Livin' in a movie

Stayed mostly off the Interwebs yesterday with a case of the nameless dreads. Spent the time watching Poldark. The DVDs I have from Blockbuster are arranged with two and a half hours of solid Poldarkery on each one, rather than split into episodes at all. It's a bit intense. After four solid hours of it I was talking in a Cornish accent myself (and a better one than most of the actors used, too, but it's very like my native Dorset and trips nicely off the tongue.)

there was also ER, which I'm rentally revisiting season by season. Yesterday was the first four episodes of season six. Great show. There was Alan Alda in the eps I watched yesterday, but even he wasn't the best thing in them. Truly, madly glorious.

I keep trying to catch dogs and kittens on video, but they do most of their playing together after dusk, and the movie function only makes sense in bright daylight. Yesterday's highlight was Shona attacking Spike's paw - pouncebite! He got bitten two or three times, kept giving her worried looks, and finally tucked the paw neatly underneath himself when the sharp kittenteeth got too much.

The other highlight was Elda falling asleep next to him. It's a pity it's so warm still; my mental picture of kittens and dog snuggled up together isn't going to happen in real life. Even Squish doesn't want to sleep pressed against me. But this was close.

Livin' in a movie

Stayed mostly off the Interwebs yesterday with a case of the nameless dreads. Spent the time watching Poldark. The DVDs I have from Blockbuster are arranged with two and a half hours of solid Poldarkery on each one, rather than split into episodes at all. It's a bit intense. After four solid hours of it I was talking in a Cornish accent myself (and a better one than most of the actors used, too, but it's very like my native Dorset and trips nicely off the tongue.)

there was also ER, which I'm rentally revisiting season by season. Yesterday was the first four episodes of season six. Great show. There was Alan Alda in the eps I watched yesterday, but even he wasn't the best thing in them. Truly, madly glorious.

I keep trying to catch dogs and kittens on video, but they do most of their playing together after dusk, and the movie function only makes sense in bright daylight. Yesterday's highlight was Shona attacking Spike's paw - pouncebite! He got bitten two or three times, kept giving her worried looks, and finally tucked the paw neatly underneath himself when the sharp kittenteeth got too much.

The other highlight was Elda falling asleep next to him. It's a pity it's so warm still; my mental picture of kittens and dog snuggled up together isn't going to happen in real life. Even Squish doesn't want to sleep pressed against me. But this was close.

The shit has hit the fan

...and I am fully aware that this is the second time in less than a month I've used that line for a title, but it's so appropriate for so many situations.

Today, though it's a reference to the beginning of Project Black Dog HQ Is Not Going To End Up Like Grimmauld Place, Damn It!

These last few months, betweeen my mother being ill, the kittens, the heat, the lack of visitors and me being less than 100% myself, my normally lackadaisical housekeeping efforts have tipped over into the utterly non-existent. And there are eight animals living here: seven of them shed hair, five of them eat day-old chicks on the floor, two of them leave muddy pawmarks, one of them pukes yellow bile when he eats grass and one of them is a bone-lazy pack rat with a long-standing pathological aversion to cleaning. Recipe for disaster, no?

It had gotten to the point where I'm getting reluctant to post animal photographs because of the disgustingness of the backdrop. It had to stop. The stopping starts here.

The bedroom (aka cat room) is trashed. I'm putting that off till the kittens leave; just keeping the litter trays fresh, wiping the eating area floor and checking daily for stashed uneaten food is as much as I can cope with for now. But if I don't get some sort of handle on the rest of the flat before that happens I'm just going to get overwhelmed and go into avoidance mode on the whole thing until I end up living in the sort of squalor that gets flats repossessed and tenants committed. Not. Going. To. Happen.

So I've started by sweeping the floor (too much hair!!) and scrubbing the kitchen floor and the fronts of the kitchen cupboards. Next job is the crap piled on and around the coffee table, windowsill and the windowside dog cage.

Well, I'm going to watch another episode of ER first. But that gets tackled before I go to sleep.

The shit has hit the fan

...and I am fully aware that this is the second time in less than a month I've used that line for a title, but it's so appropriate for so many situations.

Today, though it's a reference to the beginning of Project Black Dog HQ Is Not Going To End Up Like Grimmauld Place, Damn It!

