orryvoyer:: to stem the endless tide::orryvoyer

as the shell casings of dead children, educators, and gunman -- today of newtown, connecticut -- ricocheted around my brain, my hands strayed over the bookcases, and landed here. another occasion to contribute to the ruination of copyright protections.  i don't think white would have minded, much. if you're unfamiliar with his Book of Merlyn, please, go and buy a copy.


here is the wikipedia "plot summary":  
The book opens as King Arthur prepares himself for his final battle. Merlyn reappears to complete Arthur's education and discover the cause of wars. As he did in The Sword in the Stone, Merlyn again demonstrates ethics and politics to Arthur by transforming him into various animals.

The last chapter of the book takes place only hours before the final battle between King Arthur and his son and nephew Mordred. Arthur does not want to fight after everything that he has learned from Merlyn. He makes a deal with Mordred to split England in half. Mordred accepts. During the making of this deal, a snake comes upon one of Mordred's soldiers. The soldier draws his sword. The opposing side, unaware of the snake, takes this as an act of betrayal. Arthur's troops attack Mordred's, and both Arthur and Mordred die in the battle that follows.

Guenever joins a convent, and remains there till death. Lancelot becomes a hermit and dies a hermit. His last miracle was making the room that he died in smell like heaven.

"Mv FATHER made me a wooden castle big enough to get into, and he fixed real pistol barrels beneath its battlements to fire a salute on my birthday, but made me sit in front the first night—that deep Indian night—to receive the salute, and 1, believing I was to be shot, cried."

Throughout his life White was subject to fears: fears from without—a menacing
psychopathic mother, the prefects at Cheltenham College "rattling their canes," poverty, tuberculosis, public opinion; fears from within—fear of being afraid, of being a failure, of being trapped. He was afraid of death, afraid of the dark. He was afraid of his own proclivities, which might be called vices: drink, boys, a latent sadism. Notably free from fearing God, he was basically afraid of the human race. His life was a running battle with these fears, which he fought with courage, levity, sardonic wit, and industry. -- Prologue, Sylvia Townsend Warner

The magician stood up, looking at his ancient pupil in perplexity. He twisted his beard into

several rat tails, put the corners in his mouth, twirled his moustachios, and cracked his finger

joints. He was frightened of what he had done to the king, feeling as if he were trying to

revive a drowned man with artificial respiration, who was nearly too far gone. But he was not

ashamed. When you are a scientist you must press on without remorse, following the only

thing of any importance, Truth.

Later he asked quietly, as if he were calling somebody who was asleep: "Wart?"

There was no reply.

"King?"

The bitter answer was: "Le roy s'advisera."

It was worse than he had feared. He sat down, took the limp hand, and began to wheedle.

"One more try," he asked. "We are not quite done."

"What is the use of trying?"

"It is a thing which people do."

"People are dupes, then."

The old fellow replied frankly: "People are dupes, and wicked too. That is what makes it

interesting to get them better."

His victim opened his eyes, but closed them wearily.

"The thing which you were thinking about before I came, king, was true. I mean about

Homo ferox. But hawks are ferae naturae also: that is their interest."

The eyes remained closed.

"The thing which you were thinking about... about people being machines: that was

not true. Or, if it is true, it does not signify. For if we are all machines ourselves, then there

are none to bother about."

"I see."

homo ferox, The Book of Merlyn, T.H. White

"CON," announced the magician: but the king prevented him.

"We know the objections," he said. "The idea that it is useful might be considered a little

more. If there is some necessity for Might, why is the committee ready to stop it?"

"Sir, the committee is attempting to trace the physiological basis, possibly of a pituitary or

adrenal origin. Possibly the human system requires periodical doses of adrenalin, in order

to remain healthy. (The Japanese, as an instance of glandular activity, are said to eat large

quantities offish, which, by charging their bodies with iodine, expands their thyroids and

makes them touchy.) Until this matter has been properly investigated the subject remains

vague, but the committee desires to point out that the physiological need could be supplied

by other means. War, it has already been observed, is an inefficient way of keeping down

the population: it may also be an inefficient way of stimulating the adrenal glands through

fear."

"What other ways?"

"Under the Roman Empire, the experiment of offering bloody spectacles in the circus was

attempted as a substitute. They provided the Purgation which Aristotle talks about, and some such alternative might be found efficient.  Science, however, would suggest more radical cures. Either the glandular deficiency might be supplied by periodical injections of the whole population with adrenalin—or with whatever the deficiency may prove to be—or else some form of surgery might be found effective.  Perhaps the root of war is removable, like the appendix."

"We were told that war is caused by National Property: now we are told that it is due to a

gland."

"Sir, the two things may be related, though they may not be consequent upon one another.

For instance, if wars were solely due to national property, we should expect them to continue

without intermission so long as national property continued: that is, all the time. We find,

however, that they are interrupted by frequent lulls, called Peace, It seems as if the human

race becomes more and more comatose during these periods of truce, until, when what you

may call the saturation-point of adrenalin deficiency has been reached, it seizes upon the first handy excuse for a good shot of fear-stimulant. The handy excuse is national property.

Even if the wars are dolled up as religious ones, such as crusades against Saladin or the

Albigensians or Montezuma, the basis remains the same. Nobody would have troubled to

extend the benefits of Christianity to Montezuma, if his sandals had not been made of gold,

and nobody would have thought the gold itself a sufficient temptation, if they had not been

needing a dose of adrenalin."

"You suggest an alternative like the circus, pending the investigation of your gland. Have you

considered it?"

Archimedes giggled unexpectedly.

"Merlyn wants to have an international fair, Sir. He wants to have a lot of flip-flaps and giant

wheels and scenic railways in a reservation, and they are all to be slightly dangerous, so as

to kill perhaps one man in a hundred. Entrance is to be voluntary, for he says that the one

unutterably wicked thing about a war is conscription. He says that people will go to the fair of

their own freewill, through boredom or through adrenalin deficiency or whatever it is, and that

they are likely to feel the need for it during their twenty-fifth, thirtieth, and forty-fifth years. It is

to be made fashionable and glorious to go. Every visitor will get a commemorative medal,

while those who go fifty times will get what he calls the D.S.O. or the V.C. for a hundred

visits."

The magician looked ashamed and cracked his fingers.

"The suggestion," he said humbly, "was more to provide thought, than to be thought of."

"Certainly it does not seem a practical suggestion for the present year of grace. Are there

no panaceas for war, which could be used in the meantime?"

"The committee has suggested an antidote which might have a temporary effect, like soda

for an acid stomach. It would be of no use as a cure for the malady, though it might alleviate

it. It might save a few million lives in a century."

"What is this antidote?'

"Sir, you will have noticed that the people who are responsible for the declaration and the

higher conduct of wars do not tend to be the people who endure their extremes. At the battle

of Bedegraine Your Majesty dealt with something of the same sort. The kings and the

generals and the leaders of battles have a peculiar aptitude for not being killed in them. The

committee has suggested that, after every war, all the officials on the losing side who held a

higher rank than colonel ought to be executed out of hand, irrespective of their war-guilt. No

doubt there would be a certain amount of injustice in this measure, but the consciousness

that death was the certain result of losing a war would have a deterrent effect on those who

help to promote and to regulate such engagements, and it might, by preventing a few wars,

save millions of lives among the lower classes. Even a Fiihrer like Mordred might think twice

about heading hostilities, if he knew that his own execution would be the result of being

unlucky in them."

"It seems reasonable."

"It is less reasonable than it seems, partly because the responsibility for warfare does not lie

wholly with the leaders. After all, a leader has to be chosen or accepted by those whom he

leads. The hydra-headed multitudes are not so innocent as they like to pretend. They have

given a mandate to their generals, and they must abide by the moral responsibility."

"Still, it would have the effect of making the leaders reluctant to be pushed into warfare by

their followers, and even that would help."

