Welcome to Marlinspike Hall, ancestral home of the Haddock Clan, the creation of Belgian cartoonist Hergé.
Some Manor-keeping notes:
Navigation is on the right, with an explanation of the blog's fictional basis. HINT: Please read the column labelled "ABOUT THIS BLOG." Enjoy the most recent posts or browse posts by posting date in the Archives. Search the blog for scintillating, obscure topics.
Enjoy your stay! There are some fuzzy slippers over there somewhere, too.
The home health aide who has been with me for about a week has fallen in love withBuddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon (Forever Kittenette) -- click on the link and you'll see the fun of those days not so long ago, before hospital beds 'n such, when filling the pill container for the week meant watching Buddy get distracted by Little Dobby and... crinkly paper. Anyway, she calls him her "dog," and he actually sits and makes obscene google eyes at her, even pulling off these quasi-sexual winks and head dips.
It feels an outrageous interruption to request a bedpan in the middle of their trysts.
In the rest of the feline world, Dobby continues to run for his life, with panache -- tail up, ears back, eyes aglow.
Buddy and Dobby, both, as well as Marmy Fluffy Butt, have avoided being drugged, and all three report happy lives, though feel underfed.
Buddy and his Loving Home Health Aide missed each other today, however, part of why our laughter was hypothetical, part of why he was on High Alert until just moments ago. He may be part dog, this wonderful Maine Coon, just as we have genetically determined that Little Dobster is approximately 90% angel and 10% House Elf. (Marmy Fluffy Butt defies scientific quantification.)
No one notified us that Loving Home Health Aide was going to be out, and so the key tucked under the drawbridge secret hiding spot nearest Marlinspike Hall's Bronze Entrance Doors went unused as Scary Home Aide banged her way in, waking the dead and those of us toying with that estate.
Fred had been up Doing Duty until dawn. Loving Home Health Aide had the habit of letting herself in, having a few moments of private google eyes with "the dog," checking on me, then making the most delicious rye toast and coffee you've ever enjoyed. Fred could sleep in peace. Even I could drift off, if that odd occurrence came about.
This morning? Fred slipped; Fred slid. Fred let in Scary Home Aide, asked me if I was "okay with everything," then fell back into what evolved into snoozy restlessness.
And Buddy, who would, even being a fearless pooch, normally hide in the presence of strangers, took up a big-eyed, large-chested stance on... my chest, peering into my eyes with huge question marks. "Defendor of The Manor, really?"
Scary Home Aide did nothing overtly Scary. She simply did what she wanted. Heading into the closest medieval kitchen to "wash up" the the coffee cup and the plate I had dirtied, I heard no running water, no squishing feet (hard to do in a medieval kitchen!) and I measured the passing of over 20 minutes.
The bed bath was as if a novelty, and not to me, for whom it still is, but for her, for whom it is supposed to be a regular task.
But the things that led to the later need to call my go-to-guy good doctor due to ethereal blood pressure? A knife that would chill your blood. The cooptation of a big old box of my medications -- another unearthly amount of time spent alone with a box that needed only to be set down in my former office, left there, left ALONE there, deposited there in drug solitude -- oh, you get it?! Weirdly, the thing the flattened my neurons was the repeated retiring to the Sitting Room, out of sight, "to read my book."
Loving Home Health Aide took time off, too. There is not endless activity, fun, toe-twirling to be had in caring for a gimp in pain with the basic of human needs. She also has a slight affinity for cooking shows -- the spicier sort of profiles -- and, sigh, mistaking me for one of those educators who mistook her students for her own children. I can talk that talk, and have my parenting opinions, but tend to respect parents over educators in that regard. So she mistakes Buddy for a dog, me for a parent, and I make the perennial mistake of hoping a hiree is a friend. We may all be in the right, though there is some certainty in the Maine Coon remaining a cat and me resting childless.
However, Loving Home Health Aide sits by the hospital bed, comfortable in a rocking chair, and making use of an ottoman if she (or Buddy) chooses. Respectful of Fred and how much of this whole endeavor aims to reduce noise and increase his potential for rest, she stays nearby, you know, where she is needed?
So what is wrong with me that I could not just say any of the dozens of assertive things to Scary Home Aide that would have rectified the maladaptive situation? One was that she made it known pretty quickly how close by she resided. Two is that I am something of a wimp around certain sorts, even when I am paying their meager salary. I also kept thinking dumb stuff like, "You're a dumb gimp and this just exemplifies that."
Buddy kept singing into my ears that Loving Home Health Aide would have called Fred first thing and kicked her to the curb... and we all could have used our litter boxes and bedpans, had kibble and practiced winking and giggling.
I love the way Dobby keeps hanging in there. "Here I am, back here!
The older one, wiser! Halloooo!"
and for the power of the third resetting of the mp3 player, 90-minute mode.
Get up, stand up! (Jah, Jah!)
Stand up for your rights! (Oh-hoo!)
Get up, stand up! (Get up, stand up!)
Don't give up the fight! (Life is your right!)
Get up, stand up! (So we can't give up the fight!)
Stand up for your rights! (Lord, Lord!)
Get up, stand up! (Keep on struggling on!)
