Black Doggerel

Dear Spike and Squish,

Considering that we got trapped on a narrow path between a German Shepherd behind us and a Boxer mix in front of us and had no choice but to get much closer to both of them than Spike's usual comfort zone - you two kept your shit together remarkably well. I love you both SO MUCH. Have a sausage.

Dear Owner Of the Aforementioned Boxer Mix,

Would it have hurt to back off just a little and let us get off the path? Did Spike's raised hackles and "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!" face look to you like bringing your puppy closer was a good idea? Then why do it? Okay, I did get him to calm down, but no thanks to you. If the GSD owner hadn't stayed back and let us off the path things could have turned quite unpleasant. Grow a brain plz.

Dear Cats, and especially Cassie,

I always give you a treat when I come back from dogwalking. I always have. Every time for two years now. Why, then, have you suddenly now decided that you need to yell your head off at me to remind me? And how long will it take to get through your food-obsessed head that I will stand there not giving you the treat until you shut the hell up?

in other news, my elbow is buggered again. Spike was very pully that week we were walking to Mum's nightly, and I seem to have slept on it badly last night and compounded the problem. It would be fine if I could only find my fucking elbow brace. But I've not needed it since Blogathon last year and I'm damned if I know where it went. On the other hand, hunting for it looks like it might be bringing on a Roz-attack...

( Dog pics. May include cat. )

can I say again that this heat is killing me? Or something is. My legs ache, my head aches, my brain couldn't think its way out of a wet paper bag and a seven-minute walk to the grocery store feels like climbing fucking Everest - only without the snow. Oh, and my fucking ELBOW is playing up again.

got dragged over to sister T's to visit mum and niecething and have a Family Conference last night. Mum is looking immeasurably better. That ghastly swelling (ascites) has vanished, her colour's back to normal, she's starting to have more energy.

Family conference was about Grimmauld Place. Mum's friend Nigel had a key cut and went there with a prospective cleaning lady. Cleaning lady took one look and refused to have anything to do with it.

When Mum told me about this on the phone she was expecting me to go over there and deal with it myself before she'd go near the place again. Sister T said much the same thing, and added that a. I'm not entitled to whine about feeling crappy because I am not raising an OMGBABY, and b. she's liable to strangle Mum before much longer so I have to CLEAN NOW IMMEDIATELY THIS MINUTE.

Mum firmly believes that the place was a gleaming Better Homes showpiece before I moved in there and turned it into a pigsty, by the way. Never mind the contents of five other households that she's crammed in there, never mind the ten long years of not cleaning before I moved in, and the year of not cleaning and forgetting to empty the litterbox after I moved out - it's all my fault, my mess and mine only. Because of course, Mum doesn't shit, pee, cook, eat, spill things or get dirty, and her cat doesn't shit, pee, eat or shed hair. *rolleyes*

Thankfully, when the whole family got together on it, sanity prevailed - that, and they know damn well I won't clean the place single-handed. The plan is that when sister T can drive again in a week or so, she's going to drive Mum and I there and we're going to tackle it together. It's still going to be a ghastly grind of a job, but at least I'm no longer expected to tackle it alone from the ground up when I'm not even up to the walk over there at the moment. Huge relief.

even though I was driven there and back last night, the whole thing still knocked the stuffing out of me - or perhaps there wasn't any stuffing to knock in the first place, I dunno. All I've had the energy to do today is lie on the couch watching BSG and some desultory message board posting.

Highlight of my day: watching Squish and Cassie hunt flies. Squish is the more spectacular hunter with his giant balletic leaps, flying ears and clopping jaws, but Cassie is just as dedicated and far more efficient. Between the two of them, the odd fly that wanders in through the mostly-shut windows has a life expectancy of approximately four minutes. If it's lucky.

Not only that, but she eats the ones she kills. Oh how I love living with predators!

P.S. Yes, I am using the same soundtrack two days running. I can't stop playing this particular song at the moment. Will upload it for anyone interested. Love it love it love it love it.

topbit, cottonmanifesto, rottnpagan and ulva: I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. And if I was a bit incoherent and my typing was shite, it was because I'm out of practise and I was talking to you all simultaneously - one on the phone and three on the keyboard. (Actually, that's a lie: my typing is always shite.)

I hadn't realised till tonight how much of the angst and stress was down to loneliness. The one thing that's going right is that the elbow's improved enough to fire up the IM engine again.

to everyone I didn't talk to tonight and especially huntingdon: I love you too. But I only have two hands and one keyboard. Soon!

edit: Ow. Dogs encountered a spaniel on late walk, underexercised!Spike acted up, I walked them away so fast that I tripped and now I have skinned knuckles and knees to match my lovely skinned elbow from a few days ago. *sigh*

that harness can't arrive soon enough.

my elbow is thoroughly buggered again since having to juggle cat carriers and dogs simultaneously on wednesday, and I am really, really, really, really fed up with being unable to talk on instant messenger. I feel isolated and excluded and I really miss the conversations. there are also new people on my f-list i'd like to IM and get to know better and i just can't do it yet.

