Thread 9 - TalkLair: “Russell's teapot goes on being round”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 8).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with summer flowers - should bloody well be, what with all that rain. 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…

DH is seriously talking about lighting the log burner!

Done so twice in the last week. Just brightens up the room on a miserable windy rainy evening. I've been telling myself that I really must get a decent trip away in on my bike this summer, otherwise what's the point of having it, but not in this weather; my days of riding long distances on motorbikes in pouring rain are definitely over! Good to hear CB is still in attendance, Kuc!

die of heatstroke above 12°C, love raincoats & wellies & puddles, cosy-hot-chocolate-blanket-snuggles

This is me these days! Although I'd swap the hot chocolate for a beer or G&T. I must admit I've quite enjoyed this summer. I suspect I'd feel differently if I had a garden though, or didn't live in tourist central. I've come to associate hot, sunny days with flocks of tourists, drunken mayhem and noise throughout the night. And stifling in my flat. God I've become so miserable and need to move.

Oh and I love CB. What a sweetheart.

I've been quietly worried about CB, so am relieved he has survived your absence. Good that you are now back to resume the duties that you weren't informed of and didn't sign up for.

I've been enjoying the cool and rain, not because that's my ideal summer, but because I somehow feel convinced that it's that or the horrific heatwave/wildfire scenario. It's always very tiresome when people go, 'Oh well, at least you haven't ... xyz' at whatever happens to you, and I wish I could get that bloody voice out of my own head!

'Oh well, at least you haven't ... xyz' at whatever happens to you

Yes, I recall as a child that pretty well any complaint was greeted with 'Worse things happen at sea'. It was infuriating.

Glad to hear Cat Burglar put in the effort to welcome you home, Kuc!

The weather forecast last night suggested that summer may be back at the end of next week. I’m not holding my breath though!

I leave the heating on on the basis that if the indoor temperature falls low enough for it to come on my mother (who has always felt the cold but feels it even more now and seems to have lost the ability to wrap up warmly) will be demanding warmth anyway. It’s come on a few evenings recently (only as it gets towards bedtime as that’s when the thermostat is set highest). I am st least managing to find a dry day to get the washing done every week though which is something.

Re CB, my brother has been entertaining one for a year now. He's a lovely little black cat called Barney who ostensibly lives next door with his brother but they don't get on, so he spends most of his time elsewhere. His favourite place is my brother's bed and once he's let indoors he shoots upstairs gets onto the bed, often sleeping there overnight. Fortunately for Barney, my brother adores him.

We had a cat burglar at a house I lived in years ago. The nextdoor neighbours couldn’t figure out where their cat disappeared to at night. The answer was: out of your (second floor) bedroom window, along the parapet and into my bedroom.

A cat issue has blown up in this house. My lovely 15 year old tabby Skittles went to the vet last week for her annual check up and rabies shot (legal requirement here) and had lost a couple of pounds in weight - not visually obvious as she's quite fluffy. Blood tests revealed an overactive thyroid. The cheap ($20 a month) solution is twice a day medication. The permanent solution is a treatment that requires her to spend 3 days in vet hospital and costs $1500. A no brainer you might think but the snag is that she is very skittish and it's a nightmare trying to give her medication, and even then we have to take her back for more blood tests occasionally at $200 a time. I'm the only one who can get within touching distance of her and give her medication, and I will be away two weeks in September and another two weeks late October into November. Aargh!

I always took a fortnight’s annual leave at the end of July for my birthday, and it almost always rained for the duration. Devon is much wetter than the east anyway because we get all the rain off the Atlantic, but patterns here over the last 24 years have been a gorgeous sunny April and/or May, then wet dreariness until August, then another few weeks of summer. Even the 3-month drought of 2018 ended in July, I remember because we had a lunar eclipse party and couldn’t see the moon for cloud!

Will she not tolerate it in pill putty? I’ve failed to conceal medication for Kasper in anything else. He is extremely suspicious and paranoid.

That was for @Britinme

Oh dear, Brit! Sounds like in her case the expensive treatment would be better, if not too invasive and dangerous at her age? What’s the treatment, radioactive iodine? Surgery?

I gave her her first dose that way yesterday, but I had to trap her and hold her first. She doesn't take treats from your hand and I can't risk her sister getting hold of it if I put it in her bowl.

Radioactive iodine is the treatment and unless she gets a lot easier to give medication to over the next month (I have to take her back to the vet next month for a blood check to see if the dosage is right) I think we will have to go for that.

Blood tests were otherwise surprisingly good for her age.

Phoebe was the very devil to pill. And would never be fooled by hiding them in food.

My poem of the day email today is about cats. It's not a poem I would be capable of writing but I actually really like it.

For My Cats Gaspara & Alfonsinaa^
Michael Leongg*
after Gaspara Stampa and Alfonsina Stornii^
get up, sister, when dawn 
calls to daybreak 
reborn; 
 mother me dawn-like, 
entangled in daisy; 
mountain my mouth 
with mother-of-pearl; 
touch the wet earth; 
 have me lightly, 
and not lonely, in grape leaves;
in that extreme hour 
(when God shall forgive you), 
drink from stones of frost 
 and foam me 
 a trembling corolla; 
 
now I must lie reclined 
and speak with the birds;
sister my sinews, 
bring me wineglasses of miracles; 
 your haughty flesh 
like water,
your proud skeleton 
calling all 
the vanished names of the wind

That's reminded me of my step-grandmother's cat and me being the only who could give her medication. The poor cat had flu and no doubt felt dreadful anyway, but then had the indignity of what I had to do in order to get the flu medicine into her. I'd put on gloves and, once I'd got hold of the cat, I wrapped her tightly in a towel with just her head poking out and squirted this pink stuff between her clenched teeth and then held her mouth closed until she swallowed it. I felt terrible doing that to her but my grandfather had just died, step-grandmother was very distraught, and it was important the cat stayed alive for a while.

Brit, I like that very much!

The ending in particular is fabulous.

That’s wonderful, Brit!

Django is becoming more and more of a lap cat, especially in the evening but the last couple of days most of the day except when he and Francis are chasing each other around the flat, Last night he was curled up in the crook of my arm with his paw over my arm "holding" me. He is such a dote. Being black it's hard to figure out where his actual head is in this photo but you can spot an ear, his face is pressed more or less underneath my arm.

Django looks so wonderfully snug and comfortable. It must be great being a cat.

I’d quite like to be a cat, but only if I didn’t have to eat cat food or mice.