Were It Not For The Annoyance Of Waking Up

this is another repost. call it an early anniversary republication, the original date of birth having been 10 february 2014.

Last night, I acted on a promise, I announced a dream come true.  Change.

I wrote to a beloved:

i'm trying to change myself -- overnight.  that's correct:  tomorrow, a new me, a new attitude, no fears, no woes, as much appreciation of the beauty in everything as my spirit can take, and large movements of big muscles.   

and learning.  i need to learn.  travel with some one or some thing to a mutual smile. 

no, i'm not on more pain meds!  and i mean what i am saying.  i've no expectation of obliterating my faults, finding god, becoming good or saintly.  in fact, eliminating those subterranean poofy pink desires, choking them out with some living vegetation, would be a relief.

Believe it or not, so far, so good.  I got up with the dawn and baked.  The batter, itself, was enough to satisfy my pissy pickiness, the evident enemy in all of my attempts to accomplish.  Accomplish, yes, without a direct object.

I learned about curling, with a man who ran quickly to his coat closet and found a supremely cool Norwegian cap, a gift someone he'd had business dealings with had tossed into one of their uber-serious business boxes. He then proceeded to decipher the mysteries of curling as the United States men battled the Norwegians, in their flag-coded, wildly paned pants (held up with a white belt).

In between the workout of blending and stirring and pouring and lifting, and the revelatory moment of the blue circle, the stone guided there by sweeping fools and ice chips, I slept.

During the night, I fell into music, a string of dear songs helping the trip to the other side of bed-shaking spasms.  When necessary, I brokered peace between Buddy the Maine Coon, beset with jealousy and insecurity, and Marmy and Dobby, who both have a hunted, haunted look, and have tufts of their hair scattered over the living room rug.  Buddy knows no other way.  He can only feel loved if he is the only available cat.  The look of confusion on his face is upsetting.  The damage he can do to other cats (and to my forearms) is remarkable.  

Punishing a cat is pointless.  I tried giving him a quick swat, and the bewilderment that resulted taught me to never do that again.  It's love, all the way, or nothing.

Fred the Wise sighs over my efforts to create peace.  "Let them work it out," he says.  He who rarely witnesses the violence.

I prayed for Syria and that felt like a waste of time.  I meditated, mindful of Syria, and left it "there," and that was infinitely better for me, though it did nothing for Syria.

To the same beloved, I shared my greatest Olympic memory, one he should have witnessed firsthand -- an account of Brother-Unit Grader Boob and his amazing physical mimicry:

once he hit 6'4", he perfected an impression of a ski-jumper that was astounding.  size 13 feet firmly planted on the good earth, he'd launch, then actually bring his body, pretty much in a straight line, almost parallel with his imaginary skis, forming a perfect V with body, feet, and floor. hands floating at his side.  then he'd execute that lovely bent knee landing... complete with whistling wind noises. 

Were it not for the annoyance of repeatedly waking up, these would surely be my final days.

© 2015 L. Ryan

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

Follow the Reader!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014, I gave you, "On Rectitude." This past month, you've searched it out, not for its scintillating images, or original fonts, but for its something-else-èd-ness.  To the point where "On Rectitude" climbed to first among non-CRPS Serious Schtuff.  I'm having problems typing or being in any way handy, so it's a pleasure to discover the odd things others like.  Or are laughing at.  Laughter is good, too. So we're following you, wincing as need be. Good exercise.

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

I pity you, Dear Reader.  The richness of life's tapestry around me calls up this pity, this sadness for you and what must be, by comparison, a bland and monochromatic existence.

You poor thing.

When you look out your bedroom window, you aren't gifted with the best-crack-dealer-on-the-block's cheery wave.  You don't know that the color of the day is green.

Just yesterday, it was red.  Our dealer sported red trainers, baggy jean britches -- with the fabric crotch a mere two inches superior to his knobby knees -- patched with scarlet pockets, and topped off the ensemble with one very backward baseball cap, cardinal brimmed.  His t-shirt was high tech, some sort of wicking material, and sternly black, the better to make the red shine.

The kelly green for the day does not quite work.  It's neither editorial nor a suitable fashion irony.  Let us hope his dope makes up for his design deficit.  He was working the phone, as usual, when he looked up to give me the highest five.

Back to your pitiful state, Reader Darling.  You were not greeted at your waking by the Feline Triumvirate, working together as a tight, tight trio.  Buddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon was in charge of attacking the door and all major vocalization.  It sounded like a freaking tornado spinning out in that gaudy gilt and velvet hall. Marmy of the Fluffy Butt paced behind the other two, whipping that marvelous tail with each about-face.  It was kind of nice to hear that staccato undercurrent of her gutteral *ack*::*ack*.  That leaves the rest of the feline phenomenon in Dobby the Runt's domain. He was toe-tapping, rat-a-tat-tatting, bringing some soul to the beat they had going on.

I had shut them, and Fred, too, out.

The Spaz chose Easter Sunday to begin an all out blitz of my ragged nerve endings and my CRPS-afflicted attachments were flailing about with all the abandon of their resurrected joy.  It was hell.  It was the purist of agonies.  I kept yelling "He is Risen" out the Computer Turret windows -- more lead than glass pane.

I've declared war on my tendency to curse.  Hence, screaming "He is Risen" and, for some reason, "Ichabod Crane." For a week or two, it was "Christ in a hand basket," until Fred informed moi that that was, sniff, common.

So, anyway.

Umm.

Right!  The Easter Spaz Attack and the Eviction of All Living Beings From the Bedroom.

Fred left of his own Free Will -- to continue tossing in Christian textual pearls.  I had hobbled to the bathroom, the best bathroom in our West Wing suite, the one with the Lotus Pool.
Umm.
Right!

I wanted a space in which I could scream at will -- nothing to do with "Free Will," this screaming. It was a holler that demanded its own Appalachian valley.

When I came out, a very crooked smile pasted on my blotchy face, Fred was gone.  Along with his triple-decker sandwich and his grape soda.  La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore is on tour with her troupe's most successful staging of Faust in decades, so I didn't have her or her entourage to throw out.

There was no one but Dobby.  Ever faithful, that little one.  He may be paid under the table, though, I don't really know.  I'd like to think he loves me enough that when everyone else flees, he runs toward me, the burning building, the swaying tower about to crash into waves of toxic cinder.

That may be overstating things a bit but it's my blog, not yours.

Much of yesterday's behavior was dictated by a visit to Dr. Go-To-Guy and Super Nurse Justine.  I did not even bother complaining of rabies, of CRPS sadism, and they attributed every bit of aberrant jerking to my aberrant personality, and the usual fever and chills.