Don't give up the fight! (Yeah!)
first, i thought, snuggling into my favorite off the shoulderless-shoulder, pea-green, perfectly worn, perfectly over-sized sweat shirt, "ah, an encouraging ode to all who are suffering, how nice. thank you, bob marley and friends. please leave the weed and accoutrements within easy reach as i flop over and rediscover this thang called sleep."
the mere thought of movement brought it home. the upper reaches of my bladder were banging against the flabby flab of the empty trough of my stomach pouch. we shall not mention the crunch:crunch:scream:scream from ankles:knees:hips:shoulders and overall joy of awakening.
so we took on the song as mantle, girded the loins, wherever they might be, interpolated a few verses of our own, scattering cats like no body's bidness, used the cane while still wearing our fuzzy blue hand splints (complete with nubs-between-the-knuckles-resembling-nuttin'-better-than-blue-fuzzy-TITS).
ever grip a slick cane handle with a hand predominantly filled with fuzzy blue hand splints and titty knuckles?
singing "get up, stand up, leave the mary-ju-wanna on the bedside table, woodja, bobby marley?" à très haute voix, losing the battle to keep your pants up along the way? ah, it was a woodcut in the making.
oh, listen! the rascal is back! "buffalo soldier"!
Dreadie, woy yoy yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy,
Woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy!
Woy yoy yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy,
Woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy!
Buffalo Soldier troddin' through the land, wo-ho-ooh!
Said he wanna ran, then you wanna hand,
Troddin' through the land, yea-hea, yea-ea.
anyway, i did not fall down, not on the way, not on the way back. technically, i am not back yet, having stopped to see what bob marley et al left me on the bedside table. not one blessèd leaf, not one blessèd seed. i haven't had any blessèd pot since 1992.
i landed with the left hanche perched daintily mid-mattress, the right (of the magically disappearing femur) propped by -- get this, GET THIS! -- a large blob of a right foot covered by a SOCK, by a SOCKsockSOCKsock planted on what appears to be a natural seagrass rug next to an inordinately large, loving, very worried, inordinately large, very sweet maine coone cat. remind me to do something sweet for that animal.
but bless the marley for waking me, stirringly, with a universal song. otherwise, i might have decided today was the day to cave, to say, "YES, put me in the nursing home, but not before i piss in the bed, not before i color mine hair blue, and hit the local spy store for ingenious kitsch into which nanny-cams may be inserted, the first objets d'art to be stolen by my new 'caretakers,' juicy fruit poppers all. their goodness, the new 'caretakers'? i bet they know where to score a joint, in exchange for my blessèd great aunt booboo's brooch from liberated northeastern indonesia."
time to leave an email for fred, wherever he may find me. the text, always determined:
another night, gone, hallelujah!
i know you've a Haddock Corporation luncheon today of great height proportions.
however, before you leave, and no matter how you assess my consciousness, please prepare one cafe-presse café, generous with the café, steeped to the 7-minute mark (or 9, your call), served with a hearty-textured -- but not soured -- milk.
make sure i am awake, tell me you love me, make sure i tell you the same, have a wonderfully productive lunch. if the captain shows up, drag his ass home and i'll do something with that organic pumpkin goodness.
i do love you so. you saved my life last night, telling me and dobby stories in the dark, talking tanzania, barney rubble, the galiban, and why, despite your (and my) absolute capacity to do it, some poems simply defied the form of the villanelle. you also did laundry, and stretches.
remember: no matter whether i appear to be asleep or not, i am not, and need you, and that coffee, and need you, and need you, and need you. and the captain, or dr. jean, or even kitty, achoo, eschew, bring her home. i can do a post-working lunch.
i can. i can do anything. just ask bob marley.
drive carefully, for i do love you so.
just for you, my friends, as i enjoyed a brief pass out, and another hearty wake-up by my colleague-in-music, the mp3 player, with twinkle-eyed marmy and dobby, each aside me, buddy now asleep on the wheelchair, ears swiveling suspiciously.
loudon wainwright the third, this time. "got a ukulele." and that ain't nuthin' if not fred incarnate!
Got a ukulele now I'm not a fraidy Cat in case I get a bout of blues In the event I get 'em There's no way that I'll let 'em Bring me down no way I'll just refuse (believe me) 'Cause a ukulele's like a little baby You cradle it in your arms and you sing A lullaby or ditty When you're feeling sh*tty It will cheer you up It's just the thing Life should be bright and breezy Winds could be light and easy There's nothing hard or heavy 'bout a uke I don't play bull fiddle No mystery no riddle Schleppin' that thing you look like a kook 4 strings made of nylon Always put a smile on Anybody's face who's feelin' blue When your mind starts slummin' Start a little strummin' on your uke And you're gonna feel brand new (you gotta believe me) Even though it's rainin' Quit all your complainin' Your roof's not leakin' nothin's gettin' in This axe is a hatchet there's magic you can catch it On your uke you can't lose you just win Life should be bright and breezy Winds could be light and easy There's nothin' hard or heavy 'bout a uke I don't play the tuba tuba's do it to ya Just the thought of tubas makes me puke Kind sirs and gentle ladies grab your ukuleles I suspect by now you know my song And the next time that I do it Get down and get into it I trust you all will sing and strum along (you gotta believe me)
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.
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.
This is a post found hiding in the Draft Pile... and every crackerjack editor on site is scratching his head, as there's no discernible reason for it to be lurking in the stacks. It's not great. It's not terrible. Some of it makes me laugh, but the jokes are for insiders. Some of you ARE insiders, so there, that's justification enough to let it see the light of day. From textual archaeology, I am dating its origin as May 2011, give or take a decade.
