the break-out (with panache)

good sunday evening, my dearest, darling readers.

i just organized one of the slickest, coolest ev-er hospital escapes, ev-er (worth repeating the annoying ev-er] -- and i am world-famous for my slick and cool hospital departures.

i simply played my FAMILY card, whilst weeping from the glaucoma drops placed stealthily in mine eyeballs.  my world-class, one-of-a-kind, uber-compassionate professor of a brother has been stricken with the universally unjust plague of c-word curses, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and i must be by his brave side, pronto!  that was my first missile volley aimed at the almost english-speaking hospitalist in charge of deciding whether i could be discharged or not.  as she did not immediately begin writing discharge orders, i loaded volley number two:  my blessèd 86 year-old sweetheart of a stepmom, weighing only 81 pounds, has three [3] wretched bedsores, and my truly saintèd sister had been forced to remove her from her idyllic beachside cottage to an ugly institution of a rehab center for wound care and for fattening-up!  clearly, what this saintèd woman needs is fugly me, spoon-feeding her peaches and cream!

i glanced at the hospitalist, who still was staring laser-eyed at my feigned tears, and was, most importantly, still NOT writing orders for discharge, sighed, and played my final card in my deadman's hand of aces-over-eights.

the FRED card, i played the FRED card!  "my poor partner of some 24-odd-years, Fred, is completely lost without me..." poor fred couldn't handle the sassy-mouthed Marlinspike Hall staff, and running a medieval Haddock-family owned manor is no easy business, letmetellyou!"  then i slowly added on his never-ending battle with the militant lesbian feminist existentialists at his church, emphasizing his christian and druid tendencies.  i may also have leaked a few details about life with Bianca Castafiore, the Milanese Nightingale who treats us to unending, unerring iterations of Gounod's Air des Bijoux...




...and yes, i may have done a very garbled interpretation of my BFF Bianca.  because it was at that precise point that my tenderhearted hospitalist began scribbling orders into my chart.

while she was writing, i layed upon her distracted ears all the sob stories emanating from lincolnton, north carolina, site of the other wing of la familia -- or, more accurately la cosa nostra -- with exceptions being made for the innocent drug cartel mafiosi children under the age of 13, and for my bio-mom, of course, and her various rockin' and law-abiding POAs.  whether the hospitalist was actively listening or not, her writing speed advanced considerably.

then she paused to consult ms. prissy infectious disease doctor who was vacillating, irritatingly, between continuing i.v. vancomycin [boo!  hiss! though it worked well, or got the work started well!] or clindamycin in pretty pink pill form [no need for an i.v. to finish the vanco's work!], and sputtering about clostridium difficile at soul-decimating intervals.

so i launched into the ultimate deal-closer -- who will properly groom, entertain, and oversee the intricacies of feeding the Feline Triumvirate?  whom does Dobby truly trust with his most intimate secrets?  whom does Marmy Fluffy Butt allow to even touch her pristine long hairs?  and to whom does Buddy the Maine Coon whisper his sweet, babyish "gentle giant" heart's desires [just before declaring jihad].

***  please keep in mind that Buddy is not muslim, he is simply a confused, sweet, and gentle heart trapped inside a territorial, prey-oriented maine coon's body.  granted, he does take the following statement as his raison d'être --  but only if you substitute "feline" or "confused maine coon" for any war-like islamic statements -- which also are far less than true for most bona fide muslims, as well:

"But in a place where muslims [FELINES] are oppressed, tortured,  dishonored,  and targeted for their belief in Allah and His Messenger [THE MOST HOLY CONFUSED MAINE COON SPECIES],  the leadership [CONFUSED MAINE COON] of that place [MARLINSPIKE HALL] may declare a Jihaad [A CAT-WHOOPING] to defend themselves."

at this juncture of my speedy narrative, my darling chinese hospitalist slammed shut the chart, after flipping up the red "flag" denoting "urgent doctor's orders," and left me with these words of wisdom:

"you gotta take life easy, ms. profderien, you gotta take life easy. not good for body if you don't take life easy, got it?" 

she's a good'un, she is. and dr. chaya is her name-o.

