#wine ask

[hellenhighwater]

So. Wait. Walnut ink why? Very cool but this is a WILD think to pick up

My self-assigned project post Hobbit Camp has been working on my calligraphy--the event had a real deficit of up-to-date signage, and while I'm sure they'll get that sorted, I've given myself until Brandywine Year Two to get my calligraphy presentable enough to make notices on demand.

Also there's a 150 year old walnut tree in my backyard raining a relentless pelt of edible tennis balls down on me, and I've learned that trying to process them to be edible is much more work than it's worth, and this way....hey, free ink to practice with.

Also walnut ink is like. really old. And shockingly easy to make.

[hellenhighwater]

if you had a daemon, what would it be?

I did, and it was Nimitz, the Terror of the Underbrush. Mutilator of foes and guide in darkness, she who has gone before me.

[hellenhighwater]

How are you so productive? I'm also adhd (or add technically, I forget if they're currently considered separate) and I spend an enormous amount of time failing to start tasks. How do you do it?? (And can you teach me how)

It's sort of a procrastination juggling act. Everything stays in motion because everything is delaying something else--I really ought to be making more pepper jam but instead I'm making walnut ink. And I meant to be working on the oil lamp at the studio but instead I'm doing little watercolor studies, and I should painting my tent but instead I'm doing calligraphy homework, and all of that is me hiding from doing the dishes in the sink. It's sort of a logic puzzle where paint a target on The Big Task and then stay in motion with all the other projects. I don't have to do the Big Task but I do have to do something.

I haven't figured out how to not procrastinate, but even if my executives are gonna be dysfunctional I'm still making them go to work.

[hellenhighwater]

malice and vice and mayhem are all very pretty. Just wanted to put that out there :)

you're correct and you should say it

[hellenhighwater]

Have you ever thought about training your cats to use buttons to talk? I follow elsiewants (author Mary Robinette Kowal's cat) and they look like an extraordinary tool to better communicate with one's cats! If you have thought about it and decided not to, would you mind sharing the reason?

They're so cool but I don't think they'd allow my cats to communicate more clearly than they already do. Like, I don't have any problem understanding when Mal is saying she wants to wear her harness and go outside, or when Vice wants to be spun like a curling stone, or when Maybe wants to go to the basement. As the person with the most brain computing power in this relationship, it's my job to bridge the communication gap with my pets. I think it's a delightful training method and it does have upsides for some uses, but... I don't need it to understand what my pets want. Training them on buttons would be a backwards step, in some ways, especially for cats like Malice who are not especially reward-motivated. Yes, I could teach her to push a button when she wants to tell me to go to bed on time so she can get her scheduled cuddles in, but she already has a word for that. And it's yelling at me from the top of the stairs and then sulking in my bed.

I think it's a fun training trick but I'm more interested in meeting my cats on their terms than I am in teaching them to meet me on mine.

[hellenhighwater]

Do you only like adopting long haired cats or is it pure coincidence?

I love cats, period, but I grew up with Kitten Little, first and fiercest, who was equal parts long fur and bad attitude, and while I can emulate the attitude, I'll leave the fur to the cats.

So yes. I have had to tell my local shelter to not give me longhair kittens or I will not give them back and mostly they've respected that. But then they gave me baby jane...and, well, she's still here.

[hellenhighwater]

DO you regret DRINK TIME? How is that working out?

DRINK TIME is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, so fucking heavy. DRINK TIME is easily six hundred pounds and you know what? I moved that bitch into my house myself and it was a Bad (Drink) Time.

You know what else is also true? I don't really like having people in my house. Like. I built this thing for ME. So I don't host here a ton. And the whole point of DRINK TIME is that it;'s a novelty hosting gag--a vending machine in a residence, which also spits out beverages at random like a terrible genie of drunkenness. So like. this is not a super logical use of space for a person who doesn't host that much. Don't get me wrong. I have never halfassed anything in my life and if I felt like DRINK TIME was contributing to the game I would keep it around. But alas. that heaby bastardo gotta get out of here.

I might get a plastic-pod vending machine instead since there is still something abut the delightful random chance of vending machines that appeals to me. but drink time is SO big. and SO heavy. what was I doing.

[hellenhighwater]

If you could have a full length conversation with one of your cats, which one would you choose and why?

Vice, for the sole and exclusive purpose of explaining to him that vet visits are okay and to trust me on this one.

Mostly I don't struggle to communicate with my pets. I rarely find myself struggling to figure out what they want--they communicate quite clearly, and Mal and Mayhem both trust me enough that necessary travel is relatively low-stress. But Vice...Vice is smart enough to know what it means when the carrier comes out, and he makes things so much worse for himself.

Obviously the way that animals understand the world is alien to us, but I am also fully confident that my pets know I love them; they express that understanding daily and without reservation. So really I'd just want them to trust me to handle the things beyond their understanding.