Okay, so I have a Kotex pad wrapped around my leaking leg, kept in place by a long string of gauze, tied in a cute little bow. I haven't showered in what I even consider "a while," and no one, not Fred, not La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, and not a single member of the Domestic Staff here at Marlinspike Hall, the ancestral home of the Haddock clan -- NO ONE -- fed the cats. They are circling my leg, alternately mewling and hissing; It's making me nervous. It's also kinda hypnotic.
But hell fire and damnation, I feel so much better than my last effort at consciousness!
Nothing beats, apparently, taking both tizanidine and baclofen at the same time -- when you are totally desperate to stop your leg from spasming, jerking, and flying around the room backward. I reached that point of desperation at approximately 2 am, and slept until 10 am, without once waking. I feel so much better... it is beyond description.
So is this how it used to be, at the end of a *good* night's sleep? I guess so. I could learn to like this.
Heck... they ought to bottle this.
Oh, the intricacies of pain, the psychology of it. I wonder if I could manage my pain, possibly with one hand tied behind my back (with soft organic cotton, please), were I simply able to SLEEP?
The bed is soaked. From my leg. Totally gross. All I can think to do (besides lots of laundry) is to wash the mattress down with soap, water, then alcohol? Maybe use some Resolve? (I dunno?!)
Unfortunately, we recently switched to a modern mattress, swapping our old woollen one for The Castafiore's Sleep Number Bed.. In a puzzling move, she, much like the ultra-sensitive Princess in the Hans Christian Andersen Pea Story, sleeps on a pile of the things now -- mostly feather, as was the want of the wealthy in Medieval Times (and ever since). For historical accuracy's sake, as well as for her famous degenerative discs, the feathered layers are carefully interspersed with fresh straw ticking, and other mattresses of felt, wool, the straw's chaff, even grasses and seaweed. Thank goodness, she gave up on the rice and oat chaff, which she only managed to crush into oblivion within a minute of her nightly repose. The Agricultural Minister of Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs) has even consulted with us about his plans for the year's cereal crops -- so much depends upon Bianca's bedding choices.
She even has the ornamented canopy, to top things off just so. Her bed is so wholeheartedly medieval that the rest of her apartment fairly screams in Renaissance dissonance (remember, she once redid everything in the style of François 1 -- shoot, she *replicated* the man's bedroom and charged admission...). See Anacoluthe!
I think it might be that her sleeping chamber now resembles something of a stage. Yes, that's the unconscious draw for The Milanese Nightingale. Even going to sleep is theatre in the round around here...
Although there were canopies and curtains, these weren’t the full four poster beds with poles at each corner which started to arrive in the 15th century. In the late Middle Ages the best beds had hangings draped from a frame which was suspended from the ceiling beams (see left), sometimes supported by a tall bedhead too, and often with a canopy called a tester or celure. The actual bedstead was usually an independent structure within all the finery. Beds tended to be quite high and might be raised further by being set on a platform.
Hmmm. It would seem that not even a great night's sleep can cure me of my tendency to... what? Think in a lateral way? That's what I prefer to call what others might mistake for Wandering Dementia.
So, beds. A straw mattress is not such an ancient construct, did you know? Actually, a bit of background reading tells us that the mattress form is probably not ideal for straw -- "loose" straw is preferable, in terms of comfort.
Like all important domestic matters, our greatest needs require the steady, quiet attention of a string of present participles. Stocking and cleaning the kitchen. Milk, eggs, flour, and coffee or tea -- good coffee, good tea, mind. Making bread (which is why it's not on the list). Filling the salt cellars (from sea to celery). Separating the recycling and taking out the trash. Keeping a handy supply of toilet paper. Cleaning the toilet. Doing the laundry. Changing the straw, the various chaffs, the grass, and the seaweed in your mattresses. Or, perhaps, in simpler places than The Manor I live in, just flipping the mattress and exchanging the Egyptian-cotton-high-thread-count sheets with some regularity.
Feeding all sentient beings, and tending the rest. (Or: Feed the cats, damn it, and water the tomato plants!)
Yes, feeding the cats is part of the domestic glue that keeps us going. Is it really all that hard to remember, given that our Feline Remnant can be disturbingly vocal? Do we need to relegate feeding our indoor pets to one of the inherited tasks taken on by the genetically-engineered Domestic Staff on site? I think not. And harrumph!
Okay, so, yes, I have written this strange little post over the course of several hours, adding a word at 9:30 am and a phrase at noon. As I've done so -- enjoying my day while accomplishing some of what I've listed in the preceding paragraphs -- the strangest thoughts have presented themselves.
Like...
Is there anyone else out there who has an extra-coverage, odor-absorbing Feminine Pad strapped to their shin?
Can I find a soul mate who understands how wheelchairs will track dirt all over the damned place, which is why one should sweep up after one's precious self?
Will I ever be able to find a quality elevated toilet seat, cushioned, maybe, with arms? (And if I find it, will I be able to afford it, or will it join other such items on my Christmas Wish List?)
Can bandages soaked with serosanguinous fluid be safely recycled, and if so, do I put them with the aluminum or with paper and newsprint?