There was a doc who had a patient,
And Chaya was her name-o.
C-H-A-Y-A
C-H-A-Y-A
C-H-A-Y-A
And Chaya was her name-o.

okay, enough of my silly stuff.  fred arrived, saved the day, got my wheelchair out of the bathroom (i could not figure out where the nursing staff had stashed it!), loaded me up, and off we went to the elevators, which led us to the 15-minute "patient loading zone," and my liberation.

before busting me out of hospital hell, fred was able to pick up the kick-ass antibiotic that dr. chaya browbeat our famously lazy local pharmacist into filling on an ASAP STAT status.  i noticed that her english suddenly and markedly improved when she was instructing said pharmacist in how rapidly she was going to fill that rx.

hmm.

and off we went to fret over much more important people, that lumpy grader boob, that "baba," little wise brayden... unfettered fretting, unleashed from the i.v. and the infernal touching of caring care givers -- anathema to those with CRPS.

remember the chant for lumpy GB (and Brayden Martin, as well):  "shrink, tumors, shrink!" alternating with a vigorous counterchant of "pain, pain, just plain go away!"

much love to you out there, and thank you, dr. chaya.


© 2013 L. Ryan

REPOST, ONE YEAR LATER: Damask, Wool, and Canary Yellow Forever Charmeuse

Occasionally, I wonder what was happening around Marlinspike Hall a year ago, and consult this blog, Pandora's Box of naught-but-the-truth, captured as if in oxygen rich amber, in vivo.  And since it happens to feature our dearly departed Tante Louise, all the better to haul it back into the limelight.

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

Left: Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402. Right: Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise Collection | these images were provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

The KillJoy of Marlinspike Hall, here!

We only have three vehicles equipped with sirens in all of Tête de Hergé, and I swear they all decided to congregate in the neat triangle formed by Marlinspike Hall (the Manor itself, not the tremendous plot of our grounds), the Cistercian Monastery, and the now defunct organic Pig Farm that one might say was "across the road."

Now, the dot that marks us as one corner of this precise triangle emanates from a super-advanced Find-Us Thingy, a GPS designed for Unmappables, and is embedded into the wood of our superb imitation of the Florence Baptistry's North doors, what most of us just call "the front door," as it leads to the drawbridge, moat, and rudimentary lane out of the Haddock family holdings.

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.

What?  Oh, no.  No, she wasn't behind the flashing lights and dread-inducing sirens.  She was evicted about two months ago.  And the brothers of the Monastery are clean, as well.  The only time official vehicles congregate in their parking lot coincides with various taste testings from the Abbot's Private Keggery and the Postulants' fudge and fruitcake. It's hard to believe they make most of their money from office supply products.  No one turns out the day the Legal Pads arrive...

Anyway, why such a concentration of an entire country's siren-abled mobile forces last night, and why in this concentrated triangle of Tête de Hergé?

Would La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore be sufficient response?

Sometimes she just chaps my ass.  Whilst frosting Fred's balls.

Let me hasten to say that Sven Feingold and his son, Cabana Boy, were not involved, each having been on duty, the one doing the near bonsai-like, minute zen changes necessary to Maze Maintenance in the winter time, the other employed in turning the spits in the East Wing Medieval Kitchen.  Not sexy work, but he gets to take off his shirt and have cool water ladled over his fire-burnished torso.

No, it was The Castafiore that so monopolized constabulary resources that the whole region east of the Lone Alp was left unprotected.

Since June of last year, I've been adapting to life without one of my shoulders. Many things depress me as I go through this process -- not near as many things as I had feared, though, and I had an Awesome List of Stuff to Fear all prepared.  But what never occurred to me was the damned front door.

We were concerned about the insertion of the GPS for Unmappable Locations into our incredibly realistic copy of the Baptistry Door, imagined it's beauty gouged, an ugly puncture.  I should have trusted in Tante Louise, who, in addition to overseeing all Emergency Services and Correction of Gossip, is a Renaissance Junkie.  You'd not be able to find the insertion site if you took all blessed day looking.

Where was I?  Oh.  I can't open or close the thing without hurting myself.  It takes two arms to properly fling it, insofar as it can be flung.  If you try to work with just half the door, using only one arm, there is an imbalance created that causes you to fall down, or, if you are in a wheelchair, to tilt over.  And then fall down.

