My First ‘Have You Ever’ For 2025

Continuing my occasional series of weird and wonderful things that never, seriously, never, happen to me.

… have you ever played field hockey in high school… and been hit in the shins really hard with a hockey stick by an opponent who absolutely HATED you because you were a better player than her … but who (with the hindsight of 50-ish years) secretly had a crush on you … and you kind of guessed it … and had no idea what to do about it … and she was the school bully so your preferred mode of engaging with her was heading in the opposite direction whenever you saw her … and of course she found every opportunity to get in your face?

… nah, me neither. 😊

That’s how my knee, (the right one, my recently bionic-ised left one is going great guns 😊) hurts right now, like I’ve been hit on the shin with a hockey stick.

Ye Gods and Little Fishies, high school was horrible.

This Winter – That Is

If you’re wondering about the odd title of this post, it’s just a bit of a silly reference back to my previous post, ‘My Summer, That Wasn’t’ 

Today is the 3rd of January 2025, and winter temperatures have finally arrived. -10 to -15 during the day and, (checks the temp right now – 10pm) -19 and below at night.

Today was also the second day in a row where the sky was that achingly blue that only happens when its this cold. It’s as though the gloomy, overcast, foggy, absolutely wimpy, clouds just couldn’t stand the cold and buggered off to parts, well, I don’t know where, but out of my sight.

We are all well. The Kattens don’t approve of the sudden drop in temperature. They were just coming to terms with 0 degrees, and their indignation knows no bounds at this latest outrage. (my temps are in Celsius – if you are a Fahrenheit -er, just know that it’s bloody cold)

They did however, approve of the Christmas tree, as only cats can, much to the chagrin of said Christmas Tree. We might have to retire it and splurge on a new, slightly more cat-resistant, (I was going to type ‘cat-repellant’, silly me!) one. We also bought some squishy cattish decorations, hung them at cat-eye-level and let them have at it. Actually, all in all, for a pack of eternal seven-year-olds, they were and are mostly well-behaved.

No word on my next surgery yet, not that I expected anything during the ‘silly season’, but all things being equal, I should hear something in the next couple of weeks.

I have moments when I haven’t quite come to terms with how hard it’s going to be now that I know what to expect, but they’re few and far between. (at least at the moment 😊 )

Now that I have a notable increase in mobility (albeit inhibited by my many and varied other ‘owies’) I’m slowly moving through my list of ’things’ to do’, around the house.

Do you have one of those lists? The kind where no matter how many tasks you cross off, some bastard comes along, usually when you’re asleep, and adds more to the bottom?

I solved the problem by reviewing it on New Years Eve, and scrubbed everything I knew I wasn’t going to get done before midnight. Very refreshing it was to do that! … not everything really, just the drek, dross, and drudge-ery ones that it was a relief to let go of.

I didn’t and haven’t for many years, done the ‘resolutions’ thing. Talk about setting your Self up to fail!  The first half of this year is all about getting into, through, and recovering from afore-mentioned surgery. After that I’ll stoke the fires and see what catches the embers alight again.

-oOo-

My boy, Plutes, (Pluto) helping me edit this post …

His fur’s all crinkly from the static electricity generated by the cold dry air

His fur’s all crinkly from the static electricity generated by the cold dry air

… remember when they were this little?

Hello, my human. Why are you upside down?

Hello, my human. Why are you upside down?

My Summer, That Wasn’t

Just thinking about starting to write this post has been an annoyingly enormous challenge. Not because anything new and terrible has happened in my life, but because all I’ve felt like writing, (for most of this year, to be honest – apart from the Katten standouts, of course, 😉 ) has been about how lousy I feel, both physically and emotionally, from the fallout from dealing with all the ‘physical’ stuff. It gets really boring, really quickly.

And this has been when I’ve felt like writing anything at all.

I didn’t actually set out to take this hiatus, because, ironically, I always feel more positive about Life, the Universe, and Everything, when I’m writing regularly.

Let’s face it, we humans are a weird mob!

-oOo-

So, the Summer of 2024 done and I’m bloody-well done with it.