"It would help. The difficulty would lie in persuading the leading classes to agree to such a convention in the first place. Also, I am afraid that you will find there is always a type of maniac, anxious for notoriety at any price, or even for martyrdom, who would accept the pomp of leadership with even greater alacrity because it was enhanced by melodramatic penalties. The kings of Irish mythology were compelled by their station to march in the forefront of the battle, which occasioned a frightful mortality among them, yet there never seems to have been a lack of kings or battles in the history of the Green Isle."

"What about this new-fangled Law," asked the goat suddenly, "which our king has been

inventing? If individuals can be deterred from murder by fear of a death penalty, why cannot

there be an international law, under which nations can be deterred from war by similar

means? An aggressive nation might be kept at peace by the knowledge that, if it began a

war, some international police force would sentence it to dispersal, by mass transportation

to other countries for instance."

"There are two objections to that. First, you would be trying to cure the disease, not to

prevent it. Second, we know from experience that the existence of a death penalty does not

in fact abolish murder. It might, however, prove to be a temporary step in the right direction."

The old man folded his hands in his sleeves, like a Chinaman, and looked round the council

table, doggedly, waiting for further questions. His eyes had begun to discharge their watch.

"He has been writing a book called the Ubellus Merlini, the Prophecies of Merlyn," continued Archimedes wickedly, when he saw that this subject had been concluded, "which he had intended to read aloud to Your Majesty, as soon as you arrived."

"We will hear a reading."

Merlyn wrung his hands.

"Sir," he said. "It is mere fortune-telling, only gypsy tricks. It had to be written because there

was a good deal of fuss about it in the twelfth century, after which we are to lose sight of it

until the twentieth. But, oh Sir, it is merely a parlour game—not worth Your Majesty's

attention at present."

"Read me some part of it, none the less."

So the humiliated scientist, all of whose quips and quiddities had been knocked out of him

in the last hour, fetched the burnt manuscript from the fender and handed round a collection

of such slips as were still legible, as if it had been a parlour game in earnest. The animals

read them out in turn, like mottos from crackers, and this is what they said:

"God will provide, the Dodo will remark."

'The Bear will cure his headache by cutting off his head—but it will leave him with a sore

behind."

"The Lion will lie down with the Eagle, saying, At last all the animals are united! But the Devil

will see the joke."

"The Stars which taught the Sun to rise must agree with him at noon—or vanish."

"A child standing in Broadway will cry, Look mother, there is a man!"

"How long it takes to build Jerusalem, the spider will say, pausing exhausted at his web on

the ground floor of the Empire State Building."

"Living-space leads to space for the coffin, observed the Beetle."

"Force makes force."

"Wars of community, county, country, creed, continent, colour. After that the hand of God, if

not before."

"Imitation before action will save mankind."

"The Elk died because it grew its horns too big."

"No collision with the moon was required to exterminate the Mammoth."

"The destiny of all species is extinction as such, fortunately for them."

There was a pause after the last motto, while the listeners thought them over.

"What is the meaning of the one with the Greek word?"

"Sir, a part of its meaning, but only a small part, is that the one hope for our human race

must lie in education without coercion. Confucius has it that: In order to propagate virtue to the world, onemust first rule one's country. In order to rule one's country, one must first rule one's family. In order to rule one's family, one must first regulate one's body by moral training.  In order to regulate one's body, one must first regulate one's mind. In order to regulate the mind, one must first be sincere in one's intentions. In order to be sincere in one's intentions, one

must first increase one's knowledge."

"I see."

"Have the rest any relevant meaning?" added the king.

"None whatever."

"One further question before we rise. You have said that politics are out of order, but they

seem so closely tied to the question of warfare that they must be faced to some extent. At an

earlier stage you claimed to be a capitalist. Are you sure of these views?"

"If I said so, Your Majesty, I did not mean it. Badger was talking at me like a communist of

the nineteen-twenties, which made me talk like a capitalist in self-defence. I am an

anarchist, like any other sensible person. In point of fact the race will find that capitalists and

communists modify themselves so much during the ages that they end by being

indistinguishable as democrats: and so will the fascists modify themselves, for that matter.

But whatever may be the contortions adopted by these three brands of collectivism, and

however many the centuries during which they butcher each other out of childish ill-temper,

the fact remains that all forms of collectivism are mistaken, according to the human skull.

The destiny of man is an individualistic destiny, and it is in that sense that I may have implied

a qualified approval of capitalism, if I did imply it. The despised Victorian capitalist, who did at least allow a good deal of play to the individual, was probably more truly futuristic in his politics

than all the New Orders shrieked for in the twentieth century. He was of the future, because

individualism lies in the future of the human brain. He was not so old-fashioned as the

fascists and communists. But of course he was considerably old-fashioned for all that, and

that is why I prefer myself to be an anarchist: that is, to be a little up-to-date. The geese are

anarchists, you remember. They realise that the moral sense must come from inside, not

from outside."

"I thought," said the badger plaintively, "that communism was supposed to be a step

towards anarchy. I thought that when communism had been properly achieved the state

would wither away."

"People have told me so, but I doubt it. I cannot see how you may emancipate an individual

by first creating an omnipotent state. There are no states in nature, except among

monstrosities like the ants. It seems to me that people who go creating states, as Mordred

is trying to do with his Thrashers, must tend to become involved in them, and so unable to

escape. But perhaps what you say is true. I hope it is. In any case let us leave these dubious

questions of politics to the dingy tyrants who look after them. Ten thousand years from now it

may be time for the educated to concern themselves with such things, but meanwhile they

must wait for the race to grow up. We for our part have offered a solution this evening to the special problem of force as an arbiter: the obvious platitude that war is due to

national property, with the rider that it is stimulated by certain glands. Let us leave it at that

for the present, in God's name."

The old magician swept his notes away with a trembling hand. He had been deeply

wounded by the hedgehog's earlier criticisms, because, in the secrecy of his heart, he loved

his student dearly. He knew now, since the royal hero had returned victorious in his choice,

that his own wisdom was not the end. He knew that he had finished his tutorship. Once he

had told the king that he would never be the Wart again: but it had been an encouraging thing to say: he had not meant it. Now he did mean it, now knew that he himself had yielded

place, had stepped down from the authority to lead or to direct. The abdication had cost him

his gaiety. He would not be able to rant any more, or to twinkle and mystify with the flashing

folds of his magic cloak. The condescension of learning was pricked in him. He was feeling

ancient and ashamed.

The old king, whose childhood had vanished also, toyed with a slip left on the table. He was

at his trick of watching his hands, when in abstraction. He folded the paper this way, that

way, carefully, and unfolded it. It was one of Merlyn's notes for the card-index, which badger

had muddled with the Prophecies: a quotation from a historian called Friar Clynn, who had

died in 1348. This friar, employed as the annalist of his abbey to keep the historical records,

had seen the Black Death coming to fetch him—possibly to fetch the whole world, for it had killed a third of the population of Europe already. Carefully leaving some pieces of blank parchment with the book in which he was to write no longer, he had concluded with the following message, which had once awakened Merlyn's strange respect. 

"Seeing these many ills," he had written in Latin, "and as it were the whole world

thrust into malignancy, waiting among the dead for death to come to me, I have put into

writing what I have truthfully heard and examined. And, lest the writing should perish with the

writer or the work fail with the workman, I am now leaving some paper for the continuation of

it—in case by any chance a man may remain alive in the future, or any person of the race of

Adam may escape this pestilence, to carry on the labour once begun by me."

The king folded it neatly, measured it on the table. They watched him, knowing he was about

to rise and ready to follow his example.

"Very good," he said. "We understand the puzzle."

He tapped the table with the paper, then got to his feet.

"We must return before the morning."

The animals were rising too. They were conducting him to the door, crowding round him to

kiss his hand and bid farewell. His now retired tutor, who must conduct him home, was

holding the door for him to pass. Whether he was a dream or not, he had begun to flicker, as

had they all. They were saying "Good success to Your Majesty, a speedy and successful

issue."

He smiled gravely, saying: "We hope it will be speedy."

But he was referring to his death, as one of them knew.

