IF Comp 2024: Birding in Pope Lick Park
I’ll be honest: Pope Lick is a terrifying name for a park. But let’s do this anyway.
Putting the opening of the story on the title is an unusual choice, but fine. It’s also the blurb. Still fine, just unusual.
It’s a perfectly adequate opening.
Pope Lick Park seems to be a real park—so much so that there’s a link to the actual web site on the first page. I really like that. There’s loads more links after that (some informative, and at least one to a comic), which is also cool.
The pics are way too big for my browser, but that’s probably my fault. (Yup; I switched browsers and all is well.)
The accessible text is excellent.
There are some minor typos and a LOT of photos. The bird photos are excellent. The other photos are adequate.
For a little I felt like, “What’s the point of the story?” but clicking on the birds I saw along the way became more and more compelling. I hate repeating text (which I got a little as I wandered around) but the game clearly remembered when I’d been somewhere before, which meant I’d often see new text or even new birds in the same area. That was VERY cool. It really felt quite immersive, in the gentlest possible way. I began to find the scenery photos more compelling too, as it became clearer and clearer that this is, effectively, non-fiction. Everything here is real.
Okay, I’m finished my play-through and I’m totally converted. This is a great story that grows more fascinating as you stroll through it. And yes, it’s incredibly educational and beautiful too.
Cat calendar
JANUARY
Buttons was a bitey boy.
I found him in a shed. My friend and I caught him together. We both ended up bleeding a lot and covered in cat urine.
He was about four weeks old.
He taught me that fostering kittens is messy, tiring, bloody, stinky, stressful, and just as wonderful as I’d always imagined.
Buttons was adopted into a family of experienced and undaunted cat owners.
FEBRUARY
In February 2024, I started fostering the ‘Nature Kittens’: Dawn, Thunder, Cloud, and Midnight.
MARCH
While the entire Nature Kittens litter was still with me, someone I know caught another litter of five stray kittens that would have to be euthanised because no one had any room to take them.
They were barely a month old.
I took them to my house “for a few days” until I could find another rescue that could look after them.
One of the two calico girls (sitting up on the right) hissed and spat so much on that first day that she set off the others. She was so tiny and so fierce… and she sounded like popcorn. So I named her Popcorn, and her sister Caramel (second from the left, with some orange patches). Then I named the boys Violet (“Violent”) Crumble (left), Curly Wurly (top middle) and Sprinkle (bottom), the runt.
Two members of the Snack Pack nearly died from cat flu, but recovered. Little kittens are extremely fragile! Even if they can also rip a full-grown human to shreds when they really don’t want to be picked up.
APRIL
Thunder and Midnight were adopted together. Their new owner built a custom enclosure for them, which they loved immediately.
MAY
Cloud suddenly stopped eating and lost more than half her body weight. The vet suspected she needed major surgery, and would never live a full life. She always was smaller than the others.
It turned out she wanted a different kind of food.
She was adopted by a retiree who had cared for her previous cat for twenty-three years despite the cat’s health being poor for several years. So Cloud now has a devoted personal handmaiden… and that is precisely what she requires.
JUNE
Popcorn was the first member of the Snack Pack to be adopted. She doesn’t hiss or spit any more, but loves to purr and snuggle, and will cheerfully approach any human.
JULY
Sprinkle (left) was the second member of the Snack Pack to be adopted.
In the early days he was extremely concerned that I would neglect to feed him and would scream hysterically when I entered the room. He would sometimes forget where the food was located after I put the bowl down, and would scream some more.
Why is it that the smallest kitten of the litter always has the biggest personality?
AUGUST
Dawn was finally adopted in August… and then she was un-adopted, as her new owners discovered one of them was allergic to cats. Fortunately she quickly found another home, and is now settled in happily.
SEPTEMBER
Violet Crumble looks almost exactly like his brothers, yet still manages to be the prettiest. He was adopted next out of the Snack Pack.
OCTOBER
The last two kittens in the Snack Pack were adopted together.