Great thing, therefore, that I've not felt much like going out, or that I don't go any goddamned place alone.  Excuse my French. (Fred claims that our bacon and pancetta Castles-in-Spain never would have worked out, given my proclivity to cursing.  Mr. Perfection, who never divides the dark, silent nights with screams of "Oh, Fuck!" informs me that the devout, kosher-observant Jews we hoped to attract with our ruminating porcine achievements would turn on their heels in shock, distaste, and haste the first chance they had to meet the Pork Proprietress -- moi.)

Back to the Bacchanalia that was last night...

I kaboomed three times, directly into deep, drooling slumber, as most everyone had the evening off for contra dancing, a current fascination that I cannot explain.  The only projects we had going on in-Manor that required expert staffing were the Spit Marathons and Sven's small team of miniature botanists out in the cold, making tiny adjustments to the maze that is the central draw to every summer's ManorFest.  Myself?  As I said, I was trying to sleep, but the wafting scent of charred meat was dampening the success of that project, and then, all hell broke loose with the maintes-mentioned three sirened vehicles' descent upon our sacred triangle of Unmappable Manor, Pig Farm, and Monastery.

The Castafiore, in fluorescent pink tights and a deep wine red sheath dress to which some ill-advised and low-payed tailor had added a plethora of multi-directional ruching, was hoofing it from one angle of the triangle to the other, having attempted to rob the fabric store next to her preferred pub back in town.  The Tunnel System between the Town Saloon District and Marlinspike Hall was closed for repairs.  My Darling Diva refused to let go of her dry goods, her sundries, the elemental bones of costumes for the upcoming operatic season, all baroque, mannerist, and several new renascences. What was so precious?  I'm copying from the inch-thick pile of paperwork Tante Louise released with Bianca when we bailed her out, complete with TL's official parenthetic annotations:

-- 1 bolt Canary Yellow Forever Charmeuse, with the necessary Schmetz Microtex Sharps needles ("The suspect claims they prevent 'unpightly suckers.'")

-- 15 yards of Auburn Shetland Wool, 59" width.

-- The very last 7 yards in the region of Coral and Gold Silk Damask -- ("More proper to the eighteenth century than the Renaissance.")

-- A dozen pincushions (?)

-- Buttons, patches, and 29 books of swatches ("Come dawn, the CSI Unit will sweep the area as we suspect there was considerable slippage in the snow.  Given the pincushion seizure, we are particularly interested in retrieving stray straight pins.")

Why am I so angry?  Am I The Castafiore's Keeper?  I don't know.  I probably am.  Damn it.

All I know is that I can't move half my body for having spent last evening pumped with adrenaline, trying to jerk open our previously mentioned superb imitation of the Florence Baptistry's North doors in an effort to welcome and assist our mostly voluntary and usually deputized law enforcement agents.  You know, hot chocolate and a deeply soulful veggie soup, and catching up with the news from the more remote regions of this vast land.  No one gossips like a law man sipping soup and wiggling his frozen toes before a raging Medieval Spit.

This morning, Bianca, after sleeping it off, is full of remorse, but devoid of fabric and other ill-gotten gains, and she is in Wailing Mode.  Sven has lost his botanic zen in his efforts to comfort her.  Cabana Boy and Sven have promised to make her restitution of damask, wool, and charmeuse.  I suppose she's waiting for me to promise to pay the accompanying fines and replace the sotten sundries.  Well, she'll be waiting a long time.

Fred hurt his back doing some show-off move at the contra dancing fête designed to impress The Mousse, that non-feminist, non-existentialist, born-to-flirt beatch of the famed Wednesday Night Supper and Ukulele Gatherings.  She instigated the whole dance craze among the Haddock Manor Staff, knowing it would spread faster than the flu to twitchy-toed Fred.

I should give him a backrub or a heating pad.

The Manor still stinks of meat, my stomach still turns.  And life goes on.

Captain Haddock is not the greatest fan of the Front Door, and has offered something lighter and more utilitarian.  But I have my predilections, which is why, I suppose, I understand The Castafiore tearing around the various local properties, her skirt up to her neck like a veterinarian Elizabethan collar, clinging to vestiges of lost eras.

It's such a great story, the story of the doors.  Two magnificent artists, competing in a city decimated by the plague, are given the challenge to enervate in bronze the tale of Abraham's moment of supreme heart-rending obedience.  They -- the artists -- are so young, in their twenties -- Brunelleschi was 24, Ghiberti was 23.

