Thursday 15th May 2008.
Shilma is still holding her own at Mindy’s. We’ve found that if we stick to an all pinkie diet she usually manages to keep them down but as soon as Mindy tries her with anything else she regurges again. We were concerned a few days ago because although she was keeping the food down and passing it through her system the mice were coming out of the other end undigested. This is indicative of her kidneys not working correctly. But she’s been given plenty of Repti-boost, this seems to have helped and everyday the mice are coming through more digested than the day before so I’m hopeful that she’ll continue to do well and that she’ll be able to come home in the next few days.
I’m a little bit annoyed with Russ. I’m struggling financially at the moment. I find it difficult at the best of times asking for help. Russ gives me thirty pounds a week. This is saving him a fortune, because his house is only used at most one night a week when he has Tia over to stay so he’s not running up any bills. He takes food from my house to stock his rather than buy stuff for Tia coming and I recon that over the last year and a half he’s saved hundreds by living with us so cheaply. I finally swallowed my pride enough to ask him if we could put his money up from thirty pounds a week to fifty.
“Well, no, I don’t think I can, I’d struggle,” was his only comment on the conversation and that was that.
Last night he went to see Bruce Springstein in Manchester. This involved a night at a hotel which cost a hundred and twenty pounds. The friend that he goes with is disabled and can’t stay in any old flea-pit. Next week he is going to see Roger Waters again and has booked them into the same hotel. Both Jethro Tull and Journey, my favourite bands are touring this month but I can’t afford to go to either of them. In four weeks he’s going to see The Police in Liverpool. I have my animals and he has his music. I can’t have everything and shouldn’t begrudge him what makes him happy.
I’ve found it tough getting back into work this week, the days seem so long and boy, have they dragged.
Russ found yet another new karaoke on Tuesday. I was tired and just wanted a bath and an early night. I told him that I couldn’t afford it. He said he would pay. I didn’t want to go anyway and figured that if he needed to go out so badly and expected me to go with him, then it isn’t unreasonable that he should foot the bill.
As I was getting ready Jessy rang to say that she was coming round to see the animals. Suddenly going out seemed like a far more attractive proposition. Russ told her that we were going out and that we’d see them soon.
We got to the pub and it was dead. They were umming and ahhing about whether or not it was worth paying for the karaoke runner. Because we’d turned up especially they decided to go with it and see if anybody else arrived as the night progressed.
We got our drinks and sat down. Because Russ was paying I was just on coke. We’d no sooner got comfy than Jessy and Nigel walked through the door. As much as I like them my heart sank. Within five minutes she’d yelled at Nigel, told the staff that their lemonade had no lemonade in it and that she wasn’t paying for that crap, and insulted the karaoke man by telling him his system was shite. Well that had endeared us to all the staff and few regular customers in the pub.
I felt uncomfortable and didn’t want to sing but Russ put us up for Wild West Hero by ELO. They only had one mic and we had to share it. Russ had the mic and held it up to his mouth, we’ve never shared one before and I suppose he didn’t get the concept of holding it between us. After the first verse I felt like a spare part and a bit of an idiot even though I take all the harmonies in the song while Russ sings the melody. Half way through I threw a diva tantrum and told him to do it on his own. I sat down and was in a right old strop for the rest of the night. I refused to sing again and Nigel, Russ and Jessy along with two regulars from the pub took turns to sing all night. Jess is very loud. She’s a nice person and has a heart of gold. She never comes that she doesn’t bring some fruit for the lizards. She’s a good lass at heart but has that awful affliction with the symptoms of misguidedly believing that if you put somebody else down it makes you look better.
At one point, Nigel who has a reasonable voice got up to sing something, I can’t remember what, and afterwards Jessy said at the top of her voice so that the entire pub could hear, “Nigel that was fucking awful, don’t you ever sing that again.” He just shrugged his shoulders and grinned good naturedly, taking it on the chin as he always does. I told her not to speak to him like that and then covered my irritation with a smile to lessen the confrontational tone in my voice. “Well, what a boring fucking song, he nearly put me to fucking sleep.” Russ and I smiled at Nigel and I told him that I liked it, which I did.
That night in bed Russ commented that he felt embarrassed by the way Jessy had spoken to all of the staff in the pub and that he was glad that I don’t swear like that. Russ doesn’t swear at all, he doesn’t approve of it. Unfortunately, I’m not so good and do let rip from time to time but I do try very hard not to use foul language because I agree with Russ that it really isn’t necessary and so many people use it at least once in every sentence as a pure case of habit.
I’m worried about Stoker, the blood python. He’s very constipated. I’ve been massaging the lower third of him and I can feel that the waste beneath my fingers is like rocks. I’ve made an appointment to take him to the vets for an enema tomorrow. I have done this myself in the past but it’s so long ago that I’d be frightened of hurting him, better to leave it to the professionals.