So Caramel and Curly Wurly will continue to make a cuddle puddle daily for the rest of their lives. They are very lucky, and so are their owners.
NOVEMBER
In Spring, with no fosters left, I helped another rescue organisation by taking on four of their kittens: I named them Squirrel (fluffy tortoiseshell and white), Bunny Rabbit (her sister, a tortoiseshell very much like Dawn), Meeouse (white), and Monkey.
Monkey was so named because he liked to climb upside down across the roof of his enclosure.
I quickly discovered that he also loves jumping into the arms of the nearest upright human. Or onto their back. Or shoulder. He’s not fussy. But he’s shockingly fast.
DECEMBER
I hope all four Animal Kittens will find their forever homes by Christmas.
Edit: I shall add more pic/s of those four, possibly including a group shot or two.
IF Comp 2024: Doctor Who and the Dalek Super-Brain
Doctor Who is excellent so I was always tempted by this one (and somewhat concerned about intellectual property law). Inside the game, it says that it is fan-fiction and does not generate any revenue. But the IF comp DOES give out cash prizes, so doesn’t that count as revenue?
I do think the author is safe simply because they’re too small to bother crushing.
Of course, copyright lawyers and daleks both really, really enjoy disintegrating things. And Doctor Who is on Disney+ now, and Disney is famously fond of bringing the full force of the law down to exterminate even the most tiny and innocent of artists.
Hmm.
Anyway, that’s not really my business.
I very much enjoyed pushing the giant red button to start the game.
This is my third surprisingly visual game in a row! The visuals are basic, but enjoyable. However, the general experience is clunky. It feels like the choices I make are merely scrolling up and down a prescribed conversation.
I died horribly (in a genre-appropriate fashion). The death is totally fine (good, even) but this game required much more problem solving skill than I think I possess.
The ability to click on objects in the image to get more detail is very cool, even if I cordially dislike the entire ‘click such-and-such to get more detailed info’ system. Obviously that’s a matter of taste.
Some of the writing is pretty basic, but some bits are good.
. . .
I think this requires me to sometimes remember things, which due to my various mental issues means I can’t properly play the game. So I’ll stop here, and I won’t rate this game either.
Apologies to the writer.
IF Comp 2024: Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value
I forgot to explain last entry that the IF Comp is a big contest for Interactive Fiction stories that runs each year. I enter it often (ever since 2015), and love it. Partly because I usually do reasonably well, and mostly because the community is just SO GOOD. There are loads of people who gladly test games in the lead-up to the contest due date, and even more who help to judge games (and often write great, thorough reviews as well) during the six-week judging period. There’s even a secret section on the forum (which is here) where only authors who have entered that year can post and see posts.
Yes, I have entered this year. You can see and play all the games here.
Whenever I enter, I try to review five games. This one is the second one I’m trying out. Obviously I adore the title! The blurb is great too:
I’m surprised but pleased by the basic visuals and animation. They’re sweet. I don’t think they’re a custom thing; I think Inform or something can do things like that. But I could be wrong. And they’re not something I’ve played before, so they have novelty value for me. If every game had them, they’d be annoying.
I quickly reached the bad ending, which was just fine by me. The game is very merciful and simple, so it’s easy to explore here and there without feeling any pressure.
I laughed out loud at the line, “I keep forgetting there are only two other people in this village.” A perfect joke for the IF Comp, where a significant number of judges are also authors, who scrambled furiously to meet the deadline and probably had to massively cut down their original grand idea along the way.
And laughing even more at, “Sorry I didn’t hear you knock. I was busy alphabetising my potatoes.”
I’ll stop reporting every single line that makes me laugh, because I suspect now there may be a lot of them. (EDIT: There were.)
Pretty sure the maths question is wrong. But maybe I’m missing something.
I reached a REALLY COOL bad ending (and several that were just funny), and eventually reached the good ending.
This is an adorable, funny game that is simple, well executed, and highly enjoyable. Colour me impressed.
IF Comp 2024: Imprimatura
First of all, I’m so glad the blurb immediately explains the title: “Imprimatura (It.): the first layer of paint on a canvas.”
