Thread 8 - TalkLair: “Brewing Russell's teapot”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 7).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with spring flowers. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Thank you, Kuc!

Hello all, welcome back, thanks Kuc!

I've been tidying the garden and am a bit knackered. 2 full bags of trimmings and assorted herbaceous cack from cracks in the pathways. I don't even like gardening!

Weeding day for me, too. And the new rainwater diverter has just arrived so I can finish connecting up the new waterbutt in the hope that we get rain at some point.

The nearest I've got to gardening so far - our mailbox sits at the end of our drive, and DH built a shallow box onto it in which I can sit a small trough full of annuals, so I planted that out yesterday with red pelargoniums and blue ageratum. There is no point in putting things out before Memorial Day (late May) here as we do get occasional late frosts in May. Maybe I am wronging the Brits here but I commented that when I lived in Watford I wouldn't have dreamed of even having a mailbox outside the house, let alone easily-stolen trough of annuals, because the mail and the flowers would probably disappear. We were with friends for dinner (lobster rolls!) last night and they were horrified that I would think it risky. Most of them don't bother locking their cars or even their houses. I said I locked my car even on the driveway and they were so surprised. Are we a thieving bunch in the U.K. or is it that I live in Maine? I'm sure someone in NYC would lock things up.

Hello new thread! No gardening for me, but a busy morning's bottling session. There's a lot of sterilising, cleaning and soaking to do.

Hello brand new thread and thank you, @Kucinghitam .

Mavis, I'm so sorry for worrying you. I am an arsehole sometimes.

In more hospital update stuff, I got a long letter outlining everything that was discussed yesterday, it's to one of the doctors dealing with me. I'm feeling really positive about it all today because they're really doing it! They'll have another MDT after the next endoscopy. This is all so good and I also know that if they get me back in quickly after that endoscopy I don't need to worry, they're just on the ball. Huzzah!

Re huzzah, has anyone here watched The Great ? It's gloriously sweary and introduced me to unnecessary huzzahs.

In other news, I'm with Seamus today which is always a pleasure.

Huzzah!

Historical inaccuracies galore in The Great, but tremendous fun.

I was worrying about you a bit too @MouseMinge but no way are you an arsehole for not coming straight here with an update!

I’m in the outer London suburbs and I always lock my car but have a few big pots in the front garden. I figured they’re pretty heavy so not easy to nick but if they go they go. I did put stones at the bottom as I didn’t need the compost to go all the way down whereas a similar pot in the back garden has polystyrene at the bottom as it’ll be easier to move. A couple of the plants by the front door have suffered a bit as delivery people think leaving parcels behind them is a good idea. I’d much prefer it if they just left them on the doorstep as reaching over a rose to retrieve them isn’t my idea of fun and I think the chances of stuff getting nicked from the doorstep is pretty low here.

I haven’t even heard of The Great. These threads are pointing me towards all sorts of things I’m missing out on.

MouseMinge · Today 14:13

I'm heartened to hear that you have some positive news, at least!

I was gardening too, taking advantage of the extreme dryness to clobber some of the very overgrown grass (and nettles and brambles and raspberries and allsorts). Stopped at 12,45 because the sun was getting too high, and then actually had a few drops of rain. No idea whether I'll be able to cut some more later in the evening which was my original plan, and torn between desperate longing for rain and relief at being able to tackle grass some of which hadn't been cut in over a year.

MouseMinge, you were very much in my thoughts yesterday. However frustrating the non/diagnosis is, it seems much better that they are taking your problem seriously and are going to try to help you - even if the box they're putting it in at the moment has that scary c word in the label.

My take is they'd rather think cancer and be wrong than decide it can't possibly be cancer and then be all, "Shit, it's stage four, soz."

Sometimes I think it’s also that attaching the word cancer to the possible issue gets appointments more speedily.

MouseMinge, thank goodness you're finally being taken seriously, 20 years is far too long to be putting up with what you've been experiencing. It's crazy. Fingers crossed the outcome is good.

This seems like a good take, and thinking cancer and being wrong seems like an excellent outcome. So definitely hoping for that.

It's been a week since we lost Phoebe. A horrible hard week with a lot of intermittent weeping.

Got home from work this afternoon to my sad empty house. But it was quite hot inside, so I opened the south-facing windows to let fresh air in, including the living room windows. Went to make a cup of tea, did some MNetting for 10 minutes, closed the living room windows.

Went to sit in dining room to catch up on work emails for an hour or so. With a bit of MNetting in between, natch.

Then, about 5 minutes ago, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the hall. Feline-type movement. I nearly had a fucking heart attack. I mean, I don't believe in ghosts obviously, but seriously I thought I'd vomit up my entrails. So now I know that when I'm absolutely fucking terrified, the noise I make is <tiny squeak>.

The apparition miaowed at me. Turns out it's the cat from the one of the behind neighbours - basically she must have jumped in through the living window and been happily exploring all over my house for an hour. I only know her because we've sometimes seen her in the behind garden (visible from an upstairs window). Previously she's never come into our back garden, let alone the front garden. I guess it is a combination of this territory no longer being guarded by a resident cat, and that her house is currently undergoing a loft conversion.

She's very very chonky, as I discovered when I tried to pick her up to usher her out of the house.

That's not chonk. She's just increased mass in protest at being evicted.

Sweet looking cat.

Kuc, what does the reference to Russell's teapot mean?

From Wikipedia:

Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.
Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion. He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.

You have a new cat visitor/neighbour cat. I know she was already a neighbour cat but now she's your neighbour cat! Like Arnie, she'll be back.

Thanks, Kuc, that's a few one for me. Something to ponder while I'm weeding!

She's very friendly. Considering we've never been introduced until now, she was extremely keen on cuddles and even licked me after I'd put her out in the garden.

I'm on this thread and it shows on the app as I'm watching it. So why do new posts not show up on the "I'm on" or "I'm watching" bits on the app?

Lovely cat, Kuc!

I’ve had a great day, sunbathing as though each day is the last day of sun we’ll get this year, and looking lovely and brown, with an up and down ombre effect to white in the middle. I have various sundresses that are easy to whip down to my waist and up to my waist at the other end, and equally easy to shrug back into if a delivery person or postman arrives, so from my forehead to my breasts and from my feet to my knees I am supertanned, then the tan fades slowly out around my belly. I hate having any white bits at all, but have a lodger whose sensibilities I feel obliged to protect. I look so much slimmer when I’m tanned. And all the sun damage is hidden by the tan!

I use a laptop and find out what threads have been doing via the 'notifications' drop down beside 'active discussions'. I realise that is probably less than no help to a phone app user, but I mean well.

Visitor cat is being like Rosy and getting feline midsummer madness started a few weeks early. Maybe Phoebe sent her to cheer you up, since she couldn't be there herself.