The little cat goes back home to his beloved daddy tomorrow. He adores his dad, his dad adores him; it’s a beautiful thing.
Otto has missed his dad this past fortnight, I can tell. I can tell by the way he wakes me at dawn by pummelling my face with his paws and purring loudly, his nose touching mine. He does this to his dad and his dad lets him get away with it, he gets a “fuck off Otto!” from me. He’s a floppy, silky pyjama case of a cat and I too adore him, but my love of him is a fraction less than my love of sleep these days and, as much as having him flop over me is delightful, I do actually have to get out of bed at some point and drag my arse into work at a reasonable hour.
I think I’ve been a good hostess to the little feller while he’s been here. Of course, he’s not been allowed to leave the house, but he’s had a nice clean litter tray every day, lots of cuddles, four meals a day… three if you count what goes into the dog because… well, here’s the thing, I have to put his food on my desk in the little study so that the little dog can’t get to it. The odour, of course, filters into my bedroom. God, it stinks to high heaven. I do wish he could eat it a) without throwing it all over my desk and b) in one sitting. While it’s hanging around, Rocky gets ever so jealous, so he’s been having the odd pouch of Felix too, just to prevent him from exploding with envy.
Otto came with his own food parcel: a box of Felix pouches and about ten trays of extra special “gourmet” Sheba. Like a wicked step mother, I’ve been feeding the Sheba to the dog to keep him quiet and the cat has been left with stuff that smells like poo.
Wax
I don’t hide the fact that I use wax strips to remove my moustache hair. Despite reassurances from well-meaning blind people (or utter cocks who are lying to me), it can be quite substantial moustache hair, especially if caught in the cruel light of the mirror in the lift at work. Or caught in heavy machinery.
Anyway (:@), after waxing my moustache last night, I had a spare strip left over. Tempting as it was to try it on the dog, I refrained and, in that moment as i held it over the bin, ready to discard it, I had an epiphany… try it on your chiiiiiiiiin… try it on your CHIIIIIIN! So I did, and it was great.
You see, I can’t see close up enough anymore to tell whether I have out of control beard growth. People are often too scared to mention these things (or liars), and I can’t pluck blind, so this was a revelation. I’m so happy!
At the hospital
I had a hospital appointment today to see the neuro-endocrine people following my recent surgery. I actually thought the appointment had been made in error because I only attended the same clinic in July. Soooo, I entered the full-to-bursting waiting room with less than positive expectations for the experience that awaited me. I was appalled by one particular site that greeted me as I took my seat: female; overweight; shorts; tattoos; crew cut; bleached hair; talking rubbish at the TV. But you have to accept that there are lots of different people in the world and that it’s not for long that we have to be in proximity of those we’d never be caught dead associating with.
The TV was on, set to BBC because that’s the safest way to ensure that none of the people in the waiting room are also appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show. It was a programme about antisocial behaviour, as usual. After I’d had my blood pressure taken, I returned to the waiting room and, to my horror, the only seat available was next to Madame Tattoo. I sat down and admired her… ink… on her knee caps… while sending out calls for help via text.
Looking up, I saw the noticeboard that informed me my doctor’s clinic was running an hour late. Thank fuck I’d charged my phone.
I sat and waited, watching the site visits to my blog go up and up following a recent post about a potty-mouthed, but adorable, Dane
.
Unbelievable.
Time ticked on, and the waiting room emptied. The TV was on a timer and turned itself off. Mercy!
I was getting a bit restless, needed a pee, was starving hungry, was anticipating a negative experience with the doctor. Humph. [Insert unsmiley face emoji here] And then I was called into to see the consultant… some other guy I’d never seen before… here we go, I rolled my eyes (internally of course, I didn’t want to seem impolite).
I couldn’t have been more wrong. He explained everything to me, all the different types of hyperparathyroidism, how and why they can occur and then he said: “With you, it’s clear that you’ve been deficient in vitamin D for a number of years. When you had a test early on in 2013, you had a negligible amount. Over a period of time, this will affect the feedback mechanism and cause your parathyroid to produce more and more PTH to compensate, and this is probably what happened with you. We’ll take a blood test and either give you a massive dose of vitamin D, like you’ve had before, or just put you on a maintenance dose for life.”
I was like, what? Really? Is this anything to do with my Pepsi Max addiction?
So that’s it. It should all be sorted. What I really wanted him to prescribe was a new life in the Mediterranean, but what with NHS cutbacks, they’re no longer offering this particular treatment. I’ll have to stick with my vitamin supplements and oily fish.
The Snoring Dog 