This game is going to produce a picture. Colour me intrigued.
The writing is evocative and beautiful (essential for this story), and the soundtrack and effects are perfect too. It’s very warm and gentle (probably partly because of the choices I made).
Sometimes I got the same painting description twice in a row, which I think is an error. On the other hand, the game explained at the end that even selecting the same paintings in a replay will unlock different memories. So maybe not.
It was fascinating, well-written, and the final result was interesting as well as giving me the option to go back and change things, which I liked. I didn’t like that the emotional choice of the final painting always partly obscured the image, but that’s an artistic choice I think. The layering along the way is incredible.
It’s an extremely replayable game. There are over 100 versions of the final painting and much much more to discover along the way.
I think this might be a perfect game.
“Worst one I’ve ever played”: Reviewing the Reviewers
This is an article I wrote a while ago, 2015 or 2016 I think, when my FIRST interactive novel was freshly published. I’ve written a LOT of stories set in my magical steampunk universe, and the full list including reading order is here.
It finally happened: my first interactive (that is, Choose Your Own Adventure-ish) Australian steampunk novel is wandering unsupervised in the great big world, gathering reviews near and far (and scaring its mother half to death).
My very first review was the comment “Worst one I’ve ever played”, accompanied by one star. I was genuinely amused by such a start to proceedings.
Then the very clever and well-respected Emily Short published a review on her blog, and said, “All in all, then, this is both the biggest and the best of the Felicity Banks games I’ve tried so far; the worldbuilding is more extensive and the plot better structured.”
She also said the beginning was nicely paced while the end was rushed… which is funny since another reviewer said the beginning was boring but don’t worry because it gets better once you get into it.
People say, “Don’t read your reviews” but with material like this, how could I resist?
The reviewers above well and truly set the tone for what was to come. Another reviewer described the book as “Offal” and wrote, “The weird world it is set in succeeds at making no sense and remain unappealing at the same time.” That person was so passionate they reviewed it in two different places. Another said, “The setting wasn’t well explained and I couldn’t make sense of it, and the story was incredibly short, and when I mean short, I mean god awful. I was done in 15 minutes, and I didn’t even figure out what was going on, and no skill was required.” They concluded with the advice: “Skip this one at all costs.”
Other people said, “Cool universe and concept”, “Original and well written”, “I love a good well-thought-out setting, and I could tell that the world was thoroughly planned”, “I was hungry for more steampunk/clockwork creatures, and I wasn’t disappointed. (Actually, thinking about it now, this game has the same kind of story that I was hoping for…).”
I’ve been a little wary of promoting the game in certain places, since it has some violence, and some (*gasp*) sexual diversity. I knew the setting of a steampunk Australia was special, but I would never have guessed it could be considered controversial. All I need now is to be banned, and I’ll know I’ve got it made.
I’ve been working non-stop to get the rumbling engine of promotion moving, and I now have a weird feeling that I’ve managed to start something I can’t stop. That’s the entire point of the exercise, but that doesn’t mean it’s not scary to see the train suddenly belch fire and clatter off beyond my control.
Good luck, little e-baby. I know your friends are out there.
My interactive steampunk novel, Attack of the Clockwork Army is set in Australia. You can choose to be male or female, gay or straight, an innocent or a liar. You can even choose to fight for the British, or not to fight at all.
The book is available as a Choose Your Own Adventure-style app for your device on Amazon, Apple, Android, and Chrome. You can also buy it directly from the publisher (an easy way to buy and read it on your computer).
The app stores list it as “free, with in-app purchases”. What this actually means is that the beginning is free, and then you pay $5 (once!) to read the rest.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/attack-of-the-clockwork-army/id1042824941?mt=8
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/attack-of-the-clockwork-a/oojmcpcnhdedgiegdocaedonlgfhlpgj
Eight is less than Thirteen
Last entry, just over two months ago, I wrote about how I ended up with thirteen cats in my care:
*My two “actual” cats, Zipper and Zoom.
*Two cats I often cat-sit for a friend.