Shake, rattle, and roll, My Babies, shake, rattle, and roll.

There is a sad tendency being played out in doctors' offices throughout the world, and when we all feel better, we need to stand up and change the damn channel.  I am referring, of course, to the prevalence of CNN on waiting room televisions.  Yesterday, I fought back by bringing my copy of Mother Jones to mix in with the Smithsonians and the well-fingered, tantalizing People magazines.

I underscored my CNN protest and my central nervous system maladies by an endless commentary on the purported "news." Things the receptionist may have heard:

"Yeah?  Well, I think you're oxymoronic."

"Yeah?  Well, why aren't you reporting on the dying baby Puffins on the Maine seacoast? The tragedy of baby bird fish food that is too large for their tiny beaklettes!" 

Most of my verbiage followed the "Yeah? Well..." formula.

So, Fred, Dobby, Marmy, Buddy, and I cruised around the Metro Tête de Hergé freeway pretzel while I hummed off key at high volume.  It about killed me to be in such pain, to be spasming to beat my cacophonous band, and not to be able to talk about it, admit it, show it.  Unless that off-key humming at high volume clued in my trapped audience somehow.  The dimwits.  

The sweet dimwits.

Sven Feingold was waiting by the moat when Ruby the Honda CR-V screeched to a halt just short of its pristine waters.  The sweet dimwits fairly peeled out of the car to interrogate him on his reasons for standing guard and to escape the putrid gaseous quality of Ruby's atmosphere.  Turns out Sven was just taking a break from some Maze work -- topiary saps his strength.  He knocked off for the day and joined us all for a fish dinner I had promised to cook.  We invited the best-crack-dealer-on-the-block but he was too busy organizing lookouts and runners, much in the way we used to get up a good softball game late in the breezy afternoons of my lost youth.

Well, that didn't happen. The dinner, I mean. People lined up to beg me NOT to cook, and to "go rest." I gave most of that crowd the "Yeah? Well..." treatment.  And I went to our suite to go rest.

My legs were dancing like a hopped-up whirligig.  There were four packages from Amazon dot com awaiting my penknife's slash.  I had ordered:  4 bottles of Valerian Root that were on a kickass sale and four canvas container thingies, designed for me to "organize" my CDs and sundries, an effort to make my office even cooler a place than it already was.  

Someone at Amazon dot com has gone batshit crazy about shipping.  I always request the option that offers the fewest shipments as possible, trying to curb my large carbon footprint.  I did not request "free 2-day Prime."  So why, barely 24 hours after placing the order, did I have four large boxes to unpack.  One box held one of the stackable canvas container thingies.  One box held another of the stackable canvas container thingies and three bottles of Valerian Root.  One box held two stackable canvas container thingies, stacked.  And the last box, unbelievably, contained one bottle of Valerian Root and what looked like an entire box of green puff pastries, those Earth-friendly biodegradable supersized bubble wraps, tied together like salamis.

So, anyway.

Umm.

Right!

I hope you begin to pity yourself, as you gauge your empty days against my full and abundantly purposed time.

Having made it to this morning, it was something of a hoot to be invaded by the domestic animal family and to appreciate its loving idiosyncrasies.  Little Dobby gave me a "don't try that again" warning look and then demanded a double grooming.  That means making the perfect jug of coffee and then letting it grow cold because his tiny white belly needs brushing and bubbles blown.  The coffee ends up seeming fine and Dobby stays on his back a good while, emitting pheromones of love and peace, and mixing biscuits upside down with precious tiny paws.

"Yeah, well, His is Risen, and you can just kiss my Ichabod Crane."

Don't forget, Dear Reader, I can hear every thought you can squelch out.

Buddy watched the Dobby Double Grooming Routine, hooting softly at the appearance of the second jug of coffee being set aside to cool.  Then Buddy got That Look. He's part engineer, part artist.  He's very Leonardo. I regret naming him "Buddy." The folks at the no-kill shelter had named him "Munster," as they had given the whole Maine Coon kitten clan discovered at a local horse farm (the tiny kittens sheltered under a Budweiser Clydesdale runaway, attuned to the plight of abandoned young...) the name of a cheese.  As we witnessed the destruction of which the young Maine Coon proved capable, "Munster" began to seem more appropriate than the mundane "Buddy," even though his heartening habit of sticking right with you, no matter what (except for CRPS spasms), engendered that name. He was "our buddy," and soon responded to the word, so we let it be.  

Now I think "Bubba" might be suitable.  He has that wild look, and an indecipherable eye twinkle.

So Buddy got That Look.  He's been perturbed by the hospital bed since its arrival in January.  Never mind the problems of three cats staking out three territories on a bed this small, because when you add me to the problem, my body becomes land to which a feline must lay claim, and my body bears the bruises and scars.  The comfort provided by the bed is often offset by the aches of the cat fights over its ownership.

Buddy is the most delusional of all.  He thinks it's all his, including the pale, jerking human form that takes up most of the actual mattress area.  He understands the controls and is the only one not to flee when the bed suddenly begins to move, or the trapeze slaps gently against a metal pole.  But he cannot conquer the affliction of the bed rails. He's grown since his arrival, as you've likely gleaned, my smarty-panted Reader! There are four entries to the bed that are essentially trails around the rails. Simply avoid the suckers.  Simple enough, you'd think.  It's good enough for Dobby, though he also likes to arrive via the wheelchair parked alongside the bed.  He enjoys leaping over the rails with the verticle assistance of the power chair.  If I am behaving within parameters, he will jump and land between my feet.  If I am misbehaving, violating some Dobby protocol (failing to groom being the most likely), he plants his pointy, pokey paws right on my legs and I scream at him while he trims his toenails.  But Buddy... 

Buddy wants to make his entrances to the hospital bed by coming between the rails.  It is a small space.  Granted, he's a cat, and cats can fit into the oddest places.  This feat, however, is not about fitting into anything -- usually a box -- but about passing through something without becoming stuck in it -- usually, again, a box.  You are likely familiar with the famous Maru.  Buddy is no Maru.

This morning, the gods of engineering and Buddy's personal artistic muse smiled upon him and he found the necessary alignments and twisty turns necessary to leap between the rails without need of rescue or first aid.

It was beautiful.  

And it's now something he wants to do again and again.

He's solved his problem;  I've acquired a new issue.  For the moment it is solved by a stopgap blockage of the passage with a quilt.