"It is only for this time, Majesty," said T. natrix. "You remember the story of St. George, and

Homo sapiens is like that still. You will fail because it is the nature of man to slay, in

ignorance if not in wrath. But failure builds success and nature changes. A good man's

example always does instruct the ignorant and lessens their rage, little by little through the

ages, until the spirit of the waters is content: and so, strong courage to Your Majesty, and a

tranquil heart."

He inclined his head to the one who knew, and turned to go.

At the last moment a hand was tugging at his sleeve, reminding him of the friend he had

forgotten. He lifted the hedgehog with both hands under its armpits, and held it at arm's

length, face to face.

"Ah, tiggy," he said. "Us have thee to thank for royalty. Farewell, tiggy, and a merry life to

thee and thy sweet songs."

But the hedgehog paddled its feet as if it were bicycling, because it wanted to be put down.

It tugged the sleeve again, when it was safe upon the floor, and the old man lowered his ear

to hear the whisper.

"Nay, nay," it mentioned hoarsely, clutching his hand, looking earnestly in his face. "Say not

Farewell."

It tugged again, dropping its voice to the brink of silence.

"Orryvoyer," whispered the urchin. "Orryvoyer."

WELL, WE HAVE REACHED IT AT LAST, the end of our winding story.

Arthur of England went back to the world, to do his duty as well as he could. He called a

truce with Mordred, having made up his mind that he must offer half his kingdom for the sake

of peace. To tell the truth, he was prepared to yield it all if necessary. As a possession it had

long ceased to be of value to him, and he had come to know for sure that peace was more

important than a kingdom. But he felt it was his duty to retain a half if he could, and it was for

this reason: that if he had even half a world to work on, he might be able still to introduce, in

it, the germs of that good sense which he had learned from geese and animals.

The truce was made, the armies drawn up in their battles, face to face. Each had a standard

made from a ship's mast set on wheels, at the top of which a small box held the consecrated Host, while, from the masts, there flew the banners of the Dragon and the Thistle. The knights of Mordred's party were dressed in sable armour, their plumes were sable also, and, on their arms, the scarlet whip of Mordred's badge glared with the sinister tint of blood. Perhaps they looked more terrible than they felt.

It was explained to the waiting ranks that none of them must make a hostile demonstration,

but all must keep their swords in sheath. Only, for fear of treachery, it was told that they might

charge to rescue, if any sword was seen unharnessed at the parley.

Arthur went forward to the space between the armies with his staff, and Mordred, with his

own staff in their black accoutrements, came out to meet him. They encountered, and the old

king saw his son's face once again. It was taut and haggard.  He too, poor man, had strayed beyond Sorrow and Solitude to the country of Kennaquhair;  but he had gone without a guide and lost his way.

The treaty was agreed on, to the surprise of all, more easily than had been hoped. The king

was left with half his realm. For a moment joy and peace were in the balance.

But, at that knife-edge of a moment, the old Adam reared itself in a different form. The feudal

war, baronial oppression, individual might, even ideological rebellion: he had settled them

all in one way or another, only to be beaten on the last lap now, by the episodic fact that

man was a slayer by instinct.

A grass-snake moved in the meadow near their feet, close to an officer of Mordred's staff.

This officer stepped back instinctively and swung his hand across his body, his armlet with

the whip shewing for a second's flash. The bright sword flamed into being, to destroy the so-called

viper. The waiting armies, taking it for treachery, raised their shout of rage. The lances on

both sides bowed to rest. 

And, as King Arthur ran towards his own array, an old man with white hair trying to stem the endless tide, holding out the knuckled hands in a gesture of pressing them back, struggling to the last against the flood of Might which had burst out all his life at a new place whenever he had dammed it, so the tumult rose, the war-yell sounded, and the meeting waters closed above his head.

Lancelot arrived too late...

― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

Phoenix, Merlyn, Patriarchs and Colonels

This weekend, I am finishing the fifth Harry Potter novel -- The Order of the Phoenix -- and I think I'll shed a few tears over The Book of Merlyn.

But mostly, I'm going to be leafing through One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Autumn of the Patriarch, No One Writes to the Colonel... 

and other stories.

I've always been more sure of Gabriel García Márquez than of magic realism.

the big ditch from space

from american idyll

TW had another fine year around the sun, and is off trekking the canyon, listening to the river.  And cavorting.  There's gotta be some cavorting.

So it looks as if updates to American Idyll will not be forthcoming until the pilgrims return:

Once again
we are permitted 

to stagger into 

and wander about

the obscure hinterlands

of the Grand Canyon.

Be well until 

our mid-May return.

from american idyll

He also got my attention with a quote from one of my secret loves:

BUT IT IS NO GOOD TRYING TO TELL ABOUT THE BEAUTY.
IT WAS JUST THAT LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL BEYOND BELIEF,
AND THAT IT IS A KIND OF JOY WHICH HAS TO BE LIVED.
--T.H. WHITE
THE BOOK OF MERLYN

God, I love that book!  

from american idyll

This is what the AI overseers left for us to ponder in their absence -- The Big Ditch from space.  They're down there somewhere, and I know they are cavorting.

a belated "happy birthday," TW!  

Saint Blaise, Somewhere on the Seventh Floor Observatory, With a Papier Mâché Chalice of Prior Approval Paperwork

Marlinspike Hall sleeps around me with such intensity, precision, and natural beauty that I mistook the funky quiet for that muffled, inimitable blanket of sound that falls with heavy snow.

Turns out, it's just cold, mid-morning, and a Tête-de-Hergé National Holiday, of which there are only two, so the Genetically Indentured Domestic Staff are sleeping in arduously, as well as the Cistercian brotherhood next door (their sleep carries, let me tell you!), amplified by the trained cadence of the overly red-wined snores of their Abbot Truffatore, whom my powers of echolocation place at the second Medieval half-renovated kitchenette nearest our wing of the Manor.

The Holiday?  Now, keep in mind that it's nothing to do with religion, more with husbandry, mostly of the animal sort, and veterinary medicine, light years more advanced than t'other sorts.  Most vulgarly stated, however, and to keep things simple, which is how we like it, it's to celebrate, by a grand sleep-in, celebratory, mostly, of the grandest adenoids in all the land, and of the Catholic Feast Day of Saint Blaise. It all makes our kind of sense.

Many Catholics might remember Saint Blaise's feast day because of the Blessing of the Throats that took place on this day. Two candles are blessed, held slightly open, and pressed against the throat as the blessing is said. Saint Blaise's protection of those with throat troubles apparently comes from a legend that a boy was brought to him who had a fishbone stuck in his throat. The boy was about to die when Saint Blaise healed him. 

Very few facts are known about Saint Blaise. We believe he was a bishop of Sebastea in Armenia who was martyred under the reign of Licinius in the early fourth century. 

The legend of his life that sprang up in the eighth century tell us that he was born in to a rich and noble family who raised him as a Christian. After becoming a bishop, a new persecution of Christians began. He received a message from God to go into the hills to escape persecution. Men hunting in the mountains discovered a cave surrounded by wild animals who were sick. Among them Blaise walked unafraid, curing them of their illnesses. Recognizing Blaise as a bishop, they captured him to take him back for trial. On the way back, he talked a wolf into releasing a pig that belonged to a poor woman. When Blaise was sentenced to be starved to death, the woman, in gratitude, sneaked into the prison with food and candles. Finally Blaise was killed by the governor. 

Blaise is the patron saint of wild animals because of his care for them and of those with throat maladies.

We lit-crit types, especially we of the bad sort, ill-trained, and sleepy, could get a dissertation out of that, then kick back at our Defense, and start an almost natural fight among our Friends There To Judge Us that could easily last the requisite three-to-fifteen hours, no bathroom breaks required.