*The four Nature Kittens: Thunder, Midnight, Cloud, and Dawn (now aged twenty-three weeks).
*The Snack Pack of five, so they didn’t get put down: Popcorn, Caramel, Sprinkle, Violet Crumble, and Curly Wurly. They’re thirteen weeks old now and thriving.
I have found homes for Thunder, Midnight, and Cloud, so out of the Nature Kittens litter only Dawn is left. She is a beauty with a great personality, who purrs SO MUCH.
I have also found homes for Popcorn and Sprinkle, so the Snack Pack is now just Curly Wurly, Violet Crumble (his BFF), and Caramel.
Only four foster kittens! Totally manageable!
Except I’m cat-sitting again, so there are six temporary cats in addition to my own cats.
I have learned that there is indeed an upper limit to the number of kittens I want to have in my care at one time (I think four is good). However, I’ve also been through a LOT these two months and I never failed to give them food, water, clean litter, and lots of attention.
*The Snack Pack got cat flu. Two of them nearly died and they all had to stay in quarantine a lot longer than expected.
*I lost thousands of dollars in wages due to feline and human illnesses and injuries.
*Cloud suddenly declined, losing about a third of her body weight in two weeks. The vet said she was probably going to die.
They all recovered fully, even Cloud (who was tested for a bunch of stuff including feline AIDS… and she’s okay! She’s basically just a massive diva!)
*I got covid for the first time (yes I AM immunocompromised, thanks for asking!) and of course my whole family got it too. But we seem to have all fully recovered, which is great!
*Someone in my local area found five dumped kittens that were CLEARLY the offspring of someone’s house cat that they were too irresponsible to desex. I broke my thirteen-cats record when I took them in overnight. For one night, I had fourteen cats in my care! And of course I tried to think of some plausible way to take them in too, but I couldn’t—which is definitely for the best. So that was just the one night.
This is one of them:
I will soon be cat-sitting my friend’s pair of cats again (which of course I love to do), so I’m at eight cats altogether currently, which would be fine except…
*Twelve days ago I bent over to scoop out a litter tray and I felt my back go SPROING!!
It does that sometimes, and I wasn’t immediately terrified, even when it became clear I couldn’t stand up straight. I call it a “back injury” but it’s really a fibromyalgia flare-up. One of the fun things fibromyalgia does is just suddenly attack and take your disability level from your personal version of normal to “oh fuck”.
And so began the worst fibromyalgia flare-up of my life.
I’ve had fibromyalgia for ten long, often miserable years, but this…. the last twelve days have been worse than any illness or injury I’ve ever had. I’m definitely on the mend, with most days better than the day before, but I’m still barely able to walk or stand, and when I do I have about five seconds of being okay-ish and then the pain just gets greater and greater until I either lie down or start screaming. There has been a lot of screaming in pain lately. For a while, turning over or shifting position in bed was a kind of torture (but necessary, of course).
I can sit for a lot longer now, but after maybe ten minutes things get ugly (spasms, etc).
In the early days of this flare-up, there were several hours when I was lying down but the pain was still so bad it was like being in labor. The worst part by far is knowing that if this has happened once, it is likely to happen again. That terrifies me so much.
On the up side, my arms are fine. At first I wasn’t able to walk up the hallway to the Cat Encounter area, so my daughter would bring the kittens to me in bed. I’m now at the point where I can give them their food, scoop some of their litter (Chris does the rest), and walk back and forth from the Cat Encounter area (which has a couch for me to lie down on) at least twice a day.
It’s bleak, though. And my future is bleaker still. This flare-up is the kind of injury which makes a person change her life. But I’m not sure what I’ll change it to. I’ve already lost so much to this stupid disease and I have very little left to give. However, I have discovered an agency called OneLink that may be able to help me access some government services. I’m clinging onto that like a lifeline, because I need hope right now.
I’m also VERY EAGER to have slightly fewer litter trays to empty.
So.
I am eager to find homes for the last four foster kittens. Please share this post with your friends in the Canberra region!
