Is it my imagination?

Or have I finally found something worth living for?

I was looking for some action, but all I found were screaming pets and parasols...

Ahem, finding myself on Sesame Street again there for a minute.

Today is pancake day in the Sniffy household. I was very restrained and had just the two with sugar and lemon for my pudding. We were supposed to be having them tomorrow, it being Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) and all, but Mother (awwww) is back in hospital having here pacemaker leads moved about so she won't be in any fit state to be making pancakes for my tea. Having found a book on "Influencing people", I persuaded her that it'd be a shame if she had to miss out on pancakes and that having them a day early would mean that she could enjoy (making) them (for me).


What's the story?

Is it wrong to like Oasis songs from ten years ago? Pootling through my music collection the other day, it dawned on me that I didn't have any of their stuff and that I actually quite liked some of it. Strange that I never really was into them back then because "Cigarettes and alcohol" just about summed me up when it was released back in the mid-nineties.


PEGged back
During a conversation with my ever-cheery friend David last night, I told him that I'll be having a general anaesthetic when I have my op in a couple of weeks' time. "Have you, you know, got anything written down? Just in case?"

"Well," I replied, "Mum gets everything and my debts should be sorted with the loan insurance and stuff."

"No," he continued, "I mean like, if, you know, you have a reaction to the anaesthetic and end up in a permanent vegetative state."

"Oh right, I hadn't thought of that." I hadn't. "I don't want a PEG feed, no way!"

PEG feeds (or percutaneous endoscopic gastronomy) are feeding tubes that are inserted surgically and they are all but permanent - their removal can only be performed surgically. Of course, once they're in situ the medical team aren't allowed to remove them without the consent of the patient or their next of kin. There have been high court battles over these things where one side of the family wants them removed so the patient can die with some dignity, yet other family members insist on them remaining in place - hoping against hope for some recovery. Famous cases include Tony Bland in the UK and Terri Schiavo in the States.

Should anybody in their right mind want one of these? Hell no! I'd recommend that anybody of a similar opinion carries a signed bit of paper with a "DO NOT PEG FEED" statement written on it. You never know when you might suffer a neurological trauma that renders you in a condition where there's no chance of recovery, but where somebody might be tempted to put one of these things into you because it's easier than reinserting an NG-feed that keeps popping out.

Besides, what's the point of having a feeding tube if you can't get pizza, curry or Pot Noodle through it - or even taste the stuff? Bah! To that.

Of course, other people have different attitudes to this and you have to respect that.

I ain't havin' no feedin' toob, FOOL! Then again, knowing me, I might be the first person ever to recover from that state when I got hungry. I'm always being woken up through being starving hungry.



Cheery
No, I'm not, but I'm sleep-deprived because of my pathetically-needy and neurotic miniature tiger. Little bastard was scratching and crying at my bedroom door for ages throughout the night because I decided that I wanted my bed to myself for a change. Shithead.



Nu Shooz
I put that reference in for people Googling the one-hit-wonders who brought us "I can't wait" in 1986. But I did buy new shoes last week - really borin' black school shoes. Schuh was a nightmare: the thing I admire about Asian people is their sense of family and how they all stick together and look after each other, but surely the entire extended family isn't required when one person needs to buy shoes? Hence the shop was a little crowded with hubby, wife, sister, aunt, kids, toddler (screaming, incessantly), mother, etc, etc, etc. I browsed the shelves and found that I only liked the trainers and the boots, which I have plenty of already, so I ended up buying sensible black Kickers for work. I guess I've always worn trainers and Docs for playing out and I don't think anything's going to change now. I did try a few pairs of playing out shoes, but they all looked really spazzy in my size, so I didn't bother.

I've noticed that shoe sizes are changing and that my feet appear to have shrunk down to a size 3 (36 in Europe, something daft like 4½ in America) . It's all a bit of a disaster because of my diamante anatomy: I really can't be doing with tapering down any further at my foot end.

Enjoy your pancakes tomorrow.

Question of the week:

What are you giving up for Lent?