Kitty Chat

Just my take on the whole Poverty vs. Well-Off idea as I have 63 centimes to last me the next two days. No wait, the girls want half a baguette (since a full one is 75 centimes.) Make that 28 centimes to last me the next two days....

Like I said, poverty sucks...

And as my ex keeps reminding me, well... you didn't have to go to France. Well, yes I did.

So Poverty sucks but not as much as my previous situation. Go figure.

Ruby at Les Épices has introduced me to Thai curry pastes. I have never used them before, as I have always preferred to grate the fresh ginger, grind the spices after dry-roasting, use fresh garlic, that sort of thing. But its nigh on impossible to get fresh lemongrass here or galangal or even fresh cilantro. So I thought, go on then, let’s give it a go.

Let me tell you, not only is it dead easy, its really very good! I have almost used an entire tub of the Thai Green curry paste and I have only been using it a little over a month. It appeases my need for hot and spicy, that ‘Oh-I-could-do-with-a-Madras-tonight pang I get from time to time.

I use diced turkey thigh a lot or prawns with the green paste. I just tried the Namya the other night, it was enough to blow my head off. Mmmm… Perfect. Check out the directions:
Namya Curry Paste
Cook 200g of fish meat, then pound with 50g of curry paste.
Stir mixed paste in 400ml of coconut milk, keep boiling until boiled.
Seasoning as preferred. Serve with rice vermicelli.

So not what I would call informative, really. Keep boiling until boiled? Who did the translation, Yoda? And I never cook anything then pound it... that I can think of, right off. Isn't that why God created food processers? (I love my Braun Minipimer.) So, for lack of more elucidative directions, what I did was cook the paste in a little olive oil for a few minutes, added the coconut milk and brought to the boil. Then I added chopped raw turkey breast and some cauliflower florets and some fresh haricot vert. Covered and let the whole thing simmer for about 10 minutes. It was lovely with some basmati rice. (Just a bit, mind you. Basmati rice is Atkins friendly as long as you keep to a small portion.)

Yum. I am doing fresh haricot vert, turkey and green chile curry using the paste tonight. With just a dash of fish sauce, some extra chopped ginger and the coconut milk. I will finish it off by mixing in some extra coconut powder to thicken it.

Ooooh. Maybe I will need to make it now. Talking like this has made me hungry!

July 2004: Some of you may know our dog Casper, a friendly, happy eight year old liver and white, English Springer Spaniel dog. I veteran of 20+ ferry crossings and very friendly with children and other dogs. Casper could run for England and bring home the gold.

We arrived back home to our longere near Cléguérec last Monday. At once Casper was running about, excited to be back in France, greeting the other dogs that live next door and picking up his 'pee-mail', as dogs do... He ran off to explore, as he always has done for the last 3 years we have been here on holidays and he was gone for quite a while.

The next day Tuesday consisted of running about, shopping so we left him at the longere in the shade with his water and food, he looked tuckered out after the running he had done and we didn't want him cooped up in a hot car. He curled up and went to sleep as normal. That evening he didn't seem normal. He didn't want to run around, he seemed lacklustre and he was off his food. He followed us up the road to our French neighbours and at about 9 pm one of the sons commented that he had just seen Casper peeing blood.

I called friends who had internet access and they came back with it could be prostrate or kidney trouble. Or the effect of over immunisation. Casper had only had his booster shots on the Monday morning so I thought that could be it. I called the pompiers but they did not have a number for a 24 hour Vet and suggested I wait until morning.

We were at the vets first thing the next morning, Wednesday. Casper had been restless in the night and was now having trouble breathing and was shaking uncontrollably. The Vet checked him over and we went through every possible scenario. Yes, blood in the urine, shaking, laboured breathing, what could it be? Has he been running around? Do you live in the country? Yes to both. Live near farmland? Have they taken in the straw? Yes, our next-door neighbour is just now harvesting and the straw is being piled up in the barn next door.

Then the fateful words. Rat Poison. Poison de rat.

Casper was given the antidote, Vitamin K, immediately (and another 14 times over the next 20 hours along with a blood transfusion we later learned.) We were told to come back at 6 pm as we should know if the antidote had taken or not.

At 6 pm, when we returned, we were told that Casper was still critical but at least stable. The lab report came back with an incredulous finding of only 200,000 RBC when there should be 4-5 million! The Vet advised us that Casper would need to stay there in the heated cage until Saturday, possibly. So we gave him a kiss and a cuddle and said we would see him later. He looked at me with sad eyes and tried to lick my hand. I felt absolutely devastated as I turned away to go.

Then Thursday morning, the phone call at 8AM from our Vet. 'Malheureusement, Casper a décédé à six heures ce matin.' First the shock, disbelief, then sadness. We had lost a member of our family. We went straight into Pontivy to the Vet, said our goodbyes, set up the cremation, our Vet took a lock of his hair for us and I paid the final bill.

