Working At Home

Yoda has left the cage!

Yesterday morning after walking all the dogs (two trips: three naughty Pugs: two irate girls) I dismantled his recuperation cage. I washed it and put it back in the shed for when it's next needed (if Madge is pregnant then that will be the end of next month). The living-room was cleaned and Yoda was left to wander the house for the rest of the day. The cat-flap had to be locked, of course, and if anyone tried to come in or out of the backdoor I ran at them, shouting, "Yoda's out! Yoda's out! Don't open the door!" He only complained a little about the house-arrest. He hit the cat-flap, shouted at me a bit, then curled up on the sofa and went to sleep.

Yesterday, Jem and I also tried to save one of the sofa-cushions. Falls had pee'd on it, cos he's a stinking, naughty boy-dog, the night before. We didn't know how to go about cleaning a sofa-cushion so we decided a hose-pipe and some bleach might get the job done. It was clean but then it was drenched. Insane or not, once the thing had dried out a little we put it in the tumble-dryer. If the machine is broken neither one of us is going to admit to anything.

I tried lighting a fire in the garden (Mammy requested I burn some stuff). I got it to flame for all of two minutes before I put it out by shoving something on top of the flames, believing this would make it burn brighter not put it out! I was trying to prove to myself that I didn't need Ray to help me build a fire - a woman can make fire, I thought. I was wrong, it seems. It did smoke a lot, though.

When Ray got home from work we watched Notes on a Scandal. We said Jem was Barbara, only she'd be seducing young school boys ;) It was a really good film. I liked it. Only problem was the boy Cate Blanchette was having an affair with looked so very, very young that it just made you feel a bit sick. Good film, though.

Now this morning I let Yoda back out into the real world. He went skipping out happily enough. He walked up and down the drive then disappeared into the hedge. Five minutes later I saw him following his sister around the garden. Soon after that he disappeared. I haven't seen him since. Obviously I'm playing the worried-mother role right now and won't relax until he comes back in for dinner later tonight. Knowing him, though, he'll stay out for about two nights and really scare me half to death. He's so not a house-cat. These last few weeks have been awful for him. Poor bugger.

Time to walk the dogs again now then. There's so much work to do! My old folk are away in South Africa so Jem and I are running the house. The house part is easy enough; it's all the animals that are hardwork. I've got the cats - we have two housebound moggies, one being blind so there's lots of litter boxes to clean, not forgetting I had Yoda in his cage up until this morning. Jem feeds the dogs and the two rabbits. We then do the task of walking the dogs together. Falls is scared of everything and his answer to that fear is to go completely insane - cars are the worst. Then we have to take Areau and Madge on the second leg because Areau has really bad legs so can only go so far, and Madge has her breathing difficulties. What with the cleaning, as well, we're both exhausted. How the hell my mother runs around after these animals so much I'll never know - she must be nuts! I'll stick with my one dog and two cats - they're more than enough work for me.

Labels: falls, films, life, mammy, yoda

by Ys | COMMENTS? 2 | permalink |  

Sisterhood

Yoda's doing really well - thanks for the messages :) I've calmed down a lot now after seeing how quickly he's recovering. He's eating on his own (to start with you had to sit with him and fuss him to make him eat) and he's off the really strong morphine-style painkillers; he's on the more normal ones now. He's sleeping a lot, which is good because it means he's using all his energy to heal himself. I still can't bring myself to take a photo of him in his cage. He just looks so sad and sore. Maybe when he's a bit better I'll get a picture.

My parents went away for the night this weekend. We all went down the pub - baby sister, as well, which was very nice. I don't think me and Amber have spoken to each other properly in about a month! I know it sounds awful but I think it's just that yo-yo effect thing, where we were beyond close a few years ago (as in mother/daughter type relationship) and then she grew up and didn't need me in the same way and so pulled very far away to make sure I knew that. It hurt at the time, and there were many tears, but now I can see that subconsciously she needed to do that; and I was probably doing something subconsciously to her as well. Anyway, she came down the pub with us for a little while, stopping for a drink before catching her bus into town to see her friends. She called me a pervert for taking pictures of Ray's bum. Pervert? Me? Never! She gave me a hug when she left, as well, which made me feel all warm inside. I do love my cuddles, especially ones I'm not expecting.

That night the three of us came home after many games of pool (I won, I won!), and watched Jaws 3. I've never seen the third Jaws film before. It was made the year I was born, apparently. It was pants. It was beyond pants. It was just... no, not good at all. And the bit at the end, where the CGI-shark just floats into the window without swimming, just floating forward... oh dear, I did laugh. I wonder what Jaws 4 will be like next week. And what series of films will be played after that?

This morning I was meant to be going with Jemma when she gets a filling in her wisdom tooth. But, after waking early and getting down to the bus stop, we received a phone call from Mammy saying that the dentist had called. The x-ray has been re-studied by a new dentist (this one private not NHS) and it's been decided the tooth will be taken out instead. So we came home. Early morning for nothing. I even put mascara on to mask my tired eyes! She'll be having her tooth-ectomy some time next month under sedation, which she is much happier about.

Please visit Martha's blog. She's adorable, you know ;)

Labels: amber, dentist, films, jaws, jem, martha, pub, yoda

by Ys | COMMENTS? 2 | permalink |  

Cat Update, Foot In Mouth

Here's a picture of Yoda, this was taken before the accident. I will get one of him looking grumpy in his cage when he's feeling a bit better; he's asleep now and don't want to wake him up:



To update from yesterday's post, he did not break his pelvis or any of his legs. His jaw is fine, a little bruised but that's all. His eye has righted itself completely now. All in all he is a very lucky boy. He has cracked his pelvis in two places but the only cure for that is cage-rest. So he's cage-ridden for the next six weeks. Already he's not impressed by that news. Last night, he somehow hauled his ass out of the top of the cage! In a way it's nice to see he's feeling that spunky, pelvic pain and all, but in another it's really sad cos he hates being indoors.