I'm not aware of a movie or novel treating the subject, but wouldn't that be riveting?  [But... it is the sort of thing Hollywood screws up on a regular basis, so perhaps it's best left to Vasari and contemporaries.]

Hello?

Of the Baptistry Door Competition, only two of the submitted panels survive, and one does dare to say they are the two most important. A stupid "dare to say," really, when we look to this competition to learn much more than how Ghiberti managed to pull a cap on over his huge bogglehead -- hoping to see some of the politics in art and follow the devilry of guilds functioning almost as mafiosi. Shoot, "mafiosi" sounds so cool there, don't you think? But it's hard to divorce Sicily from the term. Still, let it stand! You get my drift, even if my drift is flawed.

Anyway, here are the basics of the story, this adventure of doors, admission to... well, I cannot imagine.

 From the SUNY Oneonta Art Department:

Few buildings in Florence have as much significance to the life of the city as the Baptistry. Opposite the west facade of the Duomo, the Baptistry is at the religious center of Florence. The building was dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence. It is in this building up until recent years that every Florentine citizen received the sacrament of Baptism. This building is thus critical in the religious and social identity of the city. 

The current building was probably built between 1059 and 1150 , and it is an excellent example of Tuscan Romanesque architecture. In the thirteenth century, it was believed that the building was built as early as the mid-sixth century and had been designed as a copy of Lateran Baptistry in Rome, the most important baptistry in Christendom. Another legend, developed during the thirteenth and fourteenth century, traced the foundation of the Baptistry back to a Roman temple of Mars that was subsequently rededicated to St. John the Baptist. The Baptistry was thus the principal monument in Florence associated with the ancient Roman foundation of the city. 

The Arte del Calimala, the wool merchants' guild, from as early as 1157 but at least by 1182 was given responsibility for the maintenance and embellishment of the building. The Calimala was the wealthiest and most influential of the major guilds. Established in the twelfth century, the guild was composed of dealers and refiners of foreign cloth and the wool importers as well as importers of silk, brocade, jewels, and other precious materials from the Levant. Until the late twelfth century, the Calimala also represented to the bankers, but they withdrew to form their own guild, the Arte del Cambio. The retail dealers were joined in 1247 by importers of goods from Levant to form the Arte della Seta. Despite these split-offs, the Calimala was still the most prestigious guild in Florence. During the thirteenth century, the Calimala had commissioned Coppo di Marcolvaldo to decorate the octagonal dome of the building:

Baptistry Dome, Last Judgment

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Arte del Calimala initiated another major project: the creation of three magnificent, bronze entrance doors for building. In 1330, Andrea Pisano (c. 1290-1348) was commissioned to do the first set of doors on the south side. Pisano completed the project in 1336:

South Doors, Pisano

An economic crash between 1339 to 1346, political upheaval, and the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 led to the suspension of plans to complete the two remaining doors. During the winter of 1400 - 1401, the consuls of the Calimala decided to open a competition for another set of doors. These were originally intended for the East door. These doors, facing the west entrance of the Duomo, were the most important doors. Just as the competition was initiated Milanese troops under the leadership of Gian Galeazzo Visconti were threatening Florence. Some see the motivation of the Calimala to revive the door project as an attempt to bolster civic unity and pride by embellishing one of the city's most important monuments. Another factor frequently cited for initiating the competition was Calimala's rivalry with the Arte della Lana, the Woolworkers Guild, which was given authority over the fabric of the Duomo. The Arte della Lana was at that moment engaged in the project of decorating the west facade of the Duomo, directly opposite the east entrance of the Baptistry. 

This combination of factors -- the history of the building, the Arte del Calimala's patronage, the fame of Andrea Pisano's doors-- made this an extremely desirable commission. As stated by Richard Krautheimer (Lorenzo Ghiberti, p. 34): "The most important group of patrons in Florence called for a trial piece for the new bronze door which would eventually decorate the most illustrious building in the city and which would, besides, have the privilege of standing alongside the only important bronze sculpture theretofore produced in Florence." 

