... sigh .... 2020

 Really, this is an unspeakable  year.   

My father passed away.  My other sister has cancer and is doing chemo ( thou ovarian cancer caught early, which is actually awesome, because you don't normally get to catch it early - so actually probablly great)

There have been other gastly things which I've obviously blocked from my memory cause I can't remember them off the top of my head.

One of my musician crushes passed away a few days ago and I only found out this afternoon. 

He once passed unnecessarily closely to my chair at a gig in Brisbane and I got to leer at his rear from an inch away, and then proceded to say sexually inappropriate things on line *smacks wrist bad sammy*.  One of a handful of people whom my occasionally unruly hormones and enthusiasms inspired me to fly for to see.  I even went out in Townsville, where I never feel particularly safe to be inebriated on my own.

RIP Mike Noga

Ps. Could all the other people I adore please take very good care of themselves for at least the next six months.  I'm usually pretty resilient,  but this year is testing me.

Drags feet reluctantly ...

Finally went to a doctor about my malfunctioning wrist.
Haven't seen the report yet, but from the pictures I don't think it's good.

My wrist.

Normal wrist

The picture of my wrist looks like someone has run the smug function over it;
Or it's dissolved;
Or something.

Still ... it makes me feel better about considering it an ouchy.
I always worry that I am just being a sook :)

Oh dear ...

... poor Suki was not pregnant, or at least not successfully pregnant.

1.3 grams of pusy infected uterus was removed from my poor sick pussy.
(I couldn't resist an are you being served moment there, sorry peoples)

She forgave me for her first fearfilled foray into the outside world 10 hours or more later, but has now ostracised me since the painkilling injection has worn off.

Suki has always been the most nervy and feral of all my cats.
She can hear a blister pack from rooms away and will hide behind the stove where I cannot reach her for hours, sigh.

All I have to do is look at her in an interested way to scare her into the unknown  hidden pockets of my duplex.

I only know two of her hideaways.
Unfortunately she has four or five.

She is supposed to get her stitches out Saturday, and I am not quite sure if I'll manage it.

She only half destroyed the vets office.

The vet said she was very well behaved once she was wrapped up and covered in a towel.

Funnily enough she likes a pat, as long as you don't physically handle or move her in any way.  I have quite enjoyed the (i now know,  pain inspired) assertiveness of the last couple of weeks.

Ive always thought she would enjoy a house of own without the competition of her siblings.

She is my shame and my joy ...

...and for reasons unknowable, psychokitty incest cat, aka Wombat, has decidedly she loves me.

Don't get me wrong.
We used to be very close when she was young.
She didn't seem at all mentally unstable initially.

But then ...

... my landloord wanted to do some work on the house.
Painting and sanding and fiddling about with windows and doors.

Wombat was an inside cat so I decided to remove my cats to my sisters house.
Three large cages all wired together and I  stopped by twice a day to give them outside time.
(And when I say twice a day, I mean before and after work for excessive periods of time cause I didn't want to run into the landlord. I basically only went home to sleep)

The landlord took two or more months.

I had not expected it to take so long.

Wombat has been violent and bad tempered ever since, except ...

... brief periods when she suddenly decides she loves me and can't bare to be parted from me for a period of about three days tops.

So far, she has bathed me from forehead to cleavage.

I feel raw.

Do I have any skin left?

At least it has stopped the chatting.

She will by like an excessively demonstrative loving psycho stalker tick for the near future.

Oh god.
She is starting on cleaning my belly!

Ow ow ow ow ouch

If I  promise to have a shower
 will you stop cleaning my head?

WARNING - Sad post alert - Last saturday ...

... my beautiful Pease Blossom ...
  (a boy, just to clarify)
((my main cat, just to be more clarifcific)) ...
passed away, convulsing in my arms.
He had renal failure and was not robust in his illnesss. Many times choosing not to eat.

If i were rich he would have spent weeks on drips and bi-weekly blood tests and over $100 monthly pills.

Such was not possible.

He would hide if a car pulled up in front of a neighbours house.
When at the vets he would need to be force fed unless i could visit, for he would not eat or defect if i were not present.

He always slept on my hip, or back or stomach.
He would be on my lap if i were still.
Or on my back if i so much as leant slightly forward.
He liked back-surfing.
I would take him on trips around the house like so.

He waged a war with the Tablet, where he won if he sat closer to my face than the screen.

I had to work last Saturday.
I work every Saturday now because no one else wants to work saturdays, even though they know i would like to have two days off in a row at least once a month. Even though i cover all their shifts whenever they don't want to work them.

The manager was on leave, so i didn't feel able to not work.

Blossom waited until i came home.

I rinsed his mouth out under the tap and bundled him in a blanket, stroking his poor head.

He seemed to give me a purr, though that could well have been my overstrained imagination.

I cradled his corpse for far longer than was probably necessary because i couldn't differentiate between the blood pulsing in my ears and a heartbeat.

He is currently in my freezer pending a decision on burial.

Its been raining alot.
The irony is fierce.
It rarely rains here.
We have been on level three water restrictions for months.
The radio station personalities are calling Townsville "the Dome".

My yard is underwater, so burial with commerative garden is unfeasible at present.

I am very sad.
He was a very nice cat.
He was only nine.

So ...

.. went and saw a doctor last Friday, as I have been having issues with my arthritis.  My left hand is turning into an uncooperative claw because it is the hand I use to hold the tablet and my Achilles tendons have been niggling for the last month or two.

I attended a medical practice other than the one I work at.

First time in my life have been referred to a specialist without having to ask.

He gently took my hand and examined the swelling and said "you must be in a lot of pain".

It has been heaps worse then this.
I have struggled to walk for extended periods - months.
I nearly burst into tears.
He was so nice.

I had to decline his suggestion of some time off work.

Am now on some medication I've never had before and am wandering about in a slightly dazed state until I get the hang of it.  I feel ever so slightly like a am drunk.

I think I maybe giggling a bit more than usual.

Melbourne Cup tomorrow and am planning to place a small wager on Big Orange, cause it's such a silly name

Maybe i need a knew label ?

I think the top joint of my finger took a left turn today, but it is probably my imagination. Seems bigger to me, but hurts less. Go figure, hey?

Apologise for the selfcentred post, but I have always regreted not having photos of my feet before my toes were so transformed, so I swore I would try and document future changes.  I hate the lack of evidence.

"I really did have nice hands and feet once upon a time", she said wistfully.

Its so rare to just be perfectly happy with a feature and then it gets all deformed and ugly.  Part of me keeps expecting to go blind, because after my feet and hands i most like my eyes.

Edit :  disregarding the dreadful state of my nails, I thought I should add context, if only for myself at a future date :)

My second and third toes used to be longer or the same size as my big toe and so on. My older sister used to tell me she was more evolved because her toes were short and stubby, whereas mine were more long like a monkeys.

Thoughtful

1am and my middle finger has decided it wants to be a sumo wrestler.

I have been thinking about my evening and trying to decide what it was I ate/drank and I think it was the soda water.  I had three greedy glasses of soda water tonight.

The arthritis does not approve of carbonated beverages.

(I'd slap my wrist for being naughty, but it hurts too)

Edit: I think I will send the makers of nurofen a xmas card this year. They are a good thing and I am grateful they exist.