Month: January 2021

General life things

Got an hour of work done this morning before the temptation to check the news won. An hour uninterrupted is actually quite good these days; usually Gizmo starts wandering around screaming well before an hour is up. I know I’ve mentioned she’s deaf, but she is also a little senile, and this means that when she forgets what she was doing or where I am, she yowls, far louder than necessary because she can’t hear herself. Medicating her for the hyperthyroidism has made no difference to the volume or frequency of what we call the murder-screams: raw, full-throated, full volume. It’s not a normal sound. When she first started doing this, Andy and I found it very distressing. She sounds like she’s dying. But when one of us steps into view, she does a double-take and gives a quiet, indignant little meow. (She is an oriental shorthair, so she does not actually “meow.” It’s “mow.” Or, if she’s in a hurry, just “ow.”) We love her.

Anyway, I was supposed to be wrapping up a research point/timeline loose end, which turned into adding more words (probably because I was so blissfully uninterrupted) and I’ve wondered throughout the day if it’s too much of an info-dump now. 

Went for a walk and decided it doesn’t matter, I like those words, so they’re staying. 

From my garden, which is mostly fancy weeds.

No words. (Well, some.)

I had my mid-week post ready to go, but then the attack on the Capitol Building happened. It can be upsettingly surreal to watch this kind of thing unfold as an Australian; there’s a very naive tendency here to think that US politics are irrelevant and don’t affect us. Meanwhile, I haven’t managed to stop checking the news for more than half an hour at a time.

Anyway, real blog posts next week. For now, all I have is cats.

New Year’s Day

Today is a milestone for our household: we’ve officially gotten Gizmo through another year. She turned 18 at Christmas. In June, she was hospitalized with the flu, and we were convinced we were going to lose her. She developed hyperthyroidism. She’s deaf, senile, and allergic to fish.

At this point the vets must believe we’ve made a pact with the devil, because she’s still here.

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