Marmy, for her part, is demanding that standards be upheld.  She has fussed at me in the manner of mothers the world over, a funny thing for such a heartless queen, she who left kittens scattered willy nilly about the floor as she stalked off, the bubble over her head proclaiming, "You want milk?  Suck this!"  I reminded her of how she quit in mid-delivery when Dobby was trying to be born.  I got a "Yeah, well, *your* mama..." as retort.

She did her job.

I remember protocol.

I know what I am supposed to do, and what I'm not.

I'm trying.

For Sven, I've sketched out a few topiary fixes.  He's putting in a whole English Boxwood section memorializing Alice's Trip Down the Rabbit Hole and the Mad Hatter is driving him crazy.

For Fred, I'm preparing the aforementioned fish dinner, with fresh vegetables and a careful hand with the herbs.  I'm also taking a boat load of Baclofen, so that the filet knife and I shall be an interesting pair.

I won't bore you with the complete list of my tasks, my jobs, the things that people deserve without the pressures of all that asking and answering nonsense.  

For Mother Earth, I've but admiration and intention.  See the beauty, big and small, usual and not so usual. See the ugly, and its needs, its wonders, too.  Pick up the yellow plastic newspaper wrapper stuck on the drainage pipe. Get mad about our radiated oceans.  Save a Puffin.

© 2015 L. Ryan

Dear Crisis Intervention of Houston (Carbon Copy to the White House)

Source: JEZEBEL

Crisis Intervention of Houston is proud to be part of a new effort to help save lives through a partnership with the National Suicide Prevention Line Network (NSPL) and the White House.

In January 2009, the Obama Administration initiated a process for the public to voice concerns directly to the White House via email. This resulted in an outpouring of emails from thousands of individuals whose concerns ranged from financial and food assistance, to medical insurance. Some of the individuals who contacted the White House expressed thoughts or threats of suicide. 

In response to the influx of calls, the White House asked NSPL to provide follow-up calls to individuals identified as potentially suicidal. As the Region 6 Center for the National Suicide Prevention Line, Crisis Intervention of Houston is providing follow- up telephone calls, emails or mail to potentially suicidal individuals identified to be living in Houston or the surrounding area. 

Crisis Intervention of Houston is assisting in this effort by contacting these individuals and conducting a suicide risk assessment which requires some detective work and lots of patience. CIH's work is part of a progress report made by NSPL to the White House every week. 

We are proud to partner with NSPL and the White House as we continue to reach out to people in crisis and provide the kind of support that saves lives.

This may be the most humiliating post I've ever had to write.  But I do have to write it.  It is one of those truth-telling days.  The sun is out.  I conquered my phone phobia and called my Mom.  (Yes, I know, it is more of a Mom-Calling Phobia than an actual fear of the technology.)

I do need to say, in defense of any jerkiness in writing, or thought, that my left leg, hip, and lower back, are all conniving against the composition of this post.  There is screaming -- rhythmic, short bursts, nothing arduously continual -- involved, as the Spaz Attacks laugh in the face of 40 mg of Baclofen, 8 mg of Tizanidine, and a Kroger Diet Ginger Ale.

I am a true fan of President Obama, and of many of his policies.  We could do a rundown, but if you're a Dear and Dedicated Reader of this obscure and odd blog, that would be the height of boredom.

Yes, I am trying to avoid what needs saying.

I write the President, and with excessive frequency.  Possibly with excessive openness, perhaps with insufficient deference.  Weirdo that I am, I consider him a friend, especially in the middle of the night when the pain is winning and all of Marlinspike Hall snores in blissful slumber, from the few country mice in our myriad cellars and crags whistling midst dreams of artisinal cheddar wheels, to the Holy Abbot Truffatore, hiding from the heavy duties of his office at the Cistercian monastery, our closest neighbor, snoring with blessed abandon.  If I listen hard enough, sometimes even the muffled snuffling of the Crack Whore napping alongside the whispering waters of the moat reach my hyper-vigilant ears.

What better time to write the President of the United States?

Maybe it was the letter where I chastised the university system that studiously underemploys its many "adjunct," "visiting," and "assistant/associate" professors, denying them not just the oft-discussed tenure but the rarely referred to basic benefits of employment -- a living wage, access to health care, that kind of piddly stuff.

Yes, I bet it was THAT letter that did it, that put me on The List.  I probably said something like: I have deferred my plans for suicide because my brother Lumpy, the Professor, was diagnosed with an evil cancer, already metastasized, the bastard, dastardly enemy!  He had not had enough funds to purchase insurance prior to President Obama and Friends' pushing through the Affordable Care Act and setting up the MarketPlace.  So, by the time he had affordable health care... no thanks to the university for whom he'd labored like a slave for over 25 years... his first doctor's visit came with the ominous pronouncements of "tumors, masses, MRIs, referrals to oncologists." Just months before, he'd made his first ever visit to an ER, only to be treated as a drug-seeker, and told he probably had a rotator cuff injury.  Right.  Make that Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma.

So, it was probably that letter that set off the "suicide" risk alarm button in the White House Reading Room, where every letter to the President is closely perused.

Though it might have been any of the letters that tried to explain the frustrations of a "rare" or "orphaned" disease like CRPS, and the idiocy those of us with it are forced to confront in an often futile effort to get help.  I might have used the old chesnut of CRPS being known as "The Suicide Disease."

In any event, the dread telephone rang this morning, after the second night of Screaming Ninnies and ineffective 100 mcg Fentanyl patches, Percocets, Baclofen, and ibuprofen.  The ultimate proof of failure, and pain's triumph?  It bust down the gates of music -- It ran through Ben Harper, The Decembrists, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, The Band, Townes Van Zandt, Frank Sinatra, various timeless chorales, even knocking Nina Simone off her intimate stage.  Even the spunky Brett Dennen had his red locks blowing in the wake of the pain's wind. Damien Rice was left standing, but barely -- more of a stagger than a stalwart stance.

So I answered a call from a caller I did not recognize.

It was the Crisis Intervention Of Houston (Inc.) calling "on behalf of the White House."

No coffee in my system, but three cats attached to head, right hip, and square upon my chest, I thought, "Well, of course.  Who else would be calling this fine Sunday morning but some suicide prevention hotline on behalf of my friends in the Barack Obama Administration?"

The very nice person on the other end of the connection wanted to make sure I "had access to all the resources" I need.  Beyond a loaded gun, I assured her resources were to be had aplenty here in Tête de Hergé.