If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you know about the terrible stuff, so here’s a bit of an update on the not-terrible stuff…

Mrs Widds and I celebrated out 20th wedding anniversary on the 19th September, this year. Traditionally, one buys oneself, or receives gifts of, china – crockery, tea cups with tasteful yet overwrought motifs imprinted upon them, that sort of thing. Or, if one is into a more modern look, something elegant in platinum is the way to go. And as far as gemstones are concerned, nothing but a sapphire-adorned piece, or pieces, of jewelry will suffice. (unironically my birthstone is the ‘umble’ sapphire)

What among these breathtaking choices did we purchase for ourselves? And at no little expense, let me tell you? … cozy electrically-warmed blankies that were conveniently on sale at Costco! 😊 (for my Aussie friends, that’s like a 1×1½-ish meter electric blanket that goes on top of you, not under the sheets – strange fact, electric blankets don’t really exist in this quarter of this hemisphere, probably because everyone has central heating – it’s the snow on the ground for 6 months of the year that clinches it)

Our blankets have been in daily use since then. (of an evening we sit in our comfy chairs with our blankies over our knees and watch the world go by for a little while) Now that even the daytime temperatures are consistently below zero, we are frequently required to accommodate certain black fluffynesses within, underneath, beside, and on top of, our cozy electrically heated blankies.

-oOo-

Speaking of their Black Fluffinesses … watching them come to terms with snow has been hilariously entertaining, in an ‘oh-dear-the-poor-confused-darlings, kind of way. They had their 1st Birth Day just a week or two ago, so everything about every season has been a rollercoaster of ‘firsts’.

They took to the long hours and bright sunshine of Summer like ducks to water, but as the evenings started to draw in and their toeses began to feel the chill of Autumn they looked askance at us, before venturing outdoors in the morning, as though enquiring as to whether we’d fixed this strange anomaly in their garden.

Then it snowed.

Well, they didn’t know what to make of that at first, but the first few flurries soon disappeared and their world returned to normal … but not for long, bwhahahaha.

This is their opinion of the current state of affairs …

The amount of disgruntlement a cat can confer with the mere twitch of an ear is truly impressive … and this was just the beginning of the snowfall

The amount of disgruntlement a cat can confer with the mere twitch of an ear is truly impressive … and this was just the beginning of the snowfall

They still venture out to find a clear-ish bit of ground underneath the shrubbery, quickly squat, and then bustle back inside. What they’re going to do for their toiletries when the snow is measured in meters is anyone’s guess. (they do have kitty litter trays upstairs and downstairs, but it’s not the same)

-oOo-

What else? Oh yes, more good news – The other day I had the first orthopod visit (a consult with one of my surgeon’s colleagues) regarding getting my right knee replacement surgery underway. It’s not going to be as straightforward as my left one because of all the damage from the initial motorcycle accident and 40 years of usage, and assorted putting-my-knee-back-together, surgeries, since then.

I’m seeing my surgeon in early December, followed soon thereafter, I hope, with a surgery date.

I can’t decide if knowing what’s coming, (the breathtakingly massive amounts of pain and agony) is better or worse than not knowing about the breathtakingly massive amounts of pain and agony. (as happened with the first surgery. Ignorance is not all the bliss it’s cracked up to be) The only thing I do know is that I will survive it, and come out on the other side with two good knees that ought to, if I’m attentive, last me the rest of my life. 😊

My new ability to walk up stairs by planting my left foot squarely in the step, and stepping up, albeit still with a bit of help from my walking sticks, is what makes it all worthwhile. I can’t quite imagine how it will be like to do the same thing with my right knee – to walk up stairs like someone who has two knees that work perfectly! (well, as perfectly as these two are going to get)

Given that I should, emphasis, ‘should’, be able to do this by next summer, I might have to revise my current opinion about the season … maybe.

Now that I’ve reached the end of this post, (thanks for sticking with me, I know it’s a long one) I’m rather chuffed with myself, and excited to continue.

