Category: family

Loki

No attempt made to be articulate here, a followup to my last post.

I've known Loki cat (aka Loki Lou) for pretty-much 17 years; all his life bar the first few weeks of it. I was there after he had his bits done, saw the red crusty… I was there as he made his first attempts to climb stairs. I've had to rescue him from a couple of 'next-doors' as he decided returning back over the fence was too hard. I've fed him every day for the past, what, 13 years bar the cattery visits, picked up his poos and mopped his pees; and when we've needed to take him to the vets I've been there too, including that time I accidentally threw him down the stairs and sprained his leg. I stole his and his kitty family's chicken on Christmas Day 2004, he never forgave me; as it should be.

Speaking of the local cattery, taking him there before we went on holiday a few years ago in a cat box in a pram gained me a reputation I don't think I'll shake in a hurry. He doesn't like cars, see.

He's been an annoyance ever since he turned into an (agile) little old man and started humping soft toys, soft clothing, indeed anything, everything, soft. It's not so much the act itself but our night-time sleep disturbances from the noises he made…

I haven't a clue if all cats are as empathic, but he's just known when a cuddle will help, and he's helped. Lots. He's known when to stay out of the way too.

He's outlasted his (genetic) brother Marble, his sister Gizmo (always the proud princess), the lovely, lovely Mary, and the typically-scaredy-cat Nelson.

He's always been a handsome chap with, to my untrained eye, a look of the kitten about him. But, since Christmas, he's got old and infirm very quickly. Today he's hardly eaten a thing.

So it's time.

Time.

April the 1st, his birthday, will be…

Oh

Two rather expensive days, emotionally and financially:

£130 - Loki cat to vet:
Suspected congestive heart failure
£ 30 - Loki cat followup:
Heart problem confirmed, not acute
£612 - 4 new tyres + tracking:
Highlighted by just-about reaching the vet
£327 - Ruby overnight vet visit:
Who ate 1/4 pack of Smarties and the chocolate off a Crunchie bar? (Chocolate: poisonous to dogs.)

Pecking order

I looked over earlier, spied my wife eating milk chocolate, decided to emulate the dog so knelt down in front of the settee. Getting no satisfaction I shifted position, into a wet patch Ruby dog had created not long previously.

It was cold (it'd been sprayed.)

I… I looked up after a stifled expletive, to find my wife laughing. The chocolate? All gone of course.

Don't attempt to emulate the dog, you can't beat millennia of evolution.

I know my place.

Home Alone

Most people faced with a day off, and family away during a school holiday week would, I'd guess, go insane and do all kinds of exciting things.

Today I ran out of Earl Grey tea and burnt last night's pizza instead of gently reheating it in the oven.

The highlight of my day then has been the successful, if well overdue, defrosting of the freezer. During the mammoth session I discovered that the ice above the top serpentine had built to such a thickness and expanded to such a degree that it'd pulled out one of its supporting bracket screws. The left front one! Danger, mild peril! And the thermocouple is a bit floppy now but seems to work; no signs of an impending ice age yet.

Incidentally, IKEA-Whirlpool didn't make frost-free fridge-freezers when we put the kitchen in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Weekend

It's late, the weekend is almost completed, and I ache from the successes during it.

We recently found out the dining room carpet was damp. Chastising our lovely female cat is out of the question so last weekend I sliced most of the floorcovering into conveniently-sized rolls and took them to the tip.

Meanwhile my wife had priced up a very fancy lino to replace the previous luxurious pile. Saturday was fitting day, so Friday after work was me shifting 2 bookcases, 2 CD/DVD shelving units and their contents, an overladen sideboard, and the stuff that builds up as one's loved ones live, all out of the room.

The herringbone-pattern wood block-effect lino is lovely, we won't have the peeing issue again, and most of the furniture and books and stuff is back where it came from. Did it fit right back again without much effort? No; the back of each of the CD shelving units and one bookcase required inexpertly hacking at to accommodate the change in height between the previous and required notches to clear the skirting board.

Yes, of course I've been asked to move one bookcase to replace the living room electric fireplace now donated to charity. No more convenient mug rest for me. (sighs)

I've participated in a small way during the pnut.io Hackathon Weekend. But I'm tired, I've already written too many words, so I'll blog about the wiki next time.

Zzzz…

Different

NSFW. Perhaps.

On Sunday evening, late on Sunday evening I took my youngest daughter to the town's Urgent Care Centre, to help with the onset of a sudden and particularly painful ear infection. We were there for just about 2-3/4 hours, came away with advice and antibiotics.

A few minutes after we got there a young lady and her daughter plonked themselves down in the middle of the room, mother with a phone glued to her ear. Not literally, that'd be a bit odd. Maybe not in a hospital at 10:45pm though?

Anyway, while in the waiting room the phone was in use continuously for 2 hours. Not sporadically no, she was chatting all the time.

But I still haven't got to the point.

She has a husband. In the early hours of the morning the conversation changed from idle chat (I couldn't help but hear) to something more 'adult.' You know, the sort of stuff of the bedroom. No, not 'Stop taking the covers you…' or a long and heated conversation on snoring. No. Emphatically no. But heated? Yes, oh yes, yes, yes, etc.

Telling hubby what she would do to him when she got home, what she wanted him to do to her. Exceedingly graphic. So I attempted to hide, to bury myself in my tiny phone screen. To ignore the waves of words as best I could.

Not good enough. Not by a long way.

Especially when the conversation reached a certain peak and she said she'd have to go to the toilet to…

No. Just no.

Yeah, I did indeed delete some words. Naughty words. Well, naughty words used in a certain context.

Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny visited, distributed cunningly-hidden chocolate eggs throughout the Turner residence and left, but not before disposing of the Cadbury Easter Egg Hunt pack cardboard in our card and paper recycling box.

How very responsible; how very practical given what I'd imagine would be the total worldwide visit packaging impact on the Easter Bunny's home recycling regime and the local authority's complaints on bin emptying day.

How very odd it felt explaining this to the nearly 10-year-old daughter who found the card despite someone's* lackadaisical efforts to 'bury' it the night before.

*Nameless twerp.

Grammer

Today brought two lifetime achievements, three if you include a small amount of good-natured Schadenfreude.

My mother-in-law is stopping over for a couple of nights. That's not it, no.

My youngest daughter, 7-1/3 years old, just corrected her grandma's grammar.