Idiot Wind: Kicking Back on a Saturday Night at Marlinspike Hall

It's one of those soft, breezy in-between seasons kind of nights, when the heart is wide open, the pupils large, taking in everything, understanding flowing like God's own soft sainted waters.  Makes you want to listen to that same sort of evocative, loving, welcoming feeling in a tune. So, of course, La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore being in charge of our turntable and the vinyl platters this evening, she went with the obvious, and chose the dulcet tones and subtleties of Dylan's greatest lullaby:  Idiot Wind.  She's dedicating it to anyone who needs a clue. Admittedly, she was aided in her musical choice by The Feline Triumvirate, who think that people who harm defenseless animals are not only idiots, but cowards, and probably, sociopaths.  They are feisty, our kitty crowd, and they never cease to speak truth to those-deluded-into-thinking-they-have-power.

If this introduction seems obscure to you, and even more odd than what you usually find here?  That's because I am really badmouthing a relative but using guile and subterfuge to get it done, see?  Now can we get back to pretending that this is just an average blog post and not more disappointment at the dysfunction of my genetic heritage?

No matter what, "Idiot Wind" is one of the Zimmer's best songs, a cutting edge turn of the blade that Sara never saw coming, I'm sure!  Blood on the Tracks, the album in which it first featured, was probably a total eye-opener for the lass. And if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the May 23, 1976 performance, at Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado, I hear that's especially well-delivered.  Not with snark... snark is easy, common... no, we're talking smooth and well-delivered, yes, but with lip-curling, lip-smacking snarl. Snarl is... real.

Just a rhetorical... something that the cats want translated from Cyrillic Felis Cactus  into Modern English:
Is anyone really shocked that someone who would rob the woman who gave him life -- rob her of dignity as well as of tangible means of support -- would then, like a cornered man-boobed boor, take the life of someone's pet by poison?  (Don't worry, I'll leave my reprobate relatives behind, just let the bile flow, for the bile must flow, and better here than than up and down the highways of my esophagus.)

Where the cats come up with these strange rhetoricals, we don't know.  But Marmy is sporting her wrap-around shades, Dobby is sharpening his nails, and Buddy is getting a rubdown, keeping it all very loose.  I've switched over to my Bond issue Power Chair, equipped with mini-hydrogen bombs chemically designed to target low-testosterone wimpy sorts.  Fred is in total chill mode.  He keeps pointing at The Castafiore's stiletto heels, recognized as weaponry by any thinking soul, and reminding me that we are also protected by the power of our next door neighbors, the Cistercians, an enlivened group these days, really loving Pope Francis, their new El Papa Francisco .  The tone, explained Abbot Truffatore to a community gathered for the monthly Communion Wine Tasting last evening, is new: "It's like we have permission to swing away, to go for justice, so long as we remember to yodel out, 'Hey, who are we to judge, eh?' after we sink in the rear naked choke. It's a new Liberation Theology."

We understand Abbot Truffatore about as much as we do the Feline Triumvirate, or Bianca on a bender, but since we love and trust them all, we're gathering our Bear Repellent and sanctifying our loins with readings from the Good Books.  I'm reading The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Fred is enjoying the Canterbury Tales, Bianca and Sven are reading different versions of Faust, and a couple of the Perpetual Postulants and the more enervated Saturday night escapees from the Novitiate seem to have Marvel Comics tucked inside their breviaries.

I'm in the "Man's Way" section of Book II, and it's Madame Gautier who is speaking to Jane Pittman. My eyes just landed on her version of "Idiot Wind":

That's man's way. To prove something. Day in, day out he must prove he is a man. Poor Fool.

Being snarky (not snarly), I rapid-fired Fred to give me a version of "Idiot Wind" from Chaucer. He's feeling much better, by the way, and responded first with a very sexy eyebrow raise.  Then, without letting more than a second pass, he channeled the perfect 14th century zap of a verbal prat fall:

Then the Miller fell off his horse.

Ever equitable, I turned to Sven and my Dear Castafiore, noting that they were a bit more intertwined than separate authors might lead one to expect, and gave a polite cough.  "*Ack*-*Ack*," added Marmy Fluffy Butt, peering at this odd couple over her stern shades. "What," laughed Sven, "you want us to choose a passage from FAUST to encapsulate 'Idiot Wind'!  No offense, dear Prof, but don't you think that's rather... stupid?"