No, I managed to set aside morbid humor and reality just long enough to be completely mortified that my finely tuned letters to the President had set in motion, not the rectification of health care and employment injustices impacting human life, itself, but, rather, a concern that I really meant to perform DIY amputations after consuming scads of methadone washed down with the best of a single malt scotch.

So, a sincere statement of thanks to that wonderful woman who made that cold call, and appreciation to the Obama Letter Reader who put me on the Suicide Watch List.

Suicide is part of the daily routine when you live with this much unrelieved pain and disability for this long, and the only assurance doctors can supply is that the future will be the same, or worse. When you don't sleep nearly enough, especially in consecutive minutes.  When "hope" is a construct, and you spend way too much time comforting those you'd hoped might comfort you.  When your financial resources are destroyed, and your career made a laughing stock of a memory.  When you cannot even hold someone else's hand because it feels like an attack with Sand Paper Set Ablaze.  When you cannot talk about any of these things due to the fatigue of those few still around, trying to help.

And when the person upon whom you have dumped the most, with whom you have shared every detail of the journey turns out to be so damned ill, and so ill-treated?  To someone as weak as I am, lacking the stern moral fiber of my ancestors, suicide seems quite the viable option, and so is considered, daily.

But thank you, Crisis Intervention of Houston, and White House staffers, for caring enough to put me on The List.

Imagine the impact if you bypassed those such as me and called some of the suicidal veterans returned from multiple deployments?  Last I checked, 22 veterans a day kill themselves.  They don't endlessly whine, they don't "blog" it, but maybe they write their Commander-in-Chief now and then.

Like I said, this is the most humiliating post ever, and yet, in the intent of all parties is a desire to "do good," and to stop, or slow, the bad.

Dear President Obama...

© 2015 L. Ryan

Dr. Hackenbush! Calling Dr. Hackenbush!

Originally published back in the holiday season of 2008, shortly after our summer discovery that my prosthetic shoulders were harboring pathogens, this piece returns as a 2014 holiday tribute to the medical nitwits currently in my life. Among the nitwits this go-'round? Auxiliary personnel in the billing department of the same hospital depicted below. Also, the various board-certified neurologists who are gleefully passing the buck to their neurosurgical colleagues. Again, this is a repost, Dear Reader, as the Surgical Shoulder Wars are now ended, the bacteria having defeated even the inimitable and marvelous Doctor ShoulderMan.  But the hilarious conversations with medical professionals continue, even if the laughter has become markedly insincere.

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

Fred drove through driving rain and piles of slick wet leaves late yesterday (early for us!), so as to get me to the pre-admission registration process at the hospital -- before they stopped taking patients for the day.

No problem. Ruby the Honda CR-V putt-putted happily, veering down the hilly streets, passing the elegant homes on the tree-lined way.

We even managed to snag the premier gimp parking space, and this at a parking deck notorious for being full -- and gimp spaces usually taken by remarkably spry looking folk, and cars without placard or "disabled" license plate. Okay, okay, the correct line is supposed to be something like: "You can't tell by looking!" (Shit, you sure can... It takes a gimp to know a gimp.)

So, Dear Reader, what am I supposed to do when, despite my best efforts... Okay, okay, jeez, you are a tough one, Dear Reader. What am I supposed to do when, after a few lame attempts to keep things on the straight and narrow, the nurse in charge of registering me for Monday's major surgery makes mistake after mistake?

Here is a sample of our stellar communication, verbatim:

The Nurse: When did you last have an EKG?
Me: In August, the last time I was here.
The Nurse: And when was that?
Me: In August.
The Nurse: And where can we get a record of that?
Me: Ummm, here? In my medical records? (See? She managed to get to me -- my "intonation ascendante" is a dead give-away. Ar! I used to get hit on the head with a ruler whenever my "intonation ascendante" gave way. What was that dear old teacher's name? I can't remember, in large part due to his pedagogical concussing, but I loved him.)

[Choo choo! Train of thought! Choo... Back to the scene of the crime... ]

Me: Ummm, here? In my medical records?
The Nurse: Hmmm. Maybe in your medical records.

Then we tried to exchange the information about my last echocardiogram. Should be simple enough. Doctor's name, address, phone and fax numbers, date of the test.

And I have to say that it sort of mattered a lot to me for this information to be correctly received, given that they discovered an aortic arch aneurysm via that test. I had even had a serious bout of chest pain the night before, during which I was unable to banish the thought that, well, "this could be it." I made it from the bed to the wheelchair and then out to Fred's office, and he got me the under-the-tongue stuff. Three of those, five minutes later, I was fine. Still. I cannot banish that fear, not entirely. And so, I faced The Nurse full of conviction in the wonderful potential of our communication skills.

The Nurse: Where was the echocardiogram performed?
Me: In Dr. Rosenstein's office, as an outpatient. He's in the Doctors' Building over at St. Mellifluous. Anyway, it was August 22. 9:30 AM. It showed my usual aortic insufficiency due to a congenital bicuspid aortic valve. Oh, and they found a... dilation... of the aorta, where the aortic arch attaches... so, yeah, that's Dr. Rosenstein, over at St. Mellifluous. His phone is 555-555-5555 and, surprisingly, that doubles as his fax.
The Nurse: Well, I don't know what to do.
Me: Pardon? Can't he just fax the report to you? That's 555-555-5555...
The Nurse: I hate to be the one to break it to you...
Me: What? Break what to me? Does this mean I can't have the surgery Monday? They went ahead back in August, just 3 days later, on the 25th... Why is it different this time, why? [Blither and blather, generalized anxiety bursts loose and flies around the room, backward.]
The Nurse: Dr. Schrödinger passed away last week.
Me: Who is Dr. Schrödinger? He did?
The Nurse: It was very sudden, a massive heart attack. I am sure all of his patients must be terribly upset.
Me: I'm sorry for your loss? [And there it is again -- she's screwing with my intonation encore une fois, de nouveau.]
The Nurse: So I don't know what has gone on over at his office -- hmm, maybe the staff can dig up your records. I'll give Judy a call.
Me: Judy? No, no, I think we have a misunderstanding. My cardiologist is Dr. Rosenstein. And his nurse is Linda...
The Nurse: Well then, why did you bring up Dr. Schrödinger?

It was a rough afternoon. I will say this for her -- she got my blood on the first stick, for which I remain grateful. A few things worry me -- for instance, she didn't give me the red arm band I usually get -- it has something to do with blood, the blood bank?

Wow, even away from her, she screws up my intonation, long distance.

