Late summer

So yesterday morning we slept in, woke up to a beautiful sunny day, leapt out of bed (as much as the bottle-of -wine-each the previous night would let us) and got ready to go for a walk on the beach and around the Mount while we still could.
I'm out of the shower and drying off when I notice Basil skedaddling around in the corner of our room looking crafty. I go in. "What are you doing in there Mr Brushie boo?"

Turns out Mr Brushie boo was weeing in the corner! Zipping out the door and hiding outside, he gets away with it. Never having had to deal with this before - Basil has always been exceptionally well toilet-trained - I stare at the puddle uncomprehendingly. Snapping into action, Rich grabs the paper towels and I go to work, butt nekkid, hair dripping. Cursing the rule I put in place where I have to clean up poos and spews, and Rich cleans up dead things, I get it off the carpet using just water.

Lately next-door's kitten has found his way into our house through the cat door, and is eating all of Basil's biscuits. It's very hard to scare it away because it has no fear, and it's very cute, a miniature version of Basil but with 6 toes. It's polydactyl (is that the right word??) and has huge paws compared to the rest of it. But we now have water pistols, we've locked the cat door from the outside and we put the biscuits away at night. But Basil is obviously not happy about it, and shows his displeasure by doing a big wee inside. Thanks pal.

Taking the soaking paper towels to the kitchen, I then see a big blot on the landscape. An enormous cockroach has found his way into the house and is cruising up the wall. Now I can handle any insect - snakes - anything - but cockroaches make my skin crawl. I don't know what it is. Screaming for Rich, he comes running yet again with the paper towels, but misses it and it runs under the oven. I spray the hell out of it and wait. Nothing. Knowing there is a massive cockroach IN MY HOUSE makes me feel ill. Eventually it drags itself out, looking like it has survived shelling from the Germans in WWII. Rich nabs it and flushes it down the loo.

Not a great way to start Sunday. Funny thing is, the first thought I had was - if I was in Auckland, this would have ruined my day. We're so much happier here that it takes a LOT to get us down. In Auckland, burning the toast would have meant not speaking all day. Amazing huh?

Wookie

Here he is, my North, my South, my East and my West, my working week and my Sunday best....until Richard gets home that is. Doesn't feature here nearly enough, but he was sitting purring at my feet and stayed still long enough to get a pic. Isn't he handsome?

Called Wookie because I call him Snookie Wookie, Wurzel Gummidge, Kitten Meow Meow, Mr Brush, Reow, Friend, Pal, anything other than Basil. He's just the right amount of cat - friendly to kids, snoozes with us, chases other cats, comes running to the sound of a tin opener. I luff him.

Fatted calf for one.....

...the Prodigal Son has returned. Basil turned up at 10:30 last night, presumably after a day's hiding and getting spooked by things. He smelled suspiciously herb-like, so either he was in a neighbour's well cultivated veggie garden, or in the student flats over the road. He was really hungry when he got back.
So thank you all for your positive thoughts..they worked! Now keep them coming for Richard...he has a second job interview today. Crossing all my fingers!

Crisis

Just to top off our most awesome week, Basil has gone missing. We were keeping him inside until he got used to his new home, which he wasn't happy about at all. He found a gap and shot through, and hasn't been seen all morning. Our new house is surrounded by bush, water, other houses and strange cats and dogs, so finding his way back will be a mission.
Times I think I'm ready to have kids, but if I feel like this for a CAT, imagine how it must be for a parent when their child is missing/sick/leaving home.
I can't concentrate and all I can think of is his little paws picking their way around unfamiliar territory. Shudder. Rich is doorknocking and I've got some fliers to put in mailboxes. Cross your fingers for us.

Back from the dead......

I have no idea if anyone will read this because no doubt you’ve all given up on me….I would have if I was reading me. You suck! I would be saying, and turning to more pictures of cats with funny captions, or totallylookslike.com. Posh Spice and Falcor had me laughing for days.