Is it ever acceptable to return a kitten adopted from a no-kill animal shelter (given an unrepentant and undeterrable penchant for chewing wires transmitting important data, such as blog posts)?
this is truly a nothing day. there is some relief of responsibility on my one shoulder, as everyone in marlinspike hall seems to have taken a day... off. lots of snoozing going on, with bad scary movies in the background.
the flip video camera is in halloween mode -- as the reanimated device. i don't trust it. so i've been filming nonsense to test its seriousness.
first up, we've buddy, dobby, and the fredster, playing with a : tea light he picked up at the dollar store. don't ask me why. he muttered something about "romance" just before complaining about his ear hurting again, and falling deeply into an oblivious snore. just before his dive into unconsciousness, i was the party pooper, pointing out buddy's proclivity for biting into things, and not being a fan of documenting feline electrocutions.
and a red-glittered flickering light bulb of a "tea light" has never really done it for me.
next we have an exciting visit with dobby from earlier in the day. he's been the object of "territorial" attacks from buddy, so that's why he is looking obsessively to the doorway. why he suddenly decided to flop down for a belly-rub, i dunno. the final shot was all his idea, and is his way of getting me to turn off the camera, of which he is always very aware. dobby misses very little.
my deepest apologies to those of you looking for cinematic masterpieces.
i hope your sunday was as unproductive as mine.
oh, the absence of marmy fluffy butt has to do, in part, with the purchase of a new living room rug, to which she is oddly attached. in the rhetorical sense. she is also fond of one of the new chenille throws i bought to replace her rattier one. and then there's the truth... she and buddy can't share the same space, at least not this space (the bed), without the maine coon defending his "territory" with scary ferocity.
I will be returning to the blogging world soon. I know you've been holding your breath in bated suspense.
Guess what? Times are hard! Physically, financially, emotionally. I'd get in line except that, at the moment, I eschew the queue.
Monday, my first eye operation has been scheduled -- it's finally definite. There were some weird shenanigans around getting information to the right people at the right time, but, as usual, it all worked out.
It will likely be a two-fer: replacement of the lens in the right eye and poking a little hole in the back to help with drainage, thereby treating both cataract and glaucoma.
Because of my spasticity, it will be under general anesthesia, which does not make me happy.
Oddly, this bit of news cheered my new pain managaement doctor immensely. He said,"O! Maybe they will use propofol. I think you will enjoy that."
I do a lot of just looking at this man, and wondering.
My previous "health care professional" at the PainDude's office will not be returning following maternity leave. I wish I could say it was because of her simple (profound!) love of being a mom, but it's more driven by the fact that the baby has Down's Syndrome and needs lots of care. She's a lucky baby to have been born to such a mom.
But it's my loss! We had just hit our stride, after a rough start last year -- I met her just after freeing myself from the confinement of the Long Term Acute Care Facility, otherwise known as a place to hide the sick and disabled until they can be permanently stashed out of sight. So when Natalie and I first met, I was a snarling beast, ready to run, trusting no one, and very, very debilitated.
We worked our way through it. She was smart and reasonable.
This extremely trained and brand new physician who was supposed to just sub for her... is smart, very compassionate, and close to being idiotic. He knows a bunch of stuff and knows hardly anything about what to do with it. He's cost me beaucoup bucks already in the pursuit of dream treatments, and has given me advice that proved faulty -- prompting a phone message that bordered on hysteria. "Disregard what I told you..."
Not to worry!
He is very sweet and extremely over-involved. He has never seen anyone suffer as much as I suffer. Do you think I need to hear that? Would anyone garner anything positive from hearing that?
Anyway, he thinks I will get a kick out of general anesthesia, being unconscious and all, thereby not feeling my usual pain. I'd love to point out that scoring me a dozen or so joints and letting me smoke them at my leisure would be something more likely to be remembered as relief.
"Hey, man, I really loved being unconscious. That was great."
I'm sorry. He'll grow. I'll grow. It'll be touching and rewarding.
The second surgery will be on the 26th. After each surgery, we have to drive every day to the eye doc's office to have my pressures checked, because any eye surgery causes a spike in intraocular pressures. For most folks, no biggie -- but since I have a pretty nasty case of glaucoma, it could wreck my optic nerve and so on and so forth. The surgeon asked me if I could handle extra "emergency" surgeries. That, again, is a weird thing to say/ask to someone. Were I to say "no," what would that change? As it was, I told her it was a familiar scenario, albeit never before with my eyesight at stake. Usually just limbs.
She's very cool -- about as tall as my knees, hair down to her ass, lovely, lovely high-heels, beautifully tailored clothes, tough as nails, focused, super technical and precise. If I had only followed my intuition a few years earlier and ditched the old fart who was following the glaucoma earlier... I'd be in better shape.
He also had a love for reuben sandwiches and garlicky things that did not endear me to him overly much as we communed face-to-face during eye exams.
Anyway.
That's that.
But the purpose of this ramble -- the first decent photo of Ms. Marmy Fluffy Butt in close to five years. She appears before you recently groomed by moi, willing to be seen (ears to the front, the "i tolerate you" stare), and knowing that the "boys" have been getting all the photographic glory.
Without further ado, here's my girl:
Marmy, August 2013
She remains feral, usually during the daylight hours. When darkness descends upon our segment of the planet, she becomes a fur ball of flaming love, head-butting for pets, offering up her tiny, warm, round belly.
She's remarkably small, never crossing the 8 pound mark, except for the one vet visit soon after we first took her hissing and ack-ack-ing self in, when her stomach almost hit the floor due to the five kittens she unwillingly harbored. Only eight months old at the time, you could tell she was hoping to meet the Law and Order: SVU team.
