Monthly Archives: December 2011

Dec15

Neko update…

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Well, she’s back to acting like normal since she got the drugs, and last night she was pestering our guest from Dublin for his Guinness. No, she doesn’t get any – but it doesn’t stop the begging. She was on a 24 hour fast, then three days of rice with chicken or fish. She gobbled her dinner, of course. Mmm, people food. The stinky farts are something else, though – I’m not used to smelly animal farts! All my furry kids are normally quite polite about such things.

Vet says that he is no longer sure it is colitis. Her issues are in both the upper and lower intestines; colitis is just the lower and would mean the diarrhoea is uncontrollable. She couldn’t hold it, but sure tried to. Apparently I didn’t chase her out of the spare room nearly fast enough, and she pooped on iDJ’s slippers. I know, sounds like the tag line to a joke, doesn’t it?

She’s on Buscopan, Flagyl, and … Well, I don’t know what the third one is. The label says Flagyl again. That’s not good, glad I looked. Better ring the vet tomorrow! I should have looked sooner.

Dec13

Neko at the vet

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Dammit! The tummy upsets Neko has been fighting finally won, this evening. I was in the bathtub, getting all shiny clean for my KIBIS dinner tonight, and she came upstairs and lay outside the bathroom door. Then she whined twice and went back downstairs. Well, I rushed my ablutions as best I could but it was in vain.

A lovely smelly lake of poo was in my living room.

This is why I don’t have any carpet anywhere….

So much for being shiny clean. After cleaning up I feel as though my hair smells of diarrhoea. Ugh. About 20 mins later I let her out again, and she didn’t want to come back inside – despite the wind and sleet. When she did I wiped her butt and it was bloody. Fuck.

Rush call to the hubby: he gets off work at six and the vet stays open til 6:30, but we are a bit more than a half hour away. Rush call to the vet: they will stay open for him. I did think it was funny that they knew who I was just from my accent. I visit them too often, it seems…

So. I’m sure it is the colitis again, and they will set us up with drugs for a week or so. She’ll be fine for a few months, then this will start again. Poor pup, wish there was more I could do to stave off these attacks.

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Dec13

This year’s Deth Nog!

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A quick pic of this year’s DethNog! I remembered that I used to doodle a cowboy skeleton with a really long skull, so I put him on the ‘nog this year. Can’t wait until the KIBIS Christmas Gala Dinner tonight! It’s too early to sample it now, even for me.

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Wish it could be tasted via the Internet!

Dec11

Socks has a Plum! No, a Peach! No, a Lemon!

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The short story: Socks is the nickname of my best friend, and she is having her first baby. Since I can’t be there with her, I’m chronicling her journey on my blog.

Long story: go here, then here, and the rest are my weekly updates: one, two, three, four, five, and six. That will catch you up to now!

No, I’m not three weeks behind on my Socks + Button update. I am a week behind. But also in the last week, her due date got bumped forward a week! She had another ultrasound/sonogram (whatever they are called these days) and based on Button’s measurements, they think Socks is now due on June 9 rather than June 14. So we skipped a fruit entirely, dammit.

We’re both a bit baffled by the fruit-size similes lately. Saying a plum is bigger than a lime was a little odd. I guess the book writers have really small limes. They are saying at week 13, baby is the size of your closed fist. I don’t know about you, but my fist is bigger than any peach, ever. Also bigger than any lemon I’ve ever seen; I’m tipping into navel orange territory here. I have some big hands, I’m not a little person…but still.

Bear, of course, just says that of course Button is big: it’s a Bear Family baby. Well, yeah!

Bear is still in denial, or something like it. He needs to educate himself on what is going on ‘inside his wife’ and stop being so freaked out. Well, ‘freaked out’ is too strong an expression. He’d be more comfortable if he knew the medical facts, I think, rather than listening to his male friend – who has a child! – tell him that Button has gills and a tail that “falls off.” Sheesh, no wonder he’s a bit green around his own gills, if he believes that rubbish. He’s just still a bit unwilling to look for himself.

The other important business that Socks had taken care of is testing for chromosomal abnormalities. A bit of a controversial subject in Ireland – there is no abortion for any reason, so why bother to check if the baby you are carrying is fully healthy and normal? It was just a blood test from Socks herself, but a rather odd one. They didn’t draw blood, they just did a finger-prick and put one drop of blood on each of five dots on a card. Then they folded it up and shipped it off to the lab. Wow, huh? I’m fascinated by this, as is Socks – just how does an old dried up bit of blood tell them anything? Medicine sure has come a long way.