He had a point. He also had Goethe.  I gave Bianca the Hairy Eyeball, and she promptly stood, hoisted her bust with firmly crossed arms, and belted out you-know-what -- Gounod's precious Jewel Song.  At which point Marmy turned it over to Dylan and we all enjoyed a cold beverage.  And so it was that a soprano's "Ah ! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir..." seamlessly married with Dylan's adenoidal "Someone's got it in for me..."

I couldn't help but laugh.  Always, at moments of such intersection, I hear our gruff benefactor, Captain Haddock, crying out from the wild sea:  "She's in fine voice tonight."

The little monks, still treating their stinging baby tonsures with gentle baths of Witch Hazel, were spared quoting from their comic books, as they were saved by the bells marking the beginning of the Great Silence*.  Brother Fratulence grinned at me and waved a copy of The Hulk.

Don't let this domestic scene of Marlinspike Hall at play on a Saturday night reassure you that all anger at senseless murderous rage has been set aside.  Don't be an idiot, babe.

Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out quick but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can't help it if I'm lucky.

People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts
Even you yesterday you had to ask me where it was at
I couldn't believe after all these years you didn't know even me better than that
Sweet lady.

Idiot wind blowing every time your move your mouth
Blowing down the backroads heading south
Idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I ran into the fortune-teller who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quit for so long I can't remember what it's like
There's a lone soldier on the cross smoke pouring out of a boxcar door
You didn't know it you didn't think it could be done in the final end he won the wars
After losing every battle.

I woke up on the roadside daydreaming about the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are making me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies
One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzing around your eyes
Blood on your saddle.

Idiot wind blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart
Now everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad what's bad is good you'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom.I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed your eyes don't look
Into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone faced while the
Building burned
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees while the
Springtime turned
Slowly into autumn.

Idiot wind blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind blowing every time you move you teeth
You're an idiot babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

I can't feel you anymore, I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishing I was somebody else instead
Down the highway down the tracks down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars hounded by your memory
And all you raging glory.

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered not the pain I raise above
And I'll never know the same about you your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry.

Idiot wind blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

***  *******  ***          ***  *******  ***          ***  *******  ***

* When I used to step aside from life and go vacation in a nearby monastery (long before we moved to Tête de Hergé) twice a year, I had enough hubris to replicate the monks' hours, and kept the silences, etc. Wikipedia has an excellent tripartite explanation of the benefits of such silence -- which is far, far different from, say, the notion of "keeping quiet." Listed under the entry "Vow of Silence," are these saving graces:

• As an aid to the practice of good, for silence is kept with Man, in order to better to speak with God, because an unguarded tongue dissipates the soul, rendering the mind almost, if not quite, incapable of prayer. The mere abstaining from speech, without this purpose, would be the "idle silence" which St. Ambrose so strongly condemns.
• As a preventative of evil. Seneca, quoted by Thomas à Kempis, complains that "As often as I have been amongst men, I have returned less a man" (Imitation, Book I, c. 20).
• The practice of silence involves much self-denial and restraint, and is therefore a wholesome penance, and as such is needed by all

I bring this up, of course, because this is the type of post, the type of speech, that is so raucous that one needs to accept that old and dear invitation:  "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."  [Read:  "and shut up that noisy mouth and mind..."]

While I slept for 26 hours...

While I slept for 26 hours, taking a few breaks, apparently, for water and such, our sweet Freakishly Large Maine Coon Kitten, Mr. Buddy, carefully piled on top of my dozing form, sometimes tucking them safely in the folds of one of several quilts, and once placing a sample so close to my snoring mouth, it's a wonder I didn't inhale it --

Toys.  Cat toys.  And small offerings of kibble pieces, as well as two beloved treats.

The message was clear:  Why won't you wake up and play with me?

Two mice.  Two balled up red mohair leg warmers, ready for tossing and a game of Fetch.  A bit of bubble wrap.  Three balls, one felt, one yarn, and one that I contend was meant for budgies, but what do I know -- it's hard and has a bell in it.

I am grateful for all these gifts, except for the tiny seafood treat an inch from my mouth.  Had I inhaled that sucker, all might have been lost.  Hmmm.