But please have mercy. You are no doubt well aware that I am always whingeing about something and this month the whingeing was about my job. Not the job itself, but that the work it entailed took over my life for 6 weeks, due to this new Thing we are doing, and only today – today! – have I had time to breathe. I’m not going to bore you with the details of what we were doing….the mere mention of “going live with new system” glazes the eyes of even my closest friends, and Basil rolls his eyes and puts his paws over his ears.

So anyhoodle. Where have I been and what have I been doing! Well.

Firstly was the trip to Fiji in May. God it was beautiful. I loooove Fiji, and Fijians, and Fiji Gold beer, and stonkingly strong cocktails made by gorgeous Fijians. We went as a family group of 13 to Treasure Island, which is about a 40 minute boat ride from Denarau. The entire island is the one resort and you can walk around it in 15 minutes, apparently. That sentence there shows how active I was on this holiday, unless you count dragging the deckchair around on a point to get the most sun.

My feet.

I spent most of my days lying on the beach reading books – I got through 3 including Marian Keyes’ latest and Gordon Ramsay’s autobiography – and snorkelling.
Prepare to be jealous with this little anecdote: I’m off snorkelling with my brother in law Ben – Amelie’s Dad – and we’ve got fistfuls of bread snaked from the breakfast table. Over in the distance I see a big blur heading towards us. I clutch Ben’s arm and we stop. Turns out the blur is this ENORMOUS big school of the most beautiful yellow fish, each about the size of my hand. I hold my bread out and am surrounded by this cloud of yellow. I can feel them nibbling my legs and arms and one ducks down my togs to get at the rest of the bread I’ve stored there. I’m laughing out loud, and Ben decides to dive right into the middle of them. They immediately divide into 2 big beautiful swirls and swim away. We turn around and cruise over some more reefs, when I get the sense we’ve being watched. I look behind us, and faithfully following us along is an enormous big school of yellow fish. We feed them some more and they follow us around for the rest of our snorkel. It was incredible.
Oh yeah, and I saw a shark but APPARENTLY IT WOULD HAVE PRETTY MUCH SHAKEN MY HAND they’re so friendly, but I was scared, so there. 2 dead grey eyes and those awful gills made me walk on water to get out, that’s for sure. *shudder*.
Mum and I having a giggle and enjoying the sunset.

Each night the staff would do a beautiful singalong and it was wonderful to watch, drinking $70 a bottle wine, that if we had bought in the supermarket back home, would have been $11. Luckily, they were doing up the pool complex while we were there, and we all got $300 credit on our rooms. Even with $70 a bottle wines, we didn’t go over our credits, so we almost made a profit on the holiday. Now that’s service.
Where was I. Oh yes the singing. They were all beautiful singers and dancers, except for this one guy, who we called Easter Island guy because his face was an exact match to those spooky rock statues. He was our firm favourite and we cheered him on as he clapped in the wrong places and mumbled the words. Brilliant.

Easter Island guy in the yellow lavalava. I'm clapping...why aren't you?

Amelie was a perfect angel on her trip and gave her Mum and Dad some time to relax even. Here she is cruising around in her cute little romper suit. The staff adored her and she was high-fiving everyone who would stop.

Loving the hammocks that were dotted around everywhere.

The whole crew.

So it was 6 weeks ago now, and Winter hadn’t really started when we left to be fully able to appreciate the heat, and lack of clothes. It bloody has now though, and I look at my photos and get some sense of the caressing warm breeze and silken cool water. Ahhhh. Luckily I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t really noticed the mornings being darker and the nights coming earlier. Last week though we had 4 frosts in a row – Tauranga doesn’t get frosts so this was serious news people – stop sniggering if you’re the owner of a snow plough. My hibiscus and tamarillo tree were severely damaged and the leaves all frost burned so I’ve mulched them and patted them lovingly and here’s hoping they stage a comeback come Spring…only 5 more weeks! Weee!

In other news, the house is 90% there. I was all gung-ho about painting, and even managed to get through the spare room, the office and the hallway, which LOOK OKAY if you squint and pull the blinds. However due to work being CRAP and winter nearly over, Mum came to the rescue and organised a painter guy to finish it off. 4 days later, zip zap zip, and he’s done. Looks AMAZING. A few days after that, the carpet goes down. I haven’t sat on my couch all week. The carpet makes the house so much warmer and smarter. I know, you’re DYING to see photos because other people’s reno pics are always fascinating – but the curtains are going in early August and I’ll take pics then.

