Black Doggerel

I'm going to have to stop referring to my mother's house as Grimmauld Place. Since she stopped drinking, recovered from the cirrhosis and became a grandmother, she's gone from strength to strength. She's cleaned the house from top to bottom (with only minimal help from me), and she's also repainted and replaced all the nasty old carpet, and if the place doesn't quite look like an Ikea catalogue, it's not for lack of effort - and it certainly smells like one.

So the house will henceforth be known as Phoenix HQ. It's accurate on more than one level, and what's more, it's canon.

(Of course, if I were a real stickler for canon, Mum and I would both have to be dead. But I think we'll let that one slide.)

Today she replaced her old lounge suite, and since we managed to borrow a cousin with a trailer, I've bagged the couch to replace my nasty old blue dog couch. It's twelve years old and it's had some hard, hard wear (I slept on it for a year when I moved back to Mum's, and Squish partially ate it when Mum was dogsitting, got drunk and forgot to feed him) - but since it was a good quality suite to start with, it's still an improvement on the one I had. Plus, it's leather and it's not bloody blue, which makes me happy. The cats liked it too - especially the hole in the seat which lets them climb about inside it. Going to have to do something about that, but I need at least three more rolls of duct tape.

in other, other, news: thank you cottonmanifesto! I squeed myself when I opened the envelope. Marmite as soon as I get to a supermarket!

Bang Out Of Order

More

Let's hope something comes of this. They're still banging away out there - not close enough or sustained enough to be a real problem Spike-wise, but it startled him a few times on the way back from Grimmauld Place this evening.

In other news, I spent the afternoon cleaning out Mum's freezer, which has been standing filth-encrusted and empty ever since the Great Stinky Fridge Incident of the summer (procrastination runs in my family). I had to keep sniffing a Vicks inhaler to stop myself puking.

Gonna go loll on the couch and watch ER now. Might be on IM later. Might not.

I be havin' a sentimental moment last night, inspired by a bad thin' what happened t' a matey`s dogs what required me t' concentrate on good intentions fer the'r safety. Thoughts like this always make me feel th' love I be havin' fer me own dogs e'en more keenly. I knelt on th' deck an' hugged Cap'n Spike t' me, his hade pressed against me chest, runnin' me hands o'er his aft an' his legs, gloryin' in th' love an' life poundin' in his deep narrow keel an' his warm fur.

He listed into me fer a wee minutes, lovin' me aft wi' all his great heart, then he pulled loose, laughed in me face an' leapt on one o' th' kittens` paper bags an' capered madly round th' flat happily rippin' 't t' pieces; then he came an' humped me arm while Squish Cabin Boy had an outraged yappin' fit. I love me dogs.

I love me heartys` dogs as well, an' things look better fer them this mornin'. Aye!

In other news, I found a way t' put me list o' tags on me link list, an' lookin' at all th' tags together I could be seein' a whole bunch o' redundant an' duplicate ones (fer example, "dogpuke" an' "dog puke" as two separate tags) so I spent a happy hour fiddlin' wi' them before gettin' bored. This be what happens when I eyeball hopefulnebula`s journal. I even, fer a mad moment, entertained th' idee o' becomin' a support volunteer, but after readin' th' relevant FAQ section I came aft t' reality. They need swabbies who actually know what they's doin' an' that t'ain't really me.

In other volunteerin' news, me dear ol' Mum be returned t'Grimmauld Place an' I be supposed t' go o'er thar this afternoon an' swab decks. I be actually quite happy t' do 't, fer once. Today be a fairly nay-feeling-bilge water tide, an' I need t' be havin' Mum owin' me a favour rather than th' other way round, what wi' takin' on extra cats I may be havin' trouble affordin'.

An' she`s homeport! That means I`ve got me dogsitter back from Davey Jones' Locker! Arrrr mateys!!!

't also means I`d better do somethin' about me trashed bunkroom this week, at least if I erewant t' be rammed, boarded an' sunk again. Hmmm.
Ya horn swogglin' scurvy cur!

( Translation fer scurvy landlubbers )

Feeling slightly better. I let the kittens play in and on the old dog couch for a few hours while I took cute pictures of them (and Spike) popping in and out of the cat-hole, then I shut them all in the bedroom and hauled the damn thing out of the flat. Shiny-Headed Cheerful Neighbour earned himself a few Brownie points by helping me get it down the stairs and I've left it leaning against the bins outside. One of the good things about living on a mildly disreputable council estate - people are always dumping furniture, mattresses, TVs and old fridges out there, so there are fairly regular collections of these things. I feel mildly guilty nonetheless, but I really needed it gone.