In a play for pity, not hearing a sound back here in the soundproof area of Marlinspike Hall -- one of the perks of living* in the executive suites -- I sent Fred an urgent email begging for caffeine.

*Okay, so technically, we are squatters, but since we've been caretakers, as well, of this magnificent manor for years now, and even were mentioned in the Haddock Corporation Annual Review, albeit as a misleading footnote, I think Fred, Bianca, and I can claim to live here, as well.  And since the Feline Triumvirate lives wherever we live, well, they have rights, too.
Which they abuse, constantly, but no one seems to mind.  Fred and I?  We can't get away with nothing...

Mais je divague...

You'd think Buddy would want a heavy-duty, intense play session after loading me down with all his beloved goodies, but no!  He sat there, staring at me, his back about as straight and rigid as a baby Maine Coon can pull off, and said:  "Look, have a little coffee, wake up, think about what you have done, and *then* we'll talk."

I am discovering, via their profound engorgement, lymph nodes heretofore unknown to me.  My respiratory tract is artfully producing colors and textures that Benjamin Moore would die to have in its line.

Once Buddy and my email alerted Fred to my consciousness, he came in to join in the make-fun-of-prof brigade, greeting me this way:  "What's wrong?  Are you sick?" He could barely get it out, it cracked him up so much.  He wasn't laughing after I beaned him with the big blue hard plastic ball we use to hide treats in... that Buddy had tucked into the crook of my elbow during my extended rest.

He makes the best coffee, does Fred.  So now I am wondering where my appetite might be.  It's gotta be around here somewhere.  I know yesterday was a day of yogurt, apples, and pepperoni slices -- ugh, alors.  (The French are all the time saying that.  "Ugh, alors.")  Right now, I am thinking that I will have to consume my daily requirement of probiotic yogurt, but even that usual pleasure makes me nauseous at the mere thought.  "What's wrong?  Are you sick?" Very funny, Fred, very funny.

He is, you know.  Very funny.  With my foreign language background, you'd think I could do a fair imitation of at least most Romance Languages, but no.  I have a great accent when speaking the language, but cannot do the pretend-while-speaking-English thing.  But Fred can, and does.  Often when he thinks no one can hear him, which is the most hilarious.  He bends genders, too.  He breaks into this grandmother's Irish brogue that kills me.  That usually emerges while he's cooking. Then there's a Germanic/teutonic (Viking, Swede, Finn) mélange that every damn body gets to enjoy whenever Fred faces The Moat in the never-ending Algae Bloom Battles.

Lately, he worries about having Alzheimer's Disease.  I never pooh-pooh anyone's health worries -- well, except for ridiculous people who take to Twitter when they think they are dying, in lieu of, O I Dunno, calling an ambulance -- but want to pooh-pooh this one.  Fred is older than me by 15 years, but sharper than a very young Yogi Bear.  No, seriously, his mentation is to be envied, his memory, divine.

On my birthday, when I sent him flying around Tête de Hergé after sundown in search if Indian delicacies, he found himself in an unknown area southwest of the Lone Alp, and panicked.  Just because he is New York City born-and-bred does not mean that he has innate savy taxi driver know-how when in new territory.  Anyway, that started the Alzheimer's Watch.  Kind of like how a soft winter rain triggers Tante Louise's News Outlets to put the entire region on StormWatch 2013.

But in a way, his worry is a blessing, for I am using it -- as women will -- to encourage the scheduling of a check-up.  I feel like a crafty District Attorney, countering the Defense's objection with:  "But, Your Honor, the Defendant opened the door to this line of inquiry with the mention of Alzheimer's Disease." And the presiding judge nods sagely, with eye-brow raised, and curtly notifies my drably-dressed legal opponent, "He did, you know.  Proceed.  Objection overruled."

I'm being gentle about it, thus far.  Of course, thus far, the only thing that my suggestion has produced is that Fred took all three cats to the vet.  Two of them more than a month early.

We'll get there.

What worries me, but not him, is all the falling down around here.  It may be fine with my half-siblings back in the States to let my Mom go *boing* once a day or so, but I have a problem with all the *kabooming* Fred has been doing.  After hours of snazzy contra dancing, he fell down the steps of the high school gym on the way out.  Walking by the bed, he ran into the annoying knobby end and *bam* -- down he went.

