Gratuitous Cat

A gratuitous cat picture. Elphaba on the look out.

A bad night painwise with very little sleep. Worse still fierce muscle spasms in left arm and leg and no unofficial antispasmodics left. Once the interminable night was over it was time to face the weekly grocery delivery. This turned into something of a comedy of spinal columns. The delivery man was an ex soldier and paramedic who had his neck broken when attacked on patrol in Northern Ireland. My pain killers weren't working, his were wearing off, neither of us could bend down and he was struggling to bring the groceries to the door while I was having greater than normal difficulty getting them from doorstep to adjacent kitchen. Between us we had perhaps 6 functional fingers and two fully functioning limbs (both his). It was farcical. With much cursing, grunting, audible grinding of joints and the strange rigid dance steps of two men trying to pick stuff off the ground without bending, we somehow managed to get the food into the house. We then had a long conversation about shared experiences with neural degeneration, inconvenient scar tissue, drugs, depression, frustration etc. Almost as an afterthought he mentioned his wife's problems - she's ex army as well and took two rounds to the lower spine. He was very bitter (as well he might be) about the IRA, the loss of his paramedic career and the fact he was now having to do a job he was so obviously physically unsuitable for. What the hell happened to this country....oh yeah, now I remember they cremated her last week....

After all that the rest of today has been a right off, spent lying on the couch recovering and finding distraction in radio plays and knitting. I don't know if it was this mornings encounter, the failure of my (probably over ambitious) plans for the day or just my usual demons but I've been fighting all too familiar guilt all day and losing. I turn once more to the wisdom of Terry Pratchett:

"I meant," said Iplsore bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?" Death thought about it. "CATS," he said eventually, "CATS ARE NICE."