Also, I did as instructed by Dr. Boutiqueur, and emphasized my need for stress-dose steroids (adrenal insufficiency) pre-op -- intra-op -- and post-op! I don't think it was even received by any of her grey cells. "That's okay," thought I, "I will just bring it up again when I speak with anesthesia."

Except -- I did not get to speak to anesthesia, despite the fact that my intubations have been difficult
-- to the extent that, at this same facility, back in 2005, they broke three of my front teeth trying to get the damned tube in. Yes, that's right. I have had a slight attitude about their anesthesia department ever since. They paid for the dental surgery, and for the very creative partial that had to be created. But I forgot to make any arrangement for the FOUR other partials that have had to be made. Some major, and ill-afforded, pocket change has been thrown at what looks to be a never ending problem.

Also, the good anesthesia rep is supposed to tell me which of my many meds I can take come Monday morning. The Nurse asked me to take whatever I "thought was right." Okie-dokie. So I am going to dig up the green folder from my orthopedic surgeon's office for the last go around, in hopes that I have the notes from the anesthesiologist about meds.

Because I've a sneaking suspicion that what "I think is right" is probably wrong.

I wonder who it was who cleaned out all sorts of unnecessary paperwork from my office a few months back? Ar! Must have been the same idiot who thought ShoulderMan victorious in the Shoulder Wars.

In summation [Oh, sit down and stop clapping.]: Major confusion about the tests done back in August, and from where the results can be obtained -- and whether the ordering physicians are even alive; no blood being readied for surgery, despite the fact that, back in August, I had a hemoglobin of SIX after surgery; no interview with anesthesia about stress-dose steroids and historic difficulty with intubation.

She jumped all over the MRSA in the nares issue, though. Thank goodness. Whew. What a load off...

Good grief! I got MRSA at the hospital to begin with, and the Fredster absolutely refuses to don the yellow dress and blue gloves -- not only do they offend his fashion sensitivities, but he overheats. There is also a tendency on my part to NOT ask for nursing assistance when I really do need it -- I hate to make someone get all that isolation gear on for what can seem awfully minor (bedpans, pain meds, help turning -- hey, you try it without using your shoulders/arms!).

So this weekend, my ID doctor has prescribed some antibacterial ointment that I am to stick up my nose. Excuse me, up my nares.

My question? If this antibacterial ointment kills the MRSA... why is it considered resistant to antibiotics -- or even at all virulent?

I forgot to mention that The Nurse's understanding of CRPS/RSD, which initially seemed quite promising, ended with her asking about the acronym: "How do you get 'RSD' out of rheumatoid arthritis? I usually say 'RA.'"

Me, too, when I am talking about rheumatoid arthritis!
Sigh.

Calling Dr. Hackenbush, calling Dr. Hackenbush!
(Below, please find the lyrics to Dr. Hackenbush, a musical number that was dropped from A Day at the Races due to concerns about the film's length.)


CHORUS:
So this is Dr. Hackenbush, the famous medico,
You're welcome, Dr. Hackenbush...

HACKENBUSH:
If that's the case, I'll go

CHORUS:
Oh, no, you mustn't go...

HACKENBUSH
Who said I mustn't go?
The only reason that I came is so that I can go.

I'm Dr. Hackenbush,
My medical standing's very high,
Well, anyways, ladies and gentlemen, I
am Dr. Hackenbush

CHORUS
He's Dr. Hackenbush...

HACKENBUSH:
I'm Dr. Hackenbush,
As a matter of fact, to be exact,
I'm Dr. Hackenbush!

FEMALE SINGER (Judy?)
I'm sure that they'd all like to hear,
Some facts about your great career

HACKENBUSH
Although my horn I hate to blow,
There's one thing that you ought to know:

I'm Dr. Hackenbush
Which all my friends will verify
Well, anyways ladies and gentlemen, I
am Dr. Hackenbush

CHORUS:
He's Dr. Hackenbush

HACKENBUSH
I'm Dr. Hackenbush,
You never would guess, but nevertheless
I'm Dr. Hackenbush!

For ailments abdominal, my charges are nominal
Though I'm great for I've a rate for tonsillectomy,
Sick and healthy, poor and wealthy, come direct to me
"Oh, God bless you!" they yell
When I send them home well,
But they never, no they never, send a check to me.

I've won acclaim for curing ills, both in the north and south,
You'll find my name just like my pills in everybody's mouth;
I've never lost a case...

CHORUS:
He's never lost a case...

HACKENBUSH:
I've lost a lot of patients, but I've never lost a case!

My diagnosis never fails, I know just what to do,
Whenever anybody ails, I'm sympathetic too,
My heart within me melts...

CHORUS:
His heart within him melts...

HACKENBUSH:
No matter what I treat 'em for, they die from something else.

When your nerves start to rock, put your faith in your doc,
When you're sick he will stick to the end,
With the possible exception of your mother,
A doctor's a man's best friend!

CHORUS:
Yes, a doctor's a man's best friend!

HACKENBUSH:
A doctor's a man's best friend, whoa-oh,
A doctor's a man's best friend,

HACKENBUSH & CHORUS:
A doctor is a man's best friend!

HACKENBUSH:
Right or wrong, wrong or right,
Night and day, day and night,
On his call you can always depend;
With the possible exception of your mother and your father
And your uncles and your brothers and your nephews and your nieces
And your sisters and your cousins, whom you number by the dozens...

HACKENBUSH & CHORUS:
A doctor's a man's best friend!

REPOST: another potpourri post -- the one under the bodhi tree

I usually foist cat videos upon you at the end of posts, a casual ta-da, my te-deum wannabees. Here's one to begin with, for a change.

It's been a big day for Dobby, RuntChild of Marmy Fluffy Butt, and Friend to All. We discovered yesterday that he had his first health issue in four years of life: dread dandruff around the base of his straightforward, stumpy tail.

"Hark! I'm on it," I yelled, or something like that.

The ensuing stream of information from my astute googling of "dread dandruff, base of stumpy tail" mostly consisted of attempts to sell pet products, from dandruff-control shampoo to very expensive food and supplements. I finally hit on some non-commercial sites that all recommended beginning with a Washing of the Cat before spending big bucks on vets, all-salmon diets, and cat whisperers.

 I shared this with Fred, who snickered.

We don't bathe our cats unless there is a compelling reason having to do, usually, with Kling-ons of the Poo Variety, or after unfortunate encounters with, say, a skunk. Our cats are now all indoor pets and don't encounter much in the way of Stink Inducers. They just don't require bathing. I brush each adult cat daily, and grab Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten whenever I can. 

