About Lily

 

This is Lily. This photo was taken when we finally managed to wrangle her into kitty jail to take her to the vet a couple of months ago.

I thought I'd do a post on Lily's journey over the past few years, since it's been ... let's say challenging.

Anyway. Picture it, Invercargill, 2020. (Yes I have been watching the Golden Girls lately, why do you ask?) I'm parked up in the living room on a quiet Sunday, on my iPad and Lily is on my lap.

Out of nowhere, she presses her head against the back of my iPad. Now, I don't know if you know this, but that's a Bad Sign. If a cat presses their head against something, that usually means some kind of neurological event has happened.

So I take her to the vet - a week later because of work, and she seemed okay otherwise, and getting her into the cage is akin to persuading 1000 spiders to do a tango. The vet says it's one of 3 things: it's her teeth, which weren't in great shape, and the infection has possibly travelled, toxoplasmosis, or lead poisoning.

No, I don't know where, in the year of our Lorde 2020 Lily got lead poisoning. But. She did. Which meant trying to give her medication. I don't know if you've ever tried to medicate a highly strung, deaf cat with trust issues, but believe me it is not easy.

Also, because NO ONE GETS LEAD POISONING IN THE 21ST CENTURY we had to give her human medication, which had to be ordered in. BECAUSE NO ONE GETS LEAD POISONING IN THE 21ST CENTURY. Ahem.

Anyway. After a while, the medication does its thing, and Lily's lead levels (say that 3 times fast) return to normal. So then we get her teeth fixed. At this point, she owes me at least $3k but has not a care in the world.

All is well, and quiet, For a while. Then Lily starts to have a discharge from one of her eyes. So we wrangle her into kitty jail and off she goes again. She's a white cat, so she's prone to skin cancer. There's a growth on her third eye. So the vet removes the third eye and all of the growth with it. 

Then, last year, I notice she's getting a bit wobbly on her back legs. She's about 10-11 years old now, so I'm thinking arthritis. Which, she does have. Ask me how we go with giving her painkillers. Go on. 

BUT the vet senses something else is amiss, as Lily's heart is racing. So more blood tests.

And Lily - who has so far survived lead poisoning, teeth removal, growth removal and arthritis, now has hyperthyroidism. The good news is it can potentially be treated with a change in diet. The BAD news is Lily is only meant to have these biscuits and no other food and no other cat can have her biscuits. We are a multi-cat household. The biscuits don't work.

BUT there is a medication, called methimazole. It's topical, so I don't have to fight ten Lilys to get pills down her throat and *fingers crossed* it's only $140.00 a month! (I do hope you detect a note of sarcasm.)

So she's on the topical medication for the rest of her life. 

And that - so far - is the story of Lily.

Review - The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield

 

The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield is a historical fantasy novel set in the 18th century.

The protagonists are Antoine and Charlotte - respectively as we know them, Marie Antoinette and Maria Carolina.

When Antoine and Charlotte are girls, they find a book of spells - The Embroidered Book - and discover that they can use magic.

As the girls grow up, and into their destinies as the Queens of France and Naples, magic shapes who they are, and their destinies.

This is a bit of a strange one for me. I enjoyed the book, and the writing is very good. I learned about Maria Carolina (Charlotte) - someone I had never heard of but was a formidable woman in her own right. In The Embroidered Book Charlotte uses magic to further her own standing as Queen of Naples while Marie Antoinette struggles to find acceptance and love at the overblown court of Versailles.

We all know how Marie Antoinette's story ends - there's no spoiler there. Charlotte ends up fleeing Naples in the 1790s as revolution overtakes large parts of Europe.

I think I wanted ... more? Which is an odd thing to say about a 600-plus page book. But the magic almost felt like an afterthought at times, and it's a shame, because Kate Heartfield has actually created an interesting magic system. Each spell requires something of the one casting it - something physical such as hair or blood, but also sacrifices of memory - both Charlotte and Antoine sacrifice love at different times, which I can only imagine is a difficult choice to make.