Okay, there are extenuating circumstances.  He blames his glasses for the gym steps' descent -- something about how the bottom rim obscures his vision when he glances down.  Hmmm.  Okay, okay.  The bed?  That was somehow my fault, as his immediate response was:  "When are you going to do something about that?" Hmmm. Nope, that's a no go.  The other occasions involved him donning thick wool socks and then rushing over polished floors.  And yes, Bianca has once again fallen prey to the old "wax the stairs" fixation...

Speaking of The Milanese Nightingale, has anyone seen her?  Maybe she felt such guilt after waxing everything within sight that she's run off to hide for a bit -- not wanting to face the pile of orthopedic bills that Haddock Corporation is refusing to pay.  Or... maybe I should check to see if she's been impounded again, like some stray car.  Fred -- oh, how to put this -- Fred "disabled" her bedside alarm clock, which plays "her" aria in an unending loop, after six hours or so of:
"Je ris de me voir..."

Still, she's my girl.  She wouldn't make fun of me right now.  She'd find Sven and Cabana Boy (oy!) and order up some tea and buttered toast, get a Duke F'blastic Ball game on the telly, put on her giant #1 finger, get into a suitable f'blastic ball outfit, and everyone would pile -- ever so carefully -- so as not to cause moi a bit o'pain or spill the Jameson, I mean, the Earl Grey -- in bed with me, the kitty babes included... and we'd all engage in an extensive purr-r-r-r-r-r.

Or I could roll over and go back to sleep.

Probably wake up, this time, with a litter box on my head.

GOOG, Bushmills, and Purple Prose

There is so much to catch you up on on life around The Manor.



This socialist no longer owns any GOOG, having managed to dump it a few minutes after trading resumed shortly after 3:20 PM on that fateful day when the firm's publisher "somehow" released earnings data during the day trading period, versus the usual after-market magic time of 4:30.  I made it out at $700, which stemmed the losses a bit, but did nothing to refresh my sour breath.  I found the whole process unfair -- beginning with GOOG's backstabbing report itself, then the cessation of trading (with nary a hint to yer average bear as to when the halt would be lifted), and even including mine own investment company requiring that I give 'em a call at that calm, carefree time to garner their "permission" to trade after hours, despite having done it a good half-dozen times before.  Believe it or not, I terminated that phone call at 3:17 and only by the happest of haphazards learned that I had a whole three minutes to figure stop losses and whether Bushmills or a box of Cabernet was more appropriate to the fleeting moment.

I plugged in $700 and went with Bushmills.

Since then, I decided to put my money where my mouth is -- oh, the terrible jokes aching to be told! -- and no, I won't yet divulge what lucky sector now bulges with my invested wealth.  All I know for sure is that Fred better appreciate the nasty sweat that went into leaving him some sort of inheritance.

What else?

Oh, we lost an entire booking of retreatants who turned left instead of right and ended up in Canada instead of Tête de Hergé.  It's not the first time we have lost 3-day weekend guests in search of elusive repose.  The Haddock parent company even held a troubleshooting skype session that included the top brothers and Abbot Truffatore, the crack-addicted organic pig farmer across the road, plus the hippies down the road (whose cows are giving sweet frothy warm milk once again, thanks to intervention by Local Antiquated and Beloved Authoritarian, Tante Louise, and also thanks to the spirit behind Robert Frost's Mending Wall, a spirit brought to tangible fruition by The Manor Domestic Staff and The Cistercian's 2012 Probies, thereby cutting off the multi-chemical piggy runoff that had been overstimulating the mellow moo cows).  Um... where was I?  Ah!  Yes!  The frustration of losing money and visitors due to a basic ignorance of world geography.

Fred and I joined with the majority to suggest that a link to Google Maps be included in the multimedia materials sent in advance to our over-the-sea or across-the-continent pilgrims.  (If that first link to Google Maps doesn't help you -- you poor map-challenged you, you -- then try THIS ONE, but remember that the results must be rotated NNE by 17 degrees °F to adjust for satellite mendacity.)

Ergo, we hope to no longer be confused with our brethren and sistren Canadians, Français, or Old Earth Saxons.  And we fervently pray for an improvement in the public and parochial school systems of The World, else our revenue is gonna continue to drop off, precipitously, with each graduating, mortarboard-tossing class.

