No sooner than I find a vegetarian product that I actually like - meat free Lincolnshire style sausages , the supermarket stops selling them!

Two job application rejections - one by email, one by phone, within a hour of each other tonight.

I do everything in my might to avoid phones. I prefer to drive for an hour and wait in line for two hours than to make a stupid phone call. And what do they say when I finally get to talk to them? "We'll have a look later. Give me your phone number and I'll phone you later this afternoon ". Yaaay! I get to be anxious all afternoon waiting for a phone call! Joy!

They screw up and I have to suffer for it. How do these people get to keep their jobs? Is the whole world incompetent? My previous school was full of people who had no clue what they were doing, now I switch schools... and the people handling my application seem to have forgotten to send in my grades to the new school. Either that, or the school misplaced the papers. They keep sending me from one office to the next, each office blaming the other one. "We sent the grades, go talk to them", "we didn't receive any grades, go talk to them!". No grades = my application is declined and I'm not accepted into the school. And the school term starts on Monday. Rawr. How difficult is it to send some papers? Oh and I asked them if they could give me the grades in order for me to hand them in personally, but noooo they can't just give me the grades, they have to order them and send them to me by post. Which will take days.

I dropped my wallet on the train today. I was lucky that some kind soul found it and handed it in to the ticket inspector, apparently without touching any of the money. But ...I think I would have gladly given away all the money in the wallet just to avoid the endless stream of phone calls this incident led to. I had quite a sum of money in there too. This really shows how grave my fear of phones is. I was honestly considering turning the cell phone off just to avoid talking to them. I managed to talk myself into phoning the guy though (he left a bunch of messages on my phone asking me to do so) and he told me that he'd bring the wallet to the police station. So I'll have to go get it as soon as possible. Which is also annnoying, seeing as it's in a city almost two hours away from here.
Oh, and I know I should have offered him some reward, but I was too nervous while talking to him to think of it. So I was rude too. Yay!

Stupid wallet.

My cat was hit by a car yesterday. He appeared to have broken a leg, but the vet said that the bone wasn't broken, there was however a lot of nerve damage so the leg's basically dead. They're going to try and save it; they're giving him a couple of weeks to recuperate, if he manages to start moving the limb again within these two weeks he'll be able to keep it. Otherwise they'll have to amputate the leg...
He's at the vet at the moment. He'll stay there over the weekend. I was at school when it happened so I didn't even get to see him. Poor little guy. I'm so worried about him. I just hope he'll get well soon and that they'll be able to save the limb...
I wish I could go see him, but they don't allow visitors.

Thats awful news

I hope the little fellah gets better soon and hopefully he gets to keep his leg. If the worse comes to the worse and it gets amputated, it will probably upset you more than him. They can cope......

Fingers crossed for a good result.

Sorry to hear about Bowie, Krakow. Poor little guy.

Not to down play the situation or anything Krakow, but if they do end up having to amputate the leg, Bowie'll be fine. He'll have to recover and spend a little bit of time adjusting, but he'll manage just fine. I told you about the three legged cat from the shelter here, right? I think that guy managed better than the majority of the cats there.

Again, I'm not trying to say that this isn't an icky situation. It's horrible that he got hit by a car. But, if the leg doesn't heal, Bowie'll still be ok.

And they don't allow visitors at all? Are they at least keeping you guys updated? Or do you need to phone and hound them? Are they just keeping him for the weekend? Or longer?

Anyways, let me know how everything turns out Krakow. I hope Bowie's doing ok.

Thanks guys.
Yeah, the veterinary has been telling us the same thing. Cats quickly adjust to a life on three legs. Even so, I'd hate for him to lose his little limb. He'll probably adjust, but he'll have to go through that awful surgery, and he'd never be able to fully go back to his old way of life. Also, it's one of his front legs. Cats do well on three legs if it's a hind leg that's missing, but a missing front leg is a bigger handicap. So I just hope he gets a little better soon, just some sign of improvement. I don't expect full recovery in a matter of two weeks, but if we see some sign that he is regaining the use of his leg there'll be a chance that he gets to keep it.
Anyway, we brought him home yesterday, and he's doing ...okay, I think. I'm not completely sure to be honest. Most of the time he seems to be feeling okay, all things considered. He sleeps a lot. He doesn't have his usual appetite, but he does eat. And he's actually quite sociable and comes to me for attention, which I see as a good sign. So, in many ways he's his usual self. I'm supposed to exercise the limb and massage the muscles, to keep nerves and muscles stimulated, seeing as he doesn't move them himself. Not the easiest job. Sometimes he lets me, but most of the time he doesn't. He lets out these meows and aggressive sounds and almost scares me a little. I've never seen Bowie aggressive, he hardly ever bites, not even playfully, but yesterday I almost thought that he was about to attack me. He's supposed to be more or less numb in the leg, so I'm not sure if it's just a feeling of discomfort, or of he actually does feel pain. I suppose pain could be a good sign, it'd mean that the nerves aren't completely dead, but yeah ...it makes exercising the limb difficult.
So yeah, all things considered he's doing pretty well I think. I think the hardest thing for him is that he isn't allowed to go out. That's pure torture for the little dude. But, for obvious reasons, we'll have to keep him indoors until he gets better. We'll probably not get much sleep these coming weeks. The hardest thing for me is to watch him limp around on three legs, dragging his useless limb on the floor. That's just heartbreaking to watch. But I'm glad that he seems to be feeling as well as he is. I don't know what I was expecting to see when I went to pick him up from the clinic.