I have been doing some really fun art stuff for the house, using old family stuff. Dad had a big coin collection he’d amassed when he did his OE back in the sixties, so I polished those up and am going to do a big design with them and frame them. Not sure what the design will be yet. One was a Queen Vic penny from 1897 which was out of it. I don't think NZ even HAD money then. It was all about the muskets and the blankets. He also had a massive stamp collection going mouldy in his wardrobe, so I liberated that also, and found some Hungarian stamps celebrating the first man on the moon, and Romania celebrating the Innsbruck Winter Olympics and so on. They’re gorgeous and bright, so have put into square white frames. Will post pics next time. Also have framed this jigsaw of lolly jars that my sister and I used to to when we were very young, so it’s nostalgic AND cute to look at. Am very proud of myself as I am not a very creative person.

For those of you who are Basil fans: cute things he has done lately.
I have my goldfish back from a friend who was looking after him – long story – and he’s in a lovely glass bowl on my coffee table. When I got home from work one day I noticed paw prints on the coffee table, and Basil sitting on his favourite arm chair, laser eyes locked onto the bowl. Leaving the room, I hear a thud, and Basil’s jumped back onto the coffee table and is DRINKING THE FISH WATER. I could put the bowl in a high place or with a mat over it but he doesn’t seem that interested in catching the fish – just watching it. Which no doubt makes the fish really un-stressed out. His name’s Hot Dog by the way….a lovely wee goldfish with a very pretty floaty tail.
Basil also loves the new carpet – so much so that he is now sleeping on the floor instead of my bed. He lay on it while the carpet guys were trying to lay it, which was cute. Well I thought it was. He’s very fluffy and round at the moment, due to massive bikkie bowls and Terrine of Duck, and a big thick winter coat. He’s really very sweet.

So anyway, longest post in the world, that is what I’ve been doing for the past 6 weeks – what about you?

Warning: medical content may disturb

Poor old Bazzy. Over the weekend I’d noticed he’d been in the wars from rumbling with the neighbourhood cats. I think they don’t like him because he’s black.
Yesterday I get home from work and notice his wee face is all lopsided. On closer inspection, I see that the whole of one side of his face is swollen with the world’s grossest abscess. It’s stretched his skin so tight that I can almost see the ooze gurgling around inside.
Frantically calling all the vets (they’re all closed) I watch Basil like he’s a landmine. He doesn’t seem fazed, although is not keen on eating. Hardly surprising when most of your face is swimming in pus. He chases flies and jumps onto the couch and rubs against my legs but only on his good side. I have an Uncontrollable, Irresistable urge to stick a pin in it. The emergency vet I called said, don’t play with it. I poke it a bit. Basil leaps away. I put towels and sheets on all his favourite sleeping places and shut him out of my room. Of course when I get up in the morning he’s sleeping on the one place I didn’t put a sheet on but thankfully, it hasn’t popped. In fact, it’s twice the size. Basil now looks like a bulldog who’s chewing on a massive wad of tobacco. Or, the Elephant Man. I notice the abscess has developed a small leak and is oozing down his face. Gagging quietly, I stuff him into his cat cage and we pootle off to the vet, Basil questioning why the whole way. The vet goes, oooh that’s a good one! Normally they pop before they get this big! I feel proud. Then the vet ruins my day by saying he’s going to have to keep Basil in and drain it later on. But I want to seeeeeee! Repressing my urge to ask him to take photos I leave Basil whingeing in his cage and head off to work. Poor little guy. I pick him up at lunchtime so will let you know how he is.

The Caffeine Overload Tour of '08!

Last week, I slept in 6 different beds over 6 nights. That's kinda gross.

I have been travelling around the country touting our new system around our branches. So far I have done Auckland and the North Shore, then Wellington, followed by a lovely trip up to Wanganui and New Plymouth.


