Narnia, Five Questions and Cat Drama

[susie_flo]

Happy snow-day fiendlets. I hope you're all tucked up warm and cosy. I've spent the day shivering pathetically beside a sash window that treats my neck to a howling gale... (but yay for finding a chunky button-up neckwarmer that I knitted last year!

Today I popped out to the end of my road to take a few snow pics just before the light disappeared.   After a couple of shots I noticed that my camera's white balance was on the wrong setting, which was causing the pics to have a pronounced blueish hue... but I found the effect so purrdy that I decided not to correct it. You wanna see?












 

 

Now onto something I have never done before... the Five Questions Meme.

These questions were posed to me by Mia_Oia.  If any of you would like to do your own version, drop me a comment and I will think up five random questions for you to answer at your leisure. (I realise some of you have already done this meme several times, so please ignore at will.)


 

Q1) Which slebs would you put in your Big Brother house if you were in charge?

Hmmm, I think that this is a rare form of alchemy.  I mean.... who would have guessed at the brain bleach we were all going to need from the simple pairing of George Galloway and Rula Lenska?  Or the modern tragicomedy emerging before our eyeballs as Michael Barrymore smashed a dozen eggs against his own head... simply because somebody told him to?
 
I suppose the trick is to mix people that you admire with people horrific enough to guarantee the best car-crash TV.  So here goes..

1. Sarah Palin (ready made car crash of divine proportions)
2. The Hoff (ideally wearing Baywatch trunks and supplied with limitless alcohol)
3. Richard Dawkins (a pink-cheeked paragon of crossness at the stupidity of it all)
4. Anne Widdecombe (not afraid to speak her mind and therefore bound to cause arguments0
5. Morrissey (ideally at his misanthropic best)
6. Madonna (loud + scary + barely on the edge of sanity)
7. Anthony Head (sorry Anthony, but there has to be someone nice in there, if ony for perving purposes)
8. Meg Ryan (assuming she is as charmless and full of herself as we have been led to believe)
9. Jeremy Kyle (only for the special task where one sleb has to be ritually killed and eaten by the rest)
10. Oscar Wilde (am I allowed to bend time and space in order to have a divine wit in the house?)

Q3) What's your favourite dessert?

Oooh...  Sherry Trifle.  Or maybe Eton Mess (with a side order of pannacotta).  Generally anything frou-frou involving fruit, alcohol, cream or sponge will do it for me.  Nothing too heavy or cakey (except for sticky toffee pudding, which is food of the gods.)

What I really do NOT like is the recent trend for chefs to add chocolate into desserts where it is not welcome.  (For example, I do not want a chocolate trifle or a pear tart made with chocolate pastry... tsk.)


Q4) Which fictional character do you most identify with and why?

Hell, this one was difficult... 

As a child, I identified (rather bizarrely) with the jolly hockey sticks girls in the Mallory Towers books.  I used to think that boarding school and midnight feasts would be the most fun humanly possible.  If the Harry Potter books had been written in that earlier era, I would have been obsessed with them and identified HUGELY with Hermione.
   
As an adult, I can't think of a specific character with whom I most identify...  but there is definitely a "type".   I feel an instant affinity for anyone on the run from authority.  I don't know why this is...  in real life I am a perfectly tame, law-abiding citizen.  But almost every night, ever since I was a child, I dream about being on the run from the powers that be - sometimes alone and sometimes as part of an organised resistance.  In any movie scene where a criminal is being chased by the police, I instinctively identify with the criminal and want them to get away... even when you're not supposed to.  As a result of this, I tend to spend a lot of time wondering about whether my strength of character would actually support this in real life.  I often try to imagine what I would do in a time when rebellion could get you killed...  e.g.  would I have had the guts to join the French resistance or to harbour jews from the Nazis?  I guess I won't know the answer until tested...  and I hope that never happens.


Q5) Did you (like me) find netball an aggravating game because you can't move when you have possession of the ball?

I found netball intensely aggravating simply because it was a part of my least favourite school activity ever... Games!  Suffice to say I was not of the sporty persuasion and never will be.  Apathy thy name is Sue... I don't think I even qualified for a "tries hard" in my school reports.  The only good thing I can remember about games was being allowed to wear my rather fabby pink legwarmers during cross country running, due to the extreme sub-zero temperatures that it usually coincided with.  


So...  moving on, I'm sorry to say that I did not watch any slebby badness last night, mainly because I was distracted by cat-related drama. 
 