Today, I need to capture her, as she got into it with Buddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon, and he slashed her face, managing to leave a large puncture wound near her mouth. She's going to love me -- for capturing her, as well as for cleaning what looks to be a painful wound. But we are not having any abscesses around these parts. Not right now.
My other plans to get me through the weekend without going bonkers? Well, first, I am not naive. Well, not too much. The Spaz Attacks have been BRUTAL. Fred says I've turned part pretzel. When the Spaz Attacks hit, and they no longer have predilections for the night alone, I darken the room, take meds, put on my earbuds and try to get lost in music. Still, I end up screaming in 15 to 40 second intervals, with a string of curses to follow. I have taken to getting very mobile in bed. Sideways, with legs hanging off. Head at the bottom of the mattress, allowing me to press the spasming leg into the black metal headboard festooned, festooned, I say, with pillows of various densities and shapes. This goes on for hours at a time.
Dobby and Buddy are my little saviors. Marmy would be, as well, but Buddy is so freaking territorial, he chases her -- and not at all playfully or gently -- away. I will be moaning, attempting to sing along with some 1950s classic on my sweet Sansa Clip player, or belting it out with Nina Simone -- my God, I'd have gone crazy months ago without Nina Simone -- without Mary Black, without Bob Dylan and Neil Young, without, even, Deadman. Definitely without my darling dead Townes Van Zandt. I know Nina's dead, too, and that kills me, but Townes... man, did he fuck up. Bonnie Raitt, JT, the Stones, Michelle Shocked, Sweet Honey, Paul Simon. Even the soundtracks to The Sopranos, God bless "Tony"'s soul.
Anyway... I'm laying around being a moaning unsalted pretzel and I will feel a rough tongue tentatively flick my forearm, or forehead. And it's one of the boys, registering their solidarity. It's a real crap shoot for them as when I move from side to bottom to top to catty-cornered, they get no notice, so there is no deep cat snoozing possible, not without risking a major bonk attack from a spinning dystonic.
Marmy is different. She would nestle in, and ride me like a broncin' buck.
I should not forget John Prine or Art Garfunkel, solo. Jackson Browne. The Raveonettes. The Roches. Phil Ochs.
When was the last time you listened to Phil Ochs?
Anyway, again: It still takes a boatload of drugs to stop the jerky jerks, and why I don't just take the boatload of drugs first thiing, I cannot explain. It can't be good for me. But neither can all that suffering.
The risk of respiratory depression, euphemism for death, versus the risk of insane pain, forever? What a battle, fought in a truly fevered pitch.
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.
uploaded to YouTube by skilled videographer profderien
"the number of medication bottles is misleading, as there are many duplicates. i kind of wish i could say the same thing about the cats, as they are being annoying and i don't like them around the pharmaceuticals. *my* drugs, *my* drugs! and sometimes msnbc needs to check itself. good morning!"
I don't know that I've ever tried to write with such a headache before. This may prove interesting. It's not awful, just awfully concentrated behind my left eye, so I'm squinting, and being already afflicted with interesting vision -- well, writing just got more interesting! [Note to self: Spare your readers. Do NOT revise post by substituting accurate adjectives for "interesting." Sometimes "vague," like "fun," is good.]
My mother and I share a birthday, and I am glad to say that we did it again, day before yesterday. Especially glad am I because she was, and may still be, in her small town ICU. I spoke with her, not because I dutifully or joyfully hit ICU speed-dial so that we could gush about getting older together, right on cue, no. Rather, my bone-weary half-sister Lale, a true force of nature, pulled one of those tricks.
You know what I'm talking about. I mean, how many years did you fall for the old "pull my finger" gag? Admittedly, I am probably the world's most gullible person, still -- I should have had my guard up. But Lale feels strongly that she knows what is right and then, well, there is that "force of nature" thing going on.
So I'm semi-awake and chatting with her, getting the update on the Mother-Unit's health when Lale says, in one breath, words-in-a-taut-string: "Ask her yourself, here she is..." and BAM! There she is, mother of moi, me, her 29th birthday present, languishing on the other end of what has to be one of those genius phones.
My phone? Bottom of the bottom of the barrel. I have to push certain plastic parts in different directions to be able to half-hear the person or (most often) the automated bill collector on the other end.
But we had a nice chat, we did. She's cogent -- Lale told me that she remembered her husband was dead (it's been a few years) after only one reminder -- and that's an accomplishment for any hospitalized person these days, much less an elderly woman in an intensive care unit. I should remember to tell her, and Lale, that I promptly lose my mind whenever the elevator doors even open onto a critical care unit. I have what is known as "ICU psychosis," engendered, I'm told, by the constant noise and light, drugs, etc. But I know the underlying truth: It's just like giving a Permanent Hall Pass to my natural craziness. I see and hear things, experience the darnedest adventures -- last time, I spent an entire day attempting to help three Archangels successfully blow my head off with legally obtained and properly permitted shotguns. They were lousy shots. Apparently, I kept taking one arm to use for pointing to my big bedhead head, which I kept raising off the pillow -- trying to make the target easier to hit. The good thing is that my nurses and doctors, despite repeated interrogations ["What the hell are you trying to do?"], never did understand that I was attempting to assist in my own assassination by God's Blessèd Assassins. Good thing, too, that I never pointed them out -- all three Archangels were slumped in ratty old outdoor aluminum-framed chairs -- the old-fashioned woven plastic kind, plaid. One of them being terribly overweight, his butt was hanging a bare half-inch from the ICU floor. Off to the side was an equally old tiny television set, perched on a TV dinner tray table, rabbit ears accented with twists of foil. The three holy ones would watch a few minutes of infomercials, then load up and fire off shots at my head, then curse when their projectiles just busted out another window, or ripped through a beeping IVAC pump.