The ultrasound had a little surprise – at 13/14 weeks, Button is already sucking its thumb! The picture is clear even to me, and I have trouble seeing much on those printouts. Socks said she could see the movement ‘live’ on the screen, which was thoughtfully placed on the ceiling so she didn’t have to turn to look.

Nice – the best I ever got at a gynaecologist’s office was a smiley-face sticker on the ceiling. It didn’t help.

I almost don’t want to tell any more. There is some news that isn’t ‘bad’, per se, but of things that will have to be kept in mind for the future. First, Socks has a fibroid. They say that it presents no danger, but may cause her more pain than usual during labor and after the birth. Second, there’s an issue that may mean she is at risk of high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and that Button will be smaller than usual for its gestational age. Now, we already see that last one doesn’t seem to be holding true. She has never had high blood pressure – actually runs low – so we’re not worried there either. They put her on one baby aspirin a day to reduce the risk of preeclampsia, and she’ll take that until she is 8 months along then stop. She isn’t in any danger until 20 weeks at the earliest, however, so this early warning of the potential risk is welcome and I’m sure they will take good care to continue preventive measures.

She sounds like she is in really good hands, after all: a video monitor on the ceiling!!!

Dec10

Firs and furs

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I do believe I will have a big long rambling post. It feels like one of those days. Where to start? How about some adorable Neko pictures from this morning?

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She loves her toy carrot. I’ve used it as a neck pillow when doing the exercises Sled recommended, too. It’s a little smelly but pretty comfortable.

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But apparently not comfortable for too long. She rarely puts her legs all wonky like that; I think she knew I was waiting to take a picture.

She’s not been good today. I think I’ll have to take her back to the vet again soon. She eats well one day, then the next she lies around with her tummy gurgling and growling but won’t eat. She’ll eat a carrot – but if she knows better than to eat her kibble, she shouldn’t be eating a treat either. She doesn’t even nom the whole carrot at once like she does when she feels good. This morning, she had two runny poops, and barfed yellow stomach acid. The vet said she has colitis, but didn’t give us a plan of action. Before I go to the vet I’m trying something that worked for my sister’s first greyhound: a little bit of milk. Not too much or she’ll barf it up (I’m guessing, she does that if we give her a lot of liquid at once, like chicken broth). We gave her some around five, and within an hour she ate her food, yay! It stopped the tummy noises right away, too.

A break here: the Twelve Days of Gay Christmas is playing on SomaFM. “Two stiletto PUMPS!!!” Makes us giggle. we love the Xmas in Frisco station, it is mostly irreverent holiday music and not safe for work! That second link takes you to the live stream, be careful…

We finally have ‘Frisco’ on tonight because we finally have our tree, and it has lights on it. That’s it, just lights. That’s enough for one night. It took nearly two damn hours. I hate putting lights on the tree, but it is my job. I’d love to pass the torch over to iDJ, but he has a touch of OCD and would insist that each light was exactly 4 inches from all the others.

It would take a hell of a lot longer than two hours.

We have some fancy kind of tree this year. We normally get a bog-standard pine for €20 at the local garage (gas station). I just made the mistake of asking iDJ what kind of pine tree we usually get… After being asked to visually confirm what he found on the ‘net, we can say that for the past six years, it has been a lodgepole pine.

Anyhoo, this year neither garage had trees until the 8th, and one still doesn’t have them – and the one that did had four. Four crappy, short, ugly, bald, pine trees. So yesterday we borrowed his work van and drove to Claremorris for a tree. We hit five places – three had nothing, one had pines for €25 and fancy trees for €35 and they were all just six foot – but the last place had every tree €25, no matter what kind it was! We rooted through everything and ended up getting the first tree I looked at. Because I’m ‘particular.’ Heh. Yes, the Yank chooses not to spend €20+ on a Charlie Brown tree, thank you.

It appears, according to the ‘net, that we got what is possibly a Nordman Fir, and it is 7foot 9inches tall in the stand. Whattabargain!

We were a bit concerned about getting a fancy tree, because iDJ had a bad allergic reaction to a Norway Spruce a few years ago. But he poked himself on it intentionally and was fine.

I, however, seem to be having a disagreement with this tree about me not being allergic to anything. I recover pretty quickly if I don’t scratch the places it stabs me… but as you can imagine putting five strings of lights on the damn thing left my hands peppered with itchy spots. Even with gloves. Sigh.

Anyway, it is up, the lights are on it, and the fun part of completely obliterating any hint of greenery with tinsel and forty years worth of baubles and ornaments is still to come.

We also did a shit-ton of grocery shopping today. But that was mostly boring. We were cold and cranky when we got home, so I took a bath and iDJ started a fire for me to sit in front of when I was done. He even came up and scrubbed my back for me – an extreme pleasure. Thanks babe!