What I have learnt from this event.

1. Good friends are the most important thing you can have in France.
   
2. Our Vet DID have a 24-hour number, we just didn't have it to call.
   
3. If you are suspicious that your pet has ingested something wrong, give him/her salt to make them vomit. Do NOT do this if the suspected poison is a petroleum based product. Go to this website for more information.
   
4. When you lose a friend, even if it is 'only' an animal, the grief is overwhelming. And there is a hole now that can't be filled.

Thank you for reading this, it has helped me writing it and I hope my warning will prevent someone else this sad situation.

Now one year on from the evnt I can say that most of the grief has left me, there are so many other things that have occured to make this event pale in comparison. But we still miss Casper, and we always will. One day, in the future when I feel settled enough to have a pet, we will get another dog. Maybe a Springer, maybe a Border Collie, I don't know. But not until I feel settled enough and secure enough. Right now there are just too many things up in the air.

Thank you again for taking the time to read this.

My older daughter has been having problems hearing. She has been on a course of treatment but last Thursday she began complaining during the day that her ear hurt. We stopped by the doctors and he gave her some new medication. He called to set up an appointment to see the Audiologist in Pontivy but they were already closed for the day. "I will call first thing in the morning, come back by tomorrow to see when the appointment is for." That night she was in agony, so much that 400mg of paracetamol didn't even touch the pain, so I ended up giving her 30mg of hydrocodone just to knock her out.

In the morning, her pillow was wet from the fluid that had come out of her ear. We went back by the doctor and he gave me some hydrocodone that was more appropriate for her weight (16mg.) He had managed to get an appointment for today, Monday (!!!)

We went along to the appointment. The doctor gave her a hearing test and it isn't good news. She has experienced a loss of 50% of her hearing. She will need to be on a course of medication in her ear for a week, along with the antibiotics and such she is taking and then we have a follow-up appointment next Monday. She will have to have an operation at some point, possibly to put grommets in her ears, it depends on how she responds to this next week of treatment.

To say that I feel guilty as hell and gutted is putting it mildly. I shudder to think what her Father will have to say when he finds out. It doesn't really bear thinking about.

Still, the treatment she is getting here in France is first-rate and she has been seen by a Specialist a lot faster than she would have on the NHS!

Well, I learned a new word the other day. ‘Panniculus’, which is the fold or drape of skin that obese people have over their bellies. What I call a Fanny Pack or Bum Bag. What I have. If you have one of these, it means you are obese or have been in the past. So don’t try hiding your girth under yards and yards of flowing black clothing. Black does not make you look thin. Black just makes you look depressed… and fat.

A Panniculus is found after gravity has its wonton way with your fat abdomen, if you are not keeping the stomach muscles developed, that it. It is also, apparently, more prevalent in women but is found in very obese men as well. I won’t discuss some of what I read because it makes me ill, but it had to do with odour, dead skin cells and hygiene… you can put them together in your own mind. Mine has gotten a lot smaller so much so it doesn’t ‘fold over’ anymore, but it is still there. (God Kitty… that was a visual which we didn’t need.) Nevertheless, my panniculus is getting smaller. The only way to get rid of it completely, apparently, is to continue doing my exercises and continue losing weight. I have to lower my body fat to a certain level in order for it to disappear. Won’t I need a tummy tuck? No, I just have to loose enough weight. “You don’t see panniculi in concentration camp victims, do you?” was the rather harsh comparison I read on some website. Oh great, I really do need to turn into an x-ray...

Well, bollocks to that.

Here is what I have found on it: Abdominal Panniculectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of excess abdominal panniculus which in lay term is called the "apron"; that redundant layer of fat tissue at the lowest portion of the abdominal wall. Because fat distribution is never even in all individuals, some people with obesity have significant deposit of fat at this most dependent part of the abdominal wall which further aggravates the various complications associated with obesity especially back and joint pain.

The "apron" (abdominal panniculus) in an obese individual may weigh as little as 5 pounds, or as much as 120 pounds. The largest abdominal panniculus removed at the Center for Surgical Treatment of Obesity weighed 110 pounds. The excess "apron" is part and parcel of the problem of obesity. The lay term for an abdominal panniculectomy is "TUMMY-TUCK surgery", which may unintentionally belittle the problem as merely cosmetic in nature.

I am at 79kg right now. My Lowry stick-thin Cardiologist wants me down to 60kg. I think 65 is plenty thin. 65kg would be 143 pounds or 10 stones 3 pounds. Geez, last time I was that thin, was back in ’84-’85 and I was wearing a size 8 dress. Any thinner than 65kg and my boobs will completely disappear.

On the other hand… I could have a tummy tuck and liposuction; have my arse done as well. And thighs. And hips. Ah hell, while you got me under the general anaesthesia, just do a job lot, will ya? Nip and tuck it all.