Do The Hardest Thing

I have a quote of Katherine Mansfield’s up here on my wall near my desk. It goes like this …

‘Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.’ …

These last seven weeks, (and since my last post) have felt like I have been doing the hardest thing, every day, relentlessly.

We lost one of the kattens, Jupiter, at the end of July. He just didn’t come home one day. We did all the usual things, flyers on notice boards and in the local shops, talked to the neighbours, notices in our local Facebook page … but nothing.

…  although, it turns out there’s a whole lot more black cats in our ‘hood’ than we ever knew. Mrs Widds got an evening call that there was a black cat loitering near a dumpster in the local village. It wasn’t our Jupes, but a starving dehydrated recent mum (we suspected she was an ‘indoors’ cat who snuck out and got herself very lost) that Mrs Widds rescued and took to the local SPCA, where they’ll try to find her persons or she’ll be adopted. There’s a kind of symmetry there, I think.

Our heart’s haven’t healed yet and we both still check outside before we go to bed, just in case. I fancy we’ll keep doing so for as long as we live here.

-oOo-

My recovery from my left knee replacement surgery went well. I had the staples out after 2 weeks – holy fuck, did that hurt!!

Ah, but the physiotherapy, that’s been a bit of a journey alright. For the last seven weeks I’ve felt as though I’ve been climbing a mountain, with many and varied boulder-strewn plateaus scattered across my path.

As soon as I get to a plateau, and think I can rest a while, along comes the knowledge that I have to keep pushing in order to maximise the mobility I’ll be able to achieve. So off I climb again.

Unfortunately the state of my right knee, which is as close to collapse as it can get without actually collapsing on me, is hampering my ‘mountain climbing’ more and more each day.

I work around it, when I can, and when I can’t I have to let go of whatever it was I was trying to do, make a cuppa tea and throw back a couple of painkillers. Not the heavy-duty stuff anymore, thank goodness. That stuff not only plays havoc with one’s mind, but one’s bowels as well.

Thus, I’ve discovered I have an, hmm, we’ll call it an ‘interesting’ relationship with pain and pain medication. It’s so easy to get to a place where it’s preferable to be drugged almost to insensibility than to feel, in my case to feel physical pain, but any sort of pain really, and be damned to the consequences – at least while the effects of the painkillers linger. But like all such temporary measures, the ‘buzz’ fades and reality comes a’knocking, and I know I will never take too much, no matter how seductive that place is. In the end it’s not worth the price … comes damn close at times though.

But that’s what being human, truly human is all about, truth and consequences … or as Katherine puts it … ‘act for yourself, face the truth.’

Another part of my truth though, is, with all the other osteo-arthritis bits scattered throughout my body, in order to function I need a level of painkiller-ness and anti-inflammatory-ness regardless of any surgical interventions.

Like I said, an ‘interesting’ relationship.

It’s not all ‘the hardest thing’ all the time though. Real life never is.

My sense of humour hasn’t failed me yet.

I scandalously swear, a lot, out loud, when I’m at physio.

The kattens regularly let me know they’re not ignoring me by doing what I call ‘drive-by’ tail cuddles. If you’re a cat person you’ll know what I mean – when they walk past you and make sure the very tip of their tail brushes against your leg, so you know beyond a doubt that they love you to bits.

Mrs Widds never fails to be there when I need her.

-oOo-

And, if all goes well, in three months-ish I get to do this all over again with my right knee …

Day Surgery? Bah! Humbug!!!

Nope, not a chance in hell!

Day 1: Time came back into focus for me at around 4pm. I was still anesthetized from the waist down, (from the spinal anesthetic) so of course I thought to myself, “This isn’t too bad.”

Nope, Not a chance in hell.

A little while later I began to shake, (and not the Shake, Rattle, and Roll kinda shaking) the kind of shaking that almost lifted me off the bed. They told me it was a not-uncommon reaction to the anesthetic. “OK,” I remember thinking, “This can’t get all that bad.”

Nope. Not a chance in hell.

2 hours later I was still shaking and the spinal anesthetic was starting to wear off. I could feel my knee. I. COULD. REALLY. FEEL. MY. KNEE!

