Complicated Sunday

 

Yesterday was an ME Day From Beyond the Infernal Regions* so what a good thing I had a guest post, and the (further) excuse of it being a Saturday night before a getting-up-for-service-ring Sunday morning.  And also, while the oppression of spirits contingent on the feeling that you've let the side down was probably a contributing factor to yesterday's horizontal and crumbly state, I am very glad I didn't have to go to four hours of rehearsal today.  If I'd lost two days in a row from what passes for my normal life** tonight I'd be freaking myself out into another ME day tomorrow***. . . .

            Last night as I was leaning† against the kitchen counter at the cottage, waiting to see if hellhounds were going to eat their final snack or not†† I was flipping through a catalogue because I had absolutely no brain for anything more demanding.  The catalogue I was flipping through was for dog kit, for pity's sake.  You wouldn't think there would be enough stuff you can buy for/about/over/under/through your dog to fill up a catalogue.  Well, maybe you would.  I wouldn't, and I'd be wrong.  But among the forty-nine squillion dog beds, dog coats, dog harness, and dog feeding stations—every one of which available for monogramming, my gods—there was a . . . pill crusher.  Twenty-five pounds for an electric pill crusher.  Jeezum frelling crow. 

            Hellhounds get a homeopathic pill each every day.  It's steadied the pathology of Eating Rituals down a lot.‡  The way you give a homeopathic pill to someone who might spit it out again is you crush it between two spoons, or with one spoon and the pill folded up in a clean piece of paper on the kitchen counter.  The point is you don't want to touch it with your hands or you may denature it.  (In emergencies you do whatever you have to—and believe me, I have—but the rest of the time, you don't touch the pills with your hands.)  I do the one spoon and a piece of paper version, because I find it easier to tip the resulting powder under a hellhound lip from the fold in the paper.  Homeopathic pills tend to be hard little beggars (you can get the soft tabs but I don't:  they're too big, and take up too much room in the bottle) and can require a lot of squashing.  Recently I shifted to a slightly larger size of pill, trying to hit the happy medium between having to make up a fresh bottle too often because the pills are so scwurgling large and having enough powder when you've crushed one that if the hellhound moves at the wrong moment you've probably still got enough powder in his mouth to count as a dose.  Crushing these new bigger pills was giving me Masseuse's Thumb and I want to keep typing and playing the piano, thank you very much. 

              Peter gave me a pair of pliers.

               I love them.  I've been crushing homeopathic pills for a decade now to give various more or less reluctant critters‡‡ and I hadn't really thought about it till these new pills made me think about it.  But pill-crushing has always been a nuisance, it just hasn't been enough of a nuisance to do anything about.  It's now about two months in and I'm still smiling every day when I put the pill in its folded paper between the jaws of my lovely pliers and close my hand ever so slightly and gently and . . . squish.  Six quid and you have not only a pill crusher but a, you know, tool.  Electric pill crusher?  Good grief. 

* * *

* Hey, I'm only the hellgoddess.  There're realms beyond me.  

** Ie going a few rounds with PEG II till it gets bored, knocks me down and sits on my chest.  At least it's here.  This is better than when it isn't.   Have I mentioned recently that what I really wanted to grow up to be is a lecturer in functional materials chemistry? 

*** Which I CAN'T AFFORD.  Fiona comes tomorrow to teach me to knit.  I've been talking about this on the forum:  I'm really bad at learning practical skills out of books, embarrassing as that is to someone who has always preferred books and feels the real world is overrated.^  I suppose there's some merited irony here about how if that's how it is then I should just stick to books and forget the three-dimensional skills.   I can scramble eggs, make brownies, and drive Wolfgang^^—oh, and plant roses—how much frelling real-world input do I need anyway?^^^

            ANYWAY.  I have a new knitting book~ with better pictures and I was planning on cracking it yesterday but it didn't happen.  I might just conceivably squeeze a few minutes to study the nice pictures tonight . . . but it's probably going to be Fiona.  May I remark that this seems to me very typical:  I finally find someone crazy enough to do a little secretarial work for me and . . . I want her to teach me to knit.  

^ So this morning at service ring Vicky tells us that the service quarter that she'd ASSURED me on Friday was a completely optional service quarter and we were welcome to use it as one of our practise quarters because it didn't matter if we clanked a bit and/or fired out+ . . . should be rung in honour of some inconvenient person who is leaving our church (I don't pretend to have a clue about Anglican hierarchy:  this is someone who wears a frock and takes services) to go elsewhere.  Which means this quarter has just become an official quarter and one that the tower will want to, and ought to, get.  Which means that I immediately tried to drop out and Vicky won't let me.   So I figure I have two choices:  I can upset Vicky, or I can upset me.  HAVE I SAID THAT I THINK THE REAL WORLD IS OVERRATED?++ 

+ Didn't get it.  Firing out is usually when someone or ones goes or go so disastrously wrong that the conductor can't sort you out again and you have to stop in confusion.  But you can also lose a quarter because it was called 'wrong' for one reason or another—yes there are rules:  lots and LOTS of rules—or because two bells swapped over and went merrily on each other's course (which is easier than you might think).  Quarters are fraught with perils.  

++ Or I could give up this ringing nonsense and take up knitting . . . oops. 

^^ I've only run into a gate once in sixteen years 

^^^ Bell ringing!  GAAAAH!  Two kinds of bell ringing!  GAAAAAAAH!  Waaay too many kinds of music!  GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!+ 

+ I was thinking about The New Arcadia Singers' repertoire again this morning while we were out hurtling:  Palestrina and Tom Lehrer, approximately.  I was listening to Steve Earle on Ruby at the time.  Probably not Steve Earle however.  Regretfully. 

~Hope springs, uh . . . infernal 

† heavily 

†† They've been going through a more extended and tiresome Food Ritual Period than they have in some time, and this would have to overlap with, and doubtless be aggravated by, their late-night-snack dog food having its recipe changed.  ARRRRRRGH.  And it's not like there was any warning or anything—when I signed on to the Third Mortgage Dog Food site a few weeks ago, there was everything just as usual.  But when it arrived it was the old logo on some scary new stuff.   What? said the hellhounds.  What is this foreign material in our food bowls?  We knew that food/the contents of our bowls was the enemy.  Careful, they say to each other wisely.  Don't get too close.  Let's crouch over here on the far side of the kitchen where we can keep an eye on it and take appropriate action if it moves.

            They might eat it if they had to chase it first.  Domestication has its drawbacks.

‡ Every time in the last fortnight I've wanted to smack their little heads together I've reminded myself what it was like before I figured out they were allergic to cereals and before I figured out a remedy that would pull things together a bit.  And I know it works because if I take them off it for more than a day or two they start slinking around the corners and making 'avert' gestures when I get the bowls out.  I don't even want to think about getting them through this recipe change without its help. 

‡‡ The books and your friendly neighbourhood/conference expert will tell you cheerily that most dogs will just lick them up because they're sweet.  This hasn't happened to me yet.