Bad habits die easily, thank God, and now that Fred is stumbling about and phones are ringing, the better habits promise to prevail and coffee cannot be far behind.  Buddy just vacated the wheel chair, after sneezing, pointedly, and with prodigious productivity, upon my joy stick, finishing his work with the careful application of a single 6-inch strand of this Marlinspike Hall Maine Coon's Serengeti counterpart's tawny mane sun-drenched fur -- still warm and redolent of the male markings of which modern veterinary science has rendered Buddy incapable. If you followed that, free parking for 2015 ManorFest!

While everyone slept, I worked.

I confirmed that the snafus Fred and I assumed to be true, were in fact, true.  Call this the polite, fact gathering portion of the endeavor.  Included were the more important confirmation of fax numbers and phone numbers, contact persons, hours of operations, and the names of any interesting listen-while-you-wait music.
No growling, no brains on the ceiling.

[Damn.  Fred made himself coffee.  But none for the gimp.  You want brains on the ceiling? Now there are gonna be brains on the ceiling.]

[Double Damn with cherries on top.  Fred has another luncheon date.  Followed by a mission of mercy for me, so I can hardly beg for coffee.  I hate Catholics. Blaise was sure gonna get coffee while they starved him to death, I betcha.  Whatcha wanna bet?]

[Triple Damn and be it on Fred's Flat Head this time. Said luncheon date, which, okay, truly is a kindness and a genuine act of fellowship on his good part, not to mention that it takes place outside of this godforsaken bed and bedroom, far away from the Feline Triumvirate and the intricacies of Manor Domestic NitPickiNess... However, it's a good hour-and-a-god-damned-half away, leaving a good god-damned languid enough period of time to cafe-presse a cup of decent coffee. "But I'm going to run 'cross the drawbridge, through the snoozing carnies, up the barn loft defenses, through the hay gate, shimmy across the ropes to the computer turret, have Sven send up my coffee, and have loads of emails to get through before I have to be in town for this luncheon gig..."]

[All Damns revoked.  I hear the kettle singing.  A line missed by both Angelou and Whitman. Throw in each to each and it could be Eliot.  But I resent the guilt out.]

Yeah, and now my detailing of my work on this Saint Blaise Day is all soiled, piggy, and dead, sour meat.

I'm trying to get the pain medication that was prescribed on 23 January 2015 filled.  It's available.  It's not strange.  It's in my new insurance formulary.  Because I did not know whom my new pain management doctor was going to be, I surely did not know that we were going to change my long-acting pain med, something I longed for, but dared not hope for (not with PF Flyers on the concrete kind of wanting, if you, Dear Reader, get my drift).  So when the marvelous and tremendously overworked Dr. Ramasubbu actually wrote the prescription, without ANY records or any bona fides beyond my writhing self and half-coherent history, corroborated by what I had been able to download and print -- okay, with Sweet Fred's assistance -- well, I was... in disbelief.

She also prescribed Topamax.  She permitted me to continue with my breakthrough meds though my impression was one of less-than-happiness.  She made a one-month appointment.

There were many innuendos and eyebrow sentences.  Had we not passed most of the larger holiday seasons, I'd have been watching for fingers placed meaningfully, tropefully, alongside various-sized noses. I had broken many rules.  Ignorance, good intentions, scientistic experimentation, frugality, desperation, take your pick.  I also did what Fred abhors. "Abhor" does not begin to cover it.  He SLAMS poor Ruby's tender steering wheel when I launch into my tale of "how did it go with the doctor?" When I get to the part which starts, "So I told her/him the truth..." -- BAM, BAM, BAM! Poor Ruby and I cringe and go quiet for a good ten miles or so, as I listen to "Why? Why do you tell them the truth? Etc."

Anyway, the truth went well.  Dr. Ram made a passing reference to being required by law to destroy the pain meds I had brought in to show her.  At the time, thinking that new meds were as available as a quick stop at a nearby pharmacy, I was almost okay with that.  But then some sort of libertarian me surfaced [I know!] and bombarded my brain with thoughts of:  Wait a minute, I paid for those, they're mine, and I've used them as directed, of even UNDER as directed!  And wait a minute, I paid for those, they're mine!

None of those thoughts exited my brain, which was good, as I was dealing with law-abiding but stern folk with whom I had not yet signed any forms, and whose eyebrows had been wriggling like crazy.

Oh, the truth?  I had cut down the dose of my Fentanyl patch, from 100 mcg to 75, on the off-the-cuff but, I thought, well-considered, advise of an excellent nurse practitioner chez my last pain management provider, with those thriving Kaisers. In order to do this, I'd dug into a lovely, large and fragrant woven bag meant for Indian Basmati rice, into which I had tossed the dregs of prescriptions over the last 5-6 years.  Antibiotics that were changed after the first very expensive dose.  Anticonvulsants that made me insane and did nothing for neuropathic pain.  Inexplicable bottles of Methadone and Baclofen, in quantities for which I am now grateful. Mostly the work of overzealous, unthinking, unsavvy doctors, though looking at the doses of some of the methadone bottles, I am thinking that guy wanted me dead.  Thinking back... he almost succeeded, with the blame placed squarely on me. But he, he no longer matters!  However, I may take Dr. Ram one of those [empty] bottles to explain my reticence at being put back on methadone, that and the whole experience of getting off of methadone! [ HERE are just this blog's methadone entries labelled "jump-off," when I -- w/o medical supervision or approval, took myself off all opiates in roughly a month so as to best approximate a treatment protocol that was my best shot at a cure.]

The rest of the truth?  That nothing was working.  I'd reached the point thought unreachable, of 10/10. Blah, blah, and blah. I think that was about it.  I warned her that I'd continue to tell her the truth, comfort for either of us be darned and dratted.  She preferred it so. I finally relaxed. Someone told me, "Pack up my meds, sign here, here, and, uh, here, here are your prescriptions, get dressed, make your next appointment on the way out and you are good to go!  Nice to meet ya!"

Each of those things was as a marathon.  But I was so happy.  I was free of the greasy-haired man everyone thought so great, who loved to fold my now unfoldable hands [shut up] into his long, i-should-have-been-an-oil-painter-in-amsterdam hands, and say, "There is no hope for you, no cure, nothing is going to get better."

I packed up my meds. I signed.  I tucked my new prescriptions in my pocket (after screamingly getting dressed).  I made my next appointment, face dripping in ladylike perspiration (channeling my sweet stepmom), and found what's-his-name, the object of admiring stares by two babies in strollers, watching him softly snuffle-sleep, book on the belly, ignoring the educational DVD cued for their learning pleasure.

"I'm not asleep!" yelled Fred, and the girls giggled.  He giggled back.  Kids love Fred!

On the way down to the parking dungeon in what was called "The Tower," I spotted a pharmacy. A bright girl, head full of Merlyn and birds and stones, I cried, "Halt!  Let's stop here and get these Rx filled, Mr. I-Am-Not-Asleep, Fredster!"

Great place. Small but fully equipped, being essentially in a hospital and next to a cancer treatment wing.

"Topamax? Not a problem.  Seven bucks!  As for the other?  Didn't you check with your insurance company? It requires Prior Approval."

By then, I'd been hit with hypoglycemia as well as the pain wall.  The pharmacist started her sentences speaking to me and finished speaking to Fred, who was lost, having just not-woken-up.

So I told him to run upstairs and ask them what to do.  And ate pretzels. He came back, said the pharmacy should hang on to the prescription, and that Dr. Ramasubbu would fax the PA paperwork to start the approval process with the insurance.  It might take as long as 7-10 days. Sounded like a plan. New plan, new docs, kinks, and so on.

Forth.

Except that yesterday, ten days later,  I got up the nerve to call the pharmacy, who said they'd heard nothing.
Checked with the insurance company, who'd managed to mail order 90-day supplies of all other meds within the week, and they had no record of the prescription at all. I asked them to fax the necessary paperwork to Dr. Ram and received a crisp, "That will be done in 6 to 8 minutes, and when we receive her response, it will take us 24 to 72 hours to make our decision." I saluted from the bed.

I yam what I yam.

Marlinspike Hall slept around me with such intensity, precision, and natural beauty that I mistook the funky quiet for that muffled, inimitable blanket of sound that falls with heavy snow.