The painkillers started coming, (I finally ended up with medical grade fentanyl) and the pain receded to a dull roaring somewhere off to my left. I could sorta-kinda feel my toes. “Well,” I thought, “All things considered, this isn’t too bad.”

Nope. Not a chance in hell.

It was just the beginning. More painkillers, the same ones, different ones, I really didn’t pay too much attention, what with the pain and the shaking and the biting-of-a-thousand-bull-ants pins-and-needles feeling. (Ask any Aussie what being bitten by just one bull ant feels like)

A feeling, I might add, that hadn’t quite made it to my bladder. Although I hadn’t had anything to drink since half-past-nine that morning you can guess what happened next.

8pm: A change of sheets, and the painkillers, having finally rendered me almost incoherent, had curtailed the shaking. The return of sensation to the lower half of my body continued unabated.

Would I be going home today?

Nope. Not a chance in hell.

10pm: I finally left ‘Recovery’ and me and my bed were trundled through myriad doors and strange shadowy corridors.

Like many small town hospitals that grew as the town grew this one had all sorts of add-ons added-on at all sorts of strange angles. I’m sure it made sense to someone who wasn’t drug-addled, but my trundling did seem to go on for an extraordinarily long time.

I ended up in a shared ward (room) with a huge picture window to look out of. I gazed out at the lights of Downtown Prince George, all sparkling in the night air, and, although drugged, and exhausted from four hours of shaking, all-in-all, I thought, not too bad.

For the rest of the night every two hours painkillers were either injected into my I.V. or proffered in little plastic cups for me to swallow.

Day 2: For the first half of the day the only change to the above routine I can recall is the view through my window changing from night to day, from pretty lights to a parking lot with some nice greenery …

Not too bad

Not too bad

Some time that afternoon several physiotherapists showed up one after another, imparting assorted bits of physiotherapy-ish wisdom. I nodded intelligibly, I think, and the last pair hoisted me up out of bed until I was standing, albeit very shakily, on my own two feet.

(In theory, the surgical procedure is such that one can bear one’s full weight on it from the get go and bugger off into the sunset. I think this might be where the whole ‘Day Surgery’, thing comes from, because I can imagine some 20-year-old Olympic athlete being able to bounce out of bed and out the door in a single day … but not this beat-up sixty-five-year-old)

I did however, have a moment of glory – I hobbled to the bathroom and peed without immediate supervision. I tell you, it’s on such little things that great joy is built.

However, was I up to leaving the hospital under my own steam?

Nope. Not a chance in hell.

That evening, having not eaten since midnight on Sunday, I was looking forward to dinner, (the hospital food was actually really good, another benefit of a small hospital doing its own catering) when I cast mine eyes up and espied the, probably-never-used-in-the-last-ten-years, TV set. Obviously installed before the latest iteration of curtain rails had been oh-so-strategically placed …

The view from my bed - works perfectly if one is viewing a three-way split-screen action scene, I'm sure

The view from my bed – works perfectly if one is viewing a three-way split-screen action scene, I’m sure

That second night passed much the same as the first, apart from my medications arriving every three hours instead of two.

Day 3: If I was able to manage a bit of stair-climbing then my bunch of physiotherapists would declare me fit to go home.

I was quite astonished, in all truth, at how much my actual knee joint didn’t hurt. (relatively speaking) All the muscles and ligaments and tendons were of course protesting mightily, but not the joint itself so much.

There’s not much left to tell – I passed Stair-Climbing with flying colours. Mrs Widds (my wonderful Heroine of Heroines) picked up an impressive bundle of medications from the pharmacy for me to take home, I signed my ‘get out of jail free’ papers, and off we went.

Mrs Widds informed me that all the kattens had been confused and concerned by my prolonged absence, (we’d never spent a day apart from the moment they were born, let alone three) so, of course, they proceeded to ignore me the minute I walked in the door.

It was only a temporary punishment though.

I’d got settled in and was sitting on the edge of my bed having a really good howl, (a release of the pain and stress and unknowns and all sorts of other unidentifiable emotions) when all five of them very gently came and sat on the bed with me. They didn’t crowd, or demand, or want my attention, they simply were with me.