They naturally fall into the very close bonded pair of Curly Wurly and Violet Crumble (both desexed boys, chipped, and double vaxxed); and the newly-friendly duo of Dawn and Caramel (both girls who are chipped and double vaxxed but Caramel isn’t desexed yet, mainly because I simply didn’t have enough money).
But they all get on well so any pair is possible. Or you can adopt just one (but you haven’t known true bliss until you own a pair of kittens that love each other—plus, without a furry friend they get very bored because all cats must be kept on your property in the ACT).
The adoption fees are equal to one vaccination + microchip + desexing, so for boys it’s $305 each (I go to Goulburn to make it cheaper) and for girls it’s $460.
Curly Wurly is playful and friendly, usually waiting by the door so he gets the first snuggles when a human comes in; Violet Crumble loves to gaze adoringly at people, carry toys from place to place, and rest his paws on things.
They are SO CUTE when they wrestle together! I have bought them collars so people can tell them apart.
Dawn (900164002269084) is a female tortoiseshell who purrs like a supercar and demands focused pats when I wake up in the morning. She loves climbing, boxes, and destroying things. Do not leave your toilet paper unsupervised! She is desexed and has been vaccinated twice. She is open to friendships with dogs and older cats. She loves belly rubs but/and is likely to wrap her paws and teeth lovingly around your hand. She gets on well with Caramel and doesn’t like to be alone.
Caramel (900164002269081) is a major snuggler although she is naturally nervous. When she is free to roam she comes and “checks in” on me every so often, purring furiously. She has the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. She has a strong killer instinct and needs a lot of play time, ideally with another kitten.
Both Dawn and Caramel are experts at spotting me reading and inserting themselves between the book and my eyes in order to get guaranteed pats.
I am a teensy bit jealous of whoever gets to own them.
Thirteen Cats
I own two adult cats. Zipper and Zoom. Here’s some pictures my daughter took of them recently.
I have a friend with two very charming, sociable older kittens that visit my house often. They’re also the ‘backup cats’ for the Tabby Time Cat Encounters small business, as I don’t always have foster kittens (and Zipper and Zoom do NOT have the right personality for cat encounters!) so I can ‘borrow’ them whenever I need to.
I am also fostering the ‘Nature Kittens’:
That’s Thunder at the back, then Dawn, Cloud, and Midnight. Thunder and Midnight are the boys, and they’re getting desexed on Tuesday. All four are fully vaccinated and have visited the vet several times for health checks (and some health dramas). Thunder and Cloud have a home lined up, and I’m taking them there for a play date tomorrow. There’s an older cat at the new home who will need time to adjust, and it’s good for Thunder and Cloud to take things slow as well. Cloud is too little to be desexed yet (vets are willing but my pet-happiness adviser and I have higher standards of care). Midnight MIGHT have a home lined up, but Dawn is still available for adoption. These kittens need five litter trays between the four of them, so I’m really looking forward to Thunder and Cloud getting adopted so I don’t have to tiptoe between litter trays on the way to the toilet!
So, until Monday I have eight cats in my care! That’s a lot! Emptying eight litter trays 3-4 times a day is really really a lot. I invested time introducing the Nature Kittens to the friend’s kittens and they now get on well, which is ADORABLE.
Then, on Thursday, someone I know very slightly called me and said she’d caught five very young kittens and the RSPCA refused to take them (or more accurately, would probably release them or put them down because they simply have way too many kittens and cats right now). I know this woman is very poor and would feed them crushed dry food and water, which would probably keep the kittens alive but at four weeks they should have mainly specialised milk and then a small amount of specialised food gradually introduced. They need a huge amount of attention and money, is what I’m saying. I reached out to various people and organisations immediately, with no luck at all. Which wasn’t entirely surprising.
Knowing the crushed dry food would probably make them sick, I picked up the kittens myself a few hours later and took them home (and spent a bunch of moolah on specialised food and items). Temporarily!
And that’s how I ended up looking after thirteen kittens in one house.
When I saw two calicos in the teeny tiny litter, I knew I was in trouble. I love calicos.