Cat Drama

The easily-grossed-out might like to skip this bit.   There's no nice way to put it, but Jessica has been unwell recently with a leaky bottom.  A couple of days ago she got worse and stopped eating any solid foods.  She was clearly hungry, badgering me constantly for food, but no matter what I gave her (whiskas, whiskas senior, tinned tuna, salmon, dried pellets...) she would lick the gravy off and then beg for something else.  Last night I resorted to buying a cod fillet and making her a fish soup, just to get some nourishment into her.
   
Having resolved to take her to the vet this weekend, she suddenly started making the most awful groaning and yowling noises at around 10pm last night while sitting in front of the fire.  She began pacing around and I could tell that she was in pain but had no idea what to do.  So I called the emergency vet helpline and the lovely, kind vet on the phone listened to the symptoms and told me that I should definitely bring her in to the all night vet hospital in Northolt (i.e. miles away) as soon as possible.  He warned me that this would incur a flat rate fee of £130 before any treatment, but it seemed like I had no option, as she continued to make terrible yowly noises throughout the phonecall.
 
G and I had made headway into a bottle of wine, so we had to enlist the services of a pet taxi (I never knew such things existed!) who said that they would try to get to me within 45 mins, but were concerned about the snow. 
   
Anyway (sincere apologies for this...) about ten mins later, Jess suddenly legged it down the hallway and did the most ENORMOUS solid poo.  When she came back, she seemed to be back to normal and purry with no pain.  I called the vet and he told me to check whether she had her appetite back (which she did) so we agreed to cancel the emergency visit.
 
Apart from G taking the piss mercilessly along the lines of "So basically she just needed a dump" it was a huge relief from the panic because I was convinced she was at death's door.  I guess she may have been suffering from a 2 week build up of painful constipation, but I'm still not conviced that all is well and will be getting her checked out at the weekend.  The trials of pet ownership.

Ok, now that I've put you off your dinner, I will say farewell.  (And Brrrrrski!)

 

Comments

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Aww the poor little pet lambkins, she must feel so relieved. Hopefully she'll be pkay now and check up will just be routine. I was advised to add a teaspoon of vegetable or olive oil to food to encourage 'smooth passage', it can also help with furballs apparently.

Lovely pics too.

I saw on the Daily Fail website (forgive me but it is my guilty pleasure) that Bubba has been given a bible to read and he kneels to pray by the side of the bed frequently....but then if I was faced with the prospect of Lady Sov, I'd be praying too....for early release.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Sweet Suffering Jesus - I'm sure Lady Sov has some talent but I'm struggling to discern what it is. She probably couldn't cope with the Bible as it hasn't got many pictures.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I might try that tip with the oil, thanks.

I will try and watch the slebby badness tonight to catch up on the biblical action. Agree about Sov, she's so far proving to be just as vacuous as the P3G... with even less eloquence.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Oh and go on give me some questions. I like this game :-)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

OK here we go...

Q1. If you had the power to invent a brand new convenience food, what would it be?

Q2. What is the least attractive thing man could say or do, to make you go off him in an instant?

Q3. If a genie offered you three wishes, what would they be?

Q4. Who would you most like to use a cattle prod on, for evil kicks?

Q5. What is the scariest book you've ever read?

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes it was Darryl! Well remembed :-)

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I was completely in love with the Mallory Towers stories too, tuck boxes, midnight feasts and swimming pools made out of natural rock recesses seemed so fabulous and needless to say bore no relation to my life whatsoever.

[gylfinir.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad she's better! But what an awful worry!

I'm in a chatty mood, so hit me with some questions...

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Here you go...

Q1. Who, in your view, is the hottest specimen of manhood alive today?

Q2. If you were living in Ancient Egypt, what would be your ideal role in society?

Q3. What are your all-time favourite words?

Q4. If you won a million pounds, what would you do with it?

Q5. What is the best way to cook potatoes?

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor cat! You must have been so worried. Glad it worked out ok.

it also makes me glad that my vet has another branch only slightly further away that does out-of-hours emergency cover...

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

See, cat people get it! (Whereas G, who is not really a cat person, thinks I am a strange overreacting nutter). You;re lucky to have that nearby vet.

[inbetween-girl.livejournal.com]

I like the blueness!

(TMI) Children also get that kind of... er... Cat Drama. I feel your pain and I'm glad she's better.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you.... (and ooh, it must be even worse when it's your child!)

Poor little mitten

[tvted.livejournal.com]

Poor constipated kitten...although who would have guessed when she had the squirts for so many days? Pets ths weekend and be sure to take her!

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

She's been uncomfortable for quite a while now so I can see why you were so worried. Cats can really suffer if they have digestive and urinary problems so I don't think it's over the top - esp as she's old.