It tilts more towards history than fantasy, and there's nothing wrong with that given the upheavals Europe as whole was going through in the 18th century. I just wish the magic could have taken more of a central role.

The Sunday Post #2 It's Monday! What are you reading #2

 
Is it me, or are the weeks going faster and faster? Anyway.

The Sunday Post - a chance for bloggers to chat about their weeks - is hosted by Kimba, here:https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Kathryn, here: https://thebookdate.wordpress.com/

I'm going to try and write a few blog posts today and schedule them for later in the week. I know me, and the last thing I'm going to want to do after work during the week is sit down and have to use my brain-parts. 

Let's see ... last week... 

I went to quiz (as always) on Wednesday night. Our team came third, which isn't too bad.
There was a work event on Thursday night, so by Friday my social battery was pretty dead. 

Yesterday spawn and I went to the library, and I went to my friend's as I always do on a Saturday night. We cross-stitch, watch reality TV and set the world to rights. 

I haven't done a lot today. I'm listening to the LOTR soundtrack while I write these posts, and then I'll probably watch some TV and do some stitching.

I've finished The Grey King but am taking a break before embarking on Silver on the Tree.

I also finished The Embroidered Book today - I'll hopefully have a review of that one up later in the week.

As for what I'm intending to read next - I have Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes started, and I want to re-read The Lord of the Rings, so I'm planning on starting Fellowship of the Ring this week.

How about you? How's your week? What are you reading? 

Sunday Post - 1? It's Monday! What are you reading? - 1-ish

The Sunday Post - a chance for bloggers to have a chat and a catch-up - is hosted by Kimba, here: https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Kathryn, here: https://thebookdate.wordpress.com/

I haven't blogged for about  ... five years I think? I didn't stop for any particular reason. I just sort of stopped. And honestly I didn't miss it for a long time. But lately I've been thinking that it might be nice to start up again. So I thought "why not?" and here I am. 

I'm still in the same job as I was when I fell off blogging. With everything that's gone on in the world in the past few years, I'm grateful that I do have a job. 

Spawn will be 16 in May, which is a lot for me to get my head around. And he's taller than me now. It's very disconcerting, having to look UP at the person that I built. He's doing NCEA this year which is always stressful but so far he seems to be keeping up with the work.

He's at DnD with a group of friends tonight. No matter how far technology takes us, I guess you just can't beat the classics.

We're in the process of buying the house we're renting currently. I don't want to say too much about it because I'm horribly superstitious but hopefully it will go the way we want it to.

Let's see ... we have 7 cats now, and poor Lily - who has been through a LOT the past few years - has hyperthyroidism. Which means daily medication that needs to be applied to her ears. Fun times, especially for a deaf, highly strung cat who develops trust issues every time we need to take her to the vet. 

What else. Currently I'm re-reading The Dark is Rising Sequence - one of my favourite series from childhood. It holds up really well. I'm about two-thirds of the way through The Grey King, so there's really not a lot of the series left to go.

I'm also reading The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield. It's a historical fantasy set in the 18th century. It's centred around Marie Antoinette, and her sister Charlotte, the Queen of Naples. The girls find a book of spells as children, and as they grow up and into their own lives and fates, they discover a hidden world of spells and magic. 

The two women take very different approaches to how they use magic in their lives.

Marie Antoinette I'm vaguely familiar with, obviously, but I knew nothing about Charlotte.

I've done more than one Wikipedia search while reading the book, and discovered that Charlotte was a fairly formidable woman.

I also discovered 18th century female artists who lived at the time, and who have cameos in the book - Angelica Kauffman, a Swiss history painter and member of the Royal Academy in London and Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, who painted Marie Antoinette many times. 

It's more history than fantasy, really, but I'm enjoying it greatly. 

I'm not sure what's up to the plate next, apart, of course from Silver on the Tree.

Anyway. How was your week? What are you reading? :)