It seemed prudent to check with the hospital pain center to see if the fax was successfully received and whether anyone had had a chance to look at it.  Twenty-five minutes on hold -- but fascinating music.

Bottom line.  Nothing from yesterday, but a bunch of stuff from "the 18th" [of January?  A Sunday?] "Could that be it?"

There's more and it was all equally time-consuming, stupid, and led nowhere.  Like, Fred was to pick up CDs of imaging studies, either at building 2001 or 2045, but the "good news" was -- get this -- that at either building, it would be on the 7th floor!  One tech guy was responsible for putting this video game together, but where it ended up depended on how his mind worked:  did he favor the hip orthos (2001 building) or the ShoulderMan (2045 building).

No mercy, however, for the woman who thought there was comic relief in the fact that, whichever building it might be, it would definitely be on a seventh floor.

I'm gonna take a nap.

© 2015 L. Ryan

For TW on the Occasion of His Birthday

Thanks, Fresca, for encouraging me to pursue giving to TW in the rich spirit of his own recent gifts.

I put it all in action, anyway, by asking my Brother-Units last year to consider packing boxes of Important Stuff From Their Lives in lieu of shrink-wrapped, brand-spanking new orders from Amazon.

Send only used items, I said. Send things that have mattered to you, at different times, over the years, I urged.

Grader Boob, ever difficult, sent me a $300 gift certificate to Amazon.com -- 'nuff said.

TW took me at my word and sent me a box of music, books, videos, prayer flags -- I held my breath, I am still holding my breath.

I understood the enormity of the gift, and my appreciation knows no bounds (He sent me another box for my birthday in January.).

But I did not understand the risk; I did not understand the fear. (TW subsequently joked that he was sure he would never hear from me again.)

Both need to be transcended, of course, for the gift to be given. Hell, for the gift to make it to the car for the trip to the Post Office, one has to be at a kind of peace.

I know this because the contents of my box for TW -- he shares Hitler's birthday, the one piece of trivia I always remembered about my lost older brother -- how he lamented that coincidence! I know this because the contents of my box for TW lie before me on a faded patchwork quilt. I cannot find a box big enough to hide everything in, so it is all there, mocking me.

But I am at a kind of peace.

I have resisted the urge to enclose a "blank sheet of paper... by way of explanation."

Do you remember that line? From Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters? I always felt (pretty much like every Perpetually Misunderstood Perpetual Adolescent when left alone with Salinger) that my brothers and I were Franny, Zooey, Buddy, and Seymour, that we were capable of every fey bit of wit, and might have authored each slight, or unwieldy, whimsy.

That line figures among the choice few to which my mind clings with relative accuracy. Funny, but while there's nothing of Holden Caulfield in my memory, there are a dozen or so references from the Glass Family series, and Nine Stories. (Haven't you chuckled to yourself, then hummed, just before crowing to your love, busy pulling a tee shirt over his wet-haired, curly head: "It's a fine day for banana fish, darling!"? Of course, if you were as sharp as you like to think you are, you would have chirped "This is a perfect day for bananafish." But who would say such a thing?)

An old man, compact, tiny, an old deaf-mute man, affixed with a cigar and mute eloquence, this old man gloms onto Buddy as he dashes around town the day of Seymour's wedding. It's hot to the point of melting good will, notes are being left in lipstick on mirrors, ice is melting in gin, lightly clinking, and the Matron of Honor brays like a donkey, she is that mad. The old and tiny deaf-mute, impeccable in his wedding duds -- Muriel's uncle, if it matters -- nods and smiles at whatever he imagines is going on, and, clearly, the goings-on have morphed into something downright congenial and civilized for the dear man.

It's a lot to load on the shoulders of a fictive game piece (He's always figured in my head as one of the Monopoly game piece do-dads -- but now that I have seen them, I see that he is not all there, not at all.

He is adequately depicted by the Top Hat, I suppose. Or is that a Bowler?

No, it's always been: dog, top hat, wheel barrow, race car, boot, iron, ship, and thimble. Not Lincoln's stern stovepipe, but not a squat close-fitting bowler either.


Well, obviously, I have the whole thing confused in my extra-leaky sieve-of-a-noodle -- confused, maybe, with the Monopoly Man?



It's hard, dealing with resounding meanings, seeking to rely on memory, cultural memories and personal ones, too. It's confusing. [A remembered image of GW Bush springs up, unbidden, unwanted, and there he is, shaking his large head and cartoon face above some podium, somewhere, lamenting "It's hard work..." over and over and over again.



Anyway, I've resisted the urge to explain to Tumbleweed the rationale driving the choice of items in his birthday box. How to say that seven times, already, in the course of my years, I have gotten rid of what mattered the most to me, materially. A few times, it was after heartbreak. A few more times, the culling harvest came on the heels of deep depression (once this involved a good Beaujolais and burning things in a crackling fire). A couple of instances simply reflected the need for money, and so my treasures were sold off, piece by piece. Several years ago, I realized that Fred had hoarding tendencies. I always knew this, I guess, but it reached a crisis point when my pain and disability began to dictate some real physical limitations. I was his defense against chaos -- not just my harpy's tongue, but my inbred need for cleanliness and order. I had always at least set the boundaries for his mess -- his office, his workroom, and so on.


But one day, his books were piled on my shelves. His collection of fine backscratchers were piled on top of my sundries, things much more genteel, Gregorian Chant and seashells.



Somewhere along the way, through the many moves, the incessant cleaning and sorting, stuff had lost its importance. I was filled with an urgency, a growing need to get rid of things. And so, I did. The difference between this latter instance and the times before? I did not reacquire. After I sent my favorite novel to the thrift store, along with a fine assemblage of American fiction, I did not reorder it six months later, desperate to reread what had once been so important.



Believe it or not, I did not finger meaningfully each besotten Memory Charm. I didn't sit with it, second-guessing, sighing. I remember tearing up one of two pictures I had of my paternal grandfather, disposing of several chapters from my thesis, preparing some fine Irish linens for donation -- all without a hint of a muscle twitch in my face.



It was, simply, time. I had enough, more than enough, and my gathering of things no longer represented me.



In other words, I was sure that there was nothing here for me to send to Tumbleweed, nothing that meant anything to me, nothing that met the requirements I had set last year for The Gifting. Any music I might choose was already music he would have, for I was instructed in things musical by our brother Grader Boob, who had been schooled, early on and most lastingly, by TW, himself.


Besides, he had given me the gift of his DeadHead days -- I had not tramped around the country making recordings, living large. No, I had it easy. And maybe I am a bit of what TW most derides -- maybe I am of the bourgeoisie, maybe I am a bit "pop" instead of "cool." His bookcases are full of resplendent nonfiction works of revolutionary ideology. I have all the Harry Potter, and I like Maeve Benchy.



He photographs, religiously, the Grand Canyon. I snap pictures of pink azaleas.



Yes, I almost defeated myself before beginning. He's my big brother and I want him to think well of me.



So I took the me out of it, in order to represent me, truly. I began to play a question game and let the answers commandeer the choices. Then I employed some common sense and returned those items beyond the pale of personal to their proper places in my home. TW does not have the right to everything meaningful, particularly when -- without that "blank sheet of paper... by way of explanation" -- the defining context for the thing is left out, left aside, or best left unsaid.





Beyond the pale. Yes, that's it, richly.



From Gary Martin's website, The Phrasefinder, the origins of beyond the pale:

Meaning: Unacceptable; outside agreed standards of decency.

Origin: Firstly, let's get get clear what word we are talking about here. It's pale, and certainly not pail, - the phrase has nothing to do with buckets. The everyday use of the word pale is as the adjective meaning whitish and light in colour (and used to that effect by Procol Harum and countless paint adverts). This pale is the noun meaning 'a stake or pointed piece of wood'. It is virtually obsolete now except in this phrase, but is still in use in the associated words paling (as in paling fence) and impale (as in Dracula movies).