How's bowie doing now Krakow? Has he been to visit the vet again since you brought him home? Any news?

If he's 'howling' and trying to bite you while exercising the leg, then he probably does feel some sort of pain/discomfort. Not that I know for sure but that does make it sound as if the nerves are still intact to some degree. If he's eating and trying to get outside, those are good signs too.

Again, not to downplay your worries, but animals learn to work with what they have. The cat from the shelter was missing his front leg Krakow. Sure, he needed to learn different ways to do things, but he managed quite well. For example, when he ate, he had to lean forward on his shoulder and eat out of a shallow dish. That cat managed amazing things though. Half the time I found him hanging around ontop of the cages (which where probably about 6 feet up) and I never figured he'd be able to get up there.

From the sounds of it, Bowie's a tough little guy. Hopefully things turn out for the best and he won't have to have his leg amputated but he'll be ok either way Krakow.

The lil' guy's doing just fine now. A few days after we brought him home he started moving his limb a little. At first I thought it was my imagination, but the next day he actually started moving the entire leg and even took a few steps. After that he recovered really quickly, and he now walks almost normally. He limps a little, but he climbs and jumps up and down our furniture as if nothing ever happened. So I'm relieved to say the least. The veterinary was surprised to see his quick recovery too. Needless to say, there's no talk of amputating anything anymore. So he's one lucky little catzter.
It's still too early for him to go out again though. So we have to listen to a few more weeks of constant meowing. It's driving me mad! All night he meows and meows and meows. I haven't had a good night's sleep all week.
Anyway, thanks Cowie.

Oh, on an unrelated note, I'll send you your PM in a few days. Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you. I like to take my time.

That's really good news Krakow. I'm glad to hear he's recovered so well. Sounds like he's almost back to his old ways too. I'm sure it's torture for both you and Bowie with him not being allowed outside yet. Did the vet advise you to wait a while until you let him back outside? Did he/she way that they figured he'd fully recover? I mean, does it seem like there'll be no 'permanent' damage to his leg?

And as for the PM, don't worry about it Krakow. Due to lack of sleep, I have the attention span of a 2 year old. So, I doubt I could even get through reading one of our PMs. You know, with them being the length of a novel and all.

Anyways, again, it's good to hear that Bowie's doing so well. If he'd like any pointers on breaking out of the house, my Momma cat could teach him a thing or two. She's become quite good at it the last little while.

I'd rather keep your momma cat away from Bowie then; he needs no new tricks!
We've started letting him out again this week, so he's beyond happy. We've set stricter rules though. No going out after dark. He didn't seem too happy about that at first, but he seems to be accepting our new brutal and unfair rules now. Poor lil' guy.
The vet couldn't really say how well he would recover. From the look of things, he will probably limp a little for the rest of his life. He still limps quite a lot, especially if he's been outdoors for some time. He seems to get tired in the leg if he uses it too much. We're lucky that he can walk at all though, so I don't really mind the fact that he limps a little. And he doesn't seem to mind either. So it's all good.

Gaining weight isn't as easy as people seem to think it is. At least not if you've got a crazily high metabolism. I've talked about doing something about my weight issues in the past, but I've never really tried to seriously gain weight. I got a bit of a scare now though because I lost a couple of kilos over Christmas (is that even possible?). I'm 195cm and weigh 60kg, and according to sources online that's considered "severely underweight" which doesn't sound too healthy. The last week I've taken things seriously and have tried to eat more. Thing is, it's so hard. I'm never hungry. I have to force myself to eat, even though I almost feel like throwing up. And, as I mentioned, my metabolism is pretty high, so I'm struggling.
I've also noticed that people don't seem to take weight issues seriously unless you're on the other side of the scale (or have an actual eating disorder). I find that quite odd seeing as being underweight is probably just as harmful for the body as being overweight. People seem to think that it's a joy to try and gain weight. "Just eat everything you want, in as high quantities as you want, heaven!". It's not as nice as it sounds. Boo.
Anyway, to set a goal I've decided that I want to put on 20kgs before July. I don't know if that's a bit ambitious, but I'll try and see. Something tells me I'll have trouble even gaining 10, but we'll see.

And, seeing as I wrote this in the rant room, my actual rant will be about ...peanut butter. I'm sick of it. I've been force feeding myself peanut butter because of the fact that it's so high in calories and relatively healthy (I eat natural peanut butter, so it's 100% peanuts). I'm starting to loathe it by now though. I need to try some other nut butters.

You lost weight over Christmas?!

Wow, that is impressive Harold! However, given your height and weight, not in a good way.

I agree with you about underweight issues not being taken as seriously. Have you thought about seeing a dietitian about the problem Harold?

Yeah, I have thought of making an appointment with a dietician. But ...I've yet to actually do it heh. Knowing me, that won't happen anytime soon. I know I should though, because I can see that I won't get anywhere without help. I've been eating like crazy for two weeks now and should have gained at least ...a kilo, preferably more. I haven't gained weight at all though. I weigh myself daily to keep track of my "progress", and my weight goes up and down from one day to the next, which is normal, but if you take the mean value of my weight over this period of time, I'm not really making any progress.