The poor cat has never had use to a litter tray since kittenhood and is deeply embarrassed about having to use one now. In fact he is refusing to go to the toilet at all at the moment. Aren't animals amazing creatures? I wish I had that kind of body-control. I just hope he heals really fast so he can get out and about with his friends again. The ex came round looking for him yesterday; later, Wang was seen with him on the drive, perhaps relaying what had happened. I have very human-ised pets, don't I?

In addition to my motherly duties, I managed to put my foot right in it last night at the in-laws house. "Big Brother" finished and granny asked me who I thought would be evicted tomorrow (today). Me, forgetting where I was, blurted out, "Well, it's going to be Amy, isn't it, cos she has nice ---" There I stopped. Both granny and mammy looked at me and asked, "What?" I went, "Um, well, Amy cos she has big boobs." Granny chuckled to herself, saying, "I thought you'd said something else then." Well, I had but wasn't about to admit that. It's just easier to keep the in-laws sweet and not mention the fact that I'm a little on the gay-side, considering the trouble I got myself into last time. I was mortified, not by what I'd said, cos I don't really mind if they know or not, but by the fact that I'd switched off so easily and completely forgotten who I was with. I am not to be trusted around people! I'm no good at sensoring myself. I need to be taught that.

Daddy wants me to fill something in for him. Promises if he wins he's going to donate £500 towards my moving-out fund. So I'm off to do it now...

Labels: daddy, gay, photos, yoda

by Ys | COMMENTS? 2 | permalink |  

Yoda

I had my cat Yoda when I was sixteen. He'd been brought into the vets where my mother worked as a very tiny kitten - he was feral, which meant he'd have grown up in the wild and been a monster had he not have been found. He had awful cat-flu, which for a kitten so small and young should have killed him. His eyes were closed shut with mucus and he had to be fed milk through a syringe.

I met him at the vets one afternoon when I walked there after a trip into town. I spent quite a lot of time with him. Mammy brought him home that weekend and while we were waiting for my younger sister to finish her horse-riding lesson, I scooped him up out of the carrier cage and asked Mammy if I could keep him. She said "yes" quietly and to not tell my father.

I nursed him through the rest of his cat-flu. He sat on my lap the whole time, purring happily. He was a skinny little thing but always quite happy. Jemma was away at the time and so didn't meet him until he was another week older. By which time Daddy had been told of my desire to keep him and had relented, saying it was okay. That Sunday morning we all went into Mammy and Daddy's room and discussed what to call him. Daddy said, "He looks like that green thing in that film you've been watching lately." He meant Yoda from "Star Wars" and although I couldn't see the likeness, I did agree it was a good name.

Within a month he wasn't my baby sleeping in my lap anymore. He started going out on his own, made some friends, even had a boyfriend called Herbie who lived next door. He and Herbie founded the Gay Barn in the field at the top of the road. Then he and Herbie split up and there was much violence between them. Yoda came home with scratches and bites. From his wandering ways and his unsafe sex practises he always came home after a long weekend with worms and fleas. He was my scruffy baby. The eldest of my three babies. He's eight now.

Last night, Mammy came home from work and wasn't really looking where she was going. She drove her car down the drive, squeezing it carefully past Daddy's car, which was poking out a little. As she swung around the corner, round the front of the house, Yoda ran into the car and ended up under one of Mammy's wheels.

I was upstairs at the time, getting ready to go out down the pub. I heard Daddy say, "You just ran over one of the cats." I raced downstairs, only hearing he and no name, knowing we only had two he cats - one being Yoda, the other being Wang, who is so old we think he'll never die. I saw Wang sitting on the draining board when I went past, he meowed at me and I knew then it was Yoda. Ray ran out after me, was pretty excellent in a crisis, slipped onto his belly, grabbed Yoda who was hiding under Daddy's car and gave him to Mammy.

His left eye was rolled up the wrong way, a patch of fur was missing behind his ear, his right-nostril was bleeding, there was something wrong with his jaw; his back legs were not right, something had been broken. We popped him into a cage so that he'd be safe, then Mammy started ringing round the vets to see who'd see him. The place where she used to work refused to see him, which is illegal, on the grounds that we weren't registered with them. So we went to the emergency place, instead, the PDSA. It's expensive but the animals are all very dear to us and we'd pay whatever needed paying. We found out that cos Mammy works at a vet she might get a discount anyway.

By the time the vet saw Yoda his eye had come back to normal, and he even swore, which he always, always does, when she picked him up out the cage, which made us all smile in relief. We were sent home with him, cos Mammy is a qualified Vet-Nurse, and given painkillers for him. He's not in good shape but Mammy took him into her bedroom with her, still in his cage, and promised to give him more painkillers if he needed them.

Today he's gone into work with her for x-rays. Today I find out whether he's shattered his pelvis or just broken a leg. I find out what's happened to his jaw. He's a tough cookie. I know he is. But last night was one of the worst nights I've had in a long time. I've decided I don't want anymore babies - animal or otherwise - it's too stressful.

Labels: illness, mammy, vets, yoda

by Ys | COMMENTS? 2 | permalink |  








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