yesterday, beach, 28 degrees.
today, home, 16 degrees. I have just put on a sweater and closed the patio door: thinking of turning on the heating.

(Yesterday I felt quite awake, for me. Today I can't concentrate: just feel like curling up with a trashy novel. Or a warm cat.)

My Palm T5 is slowly dying (power button temperamental, touch-screen occasionally unresponsive) and I'm thinking of getting a new one. I use it every day, mostly for reading and sudoku, and having something PDA-sized is a key feature, as is the Palm operating system.

A quick product search indicates that the top-of-the-range Palm is still the TX, released in 2005. I did have a TX, loved it and lost it -- the T5 was a replacement when cashflow was problematic. I don't have any problem with acquiring another. But is this really the end of the line for PDAs that aren't also phones?

New model 'permits time travel'

"Clearly, the present never is changed by mischievous time-travellers: people don't suddenly fade into the ether because a rerun of events has prevented their births - that much is obvious."

Prove it.

Also quite amused that their 'Related Links' includes Doctor Who.

Bah to recurrence of the dizzy / nauseous / ultra-tired thing. Have just walked down to the shop to acquire CHOCOLATE for medicinal purposes: I had to stop and rest on the way back and I now feel too queasy to eat said chocolate.

In other news, the cats are fine. I am trying to fatten them up for Christmas. I thought there might be a limit to how much expensive food-in-pouches they would eat in a day. I thought wrong.

Shiva's last blood tests show there is nothing much wrong with her: kidneys and liver work fine.

cats who throw up on piles of clean laundry, however, can expect to be traded in.

Shiva continues well -- no more seizures -- and her bowels are functioning just fine, albeit at inappropriate locations. (Hey, that rug needed a thorough clean anyway.) Sam, though, is not coping with her being pushier, and wouldn't even sleep on the bed with me last night :(

Cats are exhausting. Though lying on the sofa reading now sparks WAR as they compete for Most Inconvenient Position.

vet says maybe kidney or liver problems (so we're bringing forward the next batch of blood tests: my credit card can hardly wait :)) Probably not due to sedation / anaesthetic as it was more than 12 hours later, but You Never Know.

Shiva is on top form, but still smells funny. Sam still ignoring the whole business.

I think the v-e-t put Shiva's brain back in the wrong way round.

Have phoned vet, waiting for her to call back and reassure me.

Chez Shiva, every day is laundry day.

She woke me up several times in the night for cuddles, and there's nothing like a damp smelly cat at 4am to make one feel affectionate. But she seems fine this morning, if a bit more demanding than usual.

Sam, meanwhile, is in a huge sulk. He liked being an only cat and would never stoop to such dramatics to get attention, hell no.

Shiva just had a seizure (proper drama with convulsions, loss of bladder control, howling, eyes bulging). As far as I know this has never happened before and I can't help thinking it's an after-effect of her time at the vet.

She's fine now, hasn't bitten her tongue or anything, very purry and clingy. I'm sitting on the sofa with her wrapped in a towel, waiting for her to chill out a bit before I change the bedclothes.

Back to the v-e-t in the morning sweetheart!

OMFG £314.
But she is well, and purry.
Look! Bandaged paddy-paw where IV was! (Er, motion shot. She has gone off to stuff her face.)

1. I have a hangover without benefit of alcohol.
2. I miss my Shiva: vet says she has spent a comfortable night, and I can pick her up (and pay them vast sums, and collect antibiotics to ward off inflammation) at 4pm.
3. Sam doesn't care. He likes being an Only Cat.
4. Need some energy / enthusiasm / inspiration please!
5. EDIT: for anyone who missed it and cares, my online 'mix tape' thingy, full of stuff that's clicked with me lately.

... it's not for me, it's for my cat.

Shiva, after three days of (messy and smelly) unwellness -- and being so off-form that she didn't complain when I bathed her -- has been inspected by the v-e-t and is off to the Reigate branch for sedation, enema, colonic irrigation and fluids by IV. (There is apparently a major blockage, which might be constipation or hairballs or something less temporary.) She'll be in overnight, which'll be the first night she's spent away from Sam in her entire life. Poor little Shi! (Though she was too poorly to make much fuss.)

I am doing laundry. A lot of laundry.

... muxtape. Online (not downloadable) mix tape! (Mine comes with 'parental advisory' due to Louis XIV ... who are playing Hoxton in August: anyone interested?)

Yesterday I accompanied major_clanger to the Design Museum at Butlers Wharf, one of those places I've often been near but never been into.

By happy coincidence there was an exhibition of photography by Tim Walker, whose work I hadn't been aware of. He seems to do a lot of shoots for Vogue, but they're not typically fashion shoots: I didn't get a sense of the clothes being the focus. And the models are components of the pictures, elements, rather than there for the sake of who they are. ( more: illustrated )

Andreas Scholl and James Bowman duetting, 'Hark the Trumpets' (Purcell), Royal Festival Hall, unscheduled (second) encore.

*happy dreamy swoon*

Bowman, for all his self-deprecation during the intro -- he was, by Scholl's own request, the external examiner at Scholl's final exams back in 1992 -- is not old or past it. And it's fascinating to hear two of the finest living counter-tenors singing together, and to have such an illustration of their different timbres.

Tourniquet: Tales from the Renegade City by Kim Lakin-Smith (read for review)
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