Having never been to the latter two cities?towns? I was quite looking forward to this and was duly rewarded. I was really impressed with Wangas, what a cute little town and all old and antiquey. They also did really good coffee. New Plymouth...not as cute, but still lovely looking out to sea, and not so good coffee...but enormous for $3.50. True to form, Wellington's coffee blew my head off.


This is reminding me of that Men Behaving Badly episode where Neil gets back from Europe and Martin goes, how was it? And Neil's all...Amsterdam was good....great chips. Rome - not so great chips. Greece - chips were fantastic.


I had one minor meltdown on my tour, heading onto the motorway after a full on day's training in Auckland to get back to Tauranga. Inching along in rush hour traffic, I hear a beep. A light goes on on my dashboard. I ring my trusty step-dad.


"CC, when the thing with the periscope looking squiggle goes beep, what do I need to do?"


"Pull over," says he, and it's lucky I do, on the Hobson Street onramp at 5:15 with the traffic not dissimilar to the Indy 500, as a whole lot of smoke starts pouring out of the bonnet.


Turns out the cooling fans had stopped working causing some part to break, causing the water to get out causing it to overheat blah blah.


1 police car, 82 pages of a good book, 3 cigarettes and 1 tow truck later, I'm staying in Auckland the night again.


A mere 12 hours later I'm tentatively driving back to Tauranga, watching the engine temp gauge like it was a live snake. Stupid new car. My sister was all, I TOLD YOU SO, only buy Japanese. I'm tempted to agree.


So this weekend I'm off! again, in my stupid new car, to Taupo for a wedding of an old school friend. I have a new dress, new shoes (see previous post), newly waxed legs, and about 5% of my brain.


Then it's off! again to Dunedin for work.


Good news though...with the autumn approaching (you wouldn't know it, it was 25 degrees last night) Basil has been growing in his winter coat, and is Extra Extra fluffy. Awww. Here is a picture of his ears in silhouette. We were reading a book together.

A round up of the weeks news

Well it’s Day Two of the Detox. Last night being the first night I was unable to chillax in front of the telly with a lovely cold glass of crisp white wine. No, didn’t miss it at all. I kept myself busy with babysitting duties, and looked after Amelie while her parents went to the movies. Being her first ever baby-sitter was a big honour, and I was very chuffed. She really is so smiley and huggable, we literally fight over who gets to hold her. I win, because I am the biggest. We talked about holding these days of her like this to heart, because sooner or later she’ll be running around and far too busy to sit on our lips idly playing with a necklace or watch for half an hour.
Also by the way, my sister lent me a book, called the Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Am about halfway through and I really didn’t want to put it down. Very readable and astonishing for a first novel. I highly recommend it. Megan said she cried at the end so be warned.
Basil got taken to the vet yesterday due to all his barfing-and-eating-it-again habits of late, and I had forgotten how cats grow another 9 legs and their claws grow another foot when put near a carry cage. It was one time I wished I had someone else around. I ended up having to just throw him in the car and drive like hell to the vets (luckily only 500 metres away). The lolcats police would be horrified. We got there and thankfully they lent me a cage and helped me put him in it. Initially the vet thought he had a heart murmur but it turned out he was just having a mild panic attack at the thought of having Mr Thermometer up his bottom. But anyhoo, turns out he has a skin complaint, hence all the licking (see the photo here, of Basil doing what he does best) hence all the furballs and barfing. So he’s on injections and special food. Yeah yeah over-anxious pet mother…..I felt guilty thinking he may have been in pain for all that time. Hopefully it comes right. It was a 3 day weekend here in NZ with the celebration of Labour Day, so we all had Monday off which was lovely. I managed to see all of my family, and on Monday I met up with a friend and had what in my view was the perfect afternoon. We checked out the Earth from Above exhibition which is touring NZ at the moment, then walked around the Mount, then had a couple of beers in the sun, then had an early dinner. It was fantastic. I hope the rest of summer is just as good.

A discussion on my cat obsession

With a name like I Like Cats as the title of my blog, some of you may be wondering why I don’t feature my cat Basil on the site more often. There are a few reasons:

Stories about cats are only interesting to other cat lovers – as Antonia tags hers so well: “Shut up about your cats”.

