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Good evening from Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé. La Belle et Bonne Bianca is booming through her inevitable "je ris de me voir..." -- except that she is putting herself through some linguistic paces. Whenever I hear her relax into Italian, I am reminded how difficult it must be for her -- she is Italian, after all, even if a rabid francophile. We make no allowances and she is so incredibly fluent that it rarely occurs to me to -- "to" what? Recognize her exile? Sooth her marginalized soul? Please, this is no grand drama! She can wield whatever language she likes, whenever she likes, but she, like most of us, has this incredible fondness for having people respond to what comes out of her mouth.



En tout cas, it is sounding not unlike a papal Christmas greeting around here tonight. Around her, tonight.




I ridere a vedere me in questo bellissimo specchio!




Late last night, my Personal Physician, the Boutiqueur, e-mailed me the wonderful news that *nothing* grew in the cultures of the personal ambrosia that was the aspirate from my left shoulder. From the expansive comfort of my wheelchair, I have been Happy Dancing à la Snoopy ever since.

Actually, I just now got out of bed and while in bed was hurting too much to attempt dance of any sort. (I've been known to do a mean horizontal shimmy. Ar! If you knew the shimmy like I know the shimmy, you'd know I wouldn't be caught dead in mid-shimmy these days. I mean, really, I only have *one* shoulder at the moment and the other one is nothing but a troublemaker.)


Ik lach me te zien in deze mooie spiegel!

What is difficult to explain is my steady tendency to take less pain medication as I hurt more. It's actually not complicated and the logic is stellar, but I am receiving odd silences and regards askance in response. Dr. Paindude's PA, the Lovely Lass, added a fourth dose of 10 mg of methadone. I tried it for a week and know that it will be -- perhaps -- another week for it to leave my system. While there was less bone pain overall, there was not one iota of benefit to the specific pain that is sucking my sanity into its black hole. (Is this where women toss in the odd "LOL"?)

My preference is ibuprofen. It has the important advantage of also bringing down my temperature.

Я смеяться видеть меня в этом прекрасном зеркало!

[These things write themselves -- think Rita Skeeter with her Quick Quotes Quill -- still, the Cyrillic alphabet comes off as uppity when italicized, don't you think?]

Fred is trying to be happy about it. Neither of us think back to July, when this scenario was last in play. The Boutiqueur has conveyed the lack of results but the orthopedic surgeon, ShoulderMan, has yet to weigh in. I imagine forlorn tones as ShoulderMan calls the ID-Dudette, who has already told me that another surgery to remove the remaining shoulder "must happen."
There are times, and this is one, where I think my teetotalism is ill-advised, and is -- indeed -- contrary to good health.

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