Talked to Mum and Sister T on the phone. Sister T is going to drop off her house key here tomorrow morning so I can go and sit on my arse at Grimmauld Place with no internet tomorrow while the Housing Association do something to the cavity wall insulation. Mum started to get hysterical about the electricity - she's been worrying for a week that it's going to OMG RUN OUT OH NOES. The fact that it would have taken me two hours of walking to refill it (and she has her car running and is driving again!) simply didn't register with her - IT MUST NOT RUN OUT!

"Mum", I said, "why do you even need the electricity on there? So the house-elves can watch daytime TV? There's no-one living there, the fridge and freezer are empty, why's it so urgent?"

"Um... now that you mention it..."

So I got out of doing that chore.

Cannot post pictures because my battery recharger isn't recharging my batteries for no reason I can think of, and all my batteries are flat. How strangely apt.

Oh shit. Blade Ninja Kitten just managed to get inside the dog couch while I was in the toilet. That couch is going to have to go (assuming I can get the damn cat out of it). I have an identical one in the bedroom in much better shape without handy cat-holes in it.

( cut for a lot of whining and grumbling and moaning )

Got back from Grimmauld Place. The toilet was leaking and is fixed. Spike and Squish had a blast playing in Mum's jungley overgrown garden - so much fun that for a moment I wondered if keeping them in an apartment is cruelty after all.

Then I remembered that when we all lived there and they had free run of the garden, it was nothing more than a convenient toilet for them and they never really played in it - it's just the novelty value that makes it appealing now.

Spike's plastic kiddie pool is still in the garden, and since no-one's been near it for over a year the accumulation of rainwater, green slime, dirt, bugs and dead leaves in it made it look a bit like spinach and brown lentil soup. And Spike, the arsehole, waited till I was letting the plumbing guy in and showing him the problem and then went swimming in it. Ever seen a camouflage-coloured swamp collie? He stank like a fucking compost heap too.

Luckily, the leak was fixed quickly and I washed him off in Mum's bathtub before taking him home. A bit of extra dirt in that bathroom makes no odds.

Stopped off at Asda on the way home and bought pork ribs and fresh sardines for the spoilt furry royalty. It's worth it to see them happily crunching the bones, it really is...

(Arachnophobes may want to avoid link-clickage in this post)

Just found one of these on my morning dogwalk. I didn't notice the zigzag web thing, I was too entranced by her amazing pop-art stripes and colours. Will take the camera with me later and see if I can get my very own pic of her. She was stunning.

The usual outdoor spider round here (the one in my icon, and the one who weaves webs at eye-level on the wood path) is Araneus diadematus - very beautiful and very common. Never seen a stripy one before, or even been aware of its existence. It's pleased me enormously - both encountering her, and the fact that the Internet was able to tell me what she was in under three minutes. YAY INTERNET!

In other news, I get to walk over to Grimmauld Place today. Last time I was there I discovered that a water leak had soaked into the bathroom floorboards and made them all collapsey... good daughter that I am, I told Mum, she told the housing association, and someone has to be there to let them in today to start fixing it.

...and the phone just rang. They're on their way and I'd better be too. Byeeeee!!!

me vs. the Grimmauld Place fridge: death cage grudge match, this afternoon.

I won. But not easily and not without a price.

I don't think I'll ever be able to look a prawn in the face again as long as I live.

*shudder*

( 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.

Phone call from my mother. She's been at sister T's for what, a week?

Apparently, when she stopped at Grimmauld Place to pick up a few things on the way home from hospital, she found the electricity had run out. She didn't have time to do anything about it six days ago, but today she decided to call me and let me know that her fridge and freezer would be melting and rotting and oh, could I drop everything and run down there and take care of it NOW?

Please note that I have had four or five telephone conversations with her in the past six days... also, my sister E went to Grimmauld Place yesterday.

Oh, and I'm not to put the rotting/melting things in the wheelie bin today. I'm supposed to run back there on Tuesday night and do it then so the bin doesn't get smelly.

*headdesk*

*headdesk*

*headdesk*

*headdesk*