Other ICU psychosis experiences? Most involved schemes of escaping the unit. I once even called my Brother-Unit Grader Boob, thanking him profusely for having landed a helicopter on the hospital roof, then belaying down with a team of White Hat Black Ops to rescue me from my false imprisonment beneath a respirator. It still astonishes me that anyone gave me a phone to make the call. Apparently -- they had just extubated me -- my babbling about my brother was construed as a need to call and express my love for him, and my gratitude for having survived near death. Instead, I regaled him with praise, saying "I didn't even know you knew how to fly a helicopter!"
So my mother did great -- she was, in fact, sitting there eating a slice of birthday cake that the food service folk had specially prepared for her. If they can stabilize her blood pressure, I think she's headed home soon.
But you gotta be on your toes around that Lale girl... She thinks my phone phobia is a made-up thing, something I invented to avoid talking to that wing of my Fucked-Up Family. But no, it's real as can be. I dislike phones, always have. But that dislike has blossomed into what I think is a real technical phobia -- I mean, I probably need psychiatric treatment to get over it. It's not so bad when there is business to conduct. I could, at this point, yell at Walmart pharmacists all the livelong day. But chat with a person about... life... and "stuff"? God help me, I start hoping to see my slouching, crabby Archangels taking aim.
No offense to TW, whom I've only spoken with a couple of times, and each time hung up with a smile from ear-to-ear, but the best phone person, for me, is the oft-mentioned Grader Boob. I think because we both profess to be teachers and promptly enter the Twilight Zone of Student Stories. It takes about 30 seconds for the both of us to be reduced to tears from laughter. Both TW and Grader Boob, however, can also piss moi off to no end with what must be a genetic tendency to refuse to directly answer Important Questions. You know, of the "How Are You, **Really**?" sort. These tend to be asked after I've been informed that they've taken dives down stairwells or slipped on ice and broken their beloved shoulders, or lost a long loved love. Then, I guess I become, once again, that annoying chubby little sister who just wouldn't get it, anyway.
Harrumph.
So, yeah, I had a birthday! It was great. Coffee in bed, and not just once, but twice. Music of all sorts. And a card from the ambulance-chaser lawyer who got me a check for $1,000 15 years ago after I was injured in a car accident. He always encloses a very useful calendar, too, that we promptly affix to the fridge.
For my birthday repast, I insisted on Indian take-out. My beloved favorite restaurant had moved to a location so far away I had not the heart to make Fred and Ruby drive the distance, so intense research turned up a very funky nearby place that provided us with beaucoup, beaucoup delicious fare.
Normally, I ask for cherry pie in lieu of birthday cake. The restaurant menu, however, lured me toward one of their two desserts, a sort of pudding that was pure heaven, while Fred went into ecstacy with pistachio ice cream.
Then we lay in bed and moaned.
I had hoped to also watch a movie, but alas, Xfinity On Demand tricked me, and the free flicks I had picked out turned out not to be so free. Yes, I do refuse to pay... even on my birthday. I think that, too, is genetic.
But I had fun watching "Chopped" with Fred. He's a hoot. And a very good cook. Bless his bones forever, though, he got upset over an idea I've long been considering. I thought it would be great fun for all the people who do the cooking for Fred's Wednesday Night Suppers (you know, with the Militant Lesbian Existentialist Feminists) to have a "Chopped" competition. We could choose someone to put together "mystery baskets" of odd ingredients and see what resulted. But sweet Fred actually got teary-eyed over the potential hurt involved in "competition." My heart swells, right now, just remembering: "I don't like competitions. People get hurt."
Okay, honestly?
I felt like saying, "Oh, come on, we're talking more like a theme party than a serious competition... and the Mystery Baskets can be engineered as more 'easy as pie' than real gourmet challenges!"
But then I saw that he actually had tears in his eyes. No shit.
Fred's waters run deep.
I had forgotten that he won't even play board games, or cards. That he eschews most sporting events due to their tendency to insist on scoring, and winners, and losers.
I love Fred. What he stands for. Still... c'mon. Anyone wanna do a Chopped Challenge with me?
So... that was my birthday. It was fun, my mother didn't die, the food was fantastic, and the company, perfect. La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, however, ate THREE entrée-sized servings of saag paneer and was running back-and-forth most of the night, so I ended up awake the whole night-after-the-birthday.
Which takes this narrative quite easily into yesterday, when I was exhausted and highly feverish, rather peevish, and in a shitload of pain. Some people with chronic pain believe that if you have a good day, the following few days will be spent "paying the piper."
I am one of them!
I am still paying that talented piper today, but at least my mood is good, Fred seems to have recovered from the suggestion of the cooking contest, and Bianca is no longer racing for the loo, screaming insults against the Indian sub-continent. [Oh, she and Sven are on the outs. Kind of a good thing, really, because we'd have had to order four times as much food. I think they'll get back together. I don't believe in "soul mates" nonsense, but those two are cut from the same cloth. Now, Cabana Boy has been nosing around, and that may spice things up a bit -- but, God, I hope not. It may well be that the Adult Faction of Marlinspike Hall is ready for an extended period of Bland Times.]