These last few months, betweeen my mother being ill, the kittens, the heat, the lack of visitors and me being less than 100% myself, my normally lackadaisical housekeeping efforts have tipped over into the utterly non-existent. And there are eight animals living here: seven of them shed hair, five of them eat day-old chicks on the floor, two of them leave muddy pawmarks, one of them pukes yellow bile when he eats grass and one of them is a bone-lazy pack rat with a long-standing pathological aversion to cleaning. Recipe for disaster, no?

It had gotten to the point where I'm getting reluctant to post animal photographs because of the disgustingness of the backdrop. It had to stop. The stopping starts here.

The bedroom (aka cat room) is trashed. I'm putting that off till the kittens leave; just keeping the litter trays fresh, wiping the eating area floor and checking daily for stashed uneaten food is as much as I can cope with for now. But if I don't get some sort of handle on the rest of the flat before that happens I'm just going to get overwhelmed and go into avoidance mode on the whole thing until I end up living in the sort of squalor that gets flats repossessed and tenants committed. Not. Going. To. Happen.

So I've started by sweeping the floor (too much hair!!) and scrubbing the kitchen floor and the fronts of the kitchen cupboards. Next job is the crap piled on and around the coffee table, windowsill and the windowside dog cage.

Well, I'm going to watch another episode of ER first. But that gets tackled before I go to sleep.

The drillin' in the wall kept up but no-one seemed to pay it any mind

meme created by the beautiful cottonmanifesto:

When you're thinking about me or (if this even happens) talking about me with someone else, what do you call me? Liz? Black Dog? Lizblackdog? BD? That daft woman with all those dogs and cats who flashes her tits on the Internet?

Comment and tell me and I'll tell you what I call you!

The drillin' in the wall kept up but no-one seemed to pay it any mind

meme created by the beautiful cottonmanifesto:

When you're thinking about me or (if this even happens) talking about me with someone else, what do you call me? Liz? Black Dog? Lizblackdog? BD? That daft woman with all those dogs and cats who flashes her tits on the Internet?

Comment and tell me and I'll tell you what I call you!

Flavour that goes on and on

One more thing I love about living in wildest suburbia: free food. Just within normal, everyday taking the dogs out to pee distance, I can pick rowanberries, elderberries, blackberries, feral apples and lots and lots and lots of ( plums. )

Half the forest path where I walk the dogs is roofed over with plum trees. There are yellow ones, deep purple ones, bright red ones and these Victoria-type ones which are my favourites. It's also a cheering reminder that summer won't last forever. I'm always happier when things start being ripe.

Flavour that goes on and on

One more thing I love about living in wildest suburbia: free food. Just within normal, everyday taking the dogs out to pee distance, I can pick rowanberries, elderberries, blackberries, feral apples and lots and lots and lots of ( plums. )

Half the forest path where I walk the dogs is roofed over with plum trees. There are yellow ones, deep purple ones, bright red ones and these Victoria-type ones which are my favourites. It's also a cheering reminder that summer won't last forever. I'm always happier when things start being ripe.

Sometimes I feel so good I gotta scream

Kittens are 58 days old now. I really need to start seeing about vaccinations and stuff, don't I?

( In which Callette and Squish play hide and seek, Shona and I play pat-a-cake and Elda falls asleep in everyone's way yet avoids getting stepped on. Ten pictures. )

Blade is around somewhere but he is a. antisocial and b. invisible. He's the only kitten I haven't managed to play with yet. He's not scared, just not very interested. He does play with the other kittens, but not as much as the other three do. He's inclined to be off by himself somewhere. If Shona's a pirate (and she is), Blade is a ninja. A disappearing fast-moving silver tabby ninja.

Sometimes I feel so good I gotta scream

Kittens are 58 days old now. I really need to start seeing about vaccinations and stuff, don't I?

( In which Callette and Squish play hide and seek, Shona and I play pat-a-cake and Elda falls asleep in everyone's way yet avoids getting stepped on. Ten pictures. )

Blade is around somewhere but he is a. antisocial and b. invisible. He's the only kitten I haven't managed to play with yet. He's not scared, just not very interested. He does play with the other kittens, but not as much as the other three do. He's inclined to be off by himself somewhere. If Shona's a pirate (and she is), Blade is a ninja. A disappearing fast-moving silver tabby ninja.