Stupid January...

Sweet merciful hour, am I glad that the cesspool of a month that is January is over. I am now solvent again [well, just about, but Eddie would be so proud], the overhanging credit card debt has been banished, and all is financially right with the world.

'course, I still have to pay Himself back for the hol* and organise some form of a savings scheme, but I'm adopting the "la la la la laaaaaaa, Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii caaaaaaaan't heeeeeeeear youuuuu!" approach to these matters. Working well so far.

Now, I know that I was not alone in feeling the pinch in January. I am well used to listening to all and sundry cursing the month and all the money-related horrors it brings with it, but I actually to stick up for January, feeling that it was much maligned ["clearly it's a great month, sure wasn't I born in it?" / "it's not January's fault people went mad overspending and buying 'just incase' presents for Christmas, is it?" were the rationale behind my defense.]

Then this year, January apparently decided it didn't need my help ta very muchly, and went and killed my dog. So it can sh*g right off now, birthday or no.

Her name was Coco, and she was a *really* pretty, vay independent Pomeranian. She actually had the prettiest face of any Pom I've ever come across, and I've met quite a few - just between my family and immediate friends, I've known about ten of them. She would have been 16 on 16^th February just gone, and the next person to say "Well, she was, like, 110 in dog years" will get a slap. A really hard one. I mean, you don't go telling people who've had a bereavement in the family that "sure, he had a good innings." [Although there are no doubt some etiquette-free zones who would wonder what could possibly be wrong with that.]

She had epilepsy and apparently this is just hal-arious. A dog with epilepsy?! Ho ho ho. I've been getting that a lot when people ask what happened to her. I'm not quite as annoyed about it when it's coming from someone who doesn't have a dog or maybe never had as much as a terrapin as a kid: they don't really get pets and pet owners. But I find it pretty offensive when it's the response of a fellow dog owner. Would they be so quick to laugh in my face if she had been hit by a car? Or riddled with cancer? Or poisoned? Beg, borrow or steal a little decorum, people.

* more of which anon