The Walmart Wars continue, but now are in the hands of three investigatory bodies -- one regional Board of Pharmacy, the Tête de Hergé Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General's Office of Investigations... and my insurance company.
But there's always a fuck-up, correct? I emailed my Go-To-Guy and his Super Nurse on the advice of the insurance company, asking that they call the company directly to get the prior authorization thang taken care of, and submitting directly to them a new prescription.
Oh, dear Lord. Wham, bam, I got three responses within an hour from my intrepid medical team. Their reaction was pure outrage that Walmart had claimed their office had failed to respond to two requests for prior-authorization schtuff, and they were going to, by Jove, set those people straight.
I felt my brain explode a little. I did not respond, for two reasons. One, it was then late Friday afternoon, and nothing goes right in the "business" world on late Friday afternoons. Two, explaining in detail the steps I had already taken to exact justice for us all would only have made the water so very, very muddy. There is also a three. Three, my dear doc is a devout person, and I hate to put something annoying on his mind at the approach of Sabbath.
But please, please, hope along with me that they did NOT call this particular Walmart Pharmacy, now under investigation, and try to submit ANOTHER Rx.
In other news: I was thrilled at Panetta's announcement of the reversal of policy regarding women in combat. Somehow, I kind of doubt that you know why I was thrilled. But in proof certain that Fred and I are, like Sven and The Castafiore, cut from the same cloth, we shared the rationale of gladness. If Hawks, usually of the TeaBagger sort, truly are outraged at the thought of Cindy Lou in a body bag, maybe they will temper their Hawkishness. Maybe, probably at a subconscious level, they will avoid armed conflict and war, the better to avoid Cindy Lou sloshing around in black plastic and a pine coffin.
Yes, we all know women have been involved in "front line" combat for a long while now, particularly since the "front line" so rarely exists any longer. Cindy Lou driving a Maintenance Vehicle in support of a fighting outfit is at much on the "front line" as the men she is following. And, as Rep. Tammy Duckworth hilariously pointed out, she did not lose her legs in "a bar fight."
There is another side to me (at least one other!), though, that also concurs with Duckworth and other career military women -- their career advancement has been diverted and denied because of a failure to recognize their actual battle experience, or through denying them that "opportunity." Honestly, we are talking less about hand-to-hand, muzzle-to-muzzle nonsense than we are more strategic jobs. And man, do I wish the machomacho men spewing idiocies would calm down and read the provision more closely -- the physical requirements for any combat positions are not going to be changed. Anorexic and weak-kneed Cindy Lous are not going to attempt lugging Big Bad Linebacker Lou to safety after he's been hit by enemy fire.
I'd have to go check my facts and I don't feel like it at the moment (ahh, the integrity of my blogging), but I believe the Israelis chose to remove women from front line positions after a study revealed that male soldiers' attention became all addlepated when faced with decisions such as choosing which fallen soldier to attend to first, as a medic, when one was a woman, and the other a man. Yeah, well. There are many fogs to war.
What else? Oh, I will miss Tom Harkin. He did good work.
Oh, and I like the bangs.
I disagree with the ruling about Presidential appointments during congressional recesses. Did I hear it would be appealed to the good brothers and sisters of the Supreme Court?
I thought Hillary was masterful in her hearings. I still am using my "Hillary for President" water bottle but doubt it will still be in use by 2016. I also found think we will never know the truth of what happened that day in Benghazi, not if Hillary can help it.
The thought of the many Syrian refugees makes me want to cry, a not very useful response. And my brain is befuddled by Egypt.
I tepidly applaud Iraq's parliament in trying to prevent Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki from another term.
Okay, the truth is... I am trying to fake myself out. Do a sleight of hand against my own hands. What is really weighing on my mind... drones. Drones and Obama's hit list. I have a hit list of my own. It started as a joke. Then one day, I thought about it. Given the chance, the right circumstance, yes, I would pull the trigger to take out one of those who made my list. And I'd accept the consequences, which I imagine would occur faster than I could blink. I like, too, the idea of taking someone out without the loss of so many military pawns, foot-soldiers, kids, fighting under some ridiculous cover story. And "collateral damage" makes me weep and want to hide for shame.
Some folks need killing in the worst way.
All right, yes. I also have the vague suspicion of a suggestion of a soupçon that killing of any sort is wrong. That killing without the courtesy of a look-in-the-eye is cowardly. (Oh, scratch that last sentence. I don't believe that. I made it up. I lied.)
These are the types of issues that send me back to White's Book of Merlyn.
There are so many things about which we all think, about which we do not speak.
An amazing segue, on par, even with "anyway..."!
Cat stories, that's what we need! Here is an update and a FAIL cat video, starring The One, The Only BUDDY -- all in an effort to save this headache of a blog post!