Taking photos of Basil is very difficult, as he is black as black can be, and you cannot differentiate between his head and his butt. Unless he looks at the camera, in which case he then has green alien eyes. (By the way who saw the .gif at Fussy of Happy Cat? Sooooo funny).

He has a very good routine, and doesn’t often do anything out of the ordinary that I could share. This is Basil’s routine:
Wake up on the couch
Watch Mum have a shower (this is getting unsettling)
Lick the shower water from the bottom of the bath
Trip Mum up while she tried to get dressed, put her makeup on and have breakfast
Get sworn at
Get patted for being too cute
Get fed.
Lately*, throw up on the (luckily wooden) floor
Eat the throw up while Mum dry retches and leaves praying it’ll be gone by the time she gets home
*don’t worry we’re going to the vet on Tues
Sleep all day
Upon hearing Mum’s car on the driveway, sit sleepily peering out the cat door yawning.
Trip Mum up while she tries to get inside
Get fed again.
If he’s really lucky, get brushed.
Scratch Mum when she stops brushing.
Sit on armchair, scratching the hell out of it
Have a bath for about an hour
Run up and down the house chasing either the lid of a water bottle, a peg, a lavender sachet, a piece of paper, an earring, a fly or something invisible to the naked eye
Settle down near Mum’s feet at bedtime after a good game of biting the goblin that lives at the end of the bed (my toes).

Seriously. He does this every day. I am also a big fan of routine so it suits me fine.

I used to have another cat, called Polly, or Princess Polly PJ. She was a long haired tabby moggy, and way more snuggly than Basil, probably because we got her when she was about 6 weeks old. From day one she crawled under the covers and snuggled into me and stayed there all night. God knows how she didn’t suffocate from no oxygen and sharing a small double with 2 people. But she’s still alive…. Living with friends. We had to give her up when we moved over to Australia…it was devastating. But anyhoo….I managed to teach Polly to fetch. She had an obsession with chasing the plastic lids on water bottles – like would do it all night. She had a bell on her collar so you’d hear jingle jingle jingle JINGLE JINGLE jingle jingle jingle all night long. It became soothing after a while. Then my flatmate made me remove it.
I digress. We lived in the top story of a run down old house, and had these massive stairs to climb. For some reason, I began to throw the bottle top down the stairs, and Polly would fly down, pick it up, and pad back up the stairs and drop it at my feet. Seriously. I am not kidding you. It was our party trick. She could do it for hours. Some mornings I would wake up, and Polly would be sitting right by my bed, looking at me expectantly, with a Matterhorn of bottle tops by her little paws. What a lovely way to wake up.

In Australia, we swore we’d never get another kitten until we knew we were settled, but me being me, couldn’t help it when I heard there were free kittens down the road. One was super fluffy, and dark grey. I took her home and when her Dad walked in he was greeted by a skittery little dustball dancing down the hallway. Luckily he liked her as much as me so I didn’t get into too much trouble. We named her Ruby. Her mother had died very early so she wasn’t weaned very well. She thought I was her mother and tried to suckle (bad word) on my head. She’d wrap herself around the back of my neck and claw away. I had short hair at the time so when my friend Emma came round who had lovely long blonde curls Ruby would pretty much set up camp in there.
Anyhoo after about 2 months we were at the vet and while the vet was doing the surprise butt sex thing with the thermometer, I was going, oh poor little princess, oh you precious angel. I realised the vet was looking at me funny and I was all what? And he was all, you know this cat is a boy don’t you? I burst into tears and was in denial for ages…..her Dad straight away was all oh he’s a super wee chap etc etc but I couldn’t look at it. Took me forever to think of him as a boy – we renamed him Rudy. Rudy the Rooter. Rudy grew into an exceptionally handsome cat but was never very cuddly. In fact the day I left Perth after breaking up with my fiancée, I remember trying to pick him up and cuddle him, and he just let loose with his claws and ran away. Really helped my mood. Our friends were taking over our wee house and adopting Rudy in the process. After a couple of weeks I got a phone call saying Rudy had been run over which was devastating as you’d expect.

So after all that, you’d think I’d never get a cat again but now that I have a good job, good home, settled lifestyle it was time for one….and I’m so glad I did. Living on my own has a million positives, but the loneliness is one negative. Basil fills a gap with his antics and listening to him purr from the end of my bed always makes everything okay.
And that, my friend, is why I Like Cats.

Purr-serverance (lame!lame!)

So last night Basil and I got acquainted with a new addition to the house - the cat door. Yes it's taken me forever, but I finally got sick of waking up, finding the cat sitting 2mm away from my face staring at me, willing me to wake up and let him outside for a wee. At 3am.

So yesterday I got home and didn't feed him as usual. This resulted in him practically stapling himself to my legs, as in , Hey Mum, can't you SEE me? Look how snuggly I am! And I love you so much!!!

Instead we sat together by the cat door and I let him sniff it. Nothing too scary surely.

I then put his food on the other side (steak and kidney, only the best) and held the flap open. He looked at me all, Mum, you have to OPEN the DOOR. I then picked him up, held the bit of meat out through the flap, and waited till he was just about to eat it, then dropped it. He fell through it like a Slinky.

I did this a few more times and each time he got better. I then upped the ante by dropping the food through and not opening the flap. Quizzical looks ensued. I then picked him up and bunted his head against the flap. This resulted in furious wiggling and the tail wag of doom.

I gave up for a bit and fortified myself with a Chardonnay. Basil had his eighty-seventh bath of the day.

I tell you, that cat is Clean. Licky noises are not my favourite though.

We then had another go, this time coming in from the outside. Excuse the shocking pic - Basil tends to camouflage at night.

Everything was going well until, just before bedtime, I gave it one last shot. Picking up Bas and striding to the door, who should be outside but next door's enormous furry scary-looking German Shepherd Jack, hoovering up all the dropped biscuits and bits of beef. Basil grew 80% in size, and commenced to hissing and scratching, and hiding under the bed. He now looks highly suspiciously at the cat door, and I had to get up at 3am to let him out for a wee.

Anyone have any tips I can try?

A good weekend.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away from pretty much everywhere else, a girl was making her new house a home. The weather gods smiled and gave her sun and warmth. She was most grateful.

Firstly the girl decided to test out her oven and make muffins, using lemons from her own tree. They turned out most delicious, and caused her stomach and thighs to expand gratefully, not being big enough already.

Basil the cat liked them too, although he would have preferred it if gravy beef had been the primary ingredient.

The girl (it's me in case you're wondering) then pottered off to the garden centre where she felt very grown up, perusing the enormous selection of....plants n shit. A gardening addiction may well be in the wings people. Anyhoo she bought some herbs and a daphne bush, fertiliser (sheep poo - no it's not just on the road for anyone to pick up) and potting mix. On her arrival at home, she managed to spill half the potting mix on the lawn, and possibly damage the daphne bush's roots - but hopefully not. The veggie garden was given a good going over with a trowel, and sheep pellets were sprinkled liberally all over. This is what she found whilst energetically digging away:

The world's most enormous worm. This is it all scrunched up. The girl threw up in her mouth a little bit, but knows that worms are excellent for gardens, so put it back. Upon further digging, she found a whole colony of World's Fattest Worms, which gave her the heebie jeebies, but managed to get over it and plant a wee herb garden.

Later that day, the delivery men gods smiled on her and said Your new couch and armchairs shall be delivered not on time, but early! This made her skip for joy.

Her lounge no longer looks like a student flat, and instead is a stylish yet comfortable page out of the Freedom Furniture catalogue.

She loves her armchair so much she doesn't even let the cat sit in it. Oh alright. Just don't scratch it...oh alright. Isn't it awesome? Please ignore the purple curtains. They will be torched just as soon as she can afford new ones.

She very much enjoyed lying on this last night watching Top Gear.

After re-arranging the furniture ooh, about 10 times, she pootled off in her little car to babysit her nieces and nephew (6, 3 and 1). The child gods smiled at her and made the kids so tired that they Didn't Get Up Once after they had been put to bed. Maybe they felt sorry for her after having to read the 6 year old a Very Very Boring story about a stupid fairy ball with these lame-ass fairies that just went on and on and on and on. Give me Roald Dahl anyday.

She then pootled back to her wee home, was greeted by a purring cat, and fell asleep in her bed of clouds and didn't wake up until 10 am the next day.
The End.

A surreal experience

Where to begin, oh faithful readers. I suppose you thought I was had it with blogging, and was in heaven playing with my new cats and decorating my new home.

But no. I have just spent 4 days in hospital. Yes, Hospital. The last time I was in hospital, I was born. I was hoping that the next time I'd be there, I'd be giving birth.

Hang on, I'll let you make a cup of tea before I go into details. All ready? Right.

So on Friday it was a normal busy day at work, and I went off to the doctors for my daily dose of IV antibiotics (see here if you don't know what I'm talking about). The doctor looked at it and said off to the hospital with you missy, it's not getting any better. I begged to differ. I was going to the rugby that night! I rang Mum who said, if the doctor says go to hospital, You Go To Hospital.

So I rang my step-sister Kathryn who is great in an emergency, she ditched the kids at the neighbours and helped me pack and check in. Oh sorry, that sentence didn't quite describe the actual length of time it took to be admitted. Which was Four Hours. While patience is a virtue, it's a virtue I don't have, especially when I am hungry and surrounded by mothers with Munchausen's By Proxy and healthy people who think they are dying and basically society's dung heap in general. But once I made it up into Ward 4, it was nice and quiet and I brought the average age down by about seventy years.

So by this stage I was quietly freaking out - I'm supposed to be at the rugby! But instead I was in a hospital bed, with a swollen hand, and a nice big needle in my arm. My sister Megan left Amelie with Ben, and came to visit me (and brought me McD's, mmm). We both giggled over how weird it was, until the lady next to me broke both our hearts. In the final stages of dementia, she repeated over and over again "Cassie? Where are you Cassie? You know I love you. Why don't you help me? Am I dying?" etc. It was AWFUL. She then nearly fell out of bed so the nurses moved her into the nursing station. I made a point of chatting to her every day which she loved, the poor thing, and I deduced that this Cassie person was her daughter who lived in Tauranga - but I never saw her there. Families huh- we've all got our little secrets!

Anyhoo to save this post from being thirty pages long - here are some bullet points and photos.

My view for 4 days. Not being outside for that long is weird. When I finally got out I was feeling dizzy and ill - purely from lying down for so long.

Bed goes up, bed goes down. I amused myself this way for many hours. Note nice red nail polish, to try and score myself a hot doctor, of which there were many, including one I had gone to Uni with, which was embarrassing, as I was in a gorgeous hospital gown with hair so greasy you could have fried an egg on it (forgot to pack shampoo) and was high as a kite on morphine and slurring like an alkie. But I digress.As you can see, I was looking hot. This is just before my operation. I was put under a general, and they stuck a needle in my wrist joint and sucked out the goo. Yuk I hear you say. Yeah it was. It took about an hour and then I went back to the ward, where I entertained everybody by asking the same question ninety times, then fell asleep, and this was the time my boss (bless his heart) showed up to visit me. I hate to think what I looked like. Drooling on the pillow no doubt.

Hand after the op. Note piddling little band aid. This hasn't elicited much sympathy from work mates, I would have preferred a neck to knee cast, but what can you do. Oh yeah, throughout the 4 days I was there, I was being woken every 8 hours to be shot full of antibiotics. There really is nothing like being poked with a sharp needle at 3am and then half an hour of stinging pain to make a good night's sleep. Luckily I was spoilt rotten with many visitors, and packets of lollies and delicious flowers. Mum made a 3 hour trip to look after me and tidied my house and made me a bucket of soup. Yum.

So anyway - I got out on Monday, and was back at work on Tuesday. This was purely so that I didn't go mad with boredom. The hand is still sore, but not swollen, and I am still on oral antibiotics. I don't think I have any natural antibodies left in my body.

