. Iโ€™m becoming bitter and jaded about it all. Everything just seems to matter less and less.

Please donโ€™t think Iโ€™m not grateful for all I have: a beautiful home, a library, lots of toys, good things to eat, my pets, a loving husband. Honestly having so much just makes my being morose and depressed all the more a source of guilt.

I am not asking for advice or solutions. I just needed to vent.

The one upside in my life right now is how good of a decision it was to leave all the sites I left (primarily Twitter but also everywhere else.) The last step I took was a permanent Twitter block, so even without my account, I canโ€™t ever visit Twitter or Tumblr on any of my devices, even when my main blocks are off, those are never available. Itโ€™s effectively as though those sites no longer exist for me and itโ€™s so freeing.

Anyway I am going to try to nap my grumpiness away, before I start my day properly. Sorry for all the venting. Itโ€™s all been adding up.

I Donโ€™t Know Whatโ€™s Wrong

Itโ€™s like the worst PMS ever, only after my period. I am in such a bad mood. I am not enjoying my work. My spirits are as low as possible, though Iโ€™m more profoundly irritable than depressed. I donโ€™t feel sick. I just feel awful and the only thing that seems to make it better is sleep (until I wake up.)

As of typing this I have a mild headache, but thatโ€™s it. I donโ€™t have a fever or anything. Iโ€™m just so irritable and tired.

Iโ€™m sorry for being so quiet everywhere. I hate not being productive and this is not conductive to being productive. I know it wonโ€™t last forever but please be patient with me while it is going on.

Halloween Noms [Base by Baronessa] ๐ŸŽ๐ŸŽƒ๐Ÿฆ‡๐Ÿ‘ป

A little Halloween icon made from this base by Baronessa AKA PastelDawg https://www.furaffinity.net/view/17845560/

๐Ÿ„ You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Copyright is ยฉ 2020 by Marina Neira McKinzie. Original base by Baronessa/PastelDawg on FA.