Here’s what happened to me once the fire was nice and hot.

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My thigh, with Lokii draped across it totally asleep but stretching for the fire. Poor always-cold kitty. Ignore the mess – fires are sloppy, but way cheaper than oil heating…

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My view. He’s soooo pathetic.

Dec8

Danger! Danger!

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I’m going to do my part for the health and safety of the uncommon person today.

Ever seen one of those infomercials where they make people look reeeely stupid? Like the woman who is in tears over not being able to peel a boiled egg? That’s my hubby trying to use a can opener.

Admittedly, the one I had was an all-metal cheap piece of junk, but he was determined to prove how shitty it was every time he used it. He would use it left handed even though he isn’t a lefty. He’d fight and curse and end up with the lid partway off and soup everywhere. Then he’d twist the lid free, leaving a gnarled needle of tin for me to slash myself on when I washed it later.

We recycle; hence the washing. This is important later.

A few weeks ago, he finally managed to snap the metal in half. I’m sure he gave a cheer and did a little dance, because now he was allowed to buy a new one. One just for him! One he could use left handed, even though he isn’t a lefty!

He came home with a fancy-schmancy white plastic thing that barely looks like a can opener. I had to read the instructions before I could figure out how to use it. It fits over the top of the can, and cuts the lid off from the side, rather than cutting down from above. Okay. It’s annoying, but I’ll get used to it.

The lid is nice and smooth, too – no jagged edges. Nice, I like that. Especially since I am the one who has to wash the damn things for recycling.

But the can itself, however, is a razor-sharp circle of certain injury. I took one look and knew I wouldn’t be sticking my hand inside with a sponge: no way. Good thing I have a brush on a stick.

No worries, then, everyone is happy. Right? Wrong.

We dump all the clean and dry recycles in one big bin, then separate the glass out later on pick-up day. He forgot about the cans.

Oh no.

Oh, yes.

He bled for about ten hours, but since I insist on him bleeding for at least 12 hours before I will authorise a doctor visit, he had to suffer me pretending to be Nurse.

He lived, he’s fine. Until the next time.

My words of warning: don’t buy this thing unless you want to bleed for ten hours, use a brush on a stick, and read instructions.

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Dec7

Eggnog aka DethNog

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I asked my dad and he said he didn’t have a patent on the eggnog recipe, so here it is!

I have some translations to do. The original recipe is in US measures. I’ll do that first:

(need an empty 1 gallon milk jug)
1 cup (1/2 pint) each of:
Brandy
Blended whiskey
Rum (not light or dark* – not spiced!)
4-6 whole eggs – depends on how big they are, of course
2 cups (1 pint) heavy cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar (I think I hit about the middle between the two)
1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg (may need a bit more, I didn’t have the measure written down! Dad said start with 1/4 and add more if you think it needs it. I’m making this next week so will see how much I use, but I suspect it is more.)

Beat eggs until smooth.
Add cream and a bit of the milk, doesn’t matter how much but not TOO much just yet!
Add all the alcohol. Add the sugar.
Stir until the sugar melts.
Add nutmeg and cinnamon.
Pour into empty 1 gallon jug, top up with milk until jug is full.
Shake well!

Okay, same thing but converted into metric! Doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfect, it’ll be tasty.

(need two empty 2-litre milk jugs)
237ml each of:
Brandy
Blended whiskey
Rum (not light or dark* – not spiced!)
4-6 whole eggs – depends on how big they are, of course
473ml heavy cream
4 to 8 tablespoons sugar (I think I hit about the middle between the two)
1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg (may need a bit more, I didn’t have the measure written down! Dad said start with 1/4 and add more if you think it needs it. I’m making this next week so will see how much I use, but I suspect it is more.)

Beat eggs until smooth.
Add cream and a bit of the milk, doesn’t matter how much but not TOO much just yet!
Add all the alcohol. Add the sugar.
Stir until the sugar melts.
Add nutmeg and cinnamon.
Pour into empty jugs, try to put the same amount in each, oh how fun, top up with milk until jugs are full.
Shake well!

* I can’t find ‘not light and not dark’ rum here; I just use the white or clear rum. I make it in a big mixing bowl and use a funnel. Yes, it’s a bit messy, but after two glasses you won’t care.

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Dec7

Sorry ’bout that…

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I was attempting to get into Google searches with that last post. I’m not getting the sales job I interviewed for, the other job is still up in the air, my dole appeal status is ‘some time will elapse before the Appeals Office is in a position to look at your case’, there is nothing in the papers, and our financial situation has hit rock bottom. Anything that gets me out there to earn a little bit…