I was home.

-oOo-

It’s only today (Monday) that I’ve felt free enough of the pain medications (still taking a plethora of them, but of a much milder variety now) and the pain itself, to be able to contemplate even turning my computer on.

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my last post, and sent me emails. Each and every one truly made a difference. 😊

I can feel my brain slipping sideways as I type these last words, so, this is it for me … a long post, I know, but it’s been so nice to feel that I’m back in my body and all is functioning (mostly) as it should.

Apologies for typos, etc. You should’a seen this post before I edited it! 😊

Final Countdown

It’s a matter of mere hours now.

I’m staying up until after midnight, (Sunday night) so I can have a wee snack at the witching hour. (with a bit of time to digest before I fall into bed and try to sleep – this heatwave has gone on for just about long enough now. Time for it the depart forthwith)

No food after midnight, then very light liquids up until 9am tomorrow, then we toddle off to be at the hospital by 12.30pm. In all truthfulness I was expecting a show-up time of 6am or something equally ridiculous.

This is, I suspect, because the evisceration and reconstruction of my knee is a merely a ‘day surgery’ excursion. Yep, barring unforseens, they’re booting me to the kerb some time tomorrow afternoon/evening.

I’m presuming you’re as gobsmacked by that as I was when I first heard it.

After that the fun really begins. Weeks and weeks of it.

Not sure when I’ll be able to stagger back here to my computer, but I shall update this Adventure as soon as practicable.

See you all on the other side. 😊

Countdown

Less than 11 days to go for my knee surgery. No, I’m not counting the hours, minutes, and seconds. Why do you ask? 😊

I wasn’t really, not until all the official paperwork and phone calls started happening, then, as they say in the movies, ‘things got real’ … and now appointments for an ECG, X-rays, blood-tests, have all been been made.

Thanks, primarily to Covid, all the pre-admissions ‘visits’ are now conducted over the phone, I’m even going to get a call from the anesthetist, not exactly sure why, but proper procedures must be followed in this modern era.

Time is misbehaving though, as it is wont to do at such times. Now speeding up so that a day feels like it’s over before it’s begun, and now slowing down so far that I regularly check the clocks to see if they’re running backwards.

Funny thing about the clocks in our house – even though we regularly set them to the exact same time, they all head off in different directions in a matter of days.

I figure 75.3% of me is busy dealing with the day-to-day necessities, 10% of me is waving frantically from the sidelines trying to get my attention and screaming, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, going willingly into surgery where they will saw bits of your bones off and replace them with metal and ceramics and plastics?” The remainder is OK with what’s about to happen. Mostly.

I remember feeling all these things when I last had ‘work’ done on my person, (not counting my thyroid surgery which was a life/death kind of thing) and it’s no easier to get through this time than then.

Still … only 11 days …

… 11 days …

-oOo-

On to things Kattenish … the wee sproglets are pretty close to their full growth now and we’ve been slowly introducing them to the Great Outdoors, suitably supervised, of course.

Once they figured there were no monsters hiding in the grass they were off and running, and jumping, and having all sorts of Kattenish adventures …

Asa, on the left …

Asa - "Mum, What's that?"

Asa – “Mum, What’s that?”

Luna, on the right …

Luna – "What's what, dear?" (classic mother-not-really-paying-attention-to-offspring)

Luna – “What’s what, dear?” (classic mother-not-really-paying-attention-to-offspring)

A sudden flurry of crow wings passes overhead …

Luna – "Um, let's go inside and I'll tell you all about the birds and the, birds."

Luna – “Um, let’s go inside and I’ll tell you all about the birds and the, birds.”

