bunn | Entries tagged with whining

I have a bit of a cold, so when I walked Rosie this morning, I went for a gentle stroll, congratulating myself on how she has over the last year or so turned into a much easier dog to have about the place: she's generally confident and happy and even comes when called.

I had not taken enough note of the fact that she was walking firmly ahead of me at the very end of the lead, with ears in 'don't talk to me' configuration.

She wanted to go into a field we sometimes use, so I let her in, and since that field is very nearly secure apart from a bit of a gap under the top gate, I let her off the lead to sniff for bunnies and wandered up to the top to stand by the slightly dodgy gate.

After a while she seemed to get bored and went to stand by the bottom gate, so I wandered back down, at which point she changed direction, charged up to the top gate and shot under it, leaving me to stagger back up the hill after her, unable to shout due to sore throat, and set off in achey cold-ridden pursuit.

Fortunately she only went through the hedge into the other field we often use (that field is secure in the summer, when the nettles are tall, because she doesn't like nettles, but they've died down now). She then did the Saluki Prance and led me all around the fields, never looking at me, but always somehow at least ten paces ahead... Grrr. Still, she did get tired of it eventually and came to me to complain that her feet were wet with dew. THAT IS NOT MY FAULT, ROSIE ROO.

HE's FINE!

Three weeks ago, Yama Bungle had an abcess on his neck. He had it lanced and an antibiotic jab, and it seemed that all was well, until yesterday, when, he exploded dramatically all over the utility room, sending goo in all directions. I have just finished (I hope) scrubbing it off the washing machine where I had not initially spotted the contamination...

Ah, cats. Anyway, back to the vet this morning, where he was very annoyed, growled a lot, menaced a couple of dogs, and had another antibiotic, a swab test in case he has an antibiotic-resistant strain of exploding bug and a course of new and different antibiotics. Oh, and had his claws clipped in the hope that we won't get quite so perforated when we practice A Cat is Basically A Tube pill insertion over the next week. I never think of cutting cat claws, since usually they keep them trim themselves, but Yama's were rather long and it's not as if he goes out much any more, prefering to linger indoors where he can explode over our possessions more spectacularly.

Them : I have this problem, do this thing to fix.

Me: but this thing will not fix. I suggest that thing instead.

Them: Please do this thing.

Me: but this thing will not fix. See that thing that will fix!! (begins to work on fix)

Them: I don't understand why doing this thing is a problem!!!

Me: it's not a problem. I will do it, I promise*. But it's not a fix for that problem. I have made a fix for that problem. I thought you'd prefer me to explain why doing the thing would not help in this situation.

Am currently gloomily awaiting grumpy response saying : DO THIS THING!!!!!!!!!!

*though not quickly because the thing is in this case, a PITA and will have zero impact on anything, being designed for a whole other scenario that simply does not apply here.

Phonecall from NHS: will I come in for checkup? Well, OK I say, and agree a date and time.

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Are so bloody annoying, with their eyes and noses. Eyes are the worst. One small blob of paint in the wrong place and BAM. Squinting Troll.

Maybe I should just focus on painting squinting trolls from now on.

A few months back I was at the recycling centre with some boxes, and happened to notice that the cardboard recycling skip was full of large rectangular pieces of what looked like cardboard picture mounts - ie, the middle bit that gets cut out of the mount when you have something framed. I became enamoured of them and grabbed a huge pile of them out of the skip (what? I put other cardboard in the skip! The Cardboard-eating Skip Monster does not go hungry on my account!)

Anyway, I have been drawing on these cardboard rectangles, and they are excellent. You don't have the bits of paper flopping about like with a sketchbook, they are light, and yet quite rigid so you don't need to put them on top of anything to support them, you can draw with one on your lap. They aren't all quite the same size and proportions, but that's fine, I don't mind. They have the odd pencil squiggle on them, but I can rub that out, and they take paint well so I can also overpaint them.

I don't even know what these things are called, let alone how to get more of them. I'm wondering if I called a picture framing shop and asked if they had any middles, they'd think I was mad.

In other news, I hate writing proposals, and will apparently do almost anything to avoid finishing this one. Writing proposals is THE WORST.

The delightful comfort of wearing warm socks when the weather has taken a turn for the chilly is disrupted by stepping in a splash of water, such as that created by a large hairy dog drinking incautiously.

And yet the splash is not so large that the entire foot is wet, so that parts of my feet are now crying 'we are sad and wet' while other parts of my feet are going 'but it's so snuggly and warm! Can't you just wait a bit, the wet bits are bound to dry soon'.

I wonder if this is what Brexit feels like if you are a country. Get it together, feet.

I should probably try to find another pair of clean socks. (I do have many clean socks. Shadow falls over this idyllic situation when the word 'pair' is mentioned.)

We spent Easter in Essos, the sister continent of Westeros from the universe of Ice and Fire. Here we are setting off (perspective is deceptive! the first ship was by far the biggest really! )

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I meant to write up what we did, but unfortunately I was, and am, a bit under the weather (I severely disapprove of a bug that not only makes me impossibly sleepy but also makes my asthma unusually severe and wheezy, honestly, I feel like I've abruptly aged about 30 years and put on three stone) so I'm just going to link to LoA's writeup so I can find it later. In fact, I am so wheezy and achy I haven't even photographed my other drawings of the campaign, although partly due to the wheezing, sleeping, aching etc, those I managed were a bit crap anyway, to be honest. I quite like this one though: it's us all setting off in our cog, the Lady Anduin, with a cargo of whippets, tin, mead, amber, stockfish, candlesticks, silver grumpkins and furs:

( The Lady Anduin. )

As has become traditional,

chainmailmaiden made a sumptuous mass of awesome foods. A few of them stayed on the plates long enough to be photographed. I had to photograph the Baked Alaska super-fast though, before it escaped. Fortunately, Pp had got me a new (to me) ancient (because all my lenses are from the last century) manual-focus lens for my birthday, which is well-adapted to the swift photography of escaping food.

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I had decided today would be a Big Gardening Day, since it is dry, but not so sunny that everyone is bound to have their washing out. In order to celebrate, I lit a bonfire and began to slay things to put on it.

And now it has begun to rain! I have retreated inside to drink Beer and hope that the rain will go away before it puts my bonfire out.

On the plus side : two ripe figs this morning.

I went to install Eudora on this new computer, to find that even Eudora OSE, the Thunderbird-driven thing which replaced Qualcomm's original Eudora software, has finally passed away.

I've been using Eudora for my email since 1995! *weeps*

I feel as I would if I had just discovered that you couldnt' buy a kettle any more.

The power socket for my laptop has really truly finally died this time, and after a new power cord, a new keyboard, sugru to hold the disintegrating case and power socket together, I think the dratted thing is finally on the way out this time. Who knew a Vaio would be so fragile? Although I think it's lasted me since 2011, so I suppose that by modern standards its lifetime was not excessively short.

Laptop purchasing is a horrid nightmarish confusopoly, even choosing with the help of Pp who builds his own machines. In the end, I have ordered an Asus N550JK. It will come with Windows 8*, oh no, and it will no doubt take three days to ensure it is all set up as I want it. Drattitude.

* Before anyone pops up to say 'why not another OS'...( Read more... )

Last week the sun shone and the flowers glowed among the spring grass, and it rained just enough to make the bluebells shine.

This week it is cold, wet and 'orrible. I have yet to persuade the hounds to go outside today at all. Brythen got up, peered out of the door and then went in a decided manner back to bed. I think they may have decided to hibernate until the sun returns.

( Bah )

I'd love to reduce the burden on pressured NHS services by not having to book appointments for asthma checkups. Can I not be trusted to contact the surgery if I am actually ill, rather than just needing a repeat prescription? I'm healthy. I have strangely huge lungs actually, which I put down to much early clarinet-playing and underwater swimming. I can swim underwater for ages. If I ever end up in one of those movies where one has to urgently swim through an underwater tunnel, I am quids in.

I just have a minor condition that occasionally causes my lungs to occasionally curl up and go DON'T WANNA!!. I know asthma can be major and life-threatening, but mine isn't, it's just annoying. I really wish I could just buy inhalers from a pharmacist. Oddly, I can buy treatment for the eczema that made me really proper ill a year or so ago, over the counter, and I can buy antihistamines for the hayfever that sometimes triggers the asthma. But not an inhaler to zap the little bugger with once it's rolled onto the scene.

That infuriating moment when you realise that, once again, the reason it didn't work is not because you don't understand and are clueless and should give up and go away, but merely because you made a really stupid syntax error, which you did not spot because you assumed the problem was you were Doing Everything Wrong.

I need to have more confidence in my general comprehension skills, and much less confidence in my punctuation and basic error-checking.

I've been holding off making this post, lest I jinx things, but it does look as though the thing may be fixed. You may remember (or, if you are one of the Egg Guineapigs and have a Busy Life, you may not) that the power jack socket on my laptop was driving me nuts, and I kept having to take the thing to pieces and reassemble the socket.

The wonderful

ozisim saw me whinging woefully on LJ about this and said: what you need is SUGRU! And not only did she suggest this, she posted me some, which was a true Act of Kindness.

It comes in a little silver packet, and feels a bit like plastacine. But unlike plastacine, it sticks to things quite enthusiastically, and it hardens when left at room temperature to a tough, rubbery substance like those silicone baking tools. And it is *exactly* the stuff you need if some poorly-made component needs to be stuck back together in a way that will hold it together longer term. My laptop has not lost power once since I Sugru'd the power supply back together.

I thought about photographing the repair, but that would be pretty dull. However, I did have some sugru left after repairing the socket, so I thought I would try repairing the bit on the outside of the case where there used to be a bunch of plastic bars over the air intake, but most of the plastic bars have snapped off. I thought if I tried to make plastic bars of sugru, they would inevitably look a bit saggy, so I decided to roll with the sagging, and instead make a sort of Cthuloid grille thing. I did not, honestly, expect this to stay in place. I thought it would probably fall off overnight. But it's still there a week later, and it seems to be amazingly robust! I wish I'd put a bit more effort into making it now.