Attack of the Real World, Update
One of the great things about dogs—hellhounds anyway—is that they can always catch up on their sleep. They’re not bothered. So when I turned them out at 8:45 this morning—eighty forty five in the freaking morning*—they said, Oh! Hurtle! A hurtle! How lovely! Oh, hellgoddess, we’re so happy! Yeah. We’re all so ungleblarging happy. Happy happy happy. And I’ve got a little home experiment in antibiotic-resistant micro-organisms going on in my head right now. I rang the dentist just before we frolicked outdoors—and, furthermore, they answered. Gods. These morning people.* And furthermore dentist from R’yleh was already in surgery. I explained that the forces of dental evil were gaining, and I needed fresh troops—silently hoping that they could ring the new prescription through to a local chemist, and I did not have to schlep into Mauncester today. We’ll get back to you, said Cerberus.
We went for our abbreviated hurtle.† I had to get up to Third House to give the Pond Man a house key. I’ve told you Third House has a pond, haven’t I? It has a pond like the cottage has an Aga—unimaginative persons tend to accuse me of having bought two houses for these accessories. Pffft.†† Anyway. Third House has a neglected pond. It was already neglected three years ago when it became my responsibility. It has one of those great flat cypressy things growing out horizontally over it, which I have hacked back each year to give the water lily a chance, and beyond that the pond has just sat there, holding water††† and getting shaggier and shaggier. Hence: Pond Man.
But I hadn’t been expecting him to say ‘Friday, or maybe June’. Yeep. So I said Friday. I bunged hellhounds back at the cottage to get on with their mischronological beauty sleep, checked on Pond Man to give him the house key and be informed that the coupling on the hosepipe had disappeared‡ and bolted to the doctor’s surgery for our hospital follow-up appointment with Peter’s GP.
Which was a bit of an anticlimax. Or a lot of an anticlimax. I meant to go in with my list of questions researched and prepared, and be cool‡‡ and organized‡‡‡ and articulate§ but the way this week has gone . . . well. But the GP was in a mellow and expansive mood.§§ With the result that we came away very little wiser about anything, but fairly sure that’s merely because there wasn’t anything to know. They don’t know why what happened happened; the tests the hospital was so hung up on showed no very significant results, said the GP§§§. Best guess is pretty much what we knew already: Peter went down with some kind of acute, and it probably knocked him down harder because he’s old. That’s it? But then I remember that 80 million people died of the Spanish flu in 1918. Humans are fragile little creatures really.
And I’m feeling pretty fragile right now. Any of you who follow me on Twitter know the rest of the story. I got back to the cottage to a phone message from Cerberus saying that they’d had a cancellation and that I could come in not merely for Godzilla antibiotics but for the treatment. I love the don’t-scare-the-patient-speak. I talked both to Cerberus and Scylla and they never once said ‘tooth pulling’ or ‘extraction’ or ‘chainsaws’. It was always the treatment.
So I went in. Whimpering a little.
And I had the treatment.#
And I’m not sure I’m going to be having a really great night tonight.
And I’m supposed to be ringing handbells at 10 am tomorrow morning.##
And I would kill for an apple. I usually eat one or two a day, and I haven’t had one in a week. I had soup for supper. I will be having soup for supper tomorrow too. And for lunch. And for breakfast, if I ate breakfast.
Sigh.
* * *
* As I petulantly climbed in to bed last night^ I was thinking, as a way of getting yourself categorically on frelling summer time, the last fortnight has worked, but I don’t recommend it as a method.
^ Carefully arranging myself on my good side, where there would be no promiscuous contact of pillow with the wrong cheek.
** I realise you all find this difficult to believe, but I used to be a morning person. My problem is that it’s afternoons I like least. But going to bed at noon and getting up at 6 p.m. makes it extremely difficult to cope with the real world. Which is a hostile entity, as we know, and prone to sudden, unmerited assaults.
† We did not meet anything too alarming. Well, there was the Lost Regiment of Daleks, but we climbed over a stile and ran away when we heard them shouting EX-TER-MIN-ATE!
†† And the pond has a pink water lily.
††† And, this time of year, tadpoles, which Pond Man sieved out a lot of before he drained the pond. I said, the pond’s too small for fish, isn’t it? He said, no, you could have fish—but they’d eat all your tadpoles. Oh no! I said. I want the tadpoles!
‡ ARRRRGH
‡‡ HA HA HA HA HA
‡‡‡ HA HA HA HA HA
§ You’re thinking I can do articulate, right? Well, it depends. One of the reasons I hate the standard medical model of the Expert and the Idiot so much is because I was very thoroughly indoctrinated at a very young age and it intimidates the zgggrmbbb out of me still. I can be absolutely furious with a doctor brushing me off, ignoring me or patronising me, but I still find it extraordinarily difficult to say ‘Pardon me, but you’re not listening.’ Or: ‘You are a titanium-plated, knuckleheaded jerk, and I hope you get your cojones sued off by a patient with more time to waste than I have and that your husband/wife/dog /Bugatti Veyron runs away with the circus.’
§§ He was wearing socks with pink polka dots. I longed to ask him if his six-year-old daughter had given them to him for his birthday.^
^ No, I have no idea if he has a six year old daughter.
§§§ Flexing his ankles
# Because the dentist from R’yleh likes to have as much fun as possible, we wasted a little time with him saying, well, you don’t have to have The Treatment today if you don’t want to. I can still give you more antibiotics and we can go through this whole ghastly ceremonial dance again next Tuesday. LOOK, MY COURAGE, SUCH AS IT IS, IS SCREWED TO THE STICKING PLACE^ HERE, OKAY? CAN WE PLEASE JUST GET ON WITH IT?
^ Given my attitude toward Shakespeare, if anything could delight me about having a tooth pulled, having it pulled on Shakespeare’s birthday would.
## I missed Friday tower practise again. And I’m in frelling charge next week, unless they’ve given me the white feather for deserting the regiment in time of need.
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