Since then I’ve found an organisation that is willing to take them when they reach 1 kilo, which will probably take about a month. That’s my only offer so far, and I’m grateful for it but still looking for help. My advisor has checked them over and noticed one of them has a slightly deformed leg. It’s an old injury, but I’ll talk to a vet about it in a few days, when they all get a health check (they’re too young to be vaccinated, and too frail for worming for a few days). I’ve looked after other kittens from that colony, and they definitely had worms, so the tiny kittens must be quarantined from all the other cats because they’re highly infectious. Also because they’re so young that interacting with other cats could literally give them a heart attack. Yesterday I held Zoom in my arms so the tiny kittens could see her (and vice versa) so that (a) Zoom knew why we weren’t letting her in that part of the house, and (b) The kittens had a distant glimpse of a cat they’re likely to see again in future (an extremely gentle and controlled introduction).
They’re still very scared of everything, although they definitely know I’m the source of food so two of them meow frantically and come towards me as soon as they see me. They’re big on hissing and spitting (the larger calico in particular) but because they’re so tiny it sounds like popcorn, so that’s what I named the bigger calico. Then I named the others Caramel (the other calico), Sprinkle (the smallest), Violent/Violent Crumble (has a very clear ‘V’ on his side), and Curly Wurly (has curling white marks on his back). The two calicos are girls, and the three tabby and white ones are boys.
I’ve been bottle feeding them every few hours, and they’re extremely enthusiastic so after checking with my advisor I’ve started them on solids (suitable for 1 month old kittens) and begun working on teaching them to drink and eat from dishes. It’s a LOT of work!
I do love a crisis, though. But I’m also looking forward to having my friend’s cats go home on Monday so things aren’t QUITE so bonkers.
Zipper and Zoom can interact with the friend’s cats (they’re grudgingly used to each other) but it’s better for Zip and Zoom to get some space of their own.
The friend’s cats can hang out with the Nature kittens. So those six can go in the same room. But they’re fed different kinds of wet food twice a day, and have to be separated for that. I also separate them at night.
The tiny kittens aka the Snack Pack must be kept separate from everyone, including the Tabby Time customers that are visiting today.
And of course all eleven kittens are bent on escape…. from my room, from the bathroom, from the house, into the toilet (two have fallen in while I was dealing with litter), and from the scary monster (me). And I’m doing roughly a million loads of washing per day. It’s been 1.5 days with the Snack Pack, and Popcorn in particular is SO angry and SO beautiful it’s killing me.
Also, we’ve spent $197 on them so far, with a $150 vet visit lined up. If you can help at all with the financial side, please do! I have the receipts if you want to see them. TabbyTimeCanberra@gmail.com is the best place to email to offer help. With Tabby Time Cat Encounters I’ve set aside 20% for emergency cat vet stuff. That’s $20 so far which is… not enough, lol.
Wish me luck!
PS If you’re one of the people that decided a cat encounter business is animal abuse and therefore I am an animal abuser, please do feel free to report me to the RSPCA and/or the Department of Domestic Animal Services. But they all know me and my house by now and they’ve seen how well I take care of cats, so it’s unlikely they will thank you for wasting their time. The only thing I’ve done ‘wrong’ right now is taking on a huge litter that no one else was willing to look after. And I’m still looking for a less hectic household for them.
Hustling Update, 2024
A few months after I wrote the first and second post about all the many many different things I do, I started fostering kittens.
I. Love. It. So. Much.
That is the stunningly beautiful Cinnamon, one of the feral cats that I caught and socialised in 2023. Catching feral cats is definitely NOT something I plan to do regularly! I am the opposite of physically gifted/strong… but socialising cats is something I think I’m pretty good at.
So, fostering kittens is something I want to keep doing forever and ever amen. There are several down sides, including the cost and the cleaning (not so much the gross-out factor, but my physical body struggling with it). I do one day plan to be rich enough to hire a regular cleaner, so hopefully I could find a cleaner willing to scrub kitten poo off the walls (somehow the foster kittens always seem to get poo on the walls). Many cleaners refuse to deal with any pet stuff whatsoever, which is fair enough. But I’m sure I can find someone.