The paling fence is significant as the term pale became to mean the area enclosed by such a fence and later just the figurative meaning of 'the area that is enclosed and safe'. So, to be 'beyond the pale' was to be outside the area accepted as 'home'.

Catherine the Great created a 'Pale of Settlement' in Russia in 1791. This was a western border region of the country in which Jews were allowed to live. The motivation behind this was to restrict trade between Jews and native Russians. Some Jews were allowed to live, as a concession, beyond the pale.

Pales were enforced in various other European countries for similar political reasons, notably in Ireland (the Pale of Dublin) and France (the Pale of Calais, which was formed as early as 1360).

The phrase itself comes later than that. The first printed reference comes from 1657 in John Harington's lyric poem The History of Polindor and Flostella.

In that work, the character Ortheris withdraws with his beloved to a country lodge for 'quiet, calm and ease', but later venture further - 'Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk'. Such recklessness rarely meets with a good end in 17th century verse and before long they are attacked by armed men with 'many a dire killing thrust'. The message is clearly, 'if there is a pale, you should stay inside it', which conveys exactly the meaning of the phrase as it is used today.

(Besides, I have to save some things for Future Boxes.)

This is what I am sending TW:

A hand-loomed weaving from Nicaragua, the details of which tell the story of a farmer, a scarecrow, haystacks, and the crows, themselves. I wrote a short story based on this weaving. Maybe next box, I'll send the story along, to complete the gesture. It was a mystery, a real who-done-it, and took place in Texas. The background color is a deep purple. Somehow, the bright primary colors on top of that manage to be pretty instead of garish.

A Mercedes Sosa CD, just because of Gracias A La Vida:



A CD/DVD combo of Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris: Real Live RoadRunning. Okay, so this is not important to me... but it's something from Grader Boob to me, and I would like TW to have it. The same goes for the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection. Yes, I re-gifted.

A cassette of people (Gabriel Byrne, Minnie Driver, Colm Meaney...) reading The Poetry of William Butler Yeats.

The Definitive Collection: Nina Simone. 1959-74.

Neil Young: Live at Massey Hall, 1971.

A documentary on Townes Van Zandt -- Be here to love me. (I don't think I've ever before mentioned my total, total, total love of Townes Van Zandt on this blog before. I kind of liked the guy.)

Old Friends Live On Stage: Simon and Garfunkel. From the Old Friends tour -- "Their first and quite possibly last Second Coming for the Twenty-First Century..."
I very much appreciate how Simon chose to explain the thorny relationship between himself and Garfunkel -- "I don't think of Art Garfunkel as my friend. I think of him as family."

One worn copy of Thomas Savage's The Power of the Dog, with an afterword by Annie Proulx. The inside front cover, unfortunately, bears my scribbles about various mutual funds that I apparently was considering as investments. Trust me, if any of them were great picks, I'd pass them on.

T. H. White's The Book of Merlyn. A talisman, that book. Improbably, it is the book I have discarded and then replaced maintes fois. My folksy bible? I dunno. But I actually remember the very moment I first read the passage about Arthur's final meeting with Mordred, when he had almost brokered, hammered, hobbled together, and achieved -- a bit of truce, a peace -- when one of Mordred's officers saw a snake in the grass -- real, not proverbial -- and drew his "bright sword" to slay it:

The waiting armies, taking it for treachery, raised their shout of rage. The lances on both sides bowed to rest. And, as King Arthur ran towards his own array, an old man with white hair trying to stem the endless tide, holding out the knuckled hands in a gesture of pressing them back, struggling to the last against the flood of Might which had burst out all his life at a new place whenever he had dammed it, so the tumult rose, the war-yell sounded, and the meeting waters closed above his head.

Lancelot arrived too late.

Vasari's Lives of the Artists. I am having a hard time letting it go... but it will go.

The Thurber Carnival -- I am having a hard time letting it go, too, but only because it is a superb help when I am sick. It will go, too, but I am not sure that is the height of wisdom.

Despite TW's deep and abiding atheism, Thomas Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander -- because this is about what has been meaningful and important to me, and something must represent the considerable amount of time I have spent forcing myself on various fine monks at various fine monasteries -- my ideal vacation for many years! Odd that the dozen or so passages I marked up (at least I used a pencil) now leave me cold. But Merton stole my heart when I discovered he also read Oppen. [There is no need to send TW any copies of Oppen's poetry, as that is something I did within weeks of first finding him two years ago. If you are dear to me? You will, in short order, possess two books: George Oppen's Selected Poems and Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. The latter is pure self-indulgence but I have tired of pretending to care. I like it, that's all. If you are especially beloved, there is much more to the Reading List, but also a greater likelihood that I will make you listen to Important Book Passages during Extended Late Night Readings. It's part of my secret plan to keep that group very, very small.]

A slim volume, also something I have discarded and repurchased a few times, but out of need and not want: A Tomb for Anatole by Stéphane Mallarmé, with daring translations by Paul Auster. [Uh-oh! In looking up that link to Amazon, I happened to see that there is a new version out, For Anatole's Tomb, Patrick McGuinness (Translator). I do not DARE scratch that itch in the face of my declarations about divestment, above!] I have little love for Mallarmé, in general, but abiding love of this project of his, to which I have returned each time the death of a child has joltingly brought the world to an end.

Except for a small clay figurine of a bonsai master, a malleable brooch in the shape and color of an autumn leaf, and a sample of my astounding collection of islamic prayer beads (I use them as Worry Beads), there remains only one more item for TW's box, this go-round:

The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh Volumes I-III bound by the New York Graphic Society. These are my most prized of tomes, and I am happy to be sending them to my big brother, for I know that he will read and treasure them, in his turn. ["This collection requires, and rewards, a devoted reader."] These are the entire texts of every extant letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, with beautifully reproduced facsimiles interspersed throughout. Bought from an English professor at the University of Virginia who auctioned them on eBay, I opened his heavy box to find he had enclosed what amounts to a formal Letter of Introduction:

I am so pleased that these books have found an appreciative home.
I know that I enjoyed them and I am sure you will. I trust that you and
Vincent will have many enjoyable hours together.

If I can manage to find it, I plan to include a picture of Sleepy John Estes' hands. It is beautiful, a gift from many years back. It was an image from a CD liner that a photographer friend enlarged for Fred, who then had it framed for me. My best recollection is that I broke the frame, Fred was gonna repair it... and at that point, Sleepy John's hands are lost.

Maybe I will take on the search in time for Christmas. Someone should have those beautiful, bowed hands to look at.

Buddy is no Maru and I survived another birthday

I don't know that I've ever tried to write with such a headache before.  This may prove interesting. It's not awful, just awfully concentrated behind my left eye, so I'm squinting, and being already afflicted with interesting vision -- well, writing just got more interesting!  [Note to self:  Spare your readers.  Do NOT revise post by substituting accurate adjectives for "interesting." Sometimes "vague," like "fun," is good.]

My mother and I share a birthday, and I am glad to say that we did it again, day before yesterday.  Especially glad am I because she was, and may still be, in her small town ICU.  I spoke with her, not because I dutifully or joyfully hit ICU speed-dial so that we could gush about getting older together, right on cue, no.  Rather, my bone-weary half-sister Lale, a true force of nature, pulled one of those tricks.

You know what I'm talking about.  I mean, how many years did you fall for the old "pull my finger" gag?  Admittedly, I am probably the world's most gullible person, still -- I should have had my guard up.  But Lale feels strongly that she knows what is right and then, well, there is that "force of nature" thing going on.

So I'm semi-awake and chatting with her, getting the update on the Mother-Unit's health when Lale says, in one breath, words-in-a-taut-string: "Ask her yourself, here she is..." and BAM!  There she is, mother of moi, me, her 29th birthday present, languishing on the other end of what has to be one of those genius phones.

My phone?  Bottom of the bottom of the barrel.  I have to push certain plastic parts in different directions to be able to half-hear the person or (most often) the automated bill collector on the other end.