The competitors were expected to submit panels representing the Old Testament story of the Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac. It depicts the moment when Abraham, ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, is about to plunge the knife into Isaac's neck, but his hand is stayed at the last moment by an angel. This story of divine delivrance would undoubtedly have resonated with Florentines, whose city had been delivered by the sudden death Gian Galeazzo Visconti in September of 1402. 

Ghiberti in his account of the competition records the name of seven competitors, all from Tuscany: Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Jacopo della Quercia, Simone da Colle, Niccolò d'Arezzo, Niccolò di Pietro Lamberti, and Francesco di Valdambrino. Two of the competition panels have been preserved: one by Lorenzo Ghiberti and the other by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Ghiberti's Sacrifice of Isaac Submission

Brunellesci's Sacrifice of Isaac Submission

Ghiberti won.  Some say, and I'm just sayin' what I've heard said, understand?  Some say that Ghiberti won, at least in part, because his submission panel weighed about 7 kilos less than Brunelleschi's work, thanks to hollowing out some of the bronze projections -- which represented considerable savings in bronze.  Money.  Money has always talked.

Robert Paul Walker wrote a book whose title characterizes the competition in that way that makes one love certain art historians: “The Feud that Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World."

Of Brunelleschi's panel, Walker said:

Brunelleschi’s work is by far the more dramatic and disturbing, all angles and movement and raw emotion., like nothing that had ever been created before. His Abraham is a tall, powerful figure, grasping a frail Isaac along the jawline with his left hand, the father’s thumb under the boy’s chin to better expose the neck, or perhaps to cut off the flow of oxygen so that his son won’t feel the fatal blow. In his right hand, Abraham holds the knife, driving the blade forward with such forceful commitment that the angel sweeping down from the sky must grab his wrist to stop the sacrifice. The story literally bursts out from the panel, breaking the boundaries of the Gothic quatrefoil within which it is supposed to be contained, just as Brunelleschi burst through the boundaries of the Gothic art with his creation.

And of Ghiberti:

Ghiberti’s panel is more elegant and more beautiful. His Isaac is a perfectly modeled classical nude while his Abraham is a smaller, more graceful man, his left arm wrapped around the boy’s shoulders while his right hand holds the knife hovering in the air, as if he has not yet made the decision to strike. The angel floats above them, open palm over Abraham’s well-coifed, curly hair, no need to grab the father’s arm but able instead to stop him with a word. The whole scene plays out against an exquisitely cascading mountainside, all neatly contained within its quatrefoil boundary. Whereas Brunelleschi’s piece demonstrates an artist aching to forge a new and more powerful image of reality, Ghiberti’s demonstrates masterful perfection of the art, as remarkable in its own way for the time and place and age of the artist as is the work of his rival.

MaItaly summarizes:

Both artists had turned in extraordinary panels, and the committee couldn’t decide which was best. The story is that they called both artists together and asked if they might be willing to work in tandem on the doors. Brunelleschi was the one to refuse, saying that he would gladly concede the project to Ghiberti rather than work with anything less than full creative control. The project went to Lorenzo Ghiberti. It was a huge victory for him and a humiliating defeat for Brunelleschi, who was left with nothing after so much work and anticipation. It was the aftermath of this competition that got the creative snowball rolling in Florence. Ghiberti would spend decades completing not just the north doors (seen here to the left), but a second set of east baptistry doors, a work so impressive that Michelangelo studied them and dubbed them, “the gates of paradise”. It was Brunelleschi however, who would make the bigger leap forward, inventing a system for perspective and revolutionizing painting while completing one of the most daunting and difficult architectural projects in the world: the building of the giant red dome on top of the Duomo across from the baptistry.

 I'd have bored you so much more had I gone into the choice of the competition "text," and you're welcome.  It's hard to top Kierkegaard.

It was early morning. Everything has been made ready for the journey in Abraham's house. Abraham took leave of Sarah, and the faithful servant Eleazar followed him out on the way until he had to turn back. They rode together in accord, Abraham and
Isaac, until they came to the mountain in Moriah. yet Abraham made everything ready for the sacrifice, calmly and quietly, but as he turned away Isaac saw that Abraham's left hand was clenched in anguish, that a shudder went through his body - but Abraham drew the knife. 