We never let our painstaking preparations for guests go to waste, however.  The Abbott continues to flee to Marlinspike Hall on occasional weekends, especially those dedicated to the tuning of the monastery bells, organs, and guitars -- even on occasional weekdays, when there is the threat of a papal bull.  We also give Ease-Them-Into-Rehab Upgrades to the more haughty circus and freak show addicts before ceremoniously removing them to the barn catty-cornered to the Computer Turret, now home to the Haddock Family Enterprises Addiction Center -- an entity briefly explained in a previous post, "Passing the Duck Test."

If I were allowed to divulge top secret information, I'd be able to suggest that The Captain himself, plus whomever is traveling with him in the pink submarine fleet -- often the Miniature Badminton Team -- are parties whose unexpectedness no longer causes a commotion.  In these uncertain times, who doesn't want to go home now and then?

I am managing to manage things pretty well, despite seeing the world as a visual echo (my terminology for having not quite double vision) and clinging to my trundle bed in an effort to hide out beneath the "real" feather mattress (a humility-inducing thing, as sometimes it is the head that will not quite disappear, sometimes the derrière).  The medicos and I had harbored concern about my liver as I tried out three new medications, but surprise!  It turned out to be my kidneys that are registering their unhappiness.  Whatever -- I am coming off one of the drugs, anyway, the one that enabled not just the visual echo but the mental one, and my hope is that this will calm those spongy filters down.  I've dabbled in kidney failure before, due to lupus, and recovered nicely, and so fully expect to do the same now.  Why not, eh?

I've gone 24 hours without spasms, except for the two hours with.  Monday through Thursday were Hell on Earth, spent writhing and screaming.  I'm sure that I came close to death by overdose or mixing-oopsies as I was so frequently driven to take enough of anything to lose my consciousness.  You can call me "stupid," you can call me "unenlightened," you can also go straight to "The Dickens" -- directions available on Google Maps.

I'm gonna blame my blogging sloth on kidney failure -- maybe folks will fall for that, as they don't seem to have a heck of a lot of sympathy for the CRPS sanity-shattering pain I live with, or the pus-filled mush that are my bones.  Whaddaya think?  Oh, my kidneys are limping along, I'm sooooo tired, just cannot write.

Heh heh.  Purple prose!

"It takes a certain amount of sass to speak up for prose that's rich, succulent and full of novelty. Purple is immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating angel of depravity. So long as originality and lexical precision prevail, the sentient writer has a right to immerse himself or herself in phenomena and come up with as personal a version as can be. A writer who can't do purple is missing a trick. A writer who does purple all the time ought to have more tricks."
(Paul West, "In Defense of Purple Prose." The New York Times, Dec. 15, 1985)

For those of you who have inquired about Fred, Bianca (and, therefore, Sven)?

Fred is a bit tired, as he is leading a tone deaf group of militant lesbian existential feminists in the formation of a ukulele band.  I could share many a humorous anecdote with you, but will limit myself to just one.  The woman whose illuminating idea this was cannot comprehend how to "strum." They spend an inordinate amount of time discussing what "strum" means, how "strumming" might be achieved, as well as using the questionable guidance of a piano with metronome. My contribution to the conundrum has been to shout, midst writhe and vulgar vocalization, "relax, relax, just tell her to relax her wrist." But no one listens to me.

Sven is somewhat stymied, and yes, that is a sight, a stymied Sven!  College basketball utterly transforms our
Castafiore, an unrepentant Duke fan, and Sven is just... lost.

I guess that pretty much sums up this post -- the theme of Lost.  And, sadly, I must sign off, as a large Maine Coon is amorously eyeing my lap, and making lovey-dovey eyes that are simply irresistible.  Yes, I'm off to nuggle with Buddy, the Freakishly Large Kitten.

$3 Million

What a morning.  Don't trust surgical paper tape to hold your PICC line thingies firmly attached to your forearm, and forget that ridiculous webbed fabric designed to hold everything in place.  I woke to find my two ports and their attached plastic tubules all a-wandering around the bed, one even under a Maine Coon.

