Plutonian #2

In January, Bookscorpion over on Pillowfort recommended an app for doing pilates exercises at home. I have today finished Day 43 of the beginner's program.

It continues to humble me. Today I learned I am incapable of 60 seconds of jumping jacks. A full minute is a surprisingly long time!

I'm sticking with it quite well, though. There have been some breaks here and there due to illness and travelling, but I've been doing it every day as much as possible. It's not difficult when it's only ten to fifteen minutes.

I'm going to keep adding days to the beginner's program for as long as possible. It's plenty difficult thank you very much. I don't feel at all ready for intermediate, and I am downright frightened of advanced!

My previous post has turned into a bit of a collection of other people's experiences with arranging funerals and their customs, which was unintended but which I've actually been finding quite helpful. There is a surprising amount of comfort in it, even if I haven't been replying (and am unlikely to do, sorry). I hadn't expected that. Aside from grandparents, it's the first time for me that it has been quite so close a relation.

My estimate of snow depth turns out to have been a little exaggerated. About 16-17 cm in this part of the garden. Elsewhere in the garden I measured 23, but apparently failed to get a photo of that. The other two photos are from a few days ago, documenting a couple of garden visitors.

Also, the projected -20 next sunday was downgraded first to a still severe but less unusual -13, and then to a much more reasonable -5. They are however saying there's a risk of second load of snow next week. Lovely... Hopefully that's going to get downgraded as well.

(Husband, who can work from home, finds shovelling a good trade-off for the excitement of a lot of snow, and is keeping a running Snow Watch commentary...)

Well, that was rather a full day.

We started with an appointment with a solicitor regarding setting up wills, which, while unpleasant, turned out to not be as unpleasant as expected. I liked the woman we spoke to. She seemed friendly and had some input on which details might or might not be relevant for us, and some of them were about things we hadn't even thought of.

Finished the day off with a vet appointment for Holly, who has an inflamed tooth. The veterinary nurse agreed with me that it looked Capital S Suspicious, so she's now booked in for the full works. X-rays, teeth cleaning and possibly removal of the bad tooth if they can do it at the same time. She said she could make the booking with extra time for the extraction, but it ultimately depends on what they see on the pictures. If it's more complicated than just the one tooth, it will take too long. I have previously been told it's also a question of there being a limit to how long they can safely keep a cat knocked out. They'll do some blood tests on her at the same time, which is a non-mandatory routine check of organ functions. With several previous kidney-cats, it's not non-mandatory to us.

Roll on the weekend, with book swap day at the library and opera in the cinema!

We went to the museum today. We have a year pass, so entry is free. We only have to go a couple of times a year for it to be worth it and we also get a discount in the shop, the cafe and if we want to go to some of the talks they have there.

They have a new special exhibition every year and this year it's about the Celts. It actually opened back in September, (I think? August? There about. Doesn't matter.) but we haven't had time to go until now. There's just been so much and we had done that thing we do where we suddenly find we have tickets for everything and not a plan-free weekend in sight. Plus there was the Christmas trip to the UK and the sudden unplanned trip to the UK in autumn, so what few plan-free weekends we had were very much guarded and protected.

Anyway, the Celts. I had thought that there might be fewer people there since it had been open for so long, but I still had to wait my turn in a lot of places before I got to see the things, and try to read some text over someone's shoulder and hope they didn't move to block my view before I was done.

It was very interesting, especiallly seeing how many of the things shown were things found in Denmark, even though the Celtish culture didn't actually stretch this far. We were all Germannic tribes up here, but there was clearly a lot of culture and mythology that was shared. Plus obviously there would have been a lot of influence from trade, and maybe some marriage alliances and such as well. And probably your basic copying of styles and fashions in both directions. Did not know how obsessed they were with chopped off heads, though!

Absolutely made us want to dip in the Asterix collection again though. :)

I bought the catalogue, because I always do. It's nice to be able to see photos of all the items again and there's usually also a lot more information to read. It's only really the highlights that make it into the exhibition. So that's mandatory, and I'm quite happy with the collection of them that we have at this point.

They do have a pretty good book section in their shop and I had a good look for interesting titles, but didn't get anything else this time. There were a couple of things I was a little interested in, but I'm also really behind on the unread books that we already have, so that made me rather more picky about it. If the same title tempts me next time I can get it then.

