No TV, Just Life: Ageing and cats

Normal night, slept through until just before six, when Silver wanted attention. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I do when I get up is go to the toilet. I nearly fell off it laughing, when Silver decides to imitate me and sits in the potting soil dish I provided for her! She sits there, next to me, looking up at me as if asking ‘Am I doing this right?’

As I’m getting dressed, I notice my Safety Shoes are still wet inside – the sole has cracked at some point, and with the rain yesterday, water seeped in when I stepped into puddles. I do need them today, since I have to go into the plant to hang up documentation – but decide to risk wearing my ‘daily-wear’ tekkies. I hope I don’t catch myself in the plant without safety wear (Safety is one of my responsibilities)!

First thing at work we’re having fried breakfast in the electrical container! Our electrician has started weekly fried breakfast for the site, sort of a work-social. It’s financed by scrap-sales (there’s a lot of scrap cabling, metal, etc on such projects, and he goes the extra mile to sell it – then uses the money to organise social functions). He pulls me to one side and with a serious face asks whether I know what a boomerang is. Ha Ha! Yes, he has finally found out who played the prank on him and is warning me there will be repercussions. But he also congratulates me, it was a complete success – I caught him out well and proper!

This cold, wet weather may be very good for the city (hopefully relieving the water-crisis somewhat), but it is not so good for my body. Since about November/December last year I’ve been having trouble with my left heel, it now comes and goes and I’ve learned to live with it, but this weather makes it worse. It feels like a bruise or something like it, but nothing is visible. I’ve tried googling it, Plantar Fasciitis is the closest match. I’ve found walking funny relieves it somewhat, and after a while it’s back to hardly-noticable. I’ve also gotten some Voltaren Patches, which I put on the heel overnight sometimes, when it’s bad. That helps – especially with the first morning walk to the throne-room! Some mornings I’ve been seriously considering crawling, the pain was so bad! Well, it’s always something, isn’t it? At least my knees are not my primary pain-giver at the moment, nor the half of my colon I have left (although that played merry hell with me earlier this week). For my hands (joints) I wear the finger-less gloves my neighbour knitted for me – and when it gets really, really bad, I take a few drops of eucalyptus oil on sugar. Maybe once, at most twice a year in the winter. Growing old is not for sissies! But I don’t complain – it is a privilige denied so many!

At least I’m not at the George Burns stage, yet: It is said that he would check the obituaries first thing in the morning, and if his name wasn’t in them, he’d get up.

Coming home to find that cute pink nose poking over the wall through the fence by the garage? Priceless! It’s been a long time since I was greeted daily with such happiness! It is rather nice and I could get used to it – without taking it for granted, I hope. Well, time will tell. It may turn out to be an easy come, easy go relationship.

On the other hand, I sometimes fancy Silver may be a reincarnation of Mynx. Far out, I know. But this whole sudden adoption is just so extraordinary! I mean, she’s been around for months, always running off if either I or my neighbour came too close – and then, from one day to the next she’s behaving as if she’s always lived with me! And it can’t simply be the food – my neighbour put out food for her before I did, and she never let her touch her or pick her up. Of course, my neighbour has two cats already – and her tom definitely asserts his territory. But there are several cats feeding from the bowl outside my front door – none of them just moved in! I mean one day she runs off at speed if I move too near and the next she’s in my home, on my lap demanding attention!

She has none of Mynx’ habits, though: Mynx would run off if he saw me so much as take a cigarette out, let alone light it. But that was my fault. When he was a kitten, I’d blow a bit of smoke in his face just to get a bit of peace – as a result he absolutely detested cigarette smoke. I could also entertain Mynx for hours just dangling the end of his tail in front of his nose – he’d keep playing catch with it endlessly! LOL until one day he caught it and bit it – but five minutes later he was at it again. Mynx also wouldn’t sleep anywhere except in my arms. He would nudge me to lift the duvet if he came to bed after I’d snuggled down, then waltz right under it, turn around, put his paws on my arm and his nose down between his paws. Whereas Silver sleeps on top of the duvet by my legs. For now, at least.

Well, the little minx has gone out after some tom who called! Interesting fact though: since Silver has moved in, the outside cat bowl doesn’t seem to get much attention anymore. So where are Ginger and Dark Silver eating now?

I’m currently re-watching Midsomer Murders and I must say I much prefer watching British crime series to American ones. They’re all about investigating motive, means and opportunity – the human way. Whereas American Series are almost completely clinically scientific. To track a victims movements, you hack their phone, trace their GPS. To discover what was on their mind, what occupied their time, you hack their e-mail, their cell-phone messages, etc. There are no civil or human rights – the ‘police’ have the right to enter your home, tear it apart, bully you, lock you up and do whatever they like if you are a SUSPECT! Not guilty, just a suspect! Being a suspect apparently removes you from the human race and you no longer have any rights whatsoever! Whereas in the British Series the police have to be polite to everyone, including the suspect. They talk to people to find out who the victim was, what was in their mind, etc. At least the one’s I enjoy. There is more human interaction with a wide variety of people. The American Series have gone so high-tech they have to use the main characters for the human drama. They’re more like Soap Opera’s against a crime-high-tech background – and fear-mongering! Not a single Series left where some serial-murderer hasn’t turned on the crime-solving team! The more psycho, the more popular the Series. How is that entertainment? Let alone family-entertainment?

Anyway, that’s just my opinion. I just find it such a pity that so few of Agatha Christie’s books were made into equally good movies. The most enjoyable, I’ve found to be the three Margaret Rutherford ones, made in the sixties.

Well, tomorrow I better get some more bed fencing, and a litter box!

I took a few photo's around the garden and my upstairs nursery: