What a Swine!....

On my travels today, I came upon this sign, tacked up on the front doors of our local shopping centre. I barely looked at first, intent on going to get the latest useless bargains in the local Asda (add in image of me slapping non existent pockets on my backside).

I did stop though, unlike most people and took the time to actually read what it said. Obviously the second paragraph is the normal safety blurb that we are all getting used to, although not one of us could quote the information line number, me included. No, it was the first paragraph that grabbed my attention. "Do not enter these premises if you have flu-like symptoms....".

In itself I guess it's just a natural escalation of the scare mongering going around at the moment. The thing is though, I can't wait to see how they actually enforce this. Will everyone who sneezes get forceably ejected, or will you have to cough and sneeze, or cough, sneeze and look generally feverish? Will the use of a tissue set off alarms through the centre, causing other shoppers to stop and point accusingly at your red nose, which by this time of course will match your face at committing such a an evil crime! Will there be a reward for telling the security staff on a snotty shopper?

As the only pharmacy in the area is inside the centre, will that be relocated outside or be forced to close due to selling things likely to intice said snotty shopper into the centre, desperate to fill their prescription, or even just pick up some cough medicine? If they are allowed to stay, will they set up a prescription delivery service, where the afflicted and ejected can post their prescription through a hatch, so that a nice flu-free security guard can trot off, clutching it to his chest, straight to the pharmacy and bring back your medication?

How will they differentiate between someone who has hay fever, or just an ordinary cold. Will they have some kind of monitor, that you have to pass through, will there be a questionnaire?

It's not hard to see that I think this an amazing over reaction on the part of the centre. I would have thought merely telling everyone to leave their clothes at the door and spraying them with freezing disinfectant would have been more than enough!

When a Twit Twitters..

I admit it, I've become hooked on Twitter. It's an excellent way of keeping in touch with people, finding new friends and updating them about what you're doing. I have discovered, over the relatively short time I've been 'tweeting' that I probably do a lot less than most people, and that has motivated me into changing my habits. I'm going to look around and see what is out there for me to go and visit, what's happening at the theatres and locally that I might enjoy. I have already started this and will continue, after all, I need something to tweet about to stop everyone thinking I'm boring don't I! It also helps me to collect and order my thoughts a lot more, after all, as you can see here, I can run off at the mouth (or fingers) for ages at a time. Twitter gives me 140 characters to say my piece. It's not always easy, but it is concise!

I've never been impressed by fame, so there are only a few celebrities that I am remotely interested in following and that is only because their tweets are interesting, funny, informative or just plan ordinary. It makes you realise that they are real people, with real lives, laughs and loves.

I like that.

However as much as there are good things about Twitter, it does have it's mild annoyances. There is always someone ready to exploit a good thing. Here are some that I've found:

The Porn Industry: Ever grinding along (s'cuse the pun) following bunches of random people offering all sorts of carnal delights if only you click on the link.. you can block them and indeed Twitter bans them once identified (I think) but all this does is prompts them to create another account under another random nick and block follow people again. So in effect you get this bouncing offer of sex at least once a day as they create new profiles.. it does nothing to stop them.

The Companies and Sales People: these are slightly less random. They do key word searches and may the gods help you if you've mentioned something in a tweet that they can sell you! I've actively played with this, deliberately mentioning key words that are almost guaranteed to get you followed, just for the pleasure of blocking them (by the way Menopause is a great one. Mention that in a tweet and you can get immediate followers!) When I tweet now, I try to consider whether there is a better word to use, just so it's not picked up by the company bots.

The spiritual, motivational people. Yes, I know it's nice to give support to friends when they need it, I do this myself whenever I feel I can. However, I do it in plain English. I don't try to sound like I sit naked, legs crossed on a velvet cushion with all the wisdom of the cosmos pouring into my head, just so I can pass on "the word" to all us hapless tweeters. In reality of course, I know damn well you actually have nothing to say, so you sit with a book of motivational quotes, just typing them in.

Let me ask all those that inflict this spam on everyone - Take a look at your last tweet. What the hell has that to do with "What are you doing?" which is the whole basis for Twitter's existence!

I don't expect it to stop, it will probably get worse, however the one saving grace in it all is that no matter how many sex kittens, sales people and gurus follow you, you don't have to see what they tweet if you don't want to. You have to actively follow them before you get their tweets.

So really, having said all that, the only problem they cause is that your followers list goes up. Big deal. If Saucy Susie wants to see that I've done my laundry and might go to the pub that night, she's welcome to!

Freedom of speech.. an old concept that didn't really exist until the internet. Don't you love it?

The Joys of Cat Owning

When you first buy, or acquire a pet and you look at that little bundle of fur and eyes and fall in love, very rarely is your first thought "I bet you're going to be really smelly when you're old"

But it should be!

I love my cats, enough to put a picture of them here. The big one is Bruce, so named because, as a kitten, he reminded me of an Australian surfer dude, all wide eyed and no-brained. He's lived up to his name wonderfully. The smaller one in the picture is Psyche. She is the mother of Bruce and about a quarter of his size.

Both of them were so cute as kittens, and once able to go outside, were completely clean indoors. Of course I had no idea what the future would bring. I had owned cats in the past... as much as any human can ever own something so convinced of their own omnipotence, but they had all neatly disappeared when they'd reached ten or so and I had been spared sharing my living space with the most hideous and pungent of things, known as the Geriatric Cats.

The picture above is recent and shows the Geriatric Cats as they are at the moment. Psyche is now 16, with Bruce only 6 months or so younger.

They have always both been very much house cats, never roaming far from home. Over the last few years they have hardly ventured out of the garden and in the last year it has been harder and harder for them to get up on top of the shed, which is their favourite vantage point and basking area. Last winter for the first time, we realised that the time had come to buy a litter tray for them. We came largely to this conclusion due to the fact that we became very tired, very quickly of cleaning poo from between our toes and off the floor of the passage in the middle of the night. Bruce had obviously thought long and hard about the best strategic place to deposit this message, which was usually anywhere in a direct line between the bathroom and our bedroom, guaranteeing that one of us would wail in despair at stupid o'clock, hopping desperately for the bathroom while he sat smugly by the back door waiting to be let out.. as if he had anything left to do out there!

Litter tray, and litter bought, we thought our problems would be over and to be fair, the leaping around in the middle of the night problem has disappeared, the Geriatric Cats taking to the litter tray like they'd been waiting for it all their lives.

However...

How can one cat pee it's own body weight and still live?? Why do they wait until five minutes after I have cleaned it out and put fresh litter in it, to prove that not only can they do that, but that ten minutes later, they can do it again! I buy expensive litter, not the mashed up concrete that Asda sell as their 'value' range, which, while brilliant at stopping most of the odour, sounds worryingly like rice krispies when the cats pee on it. I'm convinced that this amuses them no end, however I won't be eating rice krispies anytime soon.

And...

Every morning I wake up and my first task is sweeping up all the stray litter from the passage, so that we can get into the lounge without crunching it underfoot. I'm sure Bruce has decided that litter throwing is a cat olympic sport, as I've found it as much as twelve foot away from the tray. This is the cat that staggers about, his back legs getting increasingly wobblier, depending on how much sympathy he wants, has trouble jumping up anywhere and yet can back-kick cat litter the whole length of the passage!

Also...

I have to spend ridiculous amounts of time de-furring the place now. I'm sure they've got worse as they get older. Shedding fur has now become the second cat olympic sport. I'm amazed they aren't bald! Every time I comb Bruce I get the equivalent of another cat off him! Psyche doesn't get combed, as she has OCD and is rarely seen without her tongue working methodically from one end of herself to the other. The best way to annoy the hell out of her is wait until she stops, and stroke her in an awkward spot. You can almost hear her shriek in anger as she twists herself round to lick where you've contaminated her! (Yes this is one of my favourite pastimes and I'm not ashamed of myself at all). However this also brings up (s'cuse the pun) the subject of furballs. Why can't she learn to sick them up in the litter tray too!

By the way....

When your cats get to be Geriatric Cats too... DON'T go near their mouths! Good grief their breath!! If they come up to you and meow in your face.. don't be surprised if you look in the mirror to find your eyebrows have disolved! Take this as a warning.. its toxic!

I love my Geriatric Cats, one is asleep beside me, where he usually can be found snoring like the old man that he is. I've had to turn the sound up on the television twice. I know they only have a limited time left and I also know that they will probably smell a hell of a lot worse as the years take their toll.. but please, remember when you look into that kittens big beautiful eyes.. you are doomed to eventually experience Geriatric Cat in all their malodourous glory!

Purrrrr

A Lost Cause

I've battled all my life with my weight, with varying degrees of success. I can remember euphoric times when I've been happier with my weight, although I've never managed to reach the society accepted size. I can also remember times when I have been lost in a pit of despair, feeling awful both physically and mentally because I'd failed once again and ballooned up to a ridiculous size.

This isn't going to be a "pity me" blog, because I know society has little patience with those that they perceive can't control themselves. I hate pity because I don't deserve it. I'm the only one that has allowed myself to get to this place, to this size and I'm the only one that can get me back to where I want to be.

Yes, dammit I love food!

Since I was a child, food has been presented to me as a souce of comfort, of solace, of pleasure and in a strange way of medicine and company! My mother was a strange woman in many ways, very old fashioned, who considered she had done her duty by my father by giving him a son and daughter. When, eight years later, I came along, she was resentful to say the least. Her plan of getting her independence once my brother became more self sufficient went out the window when I was born and she never tired of letting me know.

One of her favourite ways of dismissing me, was by giving me food. Whether I was happy, sad, ill, in need of company etc., her answer to this was "Here, have these sweets, have this cake, have some crisps.. take them into the other room". Oddly my older siblings became resentful in their turn because they saw me getting whatever I wanted. All I really wanted was mum, but of course this was replaced eventually with food. My relationship with her never really improved over the years and neither did my relationship with food.

Of course, I also hate food.

I hate the fact that I can't seem to control it. I don't consider myself particularly greedy, just the things that I do like are stupidly high in calories/fat/carbs (and taste!) I really do try to like healthy food but fruit bores the arse off me and while I enjoy veg and salad, they damn well better be cuddling something that tastes nice or I want to know why!

If I talk to anyone for more than a few moments about diets, or my relationship with food I get extremely stressed and end up angry and pathetic. I might well need counselling, but the counsellor had better put a suit of armour on!

Dieting is simply about eating less calories than you burn. Someone said this recently and this annoyed me slightly because, while true, if it really was that simple, there would be no overweight people in the world. While doctors will happily dish out all sorts of help for people who are bulimic or anorexic there is little help for the fat person who may or may not be just as screwed up.

Having said all the above, I'm going to attack this problem again. I'm going to enrol in a bloody horrible slimming club, pay for my weekly ritual humiliation session. I'm going to exercise as much as my leg allows and hopefully get to the point where I'm comfortable once again in public.

However one thing I won't do anymore. I won't apologise for being fat. I'm sick of being made to feel guilty about it, being made to feel somehow even less than second class. In our politically correct society, it is not acceptable to discriminate or abuse people because of race, sexuality, disability, gender, religion etc., however it apparently is still fine to discriminate and abuse someone if they are fat. I see it a lot and quite frankly sod you all if that's what you need to do to feel superior in the face of so many restrictions.

I'm not going to bore you with my progress, but this fat bird is fighting her demons once again. Wish me luck!