Husband is currently putting the very final touches on the plastering in my room. I get to do the cleanup on wednesday and thursday. It works out pretty well actually, because I worked yesterday so I get thursday off instead, and I can just get it over with. He already hovered up most of the dust, so I'm already well helped there. Once that's done, he can paint it (still haven't fully settled on a colour), and then it's getting the new furniture, getting that installed and moving back in. Still haven't managed to have a go at those curtains, though.

It's not going to be today, because there's opera this afternoon. Andrea Chenier, which I had never heard of before, by Giordano, who I had also never heard about before. It was a bit uncertain whether or not we would go what with me having a one day weekend and all, but I was listening to it while at work yesterday and I thought it seemed pretty good. Plus, it's opera in the cinema, so it's a Met production and those are always pretty lavish and worth seeing.

Don't you just love it when looking at a weather forecast and there's a coloured scale showing the expected amounts of snow, and then half the country is a colour not represented on the scale?

How does light green fall on a scale from white to dark blue???

(Yes, we might be looking a some large amounts of snow next week. Here's hoping it won't be like the one we had two years ago at around this time. Back then we had people at work who couldn't get home for two nights. We sent them home on day three as soon as the roads were sufficiently clear. "Yes, I know it's not even time for coffee break yet, your work day is done, goodbye.")

I went to the pharmacy today to give back Luna's left-over medicine. Also washed and decommisioned one of the cat toilets. It doesn't feel necessary to have two while Holly is an only-cat.

In a few months, when we're ready, we will of course find a new co-cat for her that she can train and teach everything that she knows. I have been low-key collecting potential names since we got Holly.

I have been thinking about it, and I have come to the conclusion that I don't think there is any alternative reality in which the medicine we were given, or any other medicine, would have worked. I think it was simply her time. 14½ is not a bad age for a cat after all.

I have a germinating idea for a little memorial feature in the garden, which may or may not happen. I need to consider and plan, and then see what we can do in spring. I like the idea of something small and simple that you might not even notice unless you already know it's there.

Yesterday, at work, I managed to get myself into a spot of bother.

In order to promote the personnel policy, hospital management have been handing out these chocolate confectionaries (P tærter, containing white nougat and peanuts, covered in chocolate) with stickers on them to go and read said policy. (Which, incidentally, is exactly the sort of inconcrete high-flying nonsense that you would expect) I happen to know, because I've checked previously due to Husband being vegetarian, that these contain gelatine.

And so at lunch a coworker sat down across the table from me and put her chocolate next to her plate no doubt to have as a little dessert. Said coworker is muslim. I couldn't not tell her when I knew it had gelatine in it, because I didn't know how strict she is about it.

Flist, she was so disappointed. It had never occurred to her that chocolate might not be safe for her to eat and she loves those. At first she tried to argue that it didn't say that it was gelatine from swine, but failed to convince herself that it was okay, and in the end she couldn't bring herself to eat it. Instead she gave it to me, which made me feel like I had tricked her out of her chocolate, so I couldn't bring myself to eat it either, and ended up giving it to a third person with the complete story of why it was a bit tainted.

I absolutely think it was the best thing to tell her about it, especially since it obviously did matter to her, but the guilt was still real.

When Husband does the grocery shopping for next week, I have asked him to buy me a Snickers bar. Those are definitely safe and it's a relatively similar confectionary, so I will give her that on Monday instead. A little plaster on the wound.

Can't imagine what purpose the gelatine could possibly have in there, though.

We are getting our ducks in a row to get started on renovating my room. I have packed down all the books and most of the loose objects. As part of the project Husband wants to chase some cables into the wall, so he's also been shopping for tools and equipment for that.

Me, I've been looking at finding a rug that I want to put under my desk, because I get chilly feet and I hate this plastic floor protector that always seems filthy no matter what I do. It's like it attracts dust and cat hair and refuses to let go. Ikea seems to have a good candidate in the colour and size that I want.

I have also been searching for curtain fabric. Because it's not a bedroom (normally), I don't have to worry too much about light exclusion, so I have allowed myself to be picky. And I am indeed very picky. Last year, while searching for curtain fabric for the bedroom, I came across some that I thought would be a really good choice, and I was sure I'd be able to find it again. Can I heck! I'm sure I was looking at the right shop, but either I'm conflating several patterns or they haven't got it anymore.

So yesterday I ended up just googling 'fabric shops' and started from the top. Eventually I got to one that said on it's front page, "We've got the things the others haven't got." I was starting to feel a bit cynical at that point, but fine, I'd have one more look before bedtime.

Two, maybe three candidates! They really DO have the stuff they others haven't! AND you could order swatches! None of the other shops seemed to do that that I could tell.