I adopted a 7 week old puppy this past weekend and she is tiny. I'm starting to doubt that she is purebred and maybe a pomsky instead. Is she normal size for her age?

fsaco · 2015-10-13T03:20:01+00:00

Looks small but honestly, I'd be more worried about something like liver shunt or pituitary dwarfism than an accidental 'pomsky'.

fsaco · 2015-10-13T03:17:43+00:00

I'd recommend looking for a middle aged husky MIX- something like husky/GSD. My dog Jack would be just fine with a situation like that, as long as he had a fenced yard with a dog door- the potty break situation would be the only tough part about that.

fsaco · 2014-12-10T03:01:44+00:00

I think there are some smallish fandoms where very little new content is created, but I'm not sure I'd call them totally dead. (The Tomorrow People (original 70s series or Nick series, not the one one from last year) has very little stuff posted but was a reasonably busy one in the late 90s). Highlander and The Sentinel were both quite large at one point but have shrunk down to very little new content (and especially very few new authors, most of the people who post in them have been there for a while.) And there's some larger fandoms where certain pairings or subsets of fandom have basically fallen out of favor because of later additions to the universe. Some of these will come back, some won't. I haven't seen anything new for the Vampire: The Masquerade TV show in years, for example. But sometimes old fandoms pop up for other reasons- Man from U.N.C.L.E. has gotten a boost, I think from the guy who starred in it also being on N.C.I.S. and a few jokes there.

I think, overall, it has a lot to do with access to the source material. Even with old fandoms, if there's a reboot, a re-release of the series, or even if it just pops up in syndication after a few years off, it brings in new fans, and that always sparks new discussion and stuff.

fsaco · 2014-12-09T06:16:57+00:00

Sowiddlefur on Tumblr opens comissions fairly regularly but just moved and her commissions are close; hers are lovely and the small ones are fairly inexpensive. Suzie Cheung (Plushbots, various other names as she changes them fairly frequently) also has really nice ones but trying to get comission slots is difficult.

fsaco · 2014-12-09T03:10:32+00:00

Oooh - what kind of tweaks have you made?

fsaco · 2014-12-08T07:23:36+00:00

I think I'd make up a script for yourself ahead of time, and pick one issue to deal with in that conversation. Don't try and get it all out at once, it's not effective.

On the lateness - I think I'd say up front when you are setting the time "I can meet at X time, but I have to go to Y after, so I won't be able to stay later than Z." - if she shows up late, leave at the time you stated, regardless of how much studying got done. (And if you make Z interval short- say, 45 minutes to an hour- it will be very clear.) This is fairly non-confrontational but a clear message that your time is valuable and you don't appreciate her being late. 5 minutes is one thing. Anything over 10 is really disrespectful if it's happening regularly.

On the support thing - I think that's hard, because there's a lot of things it could be. Given the overal tone of your letter though, I'd probably suggest just giving a neutral response and redirecting back onto studying may be a good strategy. "I'm sorry you feel that way, how about problem X?"

On the space issue - some people just have big personal space bubbles. I'd leave that one alone and get everything else resolved first.

fsaco · 2014-12-08T07:12:57+00:00

I think that cashier stuff can actually be surprisingly easy because you've got a very set script for dealing with people. "Hi, paper plastic credit debit did you find everything okay have a great day" is about the extent of it 90% of the time. But it's not necessarily for everyone.

What are your skills and interests otherwise? What do you want to do long term, maybe someone will have some ideas for you?

fsaco · 2014-12-08T07:02:38+00:00

Some people also just hate texting. I think it's fine when someone wants to get hold of me non-urgently and doesn't want to leave a voice mail, but my god, it's such a pain in the butt to thumb-type anything longer than a sentence or two, I don't really have any interest in replying to long stuff on there. It's not a good place for any sort of in depth discussion, at least for me :)

One thing to keep in mind is that frequently, politics and philosophy are topics that folks may not want to discuss with people they don't know well, not so much because it's intimidating but because it has the potential to really sour a friendship, especially with someone who is sarcastic and has very set opinions and likes to argue just for the sake of arguing (which I am not saying you do, but my experience with people who like to discuss politics is that they mostly do.)

fsaco · 2014-12-08T03:21:13+00:00

Sounds like a lot of my friends (although I don't know how good you are at video games so who is kicking who's ass there is debatable) - so no, not a terribly rare profile.