I am serious I hope you know. Apparently, you can go to Portugal for two weeks and come back completely overhauled.

And why not if it makes you happy, right?

OK, so don’t all shout at once, “But you are fine just the way you are, Kitty! You should be happy with yourself the way you are!”

I am happy with myself. I have a (fairly) good self-image and I certainly think I look miles better now than I did even just 12 short months ago. I can stand naked, look at myself in the mirror, and not wince. (As long as I am not wearing a thong…) I could even allow other people to look at me naked… but I am not going to go that far down the self-confidence boulevard.

Hmmm… so, what is it? What is this need I have developed lately and quite suddenly to become all glam and attractive? I suppose in no small way it is because I keep remembering my last date I had (with a man) back in April. I say ‘with a man’ because I am going out all the time with women friends, see. No, this was a proper date with a very sweet member of the opposite sex and even involved kissing and stuff. OK, not much ‘stuff’, but there was kissing involved. Right. ONE date, then a text message to say, ‘I had a lovely time’…and then he never contacted me again. Ouch... Let us now observe Kitty’s poise and feelings of self-worth take a killing in a rather bullish market. Finally some two months later or so, I did eventually phone him (withholding my number so he didn’t know it was me, as you do) and he said he was sorry, he had behaved like a pig (no argument here, mate) because he had had a lovely time (yes, I know) and something about ‘keeping in touch’… (Oh please, just cut bait, will ya?) My bullpoop alarm went off really loud and clear on that one remark.

Why do we women emotionally invest so much in a ‘potential’ relationship? Alright then, why do I do it? Is it because I am lonely? Am I hoping that by finding a diversion this will mean that I do not have to look at what is really bothering me? Is it misplaced revenge against the men who have dumped me in my past? I don’t know really and truthfully, I guess I will just have to keep picking at this emotional scab; it is certainly one that will never heal.

On the other hand, if I do go down the ‘nip-and-tuck’ route (but staying this side of getting ‘trout-lips’ like Melanie Griffiths or Leslie Ash from 'Men Behaving Badly'.) If I do have a complete over haul, I run the risk of becoming drop-dead gorgeous with a fantastic body, etc., but still being just as alone, just as ignored, just as passed over for dates on a Friday night. (OK, so I am not making myself even remotely available at the moment but work with me on this one…) I know that is a lot to do with why I stayed so fat for so long. I could lie to myself and say, ‘Men don’t find me attractive because I am fat. IF I were thin, men would be falling over themselves to date me.’ I didn’t want to look at the possibility that men didn’t want to date me because I wasn’t, well, fancy-able? Wasn’t ‘good enough’ for a second date. Perhaps that I was of the calibre that they could see me once and then never call again? I never wanted to consider until now that it is actually some flaw, some defect or some failing in my character or personality that is what has caused the lack of ‘suitable men suitors’. Well, might as well call a spade a spade, right?

Ohhh dear, that hurts, that really does. Double ouch. You can stop now with the self-flailing, Kitty, remember, you are not a Corrales Penitente.

I think the hermit and celibacy route is a good idea for me for now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and certainly, nothing rejected, right? With my track record of 97% completely appalling choices in men, it is probably best just to sit the next few dances out… besides, with the effects from the Paroxetine, I have no desire to do anything about it anyway. I'll save a fortune in batteries, according to one dear frind. (Thanks Bugs...)

WHERE has people's sense of humour departed to?

I don't get it... I love a laugh and love to joke around but can't find anyone to play with, blimey, some people seem so damn serious all of a sudden.

So laugh at me! As a result of my new drug therapy, I have lost all libido! Yes, thats right, sexy Kitty just can't be arsed anymore. The whole silly sex thing now seems like an incredible yawn. I was warned it might be a side effect. Well, yup, it is. So nothing is really depressing and nothing is really exciting. Everything is just peachy-keen all the time. How dull.

On the other hand, I look forward with tremendous anticipation to what this will do with my flaming PMT I encounter each month when I become a cross between Godzilla and Barbie. So, erm... Barbarella!!!... except flames issue from my mouth and I can usually kill, or at the very least maim, with a look at 20 paces.

The good bit is that the soon-to-be-ex's phone calls no longer bother me. I just tell him to get stuffed now. Which then amuses me 10 minutes later when I realise what I said.

So come on guys, lighten up. At the very least, all the rest of you can at least have sex... with or without a partner.

Ahem...

I woke up with a sore throat and those disgusting nodules on my tonsils... icky...

It has been pissing down rain and I just want to stay in bed and do nowt... but read 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'... it is wicked good.

Thank you Ruby... but why, at the half-way point, do I feel JK is going to pull a Benton Wesley on me with Sirius???

I could quite fancy Sirius, if he was something other than a literary character, that is...