Tag: The Peanut

Je suis malaaaaaaaaade

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We are all malaaaaaade these days.

It’s rough goings in the Cote household these days. The beastie was cutting molars last week, so he was in a right grump and he was running a continuous low-grade fever for days. Katy had to take the week off, which really stirred things up for her work (again! gits!!!). I had a few nights of sweaty, fever-ish sleep and I thought that’d be the worst of it, but whatever I have is getting nastier. I sound like I’m a 2-pack a day smoker (which is ironic considering that I stopped smoking months ago). I’m horking up green bits like crazy and my nose is a faucet. I’m so sexay at the moment, it’s scary.

Now the beastie seems to have caught whatever I have because he sounded like a sea lion last night a few hours after we put him to bed. He slept through the night, even though he had a few coughing spells. I didn’t really sleep though, because I was too anxious about him waking up crying. I really need to work on that. It’s rather ironic that I’m so worried about him not feeling well and waking up crying (and waking me up in a panic) that I don’t sleep myself. Yeah, that’s useful…

Katy’s pulled a muscle in her shoulder and is also getting a cold.

The whole household needs a bit of pampering, but it’s in limited supply at the moment.

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Tolstopoodles and donkeys

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We had to get Tolstoy shaved because, minger that he is, he doesn’t goom his fur and won’t let us brush him so he gets dreadlocked and it just looks painful. We took him to the vet to get a good brushing under sedation (we have to do this once a year or so) and when we went to pick him up, the nurse said “we had to shave off a bit more fur than expected, but don’t worry, he’s fine”.

 

We have a poodle. The only things that are not shorn are his head, tail, lower paws and a bit around his ass. The rest of him is gone. His tail is wider than his actual body. The thing is though, ever since we got him done, he’s been like his old self again and has gotten uber clingy. He’s taken to sleeping on the bed with us most every night. It’d be cute if he didn’t weigh so damn much. He’s small, but it’s all muscle.

In other news, the beastie was in a Christmas play in the nursery yesterday. All the small kids were random nativity-esque animals. Ours was a donkey (though the only requirement was to be dressed in grey). We were quite proud of him. He didn’t cry (he seemed to enjoy the attention, in a bemused sort of way) and he clapped enthusiastically at all the right places. Katy could have burst something she was so proud.





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It’s been a shit day all around

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Once again, I am reminded of just how craptabulous the bus service is here. My favouritest bus ever, the Citi7, was not only 20 minutes late, it also bombed right past me without stopping.

The receptionist at work noticed my soggy state when I came back in and said “at least the day is almost over”. Sadly, it’s not because the beastie is still feeling under the weather and Katy and I are both in zombie-mode, operating at very low-level brain functions. Last night, we were up from 2:30 to 5am – this after going to bed at 11:30.

It’s been a long day.

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24 days to Christmas!

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The beastie wasn’t feeling all that great this weekend. His temperature spiked on Saturday night and has been up and down since, and our nights have been less than peaceful. Still, he seems to have had a better day today so hopefully he’s starting to get on top of whatever bug he’s picked up.

Sunday was a truly shit day, weather-wise, so we spent it inside putting up the Christmas tree. I had a helper (though he was more interested in trying to eat everything in sight so we did most of the trimming while he was taking a nap).

  

I’m amazed that the tree has been up for two days, so far, and the cats haven’t been at it (yet!). Still, go tree!

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Long overdue status update

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Lost of things have been happening, and not much, at the same time.

We had our new cooker delivered Monday of last week. It’s all shiny and new and works very well (if a bit scarily too-well). I’ll need to adjust my timings for it but at least it has fire in its belly (!) compared to the old one.

We went to Snape Maltings on Tuesday so that I could visit the farm shop that Katy had raved about from her last jaunt with Donna. I have to say that I’m impressed and we could spend a serious chunk of change there :) We bought some tomato chutneys that I can actually eat, mandarin flavoured olive oil (they didn’t have the lemon flavoured that I already have and love) and some flame-grilled artichoke hearts that have already been found quite tasty on pizzas and marginally less so in my pasta sauce. We had pancakes with some really, really, really(!) good bacon for brunch and then we headed back home through a warren of country back roads. It’s a good thing we had the satnav :)

We went to Lakeside on Wednesday to scope out some preliminary ideas for xmas presents and to try and get a Costco membership. Lakeside was ok. We stopped at Cafe Rouge for lunch. I like Cafe Rouge. It’s generally a nice meal that is also fairly safe, allergy-wise. I had a bit of a surprise this time though. I’d ordered a steak-filled baguette and ended up with a steak and fish-flavoured mayo baguette for my troubles. I don’t know what the kitchen staff did, but they managed to get bits of fish (big enough to point out to Katy and a rather flabbergasted waiter) in my sandwich. No wonder the taste was off… Anyway, they were very apologetic and comped my meal, so that wasn’t too bad. The onion soup was nice as usual though. Costco was a big disappointment. Apparently, neither the EBI or Babraham qualify as valid companies for an individual membership :( I’ll see if I can wangle a membership through somebody at work.