But what about the cat you say? What about Gordon, who put you through all of this? Well Gordon solved a problem for all of us, and bunted a window open and has run away. Can you believe it! Everyone wanted me to put him down, which I vehemently disagreed with - then Mum went back to my house, and suddenly the cat was missing. Hmm I hear you say. Yes the thought did cross my mind, but Mum knows that if she did Accidentally leave the window open and allow the cat to run away I would be most unhappy with her. To be fair though, Basil is loving being a one-cat-per-house pet. He is running around, meowing at everything, playing in his kitty litter (got to knock that one on the head) and snuggling up and purring at night. I have done everything to try and find Gordon, but if he doesn't show and no-one finds him, c'est la vie.

So anyhoo that's my story - can hardly remember it anymore which shows how good the drugs were! Hopefully it doesn't happen again for a long long time, and the moral of the story is - if you get bitten by Anything - go to the doctor!!!!!

My silly kitten hurt my mitten

Well finally. I am back. I guess you're all DYING to know what happened to my hand. Well I love going on about it so here goes.

On Saturday I picked up my new housemates, Basil and Gordon.

Basil:

and Gordon.

They came from the SPCA. Before I took them away we put them in the same cage for half an hour or so to find out if they were going to be friends. They sniffed each other, then sat down, completely disinterested, which we took to be a good sign. Of course, what we know NOW, is that they said to each other, hey, if we act cool, we'll get out of here, and won't have to face Mr Spade.

Because when I got home, Gordon immediately leapt on Basil, going for the kill. I got in the way, and Gordon took a nice big chunk out of my hand. I could see things a human should never have to see without anaesthetic, and he delivered a nice big infection right down deep. Me, being slightly stupid, rinsed it under water and stuck a bandaid on it. I then tried to pat Gordon to let him know I wasn't cross at him. He bit me again. In exactly the same place. I was somewhat annoyed, and may have cursed, and my eyes developed a leak.

Anyhoo the next day it was bright purple and swollen, so I took myself off to the doctors, thinking maybe, allergic reaction or something. The doctors face made me seriously worried, and he may have mentioned "IV" and "hospital" but I wasn't really listening, because for once, I had UNDER-ESTIMATED how bad something was. Usually I'm like - runny nose = brain leak. So then I was put on a course of hard out antibiotics, which did nothing, and trussed up in a sling. "Hey, what did you do to your hand?" has been the topic of conversation at work. So now I am on daily IV doses of antibiotics, and the hand is slowly looking less like a raspberry, and more like what my hand would look like if I were obese. So there you go.

The lines are to trace where the infection is and to track if it spreads more. You can see the 2 puncture marks by my wrists.

As for the cats. On their own, they are delightful. Gordon is hilarious and into everything, leapt into the shower with me one morning, not realising that it was water, and then fell flat on his face, scrabbling everywhere trying to get out. That made it all better. He is semi-snuggly, when he wants to be, but has definitely got that psycho cat tendency to turn on you when you least expect it. Hopefully he'll settle down when he gets a bit older and more used to the house.

Basil. He's a piece of work. He has spent the last 4 days in my room, moving from under my bed, to on my bed, to the windowsill. As soon as he ventures anywhere else, Gordon body slams him. So he is now terrified. He snuggles up next to me at night though, so I don't mind. This weekend they are being introduced to the garden which I'm sure will be interesting. Am thinking Basil will end up under the house for the rest of his life.

So what else! Spent a few days last week in Auckland for a Gwen Stefani concert. It was so cool. I wasn't sure to what to expect but man, she rocked the house. She is now my all time idol. Her Harajuku dancers were so cool, it was like one long aerobics show.

Also caught up with the crew and old workmates, and after a slightly boozy lunch on Friday, I went to get my haircut, just a trim you know, because Every time I cut it off I regret it. But no! "Give me the Posh Spice" I said to Pam my hairdresser, and ended up with this cut:

It's quite short at the back. I really like it though and Pam did an amazing job. She's at Ryder Salon by Albert Park for those Auckland readers.

Now I was going to rant about boys, and how they get afeared of commitment, and can be somewhat insensitive to how a girl is feeling, and are often selfish, but you know what? I'm just going to let it go. Big ups to me!