But we had a nice chat, we did.  She's cogent -- Lale told me that she remembered her husband was dead (it's been a few years) after only one reminder -- and that's an accomplishment for any hospitalized person these days, much less an elderly woman in an intensive care unit.  I should remember to tell her, and Lale, that I promptly lose my mind whenever the elevator doors even open onto a critical care unit.  I have what is known as "ICU psychosis," engendered, I'm told, by the constant noise and light, drugs, etc.  But I know the underlying truth:  It's just like giving a Permanent Hall Pass to my natural craziness.  I see and hear things, experience the darnedest adventures -- last time, I spent an entire day attempting to help three Archangels successfully blow my head off with legally obtained and properly permitted shotguns.  They were lousy shots.  Apparently, I kept taking one arm to use for pointing to my big bedhead head, which I kept raising off the pillow -- trying to make the target easier to hit.  The good thing is that my nurses and doctors, despite repeated interrogations ["What the hell are you trying to do?"], never did understand that I was attempting to assist in my own assassination by God's Blessèd Assassins.  Good thing, too, that I never pointed them out -- all three Archangels were slumped in ratty old outdoor aluminum-framed chairs -- the old-fashioned woven plastic kind, plaid.  One of them being terribly overweight, his butt was hanging a bare half-inch from the ICU floor.  Off to the side was an equally old tiny television set, perched on a TV dinner tray table, rabbit ears accented with twists of foil.  The three holy ones would watch a few minutes of infomercials, then load up and fire off shots at my head, then curse when their projectiles just busted out another window, or ripped through a beeping IVAC pump.

Other ICU psychosis experiences?  Most involved schemes of escaping the unit.  I once even called my Brother-Unit Grader Boob, thanking him profusely for having landed a helicopter on the hospital roof, then belaying down with a team of White Hat Black Ops to rescue me from my false imprisonment beneath a respirator.  It still astonishes me that anyone gave me a phone to make the call.  Apparently -- they had just extubated me -- my babbling about my brother was construed as a need to call and express my love for him, and my gratitude for having survived near death.  Instead, I regaled him with praise, saying "I didn't even know you knew how to fly a helicopter!"

So my mother did great -- she was, in fact, sitting there eating a slice of birthday cake that the food service folk had specially prepared for her.  If they can stabilize her blood pressure, I think she's headed home soon.

But you gotta be on your toes around that Lale girl... She thinks my phone phobia is a made-up thing, something I invented to avoid talking to that wing of my Fucked-Up Family.  But no, it's real as can be.  I dislike phones, always have.  But that dislike has blossomed into what I think is a real technical phobia -- I mean, I probably need psychiatric treatment to get over it.  It's not so bad when there is business to conduct.  I could, at this point, yell at Walmart pharmacists all the livelong day.  But chat with a person about... life... and "stuff"?  God help me, I start hoping to see my slouching, crabby Archangels taking aim.

No offense to TW, whom I've only spoken with a couple of times, and each time hung up with a smile from ear-to-ear, but the best phone person, for me, is the oft-mentioned Grader Boob.  I think because we both profess to be teachers and promptly enter the Twilight Zone of Student Stories.  It takes about 30 seconds for the both of us to be reduced to tears from laughter.  Both TW and Grader Boob, however, can also piss moi off to no end with what must be a genetic tendency to refuse to directly answer Important Questions.  You know, of the "How Are You, **Really**?" sort.  These tend to be asked after I've been informed that they've taken dives down stairwells or slipped on ice and broken their beloved shoulders, or lost a long loved love.  Then, I guess I become, once again, that annoying chubby little sister who just wouldn't get it, anyway.

Harrumph.

So, yeah, I had a birthday!  It was great.  Coffee in bed, and not just once, but twice.  Music of all sorts.  And a card from the ambulance-chaser lawyer who got me a check for $1,000 15 years ago after I was injured in a car accident.  He always encloses a very useful calendar, too, that we promptly affix to the fridge.

For my birthday repast, I insisted on Indian take-out.  My beloved favorite restaurant had moved to a location so far away I had not the heart to make Fred and Ruby drive the distance, so intense research turned up a very funky nearby place that provided us with beaucoup, beaucoup delicious fare.

Normally, I ask for cherry pie in lieu of birthday cake.  The restaurant menu, however, lured me toward one of their two desserts, a sort of pudding that was pure heaven, while Fred went into ecstacy with pistachio ice cream.

Then we lay in bed and moaned.

I had hoped to also watch a movie, but alas, Xfinity On Demand tricked me, and the free flicks I had picked out turned out not to be so free.  Yes, I do refuse to pay... even on my birthday.  I think that, too, is genetic.

But I had fun watching "Chopped" with Fred.  He's a hoot.  And a very good cook.  Bless his bones forever, though, he got upset over an idea I've long been considering.  I thought it would be great fun for all the people who do the cooking for Fred's Wednesday Night Suppers (you know, with the Militant Lesbian Existentialist Feminists) to have a "Chopped" competition.  We could choose someone to put together "mystery baskets" of odd ingredients and see what resulted.  But sweet Fred actually got teary-eyed over the potential hurt involved in "competition." My heart swells, right now, just remembering:  "I don't like competitions.  People get hurt."

Okay, honestly?

I felt like saying, "Oh, come on, we're talking more like a theme party than a serious competition... and the Mystery Baskets can be engineered as more 'easy as pie' than real gourmet challenges!"

But then I saw that he actually had tears in his eyes.  No shit.

Fred's waters run deep.

I had forgotten that he won't even play board games, or cards.  That he eschews most sporting events due to their tendency to insist on scoring, and winners, and losers.

I love Fred. What he stands for.  Still... c'mon.  Anyone wanna do a Chopped Challenge with me?

So... that was my birthday.  It was fun, my mother didn't die, the food was fantastic, and the company, perfect.  La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, however, ate THREE entrée-sized servings of saag paneer and was running back-and-forth most of the night, so I ended up awake the whole night-after-the-birthday.

Which takes this narrative quite easily into yesterday, when I was exhausted and highly feverish, rather peevish, and in a shitload of pain.  Some people with chronic pain believe that if you have a good day, the following few days will be spent "paying the piper."

I am one of them!

I am still paying that talented piper today, but at least my mood is good, Fred seems to have recovered from the suggestion of the cooking contest, and Bianca is no longer racing for the loo, screaming insults against the Indian sub-continent.  [Oh, she and Sven are on the outs.  Kind of a good thing, really, because we'd have had to order four times as much food.  I think they'll get back together.  I don't believe in "soul mates" nonsense, but those two are cut from the same cloth.  Now, Cabana Boy has been nosing around, and that may spice things up a bit -- but, God, I hope not.  It may well be that the Adult Faction of Marlinspike Hall is ready for an extended period of Bland Times.]

The Walmart Wars continue, but now are in the hands of three investigatory bodies -- one regional Board of Pharmacy, the Tête de Hergé Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General's Office of Investigations... and my insurance company.

But there's always a fuck-up, correct?  I emailed my Go-To-Guy and his Super Nurse on the advice of the insurance company, asking that they call the company directly to get the prior authorization thang taken care of, and submitting directly to them a new prescription.

Oh, dear Lord.  Wham, bam, I got three responses within an hour from my intrepid medical team.  Their reaction was pure outrage that Walmart had claimed their office had failed to respond to two requests for prior-authorization schtuff, and they were going to, by Jove, set those people straight.

I felt my brain explode a little.  I did not respond, for two reasons.  One, it was then late Friday afternoon, and nothing goes right in the "business" world on late Friday afternoons.  Two, explaining in detail the steps I had already taken to exact justice for us all would only have made the water so very, very muddy.  There is also a three.  Three, my dear doc is a devout person, and I hate to put something annoying on his mind at the approach of Sabbath.

But please, please, hope along with me that they did NOT call this particular Walmart Pharmacy, now under investigation, and try to submit ANOTHER Rx.