Dobby happens to have a grooming fixation. You don't even have to make a brushing motion to brush him, just hold the darned thing at an angle and he proceeds to brush himself across the bristles, purring in an insane manner.  One of my first thoughts upon finding the flecks of crusty leavings was that we were going to end up on an episode of Intervention.  He must be grooming in secret.  He probably has a stash of secret brushes and hair product.  When he yowls at me about needing a few moments to himself among the  litter boxes, he's really meeting his over-coiffed feral friends by the back door, trading mousse.

Yeah, well, anyway. I got the message: Fred was not going to be much help in the quelling of this never-before-bathed cat. It's not that he is mean or anything, it's just that when he has his Mission Face on, the animal that is his beloved pet becomes an abstracted goal. The last time he cornered Marmy (in my office), he scared her so badly that she lost control of her precious bowels. In. my. office.

So I decided to give Dobby a good wash this morning, while The Manor slept.  Let the success or failure of the undertaking lie on mine own shouders, alone.  {put-upon-sigh}

It went really well. I whispered sweet nothings to his twitching ears and wild eyes, and Dobby kept his considerable cool. I think I was even efficient. And now that the cat is happy and dry again, there is nary a sign of the dread dandruff.

None of which has anything to do with this video.
Nope.
This was recorded during the last minutes of the Pre-Bath Era.  Buddy had been following Dobby around in a worshipful fashion, as The Dobster had somehow regained control of the Gang of Three.  Dobby feels called to entertain the huge kitten -- in this instance, with flicks of his small, dandruff-afflicted tail.

We can only hope the rest of this potpourri post will be as tight as its introduction.

One of the functions of my Potpourri Series posts, in gustatory terms, is to be a palate cleanser. They're usually pleasant little amusements of the bouche, cutting through the unctuous as well as the outright greasy -- and the saccharine, the cloying saccharine.

My favorites are the traditional fruit sorbets. Maybe a shot of Calvados.

If you need to make a run to the grocery store before continuing, go on! We'll hold your place and promise not to say or do anything meaningful until you get back.

{whistle::whistle}

Ready? Okay, then.

In the course of speaking with folks these past few weeks, I've not worked very hard at subterfuge. Feeling disgusted with my life and what I've done, and not done, with it, I've steadfastly broadcast that disgust.

Or, if not feeling so explicit, I've challenged my inclination to annotate the truth when I happen to write it. By detailing myself to death, I have the delusion of being more accessible. Yes, I know, your experience doesn't bear this out!

I wrote the following about all that roughly two weeks ago, and didn't know what to do with it. But you know what the primary thought behind a Potpourri Post is? Why, none other than "whose blog is it, anyway?"! So, read it, don't read it, I don't care. It just had to be written, and now, it has to be published -- much in the way people must publish legal notices.

I needed something to happen, but had no clue how to shepherd that need.  And so I hurt my back this morning, at roughly 4 AM.  As a happening, that will have to do, and what it has done in only six small hours is interesting.


There's been an increase in my ability to focus but a marked decrease in my tendency to edit myself to shreds.  i'm ashamed, i'm so ashamed.


Which means that you, Dear Reader, may be the loser in this unbalanced equation. Oh, stop rolling your eyes.


I appreciate those of you willing to wait around as I cycle through the Crap of Life, being careful to jot down every bewildering, self-aggrandizing detail.  Maybe you feel relief at being invited to someone else's train wreck?  [That's okay.  If I can serve as Object Lesson so that you may avoid some catastrophe or other, why, Hallelujah and I'm glad to be of use.  If you just get off on my misfortune, well, may the Bird of Paradise fly up your nose.]  i'm ashamed, i'm so ashamed.


One of this blog's functions is to siphon off the incredible head of self-pity I manage to work up in the course of ordinary time.  Disguising my dedicated victimhood as justifiable anger fools no one;  Passing it off as a transitory reaction to a transitory situation is fundamentally dishonest.


So don't worry, Dear Reader, I am taking myself to task.


This hasn't been a Pity Party, here, of late.  No, this has been a Clemency Hearing for an Angry, Self-Referential, Wannabe Dadaist -- anything any pretense any snobbery any available snoot or snark, just so I don't seem a run-of-the-mill sorry-for-myself Loser.


It's a straight-jacket, it's solitary confinement.
i'm ashamed, i'm so ashamed.


Withdraw sense!
Violate expectations!
Question convention!
Do these prison duds make my butt look big?

That's right, I know I am in a prison, and I know it is of my own making.

A lucid moment, then? Sure, for a few more paragraphs. There is a certain sense to then writing about the robes of Buddha.

Right?

Ha! All I remember is doing some housekeeping in the middle of the night, and spending a serene few minutes oiling and sprucing up one of my Buddha statues. As I reviewed that litany of "i'm so ashamed," my mind reached for the comfort of a Jesus, a Buddha. [It may also be that Steve Jobs' life and death were preying on my tired brain.]

I went back to the computer that dawn and finished writing that unpublishable post, this way:

Anyway, the Board of Pardons and Paroles tells me to "[p]lease leave, if you don't mind," and The Warden bakes me sheet cake after sheet cake decorated with Pithy Sayings like "We left the doors unlocked" and "Here's a VISA Gift Card and the keys to my car."


Still I persist, defiant, defending meaninglessness with shrill, more-better words, all the while dressed in this silly orange jumpsuit.  What do I have to do to escape the Bad Fashion inextricably associated with my Bad Karma?  Awake the Buddha within?


I am not wasting my life by stewing in anger.
I don't subject the people (and critters) I love to oxygen-depleting roars of frustration.
Never, ever have I wished ill on another person.


Well, not unless you've been listening closely or paying attention.


I tend to leave out an important part of my story.  The playing the hand that's been dealt part.  The no one is responsible for my happiness but me part.  The this is my one shot part.


But back to the crux of the matter:  looking good while suffering, the Buddha art of dressing.  See, Buddha was Buddha because no body could be as oblivious as Buddha. Buddha is always good for a smile!


The only answer to "What did Buddha wear?" is that he wore traditional mendicant clothing, which was usually a rectangle of recycled, pieced-together cloth that was then washed and dyed with vegetable matter, ending up a color most often labelled as "earthy," which in turn has elicited "ochre" and "saffron."  The one calls up a little low brow, the other wiggles a little high brow, but who may say that another is attached?


Anyway, that is what Siddhartha Gautama chose to wear in his seeking life, both before and after he sat under the Bodhi tree.