Then they turned home again and Sarah ran to meet them, but Isaac had lost his faith. Never a word in the whole world is spoken of this. Isaac told no one what he had seen, and Abraham never suspected that anyone had seen it. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the Miller fell off his horse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bianca on a Pogo Stick: March Madness

Since I've found an odd but strangely likable website to work on my writing skills (Shut up, you! and I mean that in the nicest way...), I've been neglecting not only this blog, but the entire Haddock family estate, and all the richness that dwells within.

The Castafiore came bouncing (on a pogo stick) into our bedroom, bypassing the elite security system we'd installed for just such occasions -- but it is tricked, apparently, by the pogo stick -- leapt off the leaping pole and dove into the middle of a bed that was perfectly arranged for perfect sleep, cats strategically placed for warmth, soft hood on my head, music softly playing in my ears -- I forgot to set the sleep mode -- and Fred  tremulously sn-sn-snoring.  My legs were even covered, feet the exception.

But a Bonne et Belle Bianca flying through the air, slingshotted by a pogo stick, landing -- and the only adverb possible is fortuitously -- fortuitously in between a now frightened Fred and moi, missing the feline's major organs?  That's a game-changer, a mood-breaker, a sleep-assassin.

"B'blasketballs!" she yells. "Drugs," I think.

"What the fuck are you on?" screams Fred, saying what I think.  That can get old, Fred saying what I think.

"Merde, alors!  I do not need no stinkifying drogues," she says, hurt to her very substantial core.

So we gave in and up, and made plans for a Sunday of March Madness.  UNC will be demolished by Kansas, Dukiedum will, if it pleases the Lord, destroy Creighton.  That's all I care about, though I'll scope out the other 28 whenever she releases us from this pinned and smushed position.

I wish I knew something about betting.  It's gotta be a surer, purer thing than the market.  Remember how I bailed on Google at 700?  Have you looked at it lately?  And people want to know why I weep!

"Bianca, love, if you're going to be here long, pinning and smushing us like iridescent dragon flies pinned inside a second-grader's shoe box, at least take off your shoes, hmm?"

And hot pink wedgies go flying across the room, one landing, spinning as would a horseshoe clinging to its lucky spike, on my goddamned jewelry tree.  It's a real tree, now minus one branch, with tiny silver earrings scatter about, the perfect size for a cat to swallow.

[I once performed the Heimlich maneuver on tiny Dobby but I haven't renewed my Advanced Cat Life Saving credentials since then.]

Guess who has a raging ear infection?  Not me!  Shock!  Poor Fred has been waltzing around all week, yelling that he can't hear out of one ear.  And then, as the genetically indentured Haddock Domestic Staff, Bianca, Sven, Cabana Boy, and I all fainted, he announced he was going to the doctor.  I fainted from low hemoglobin, don't know what those others were passed out about...

He had no pain, no fever, no dizziness.  He was crabby, but within normal limits.  Ah, but he did decline to go dancing with the whore, Ms. Kitty, and that must mean something.  He also marched himself quite smartly out of E-Cong last Sunday, pissed off at the continued desecration of the Christian religion, which he holds near and dear, so long as it is being maligned by Militant Existential Lesbian Feminists.  Otherwise, he could give a royal shit, though he, like I, harbored the secret hope of being announced pope.

Anyway -- the very best segue! -- he finally was deaf enough to seek help.  And was found to have a raging infection and not just in the one ear of note, but in both!

Since he discovered that he has An Illness, he has become weak and haggard, requiring subtle infantilization, and the kind of TLC that only someone who has loved him for 23 years can provide.  So I cooked him some chicken, and made sure he took his amoxicillen, and assured him that his ear ache was the worst ever discovered west of the Lone Alp -- the news was all over the wires, AP, Reuters, Vie-en-Tête-de-Hergé and being broadcast every 20 minutes by the inimitable Tante Louise.

No... he's been very brave, and hasn't complained one whit.

Oomph.  Knee to the groin by Bianca, who has joined in with the tremulous snoring pattern, sn-sn-snore with the addition of a soft, excited "f'blasket, f'blasket, f'blasketball...."

I should blow a whistle in her ear and yell "foul."

I should get a one and one free throw.  I might miss the golden opportunity for two, should the first one land upside her head...

While I slept for 26 hours...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mais je divague...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll get there.

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

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

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

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

Or I could roll over and go back to sleep.

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