Meanwhile, in other news, Wolfie proves that cats, and especially kattens, are liquid when being shuffled off the top bunk by their slightly smaller brother …

It's OK. I can probably sleep like this … and he promptly did (Wolfie has the longest, floofiest tail of them all)

It’s OK. I can probably sleep like this … and he promptly did (Wolfie has the longest, floofiest tail of them all)

Here we have Plutes and Jupes (the ‘Twins’) doing their interpretation of The Cats of Kilkenny …

Instead of fighting to the end though, they had a bit of a rumble and decided it was too hot for anything more enthusiastic, and went their separate ways

Instead of fighting to the end though, they had a bit of a rumble and decided it was too hot for anything more enthusiastic, and went their separate ways

The final word goes to Asa. After a long afternoon playing in the great outdoors she was ready for a nap, but not quite prepared to miss out on anything …

Dozing whilst precariously perched on the balcony railing, about 3 meters above ground

Dozing whilst precariously perched on the balcony railing, about 3 meters above ground

Having decided that a nap was indeed necessary, but still not wanting to quit the field just yet, she tiptoed along the railing to a currently unoccupied planter box and, planted herself …

Cuteness puss-onified

Cuteness puss-onified

-oOo-

… and, just because it’s adorable …

Good News, And… Well, You Know How The Rest Goes

Finally, finally, after an 18 month wait, I have a surgery date for my left knee!!! The 22nd of July … still two months away, but WHOOT!!! 😊

And, my surgeon wants to work on my right knee, (which is crapping out on me at a great rate on knots) 3-4 months after that, so, also WHOOT!!! 😊

Talk about your ‘hurry-up-and-wait-then-hurry-up-some-more!

With a little bit of luck, I should be up and about and skiing down mountains by Winter. Only kidding about the skiing. The thought of trying to navigate along a horizontal surface standing on something as unstable as two very narrow and slippery bits of wood in any direction, let alone down the sides of mountains, is as ridiculous and as scary as it sounds.

Now for the rest of the news. I had a whole series of x-rays done on my major, and a few not-so-major-ly, joints and it turns out all the aches-and-pains that’ve been slowly increasing since our Grand Adventure terminated here in Prince George, (at least for the foreseeable future) are arthritis. The kind that isn’t going to go away without surgery. And unfortunately my arthriticals aren’t ‘bad’ enough to warrant such surgeries, yet. Although, sometimes they’re bad enough to reduce me to a quivering pile of primordial protoplasm, and not in a nice way. So, ‘rock meets hard place meets catch-22’.

Actually my hands, or more specifically my thumbs, are bad enough for surgery. Unfortunately the waitlist for the plastic surgeon, (I’m still not sure why it’s a plastic surgeon, but, whatever) is even longer than the orthopedic one.

I’m relearning how to type with minimal use of my thumbs, and write manually, and crochet, and knit, and use hand, and power tools, and …

Everything in my life is shifting focus, yet again. It’s a good thing I’m so emotionally flexible, (she said, rolling her eyes)

-oOo-

Alright, enough of all that. Let’s have some Katten news.

As of today (Wednesday) all of our wee beasties are, ahem, unable to reproduce.

Luna and Asa had their ops last month, and last week it was Plutes and Jupes’s turn …

… With two cats missing from the household Luna, Wolfie, and Asa, were feeling like odd socks, (in the Washing Machine Of Life) and not sure of what was going on. So I broke out some new catnip toys and handed them over. Well, I’ve never seen those three move so fast, until the ‘nip’ started to slow ‘em down a little that is … (the video’s a bit long so feel free to skip it along) 

 

No-one does rabbit-feet-kicks like these three.

… today it was Wolfie’s turn. He’s such a big floofy gentle sweetheart, that I think the surgery hit him the hardest.

Once home again, and after a big meal, and an even bigger pee, he was last seen hiding underneath the dining room carpet trying to put it all behind him …

That little black blob sticking out from the left side of the carpet is him. We coundn’t tell if it was the tip of his tail or a foot, either way we respected his choices and left him to it

That little black blob sticking out from the left side of the carpet is him. We coundn’t tell if it was the tip of his tail or a foot, either way we respected his choices and left him to it

-oOo-

Oh yeah, and this happened the other night too …

I stood outside for an hour at least simply staring at this wonder of wonders. It was the most mind-bogglingly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. My little phone camera doesn’t do it justice, but this is the best I could do.

The Latest Shenanigans From YouTube

A few days ago I noticed bits of ads showing up before I watched any video on YouTube.