Of course, at the end of the day, even if all is as it is, there are still people who cannot sleep for worry. These are the people who create need -- in this case, the need for a tradition based on established rules that no one had yet bothered to tease out.


Worried people are pure trouble.  Take, for example, the most obvious of admonitions for this, or any instance, of robing discussion:  "To make a Zen Buddhist robe, one should be a Zen Buddhist monk."


See what I mean?


The story I prefer about how the first codification of the traditional three-piece Buddhist robe came about goes like this:

After his enlightenment, he began to teach and many of those who heard his teachings – mendicants, former teachers, householders, even his own family and royalty – left their pursuits and followed him forming the Sangha of monks and, later, nuns. Their clothing was not codified, and various sutras refer to a variety in dress, some of it fairly fantastic. Tradition has it that those who ordained with the Buddha, as well as the Buddha himself, primarily wore the mendicant clothing of that time, essentially the same worn in India today; they all wore some version of a simple, serviceable, Kashaya robe.


This caused a problem for a Buddhist king named Bimbasara, who wanted to pay homage to Buddhist monks but was having trouble picking them out of the crowd. One day, he complained and asked the Buddha to make a distinctive robe for his monks. They were walking by a rice field in Magadha at the time, and Buddha asked Ananda, his personal attendant, to design a robe based on the orderly, staggered pattern of rows of the rice padi fields.

The progression then becomes predictably sorrowful: how to distinguish among monks by depth of study, power, wealth, or breeding; how to work in the fields with such billows; how to stay warm; and the enduring problem of symbols -- how to use them as distinguishing marks, in a world where they still matter and your indifference to that is completely feigned?


The bars of my prison are insubstantial.  The work I do, in words, the work that really makes me sweat, barely keeps enough stiff steel in those things to support the hint of a plaster ceiling.  Even the most malignant of talk, the nastiest of recollections, weeping sores and raw bloody hurt, over and over and over -- slithering in thick salve -- can't link those syllables into any kind of meaningful chain.


I used to think that the Buddhas and the Jesuses of this world were, above all, supremely abstracted men. They attracted adulation because of the blank canvas that being vague afforded.  They were safe, safe and dangerous. They were walking permission, benevolent, tall and broad and big!  Letting everyone pause that extra special, most needed second, that little empty moment where we can hear what's right and bask in it.  Darned if they don't expect us, though, to then stroll the stroll.


I'm wrong, of course.  In the middle of all that placidity and reality that bends and drapes, are Fudo Myoo, Angry Buddha, Acala -- flaming sword and rope.

Acala Vidyârâja is one of the Vidyârâjas (Myôôs) class of deities, and a very wrathful deity. He is portrayed holding a sword in his right hand and a coiled rope in his left hand. With this sword of wisdom, Acala cuts through deluded and ignorant minds and with the rope he binds those who are ruled by their violent passions and emotions. He leads them onto the correct path of self control. Acala is also portrayed surrounded by flames, flames which consume the evil and the defilements of this world. He sits on a flat rock which symbolizes the unshakeable peace and bliss which he bestows to the minds and the bodies of his devotees.


Acala transmits the teachings and the injunctions of Mahâvairocana to all living beings and whether they agree to accept or to reject these injunctions is up to them, Acala's blue/black body and fierce face symbolize the force of his will to draw all beings to follow the teachings of the Buddha. Nevertheless, Acala's nature is essentially one of compassion and he has vowed to be of service to all beings for eternity. 

And Angry Jesus, we shiver with delight at Angry Jesus!  Sure, there's the old toss the money-lenders from the temple, and he heats up the Queen's English over scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites"!  My favorite pissed-off Jesus, though?  That'd be The Case of The Withered Hand.  [The business about the Sabbath is a smokescreen.]


"Jesus looked around at them with anger, for he was deeply grieved that they had closed their hearts so."


That's where I think compassion comes from -- that space between active anger and paralyzing grief.

It was at this point that a good sleep happened along, and I escaped pain and prison in the camouflage of snooze. The truth may well set me free but I will opt for sleep every time.

Dobby is strutting his stuff, proud of his new sheen, and enjoying the dandruff-free life of a care-free cat. Me? I'm still ashamed of myself, still fighting when being would be easier. Back to not sleeping but -- thank goodness -- resisting the urge to write.

Be good to yourself, Gentle Reader.

Yoga will help, as will Tai Chi, Qigong. And Twister.

Hello, Beloved Readers, and welcome, those of you new to Marlinspike Hall, ancestral manor home of the Haddock clan, and one of the premier architectural creations of [the] Tête de Hergé.  Within the Tête de Hergé, we are located to the west of the famed Lone Alp.  Locally, we're neighbors to labs and farms dedicated to the smaller cutting edges of animal husbandry -- miniaturists, they are -- and to a Cistercian monastery also, we are neighbors, offering secret shelter to its beleaguered abbot and opportunities for Christian fun and pagan insights to successive classes of postulants, novices, and the occasional weary long-professed.  The Crack Whore has taken up residence hereabouts, as well, bringing a much needed diversity to our slightly stuffy country lanes -- she's quite nice and we hope she'll one day join the, er, um, "Haddock Family Enterprises Addiction Center."

Sigh.

I had hoped for an easy Saturday evening entry, bringing you all up to date on the fascinating goings on -- a belated, some might say, series of disciplined protests and legislative appeals by Marlinspike Hall's genetically indentured Domestic Staff, designed to implement parity of wages and benefits among the various genetically pure (not engineered, please understand, but guarded by careful counseling and occasional forced sterilizations) families and houses.  I've tried several times to explain the Haddock forefathers and foremothers intentions in creating the various lineages of servitude, their happy, happy intent, but always I fall short.

Meant to create harmonious groups of highly specialized happy, happy families, guaranteed work, shelter, and provisions of unusual opulance, what could go wrong?  The Domestic Staff family dedicated for several centuries, for example, to the care of Caravaggios, would never stray from advanced studies of varnishes, dwarves, gilt, and twisted royalties -- until young Rodrigo stumbled upon a stray copy of The Order of Things (the world does have its ways), turned gay, and began an avant-garde fashion internship in Rome dedicated to exotic black leathers and turtlenecks.

Genetic anomalies, evolution, the Hand of God, whatever one invokes as Author of Change, occurred in every family meant to remain pristine in its work, its intent, its happy, happy happiness.  There are rumors of the Haddock penchant for miniatures leading astray some of the less scrupulous Haddocks, more attracted to scientific shortcuts  -- or, opines a growly Captain Archibald, some "disgruntled employee, led astray by outsiders, and... Rodrigo." Note that he never questions what nefarious influences converged upon The Manor when, as a young explorer and navigator, he discovered and exploited the Worm Hole Marina in the Moat surrounding Marlinspike Hall!