We recently celebrated our 5-year meeting-up anniversary on Oct 1st and our 3-year wedding anniversary on Oct 2nd. I wrote Katy a sappy card and she wrote me a cynical one. It pretty much sums us up :) We were in Leicester this weekend. We had a nice meal at San Carlos and Katy was really happy that we could eat off of each other’s plate. It’s a silly thing, when you think about it, but it very rarely can happen because of my allergies. The food was very nice, as usual, and the cocktails at Las Iguanas were also very nice :) They had a continental market in town with lots of interesting foodstuffs but we were full and cashless, so we headed home.

The car decided that wanted a makeover this weekend and had aspirations to become a muscle car. To that effect, it decided that its exhaust system really needed a throaty growl so it reworked itself to bypass the back-box. Sadly, Katy decided that she preferred to have acceleration, gas mileage and full use of her hearing instead of having the only Toyota Corolla that sounded like a supercar and took her car into the garage yesterday. We would have gotten it done in Leicester but nobody had the parts around to do it on short notice.

Today is Katy’s first day back at work and she’s of mixed minds about going back. Scratch that, both of her minds don’t want to, to be honest. If she can handle it for the short term, it’ll give us a bit of a chance to sort out longer-term options.

The beastie is doing well, even though he’s been a bit of a handful in the past few days. He caught a cold – which he will share with us soon enough – and we think that his teeth are giving him some grief. Other than that, we think he’s just on the cusp of being mobile. The cats look worried. I don’t blame them.

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I need a vacation from my vacation

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I’ve been on leave since last Wednesday and I can’t really say that I’m rested and relaxed. I spent Wednesday cooking tons of food. We went to the seaside on Thursday with Katy’s parents. That was a nice day, but ended in a less than pleasing note when the beastie – exhausted and probably having had a bit too much sun – melted down after being put to bed. It’s always a bone-searingly scary experience when he wakes up wailing after being fast asleep. He just never does it and I always worry about the worst happening… Friday was my birthday and I spent a large part of it in my kimono. That was good, and Katy went nuts with prezzies and wrapping paper.

Katy’s parents left on Saturday and we had a quiet day. We went to the market to pick up some veg and do a quick shop at Waitrose for some food for a fondue we planned for dinner. The evening was nice, but the night was very short because the beastie had another episode of at 4:30 am. He’s been really grumpy since Thursday, and has been drooling a lot and running a bit warmer than usual. We thought it was just teething pains. This morning though, he was roasting! We called the docs and they said to keep an eye on him and call back if we’re still worried. The rational part of me things it’s probably just a cold. He’s been snuffly and snotty in the past 2 days. The irrational part of me just wants to go to the corner shop and buy a pack of fags and chain smoke and worry. The problem is that the irrational part of me has a louder voice these days.

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Week in review

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Not a lot to report for this past week. Work’s been up and down. I’ve been working on cleaning up code written up during a recent student project. The code does some very nice things in truly god-awful ways. I shouldn’t be too harsh about it, as it was from a student who’d never programmed in Java before. Still, it gives me nightmares and for the first time in a very long time, I feel stupid because I’m having a hell of a time trying to wrap my brain around what it does and how it does it. It really doesn’t help my morale when a coworker just looked at the spaghetti mess and said “oh yes, it does this here and that there. it’s quite simple, actually”. Bastard :)

On the home front, the BenBen has mastered the art of sitting up unsupported and his first tooth has broken through. More are hot on its heels. The clever beast managed to barf on me this morning and, as I put him down to clean him and myself up, he kicked my tea cup off the coffee table. Triple-score points!!! Otherwise, he’s generally in a good mood these days and he’s discovering new foods at a good pace. The ladies at the nursery are impressed in his ecclectic tastes. It’s not every baby that likes asparagus and olives, apparently.

Some lads from work came and helped me move the old sofa into the office. It took two tries and a bit of swearing, but we managed to get it to its final resting place with a minimum of pain or injury to either myself or the house. It smelled of cat wee so we nuked it with the odor remover and washed all the covers. The office is starting to look nice and usable now. I borrowed some homeplugs from a guy at work and I can now connect the SunRay console to the house network. I haven’t tested it out yet but it’ll hopefully mean that I can work from home on the days that I need to stay at home. I have to say that I’m impressed with the technology. I’d never heard of it before but they allow you to create a home network using the electrical wiring in your house. Very clever. I’ve ordered my own set and they should be in next week.

Katy and I have been on a Sopranos marathon. We’re starting season 3 now. Brings back memories of watching it Michel and tearing large chunks of the floor in that apartment in Montreal (hee hee hee, screw you Mister Silver!!!) We went to the Saffron Screen to watch Star Trek. I really, really liked that movie and it’s one of the few Star Trek movies I’d consider buying on DVD. Beckie, our babysitter, had an easy night last night but I think that she’s going to be a life saver in the months and years to come.

On the cooking front, we managed to have only one BBQ this week but that’s because the weather was mostly crappy. I made beef koftas. They were nice. I took the beastie for a walk to town to pick up stuff from the market. The fruit and veg stall is going to be beneficial to our budget, but the butcher and the bread stall might hurt our wallet so it might be a mixed blessing. I made spahetti with a creamy bacon and seafood sauce. Very, very nice. We’re going to have to buy more of that seafood mix from Aldi.

I poached some chicken breasts in some apple juice and some herbs for the beastie. I whizzed some up with some mixed root veg (swede, parsnip, sweet potato, carrots) and some leek. It’ll complement his lunches of pasta with meet sauce and chicken with veg and cous cous. It seems that I’m cooking more for the beastie than I am for us :)

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