“That’s odd.” I thought to myself, because I have AdBlock running all the time when I’m on the net and it ought not to be happening.

But I do know that AdBlock isn’t perfect and sometimes things do get through. That’s the price of doing business in a world where billions of dollars regularly change hands in the advertising racket.

But then, today … well, this is the ‘feedback’ I sent to YouTube …

 

‘… Youtube started slowing down the other day, even going so far as to slow down any comments I may make. (funnily enough it’s not slowing down my typing here)

Even though I have AdBlock running on my computer, snippets of ads have started showing up at the beginning of every single video I watch.

So, like most people I do a bit of research and I discover that YouTube is DELIBERATELY slowing down because I have AdBlock.

It appears I only have three choices. One involves the currency of my time. ie disable AdBlock and waste my valuable time waiting for ads that I assure you almost no-one watches or appreciates. Or Spend the currency of my very limited budget and pay for YouTube Premium, where lo-and-behold, I (supposedly) won’t be bothered by innumnerable ads that I will not watch and certainly wouldn’t appreciate.

So, do I put up withYouTube’s greedy little tantrum and continue watching as I am currently, disable AdBlock and waste my valuable time, sign up for Youtube Premium and waste my valuable money, or not bother watching YouTube at all, which will impact not only my life but the lives (and income streams) of the people whose videos I subscribe to?

I don’t expect anything other than a canned response to this feedback, but every now and then our expectations don’t get met.’

 

It seems that only certain types of people are welcome on YouTube. An exclusivity that has never, throughout history, ended well for anyone.

YouTube is, consciously, deliberately, and literally, driving their loyal viewership into the hands of their competitors. And guess what happens to all that delicious ad-money when there’s no-one left to, well, certainly not to watch the ads, (let’s be honest, who among us ever pays any attention to online ads other than to be annoyed at the intrusion?) but to have the ads show up on their screens for just long enough to go and make a cuppa, or visit the toilet?’

-oOo-

Some cute Katten pictures as a palate cleanser.

This is Mr Jupes doing his five-legged cat impression …

I have no idea where he hid the rest of his tail

I have no idea where he hid the rest of his tail

… and this is Miss Asa investigating the new water fountain …

She still likes to drink from the tap in the bathroom vanity, but this is an acceptable alternative because she can also drink upside down!

She still likes to drink from the tap in the bathroom vanity, but this is an acceptable alternative because she can also drink upside down!

This Magic Moment

 I slowly woke up. My body began to tense up in anticipation of the usual joint aches-and-pains, but I stopped, in wonderment.

Nothing hurt!

How this happened, I have no idea. Perhaps the rare conjunction of a good night’s sleep, and in the right position. (believe me, the Princess and the Pea – by Hans Christian Anderson has nothing on me trying to get all my bits in some sort of order before I fall asleep. One joint out of place and I pay for it for hours after I wake up)

Needless-to-say, I was suitably gobsmacked, and, after cautiously testing a bit of movement, I slid out of bed, and equally cautiously, stood up.

Nothing hurt. Not knees nor ankles, nor shoulders nor hips.

“What strange plot is this?” I asked myself.

Myself declined to answer.

As the day wore on the moment faded, but not completely, not from my memory.

-oOo-

The Kattens are six months old … hard to believe they were small enough for all of them to fit in my hands … and now …

Mother and Son. Luna on the left, and her honking great son, Wolfie, on the right

Mother and Son. Luna on the left, and her honking great son, Wolfie, on the right

Wolfie, sans mum so you can get a feel for just how big he is

Wolfie, sans mum so you can get a feel for just how big he is

Jupes – (aka Jupiter) doing what he does best

Jupes – (aka Jupiter) doing what he does best

Asa, still about a third smaller than her bruvvs, practicing her yoga ...

Asa, still about a third smaller than her bruvvs, practicing her yoga …

and doing what she does best, helping me make my bed

and doing what she does best, helping me make my bed

As always, she’s joined by the rest of the family in her domestic endeavours

As always, she’s joined by the rest of the family in her domestic endeavours

-oOo-