Ah, well.  Enough of our Labor Troubles.

Back to the Crack Whore.  She's perfectly made for the Haddock Family Enterprises Addiction Center.  The origins of the Center are humble and tied in to our system of genetically indentured Domestic Staffing.  I wrote it this way, once, when times were financially tough and the Captain had been inexplicably missing for longer than was usual:

...we scrape the underpinnings of the more modern furniture, mostly reproductions, in The Manor's public vending areas and grateful that the miniature families on the domestic staff willingly sift the silty bottom of the moat for spare change.  We split the haul, fifty-fifty, because square is square. 

You'd be amazed at the number of people who think that throwing things into the moat is an acceptable romantic substitution for tossing pennies into a well or euros in the Trevi fountain.  Of course, given that we sometimes attract a crowd heavily into the religious life, here more for our next door neighbors, The Cistercians, or equally heavy into heroin, hoping to score an inpatient bed at the posh Haddock Family Enterprises Addiction Center, headquartered in our barn -- we don't always come away rich in cast off coinage.  

I didn't want to confuse you with haphazard detail, but most of those who drop by the Haddock homestead are also somehow related to the carnival, and are, in fact, often carnies.  Fred thinks its because we exude some sort of Rabelaisian exuberance, that we are, in short, relentlessly robust.  Fred obviously knows nothing of my time spent weeping and the suggestion that that might be one of the chief occupations of his boudoir would shame him.  

Fred likes the more complicated explanations.  Me?  I'm all about Occam's Razor.  We attract addicted Catholic carnies because the Haddock Corporation opened a detox/rehab and decided to headquarter it in our barn, next to its tantalizing rope structures (connecting to the Manor proper via the Computer Turret), which fairly sings to those with gymnastic training, which is most everyone.  Oh, right, and we are smack dab next to Abbot Truffatore's Internet Office Supply Center, cleverly disguised as a rather ancient monastery. 

Ah, well.  Let's just say that our former silly Saturday night pot luck neighborhood suppers have become polarized affairs, whole long tables divided by potato salad recipes and biotechnology ideologies.

Within it all, Fred, Bianca Castafiore -- the Milanese Nightingale -- and her accumulation of friends and paramours, lately a troubling va-et-vient between Sven Feingold, Keeper of the Maze, and his son, something of a Rodrigo, Cabana Boy... Well, anyway, within our slightly fictional environs, we thrive, we fail, and we survive, happy, happy, happily enough.

I, the Retired Educator, the Prof-de-Rien, am required by Universal Laws (which I am, you may be sure, constantly appealing) to dip my fugly purple toes into your reality on an almost daily basis, am primarily sad.

Which is a vast improvement!  Remember the many stories of being sad and in pain?  Sad and disappointed?  Sad and confused?  Sad and desperate?  Sad and half-way liking it, as it requires so little of one's self, if you allow it an "and," a depressing companion of some sort.

But leave sadness unpaired, and pure -- and it's not a bad thing.  Pain, disappointment, confusion, desperation, self-pity: these are the demons with which you don't want to live or die.  Each a separate, winnable fight, and sometimes not so much a battle as a shrugging-off.

I am sad at the suffering of those I love and know;  I am sad at the suffering of those I love and will never know.  I am less and less sad for myself, suffering through each day, thoughts and dreams more and more taken over, like some rippling silver pensieve for the excesses of those I love, by what is happening to dear Lumpy, the Mother-Units, the dear brother of the West, tumbling, tumbling all.

The tumblers and the tumbling include many others, the past beloveds, which we all know last forever, and the tumblers and the tumbling are often as hilarious and sweet as they are fast and tragic.
It's as much a prolonged fit of the giggles in a pew on a long ago Sunday as it is an image of concentric infoldings of nausea and confused effort.

But I try now, in the public eye, to smile, and to ask my serious things by wrapping them in filmy rustling tissue papers and raffia.

I do miss the organic pig farmer from across the way.  She wasn't a Crack Whore, quite, but maybe that to which a Crack Whore might aspire.  She first made her way into the blog, officially, at least, in January 2013, about which we reminisced in January of this year:

Do you remember our neighbor, the Organic Pig Farmer?  With pure poetry, I introduced her here exactly one year ago: 

In other local soap opera news, we are never at a dramatic loss these days thanks to the vocal stylings of CrackHead Lady Across The Way, who turns out to be a very well-known organic pig farmer.  She steals the limelight with soliloquies to her Ugg boots and curious crowds gather -- mid-morning and again at midnight -- to watch her use the muddy pits of the hog lot as an exfoliating (yet wonderfully moisturizing) body wash. 

Even then, something told me that trouble was afoot, and I swear I hold no prejudices against muddy crackhead exhibitionists.  Plus, bacon is "the" ingredient in haute cuisine, and we were thrilled to have such luscious pigs so close by, flavor on cloven hooves.  On her clear days, we were working with her and our resident geneticists on creating a tasty pig that ruminated -- which we figured would have burst open a world of consumers hungry for bacon, even if they wanted to be snooty and call it pancetta, which is hog, excuse me, pork belly cured with salt and peppered with peppercorns, fennel, nutmeg, and what have you. In Italy. 

 Harrumph.

But making a ruminant of a single-stomached pig was proving more than our animal husbandry and genetic experts were able to accomplish within a single season, and capturing the attention of the crack whore organic pig farmer, genius though she was, was nigh unto impossible.  The Jewish people shall not know -- with hearts' free of oppressive judgment -- bacon in 2013.  Don't believe the fast talker who tells you its easy to increase salivation, thereby increasing the microflora necessary to the decomposition of cud, or that making a pig's teeth incessantly grow to accomodate all that chewing, is easy.  That person is a ruminatory fool.  In any event, we'll miss her, and the promise of bacon. 

[....] She was evicted about two months ago. 

Well, I suppose SOMETHING in this blog post needed writing.  What exactly, I cannot say.  Perhaps I will throw myself on your mercy, Dear Readers, new and old, to discern what it might be.  Beware science?  Beware genetics and its environments?  Love your neighbor?  Be your brothers' keeper, but accept and respect their keeping rules.

Yoga will help, as will Tai Chi, Qigong. And Twister.




SUN LU TANG (Sun Tai Chi Chuan)
Zayayuma 
Uploaded on Jan 30, 2008
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© 2013 L. Ryan