For the record, I've decided that Buddy was misnamed, by me.  Instead of following Fred's advice of waiting for the cat to name itself, I rushed and forced "Buddy" upon him.  He is clearly a "Bubba." Whatever the case, he answers to bonito flakes.  We are actually concerned now that he is not putting on sufficient weight to compensate for the alarming length he has acquired.  He's a thin guy, not a swarthy molecule to my Bubba, no.

The great thing about finding blood in your PICC lines for the third or fourth times, is that it is the third or fourth time, and you didn't expire during those first few incidences, so likelihood is in your favor.

Also, I was all wrapped up in this warm dream about being offered $3 million by some lawyer that my infectious disease dood introduced to me, in a meeting with him, both of my PAs (Jacqueline and Susan), the wondrous on-site pharmacist (Lauren), and yes, this swell dude in a three-piece tweed suit and a bowler.  No shit!  Very clever and full of excitement, I had Fred drive us to the Best Credit Union West of the Lone Alp in Tête de Hergé.  He was pretty pissed (in real life as in my sleeping version) at me for bossing him around, didn't want to go to the Credit Union.  I don't know why, they love him there.  He shows them his sweet, shy side and is sweet on Ruth, the Head Credit Union Honchette.

They have lots of rocking chairs, braided rugs, beautiful quilts on the walls, chocolate cookies and milk in one corner, also a cage for toddlers disguised as a welcoming play pen.

Anyway, I zoomed into my banking institution, gave Ruth the eye, and she and I left Fred in a rocking chair with a spare Credit Union cat and an experimental latte (they're trying out a bikini barista -- bikinis à la Annette Funicello).

Framed art print for sale at eu.artcom

So Ruth opened a few dozen accounts, some for me, some for Fred, one for Bianca, one each for the Brother-Units, one for a few former best friends.  I gave Ruth a big freaking tip which she deftly tucked into her G-cup over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder.

Then I make Fred drive us to a car dealership.  Not just any car dealership, but the one that sells the car of his dreams.  You know, the old Pagani Zonda dealership.  You can find them, usually, near a KFC.  Anyway, yes, the order is in for one Zonda 760LH, (convertible).

The dream ended there, almost.  The last memory I have of it is receiving a phone call from Doctor ShoulderMan who told me two things:  that he had bought me a home of  my own, where I could live, comfortably, safely, and happily alone, and that in it he had put a very special bed that would ease much of my pain.

Then I woke up.

Back to the bloody PICC lines, the Former Buddy, a sweet-natured Dobby, and the echo of a slammed bathroom door that I assume came from the aforementioned Fred.  Marmy Fluffy Butt's tail drifted in and out of my sclerotic vision.  Sven, no doubt tightly spooned with La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, gave an angry yell at the door slam, then apparently lapsed back into the redemptive, cushy love of our Diva.

I am tempted to give Fred a new name, too.   And it ain't "Bubba."

So hauling my ass out of this bed without the use of one arm, and with both legs currently in awful shape -- the right refusing to bend at knee or hip for a good few minutes, mostly from swelling, partly from spite -- and with none of the expected orthopedic help apparatus in place.  You know, like a trapeze bar.  Mostly that.  I could do wonders, I could qualify for the Olympics were there a trapeze up there. Marta Károlyi, herself, has said, sighing, "Prof, dah-link, working with the over-bed trapeze would make you incomparable in uneven bars, and with just a little make-up and disguising do-dads, we could slip you into the men's still rings, maybe even the pommel horse.

Marta Károlyi is disappointed in me.  Hey, Marta, gimme $3 million and a decent gourmand for a coach, and I'm your girl/guy.  Kisses to Bela.

I use my wheelchair, parallel-parked by the bed, a cane, and sometimes a grabber, to achieve an upright status.  Lately, frustration has led me to also use a fair amount of force on the underside of the bedside table. This is likely a poor idea, as all things give, all things give way.

Careful to keep our small wing of The Manor steeped in good quiet, I squelched my way to the Medieval Kitchen, stoked the fire (in spite of forecasts of temps above 100 for the day), started the coffee, retrieved a 200 ml medicine ball of daptomycin, three saline flushes, two heparin flushes, two alcohol wipes, and washed the singularity out of my hands.  Wash, wash, wash, clean towel.  