I find it fairly hard to type LJ comments and BBS posts too, but that's at least doable because I can do it slowly and take rests.

just needed to whine. I'll be returning you to your regular LJ experience now.

christinuviel made me do it:

Comment with the words 'Pimp My Ego!', and:

1. I'll respond with something random I like about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll name something we should do together.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (or just me).
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll leave you a quote that is somehow appropriate to you.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal so you can do the same for other people.

But I won't do it before tomorrow, because I'm terribly, terribly tired. I presume it's post-flu fatigue, but for the last week I've felt like fainting every time I walk round the block, I've fallen asleep ever time I've sat on the couch and I still feel utterly incapable of doing anything. I wake up tired, spend the day tired and go to bed tired. And the list of things I need to do grows ever on and on.

Cassie is still refusing to leave the bedroom windowsill if the dogs are in the room. I'm mostly leaving her shut in the bedroom and going in with the dogs just to hang with her for a while every few hours. She's still noisily objecting to the dgs' existence. I wonder how long it'll take? Am I doing this wrong?

oh yeah, and the elbow's bad again. it was quite a bit better for a few days there. I must have done something wrong. such a drag.

Heh heh heh. After supper zoomies. Spike and Squish just slammed into the computer chair and the coffee table next to it. Table was covered in DVDs and bits of paper which are now EVERYWHERE, and the comment I was in the middle of typing went like this.

I yelled "OY!" and they both stopped in their tracks. Spike's ears and tail went low and Squish came and licked my elbows by way of apology. (Elbow licking is one of Squish's funny little habits. Startled hell out of topbit who wasn't brought up with dogs, especially as Squish has a way of sneaking up unnoticed and doing it to whoever's in the computer chair.)

I really owe them some off-leash time in the worst way. I'm going to try and do it tomorrow despite the cough and the elbow. They bring me so much joy, and I've really been short-changing them these last weeks.

Yeah, I am having a bit of a non-posty incommunicado spell. It's a combination of badly needing complete solitude in between two extremely social weekends, and having bought weed which always makes me go into lurkmode anyway.

Just got back from seeing the physiotherapist at Bournemouth Hospital about the elbow. She says there isn't a great lot they can really do, but keep wearing the brace and being careful with how I use it, and if it's not improved in another month talk to my GP about a steroid injection.

That's not what inspired me to post an entry, though. The hospital has one of those little charity shops in it - a real, unimproved by advertising types, old-fashioned charity shop, which means that unlike shiny new modern charity shops which look just like commercial shops and only sell immaculate paperbacks off the recent bestseller/Booker Prize list for a fiver, this one had a rack of musty-smelling dog-eared books my age or older for 20p a time. I was literally crowing with pleasure at some of my finds:

Winston Graham: Demelza, Jeremy Poldark and Warleggan. Yay Poldark!

Lynne Reid Banks: The Dark Quartet. LRB does the Brontes! Everything else I bought today is something I've previously owned copies of, but not this - I've never even heard of this. Wow.

Lewis Carroll: The Annotated Alice. Everyone should have a copy of Alice, and I hadn't for some time. Not sure how helpful/annoying the annotations might be.

Peter O'Donnell: Modesty Blaise. One of my girlhood heroines. I used to have them all, and have you any idea how hard to find they are these days?

Mary Webb: Precious Bane In Space. I like it.

Peter Dickinson: Heartsease. I really want the rest of these. Oh, for a proper charity shop.

Ruby Ferguson: Jill Enjoys Her Ponies. Stop sniggering at the back there! I said STOP it!


Anyway, I am very pleased and I am probably spending the rest of today slightly stoned and reading. Yayy!

BROKE MY FUCKING COFFEE MUG!

fucking left arm wasn't quite strong enough. aaaaaaaaargh.

one of the TrekBBS Loungepeople sent me a link with some elbow-improving exercises. Now I just have to get my head together enough to do them...

going to a party tonight. a tad nervous but YAY!! Swingers!

Oops. I realised yesterday that Spike's vet appointment clashed with my physiotherapist appointment today. I'm so glad the physio has dogs, she was quite happy to reschedule.

This seems to be "I really need a TARDIS" week: also found out that Bifest clashes with UK TrekBBS Meet V: The Spam Frontier - which means topbit won't be at one and I won't be at the other, which is a bit sad, although it might be fun to bring the two groups together sometime after picking the last shreds of flesh off the crispy duck. We'll see how everyone feels and what the logistics are like on the day.

Changed my userinfo slightly. It never felt quite right having a Garak quote up there. The new one is a little more me. Go read it.

..talking of a little more me, anyone who hasn't voted for me in The Great TrekBBS Boob-Off Poll, go do it now. I think you may have to be a registered member, but most of you would enjoy being registered members anyway. My ego can't take losing this one!

Bad arm day today, which means it's going to be great fun restraining the Evil Bugger at the vet's. Sod physiotherapy, I think my idea of just gnawing it off was the right one...

stress, running late, need a bath, couldn't sleep last night, flat looks like a shithole, arm is particularly painful and Spike is being a psycho hosebeast from hell (I know he's only like that because I'm wound up. Doesn't always help to know that).


BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAATHE!!!!