Fortunately, I have a really great babysitting job at the moment, and my health has improved recently (due to new meds) so I’m earning more than I’ve earned since I first became disabled in 2011. Amazing! Of course as a household we have a lot of financial things to catch up on from the cozzie livs crisis, eg I hadn’t seen a dentist since January 2022 and one of my fillings fell out. But things might be looking up financially?
Unfortunately my right knee has major objections to my babysitting work. I am seeing a physio and strapping it daily, as well as not sitting cross-legged on the floor (which is what made it start malfunctioning). But it’s a significant problem.
BUT one aspect of the “Castle of Kindness” concept from 2019 has actually come to pass. Actually several aspects have come to pass—sponsoring refugees; welcoming them into my home; having them play in my (blow-up) pool; running a food pantry with some emergency supplies (such as water)—but this is the first time that an element of that dream has helped me with my own pain/disability: we now have a spa.
It’s a blow-up spa, the cheapest on the market (under $600 from Bunnings, plus electric and chemical supplies which were about another $200), and it is surprisingly good!
Here’s my son showing the “4 person” spa (really it’s only good for one person, or 2+ who don’t mind having their legs tangled up) that he’s not allowed to go in due to his cast (he broke his wrist falling from a climbing frame at school).
I was really anxious that it wouldn’t be deep enough to help with neck and shoulder pain at all (but if I squidge down it works) and that having a ring of bubbles around the bottom would be useless (but actually the bubbles work really well), and that sitting on the bottom of the pool would be uncomfortable (it isn’t—our outside foam helps, but the buoyancy of the water is the main thing making it comfortable—and I can move around more than in a ‘normal’ spa, which is a good thing).
So in many ways I am living the dream.
Last but definitely not least, I started a cat cafe business in January! When I foster kittens, I feel strongly that it is my duty to take and share MANY kitten photos, and to invite my cat-loving friends over to play with the kittens (which is good for the kittens, and enjoyable to them). So to my mind it was perfectly natural, in a city lacking a cat cafe, to… well, to start a teeny little cat cafe in my house. I kept it as simple as possible, with very limited hours and no food or drink. A lot of cat cafes don’t serve hot drinks, because that’s obviously hazardous to both the kittens and to the hygiene of the humans. But a few people were offended on FaceBook that I had a cafe without coffee, and one person shared about it to reddit. That was perfectly fine until people who don’t understand how cat cafes operate (ie using only friendly/social/bored cats, and not letting humans pick them up or follow them into cat-only areas) decided it was animal abuse. That’s when it suddenly got serious. Long story short, although I never did anything wrong the cat cafe was shut and the kittens taken away. I’ve also gotten to know the RSPCA and DAS inspectors (which has actually been a positive experience).
There’s no good reason not to start the business back up again, after triple-checking that all my paperwork is in order and that there is an external person checking on the welfare of the cats/kittens. I love cats and I love sharing that experience with others. It’s also a great way to find homes for foster kittens. I’ll always have to deal with extra scrutiny (fine) and people online convinced that I’m evil and/or incompetent (I can live with that as long as they continue to be wrong).
I realised that with a designated space for the cat encounters, I might as well restart the escape room business too—people can do an escape room and a cat encounter in one day. And I put in a little shop to sell my books, Qusay Fadheel’s art prints, and maybe even some cat merch since I do take pretty good cat photos after all these years.
So that’s where a lot of my brain is at these days.
Welcome to Australia: Mandarin Version
This is the finished version of “Welcome to Australia”, a book I started writing way back in 2020. It is designed to be read by immigrant and refugee children with their parents/guardians.
Please feel free to share all versions of this book as widely as you like. All I ask is that you don’t make a profit from any part of it. Dozens of people spent time working on this book, and most were not paid (all Aboriginal people and refugees were paid or had donations made in their name).
Spanish and Arabic versions are still getting their final checks.
Buy your copy here in my online store.
Felicity Banks 