Onigiri ~ Kawaii Style!

My little dog got hurt earlier tonight – she apparently got into a fight with our cat while we were out at dinner and when we came home her eye was swollen shut.  We rushed her to the emergency vet, and the veterinary ophthalmologist they referred us to has quoted that the surgery to save her vision will amount to nearly $5000.  We don’t have anything approaching that kind of money.  We don’t have have the money to NOT save her vision and remove the eye, which was the only other option we were given.  We applied for a health credit card from a bank here but we only qualified for abot ut half what the surgery would cost.  I’m absolutely wrecked and I don’t know what to do.  Half of me feels like I’m going to faint and half of me feels like this is all just a bad dream.  If anybody can do anything, anything to help, any amount at all would be so much appreciated.  I am going to be working on discounting everything in my store tonight and setting up a donation jar at the store, but if you want to make a direct contribution at the veterinarian, here is the information (I don’t know what is pertinent so I am giving you everything I have):

Eye Care for Animals
808 N. Hayden Rd.
Scottsdale, AZ 85257

Phone: 480-990-3937

Fax: 480-990-0924

Dog’s name: Penny
Owner name: Patricia Stricklin

Veterinarian: Dr. Wasserman

She is going for the surgery tomorrow, assuming he will agree to do it without the payment up front.  Please keep her, and us, in your thoughts and prayers, and thank you for anything you can do to help!

Okay, this was my least favorite of the three styles I did for Hair Fair, but just because it doesn’t quite look right without the various stuff the character wears on her head – a maid headpiece at work, kitty ears when she’s transformed, etc. :P Anyway, this style was inspired by Ichigo from Tokyo Mew Mew (I’ve been told it came to the US under the name Mew Mew Power but that it was changed quite a bit.) Tokyo Mew Mew is definitely one of my favorite anime, being totally cute and appealing to a fairly wide audience – something kids could watch but you’d get even more out of as an adult, and having a bit of action, romance, world issues, loads of cuteness and some plain old good fun. :D Anyway, enough about the anime – here’s the hair! Remember, it will be available at the hair fair which starts this weekend (on the 20th) and won’t be in the store until it’s over! Enjoy. ^_^

Hair Fair is just a week away!  I’m so thrilled that I was invited this year! :D  I was so incredibly happy when it happened, I was bouncing all over the place for days.  Hair was the reason I ever opened my store back in 2006, when flexis were brand new.  I experimented and created a couple of hairstyles which were cute enough that I actually wanted to wear them, and thought maybe other people would, too!  But I’d never been invited to hair fair and every year I wouldn’t know it was even coming until it was announced as being just around the corner – in other words, too late to beg an entry for myself, if that was even allowed in past years.  So being thought of this year and sent an invite was the biggest honor and just made my whole year – a thousand thank yous to whoever thought of me. ^_^

Anyway, so I have made three hairstyles, each based on an anime/manga character, in trying to keep to Onigiri’s fandom roots.  They’re adapted a bit, mostly in the bangs, so they’ll look better in SL, since generally the stringy pointed anime bangs look isn’t very flattering in SL (or RL, for that matter, haha) but I generally kept to the original character’s overall hairstyle. I will be sending out each of the three styles in the usual update group special color (a deep metallic purple called Poison) once the fair starts!
The first style is called Saber, and is based on the style worn by Saber in Fate Stay Night.  This anime I haven’t actually seen, but I have had requests for it, so here it is.  Enjoy. ^_^  Look for the unveiling of the next style in a few days!

Yesh this a rant. If you don’t want to hear it, go ahead and move on. ^_^

Today while hanging out with Aki at the store a guy walks in demanding freebie anime eyes. I do have one pair but they are part of a 1L freebie female anime avatar, so I thought, he’s a guy and can’t use the rest and he says he’s broke, so I will be nice and give him these for free.

Evidently today’s lesson is if you give someone an inch they want 10 miles. He proceeded to eat up over an hour more of my time ranting about how he can’t find anything in SL – when I suggested Xstreet he rambled about how it’s like searching a warehouse (um, okay) – and complaining about how the stuff he does get is not good enough. He was waving around some freebie weapons and sporting other freebie stuff, so I’m thinking, hm, no wonder. He claimed the only way to make money in the game was escorting. I told him he’s looking at a pair of people who make their living in SL designing, and he just got very argumentative with me, even when I suggested a number of other ways he can make money. It ended when, after half an hour of trying to help him make work for him a pair of wings I gave him, he demanded (not asked – I don’t think he knew how – evidently that I would bend over backwards for him by now was taken for granted) I modify them to suit the look he was going for, and ran off to find a picture, it hit me:
He came in demanding free stuff.
He got free stuff – four things, all of which cost me money and were available in the store for SALE (or at least for 1L) but I wanted to be helpful and gave – no, I don’t know why – and the promise of another thing he claimed he couldn’t find for less than 450L that would only take me two seconds to make, or would have before he piled on extra demands for it.
He did not thank me for a single thing I gave him.
He complained about every single thing I gave him.
He didn’t want to hear any positive suggestions I had for helping him.
He was unlikely ever to shop at my store again, since he was a guy and aside from my eyes and arguably, wings, nothing in the store could be considered unisex, much less for men.

And I hightailed it out of there.

Why can’t people just take a gift, or good advice, or being treated kindly in general, with good grace and say thank you? What is complaining when someone helps you going to do to benefit either of you? That sort of encounter just sours me on being kind to anyone.

But while everyone else is looking gift horses in the mouth, I’ll throw my hat in the ring and say, why is everybody using this strange sculpty “butterfly” in their creations lately – it has six wing nubby bits! Butterflies have four wing sections! This sculpty kind of looks like someone stuffed an unfolded cloth napkin in a napkin ring and called it a butterfly. I’ll make a free sculpty butterfly for you creators to use if you’re averse to making your own. I <3 butterflies, and I <3 your creations, minus the scary butterfly. Would you use it if I made it? O_O

I’m extremely sleep deprived and just got woken up, so I hope this post is still intelligible. :D

I released an update of sorts to my old mary janes in the store.  The new pair has different highlighting and a distinct sole, and is scripted with 13 textures and menu-controlled tinting to a variety of presets or any color of your own making.  If you preferred the old style, though, don’t worry – they’re not going away. :)