In other news:  I was thrilled at Panetta's announcement of the reversal of policy regarding women in combat.  Somehow, I kind of doubt that you know why I was thrilled.  But in proof certain that Fred and I are, like Sven and The Castafiore, cut from the same cloth, we shared the rationale of gladness.  If Hawks, usually of the TeaBagger sort, truly are outraged at the thought of Cindy Lou in a body bag, maybe they will temper their Hawkishness.  Maybe, probably at a subconscious level, they will avoid armed conflict and war, the better to avoid Cindy Lou sloshing around in black plastic and a pine coffin.

Yes, we all know women have been involved in "front line" combat for a long while now, particularly since the "front line" so rarely exists any longer.  Cindy Lou driving a Maintenance Vehicle in support of a fighting outfit is at much on the "front line" as the men she is following.  And, as Rep. Tammy Duckworth hilariously pointed out, she did not lose her legs in "a bar fight."

There is another side to me (at least one other!), though, that also concurs with Duckworth and other career military women -- their career advancement has been diverted and denied because of a failure to recognize their actual battle experience, or through denying them that "opportunity." Honestly, we are talking less about hand-to-hand, muzzle-to-muzzle nonsense than we are more strategic jobs.  And man, do I wish the machomacho men spewing idiocies would calm down and read the provision more closely -- the physical requirements for any combat positions are not going to be changed.  Anorexic and weak-kneed Cindy Lous are not going to attempt lugging Big Bad Linebacker Lou to safety after he's been hit by enemy fire.

I'd have to go check my facts and I don't feel like it at the moment (ahh, the integrity of my blogging), but I believe the Israelis chose to remove women from front line positions after a study revealed that male soldiers' attention became all addlepated when faced with decisions such as choosing which fallen soldier to attend to first, as a medic, when one was a woman, and the other a man.  Yeah, well.  There are many fogs to war.

What else?  Oh, I will miss Tom Harkin.  He did good work.

Oh, and I like the bangs.

I disagree with the ruling about Presidential appointments during congressional recesses.  Did I hear it would be appealed to the good brothers and sisters of the Supreme Court?

I thought Hillary was masterful in her hearings.  I still am using my "Hillary for President" water bottle but doubt it will still be in use by 2016.  I also found think we will never know the truth of what happened that day in Benghazi, not if Hillary can help it.

The thought of the many Syrian refugees makes me want to cry, a not very useful response. And my brain is befuddled by Egypt.

I tepidly applaud Iraq's parliament in trying to prevent Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki from another term.

Okay, the truth is... I am trying to fake myself out.  Do a sleight of hand against my own hands. What is really weighing on my mind... drones.  Drones and Obama's hit list.  I have a hit list of my own.  It started as a joke.  Then one day, I thought about it.  Given the chance, the right circumstance, yes, I would pull the trigger to take out one of those who made my list.  And I'd accept the consequences, which I imagine would occur faster than I could blink.  I like, too, the idea of taking someone out without the loss of so many military pawns, foot-soldiers, kids, fighting under some ridiculous cover story.  And "collateral damage" makes me weep and want to hide for shame.

Some folks need killing in the worst way.

All right, yes.  I also have the vague suspicion of a suggestion of a soupçon that killing of any sort is wrong.  That killing without the courtesy of a look-in-the-eye is cowardly. (Oh, scratch that last sentence.  I don't believe that.  I made it up.  I lied.)

These are the types of issues that send me back to White's Book of Merlyn.

There are so many things about which we all think, about which we do not speak.

An amazing segue, on par, even with "anyway..."!

Cat stories, that's what we need!  Here is an update and a FAIL cat video, starring The One, The Only BUDDY -- all in an effort to save this headache of a blog post!

Okay, whom shall we update first.  Marmy FluffyButt?  Yes.  Why not?  She is beginning to warm up to me again, although at the rate she's warming, I'll be stiff and cold by the time this feline decides I'm worth giving another chance.  Ever since I was put in charge of treating her chronically infected and leaky eyeball, she has cast me into the outer reaches of Hell.  And I don't think Marmy's Hell is the more accessible "circle" or ring.  She spurns Dante.  "Nine circles of suffering? For having put stinging goop into mein eyeball?  The outer atomic layer of the ninth circle does not approach sufficiency of suffering, although the theme is correct, since daring to touch mein eyeball does line up well with Judecca, the hooman Alighieri's spot for flaming Iscariots..." When I heard her say *that*, well, shivers went up my spine.  Her geometrical preference is less for spheres and more for one e-t-e-r-n-a-l line.

But she remains sweet, in spite of the damning obsession 'n all.  Especially after the sun goes down, at which time she has had a good 12-hour nap, and greets her humans as if they were long lost pals.  She will let me rub her beautiful head, scratch her silky chin, and lightly pull on her magnificent poofy tail.  She thinks Fred, Bianca, Sven, the Cabana Boy, and all of the Manor Domestic Staff are the greatest.  Whether she will ever cuddle next to moi again is doubtful.  {sniff}

Dobby!  He continues to bring a smile to the face of all he meets and greets.  If he failes to meet and greet you, it is because, being a very small animal, he is frightened and is hiding in my closet, where stress is making him shed profusely on all of my clean clothes.

We've always been able to hear The Dobster approach, even from as far away as the Over-Sized Pink Opalescent Gala Ballroom.  His toenails made a pleasant tap-tap-tap and he could never figure out his continual failure in sneakiness.  Suddenly, one day last week, I watched him pass by me and realized that I heard... nothing.  Thinking that the Good Lord had decided I needed deafness added to the Affliction List, I consulted with Fred (whom I could hear, O Hosanna!) and he could no longer hear the tap-tap-tap of Dobby, either.

Putting the little guy under surveillance, it turned out that he is assiduously pulling off the ends of his not so talon-like talons.

All the better to tippy-toe behind his frequent attacker, the huge Buddy Boy, and enjoy the thrills of jumping on his head for a change.  Last night, I even saw him tear by the overgrown kitten, who, hearing not a sound, never even knew he'd been bested.

Dobby continues his late night howling, and we've narrowed the causes down to two:  a continual mourning for our beloved Sammy and/or an annoying demand that we break out the laser dot toy.
Both are a bit distressing.  It's time for him to simply think fondly on Sweet Sammy, and when we do break out the laser dot toy, he no longer wishes to chase it, but settles down in an old-fart-in-a-raggedy-barcalounger pose so as to better enjoy the light show.  He leaves the chasing to Buddy, who is thrilled to do it and chases with abandon, albeit also with some confusion, and to Marmy, who has but one plan of attack -- to eat that damned red dot.  She gulps enough air in the chase to cause hours of entertaining burping.

As for updating Buddy's growing fan base on the Maine Coon's progress?  Lordy, lordy.  EVERYTHING is a game.  Therefore, we are often thankful to have undertaken the "soft paw" training when he was truly a baby.  Otherwise, we'd have even deeper and many more scratches from all the "play."

It turns out he suffers a bit from separation anxiety. Because of his constant desire to "play," and this desire's inappropriateness around all the Haddock antique treasure in the Manor, he is restricted to our Private Quarters. Most of the time, it is Fred who takes off in Ruby, and since I'm typically ensconced in bed, he's okay -- though he does visibly perk up upon Fred's return.  But should the both of us leave for a bit, we return to find the neediest cat west of the Lone Alp.  It is very sweet but makes me sad that he is upset, ever.  He's such a happy guy, you see.

His latest Life Adventure is, unfortunately, his first ailment.  Thankfully, it is but a runny and irritated eye.  I am guessing that the newly self-declawed Dobby may have whacked him in the face, though you can never rule out lightening-fast Marmy FluffyButt.  In any event, Fred is gently putting medication in his eye -- and Buddy seems cognizant of this as help and not attack.  As we say so often around here, and to almost anyone, cat or human:  "What a good boy!"

So, let me close this potpourri of a post with a FAIL video of Buddy the Outrageously Large Kitten, and his refusal to stuff himself in a box.  As the YouTube title explains, "Buddy is no Maru."

FAIL: Buddy is no Maru

If you've never watched Maru... you should!