The mewling, meowing, and outright cat screaming interrupts the PICC process and kibble is presented, to each according to the proper bowl, each with its own protocol.  

The kettle whistles precisely in the middle of the PICC flushes, and I opt for quieting the overly excited Paul Revere, since Sven may de-spoon from The Castafiore and come kill me, and Fred might make a fast break to lower the drawbridge, as -- when rudely wakened -- he mistakes loud noises for requests to cross the moat.

So my huge scoop of Italian roast is sitting in its nice hot water in my café presse, and I start the 9-minute timer in my head.  That's right -- I steep the stuff for 9 minutes, despite the expert admonition to stop at four. I'm a freaking radical.

So there are two ports, one purple, one red.  Because daptomycin only needs to be given once a day, we cleverly use the purple port for all infusions and the red one for all blood draws.  Red::blood, get it?  Because, yes, unbelievably, when we had to do twice-a-day infusions, and alternate ports, we'd get confused.  But now, all I gotta remember is red is for blood.  

This morning, though, both ports are streaked with blood, and the coffee isn't ready.  So I flush them both, using the whole saline and heparin repertoire, twice.  I have no idea if this will impact anything -- I doubt it, when I stop to think about it, after having done it, after having a few sips of excellent 9-minute café presse Italian roast with a good splash of milk ("It does a body good!").  

Finally, I hook up the stupid medicine ball, which is the whole point.  I am wearing scrubs (great pajamas) because the pockets are perfect for holding medicine balls.  The technical term for these med balls is "elastomeric device," and they look like this, when fresh from the fridge:

See?  So you just tuck the sucker in a large pocket and before you know it, poof!  It's a shrunken bit o'plastic and all the medicine is running around your body, curing you of whatever.  And you've been ambulating, catapulting, scrubbing, and pruning tree branches that loom way too close to a Chagall stained glass that we just discovered this spring.  

This disposable plastic dodad is the kind of inventions that I really admire.  I am not at all sure, but the clever inventors seem to be:

Thompson, Thomas C. (Dallas, TX)

Center, John L. (Dallas, TX)

Stocton, Paul M. (Clarendon Hills, IL)

They called it: WINGED INFUSION HOLDING DEVICE WITH THERMOPLASTIC ELASTOMERIC BODY and the date for the patent is 1974.

Ah, clearly, I have lost le fil de ma pensée.  What a shocker.

Because I haven't even told you about the invasion.  The ant invasion.

I keep a clean Manor, damn it.  There is no sugar being all sexy on my counters or floors.  The honeysuckle is strictly kept in line with the out-of-doors.

So it was that my eyes bugged out to see a four-lane highway of teeny, tiny ants marching, marching, marching, with clear intent and purpose, across the floor of our communal craft room (you know how I feel about scrapbooking!).  

All right, it is not an interesting story and hardly a catastrophe, but for a woman who has yet to take her pain meds, with bloody PICC lines, and who has just rolled her wheelchair through a fresh heavy-on-kibble and very wet hair ball, it wasn't packaged happiness.

Fred, who knows a lot about a lot, later explained to me that sometimes a heat wave will inspire these annoyingly cute little insects to up and move their home base somewhere cooler.  This "somewhere cooler" for our crowd was a certain spot under a large throw rug.  Careful inspection of their destination revealed nothing special -- no spills, no nothing.  Just a huge rally of a few thousand peewee ants.

It took me three hours to feel comfortable that they'd all been eradicated -- and greenly, safely, so as to pose no danger to man, woman, or beast.  I followed their highways and byways, swept, mopped, wept, swept, and mopped some more.  I washed the offensive section of the rug.  I vacuumed the whole damn rug -- each side.

And when I was done, sometime around 2 PM?  Everyone got up, stretching, meandering for the bathrooms, searching for good coffee, murmuring vague "good mornings" to the bloody, red-faced, mop-wielding me.  Only Sven paused to listen to my exciting tale and wonderings about formic acid, scratching his crotch as if a few of the invaders had somehow invaded him.

In my next dream, when I meet with Ruth at the Best Credit Union West of the Lone Alp in Tête de Hergé in order to deposit my $3 million, I get all the money, in cash, and Fred doesn't even have to drive me to the border.  I'll take a cab.

Ruth still gets the wad of bills to stuff in her bra, though.  Fair is fair.