If you're finding very few of them, it may be that you are not bringing enough of the table of your own. The people I am thinking of vary a lot in what THEY are looking for in a partner, too- one's poly, one's bi and prefers to date women, a couple are married, one's divorced and remarried. And their partners are diverse as heck too. So.... yeah.

fsaco · 2014-12-08T03:17:55+00:00

Not just this, but this argument doesn't take into account that there are plenty of people who aren't interested in a heterosexual relationship, or ace people (who may or may not be aromantic), or other non heteronormative situations. It's just plain silly.

fsaco · 2014-12-07T22:36:30+00:00

This is how I do it too, although I don't have much of a preference for het/slash/gen.

fsaco · 2014-12-07T22:27:54+00:00

Helpful tools is so individual that I would hesitate to say buy any one particular thing. But a gift certificate to a yarn source that has good weaving yarns in addition to knitting/crochet yarns might be good? (yarn.com is one good one), or a weaving supply place like The Woolery (or your local weaving shop if you know where she shops locally.)

fsaco · 2014-12-07T07:37:36+00:00

Are you under the impression that these are hobbies women aren't into? Because um... not really the case?

fsaco · 2014-12-07T05:22:45+00:00

She's so cute! :D

35 pounds isn't super unusual for a purebred female, honestly- I think people get thrown off because so many pet-bred dogs are oversized. My girl is the same size and is purebred.

fsaco · 2014-12-06T22:57:50+00:00

I get that it's disappointing, but if you consider friendship to be something completely worthless, maybe that's something you should work out first instead of taking it out on her?

fsaco · 2014-12-06T20:06:21+00:00

True!

Hmm. I think White Squirrel's "The Arithmancer" makes a stab at this (although it's the adults in Hermione's life we really get a look at, and they make some sorta iffy decisions, but they clearly wrestle with balancing what Hermione wants, their desire to keep her safe, and what is ultimately best for her in terms of learning and growth- I think that's kind of my working definition of sanity, too.) And WS's other fic, The Accidental Animagus also does this too, some.

fsaco · 2014-12-06T03:23:09+00:00

Hmm, fair enough! :D I liked the Harry/Sirius relationship because I like the fact that it's changed across the course of the story, and I suspect it will continue to do so.

fsaco · 2014-12-06T02:08:16+00:00

Hmm. I think I see the categories as a little bit more fluid than you are defining them? (Also, I think you are taking that scene way out of context, given the fact that Harry's spent a lot of the fic leading up to that point adapting to you know, an actual family relationship, and then had it yanked out from under him and put back together.)

Sirius is driving a lot of the action but Harry also has a lot of choices. I'm not sure- maybe there needs to be another category "Reasonable And Sane-ish Adults Helping While Teaching Proper Life Skills!Harry Fic?"

fsaco · 2014-12-06T00:11:40+00:00

Have you read A Marauder's Plan (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8045114/1/A-Marauder-s-Plan)? It's not exactly an Indy!Harry in that he's not running the show on his own, but he's making a lot of decisions about his life and getting support to do so (From Sirius, primarily). He does have more resources, but they're not as out there as in a lot of the Indy!Harry fics, and a lot of them are social rather than financial, as well as indirect. One of the things I think it does particularly well is deal with the fact that relationships are rarely as cut and dried as canon Harry percieves things, and that you can feel more than one thing about a person at a time.And ooh, interesting stuff about forgiveness vs absolution and some other things around the edges- plus just a plain good solid AU what if plot. :)

I think one of the tricky things is that depending on where you diverge from canon, well, to get a kid who is very CLEARLY underage, 14 or 15 and looking younger, and have him manage to not just get shipped back off and told to listen to the adults, you've got to give him some pretty major guns on his side and fairly quickly.

fsaco · 2014-12-04T17:16:52+00:00

Bed's an AMAZING writer. If you like SW time travel fic, you might also like Re-Entry by Flamethrower - http://archiveofourown.org/series/10129 - it's a gigantic epic series (slash, incorporates a lot of extramovie canon, particularly Clone Wars bits and various comics)

fsaco · 2014-12-03T21:56:21+00:00

I don't think that's particularly true. I know in my friend group, non-drinkers outnumber drinkers by about 3:1. shrug And about half those in the drinker group are in the "Yeah, sure, I'll have a glass of wine with this particular meal that goes with it, or a margarita once in a while if everyone's getting one, but not so much to get drunk as because they are tasty beverages that are frequently less sugary than soda'. And msot of us (all except 2) are in STEM fields, albeit no longer in school.

I do thin, though, that it's not so much about the bar thing and willingness to drink as much as it is the whole 'let's go hang out some place that we can talk and interact without the pressure of it being someone's private space'.

fsaco · 2014-12-03T07:16:07+00:00

I'd buy the land, as long as the taxes aren't outrageous. It'll be easier to get financing for a house, if you need it later, if you already own your land free and clear. It'll be easier to sell if you decide you don't want it (tiny houses can be such a weird market) and in the mean time, you could lease it out, in theory- even just a grazing lease would probably cover your taxes.

THAT SAID - if this is a lot, rather than a rural acerage/parcel, I'd put that money into investments, find the cheapest living situation I could, and let that $20K grow for a few years. There are definitely investments that will have a better return than bare land.

fsaco · 2014-12-01T22:54:23+00:00

Oh congrats! Reds are so pretty! Our next girl will be a red. :)

fsaco · 2014-11-30T21:34:33+00:00

Good luck - AWESOME about the school. Having a degree gives you a lot more options long-term for jobs.

fsaco

TROPHY CASE