My Early Birthday Present from Julie is a good one: an oral comprehension book with CD. Definitely good, because listening is the opposite of what I do best — just ask Julie.

And it’s pretty exiting, the dialogs in the book. Why last chapter, a girl asked the waiter at the caf? out on a date. Before that, people were quite surprised at how much younger Robert’s wife is than him.

But this chapter I was less than excited to learn that today, the 15th of June, was their 25th anniversary. Numbers are a real challenge in French for beginners, and that was the theme for the chapter.

There must have been a power outage on the day they made up the numbers, because the tens only go up to 60. That is, after soixante-neuf (69), they just keep on with soixante-dix (sixty-ten) for seventy. I should have seen it coming though: in the teens, French has elegant single words for eleven, twelve, through sixteen. Then for some reason, they just threw up their hands and went with ten-seven, ten-eight, etc for 17, 18, 19. So we are at seventy-one, or rather, sixty-eleven and climbing. Then, after you finally get to sixty-ten-nine, logic steps out for a quick smoke break while we find are selves stuck with a Lincoln-esque “four-score”. Four-twenty, that is.

Four-twenty-and-one, four-twenty-two, all the way to four-twenty-nine, and thennnnn….

Four-twenty-ten — of course. So when you get to ninety-nine, you say quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, or four-twenty-ten-nine. What’s that plus one?

Cent.

(more…)

S?cki’s wound is healing well.

she had to get an absess removed after being bitten by Shere Khan on the bum, and had to go back twice because it hadn’t healed properly. Her shaved rump is growing back hair, and although still bald is much less unsightly.

The bad news is, however, that she and Shere have both tested positive for FIV, also known as feline AIDS. It is likely that Shere was the one who caught it first, because he was –up until two days ago– not fixed.

Unlike HIV, FIV spreads easily through saliva, so cats can catch it by being bitten by infected cats, just like the zombie virus.

The vet believes it is highly probable that the other two cats have it as well, even though Shere Khan never attacks them aggressively like he does with S?cki. There are several theories to why this is but that is another herd of cats.

Julie was inconsolable when she heard the news, and rightly so, for it is a fatal disease. However, infected cats can live years before the final stage is reached, and does not occur as offen as it does with HIV. So, it is best not to worry too much, but rather see that your cat leads a healthy life through good diet and exercise, and to be sure to treat any infections with antibiotics should they arise.

Unfortunately, it can be hazardous to one’s own health seeing that a cat gets her medicine. Some are easier to give pills to than other’s, but S?cki is truely a cat’s cat: as long as she has teeth and claws she won’t be forced to do one damn thing against her will.

The doc showed us another pill giving method yesterday: hold the cat by the scruff facing you against your chest, and use the metal tongs to pop the pill in, then blow on her face once. It worked like a charm for the vet. Not so at home, but maybe we just need practice.

The upside of this is that I’ve thought of some really good lolcat captions, none of which I’ll use because Julie would kill me.

Television helps children?!

Paris was great although the strike pretty much put a damper on getting around. We couldn’t do half of what we had planned, but we’ll be back up there shortly, and for a bit longer next time.

Watched a lot of TV though, particularly music videos, like this one:
“Talk to my hand” by tongue in cheek rapper Fatal Bazooka in drag.

We’ve found a place in Paris for a coupla months.

We will be in Paris for about a week or so.