Okay, whom shall we update first. Marmy FluffyButt? Yes. Why not? She is beginning to warm up to me again, although at the rate she's warming, I'll be stiff and cold by the time this feline decides I'm worth giving another chance. Ever since I was put in charge of treating her chronically infected and leaky eyeball, she has cast me into the outer reaches of Hell. And I don't think Marmy's Hell is the more accessible "circle" or ring. She spurns Dante. "Nine circles of suffering? For having put stinging goop into mein eyeball? The outer atomic layer of the ninth circle does not approach sufficiency of suffering, although the theme is correct, since daring to touch mein eyeball does line up well with Judecca, the hooman Alighieri's spot for flaming Iscariots..." When I heard her say *that*, well, shivers went up my spine. Her geometrical preference is less for spheres and more for one e-t-e-r-n-a-l line.
But she remains sweet, in spite of the damning obsession 'n all. Especially after the sun goes down, at which time she has had a good 12-hour nap, and greets her humans as if they were long lost pals. She will let me rub her beautiful head, scratch her silky chin, and lightly pull on her magnificent poofy tail. She thinks Fred, Bianca, Sven, the Cabana Boy, and all of the Manor Domestic Staff are the greatest. Whether she will ever cuddle next to moi again is doubtful. {sniff}
Dobby! He continues to bring a smile to the face of all he meets and greets. If he failes to meet and greet you, it is because, being a very small animal, he is frightened and is hiding in my closet, where stress is making him shed profusely on all of my clean clothes.
We've always been able to hear The Dobster approach, even from as far away as the Over-Sized Pink Opalescent Gala Ballroom. His toenails made a pleasant tap-tap-tap and he could never figure out his continual failure in sneakiness. Suddenly, one day last week, I watched him pass by me and realized that I heard... nothing. Thinking that the Good Lord had decided I needed deafness added to the Affliction List, I consulted with Fred (whom I could hear, O Hosanna!) and he could no longer hear the tap-tap-tap of Dobby, either.
Putting the little guy under surveillance, it turned out that he is assiduously pulling off the ends of his not so talon-like talons.
All the better to tippy-toe behind his frequent attacker, the huge Buddy Boy, and enjoy the thrills of jumping on his head for a change. Last night, I even saw him tear by the overgrown kitten, who, hearing not a sound, never even knew he'd been bested.
Dobby continues his late night howling, and we've narrowed the causes down to two: a continual mourning for our beloved Sammy and/or an annoying demand that we break out the laser dot toy.
Both are a bit distressing. It's time for him to simply think fondly on Sweet Sammy, and when we do break out the laser dot toy, he no longer wishes to chase it, but settles down in an old-fart-in-a-raggedy-barcalounger pose so as to better enjoy the light show. He leaves the chasing to Buddy, who is thrilled to do it and chases with abandon, albeit also with some confusion, and to Marmy, who has but one plan of attack -- to eat that damned red dot. She gulps enough air in the chase to cause hours of entertaining burping.
As for updating Buddy's growing fan base on the Maine Coon's progress? Lordy, lordy. EVERYTHING is a game. Therefore, we are often thankful to have undertaken the "soft paw" training when he was truly a baby. Otherwise, we'd have even deeper and many more scratches from all the "play."
It turns out he suffers a bit from separation anxiety. Because of his constant desire to "play," and this desire's inappropriateness around all the Haddock antique treasure in the Manor, he is restricted to our Private Quarters. Most of the time, it is Fred who takes off in Ruby, and since I'm typically ensconced in bed, he's okay -- though he does visibly perk up upon Fred's return. But should the both of us leave for a bit, we return to find the neediest cat west of the Lone Alp. It is very sweet but makes me sad that he is upset, ever. He's such a happy guy, you see.
His latest Life Adventure is, unfortunately, his first ailment. Thankfully, it is but a runny and irritated eye. I am guessing that the newly self-declawed Dobby may have whacked him in the face, though you can never rule out lightening-fast Marmy FluffyButt. In any event, Fred is gently putting medication in his eye -- and Buddy seems cognizant of this as help and not attack. As we say so often around here, and to almost anyone, cat or human: "What a good boy!"
So, let me close this potpourri of a post with a FAIL video of Buddy the Outrageously Large Kitten, and his refusal to stuff himself in a box. As the YouTube title explains, "Buddy is no Maru."
I'm going out on a limb and declaring someone's search for "baclofen porn" to be the weirdest search of this blog to date. Baclofen is a drug for spasticity. Baclofen porn? I cannot even imagine what that means, but I'd love to know. So... whomever you are, s'plain yourself!
Late last night, I decided to reintroduce myself to some of the minor technology that has piled up in our well-appointed apartments here in the West Wing of Marlinspike Hall. Won't bore you with long stories about Best Buy, UPS, Amazon... but will divulge that they did not come off as brilliant marketers over the holidays.
I had trouble sleeping so I loaded and tweaked and played with a new mp3 player that will hold more than the 6 songs my last one managed. I did the tweaking and playing part of that in the soft swinging hammock of the velvety dark -- and was repeatedly attacked by one Buddy, the outrageously large kitten, our Maine Coon. He's undergoing yet another growth spurt and that means, too, a certain recidivism in his behaviors, mostly chewing -- wires, anything plastic, doors, canes, wheelchair wheels. I got him settled down, eventually, by doing what he cannot resist -- toy with his elastic ears. Pulling them, scratching them, praising their magnificence. I set the player to a 60-minute sleep mode, blew all the tension out of my body via my mouth, and let my mind go with the music.
The little faker. Five minutes into my relaxation, KABOOM. Imagine Buddy landing on your chest, claws clawing, vocalizing like a feline maniac, going after those noisy little wires, yanking the earbuds from your aural cavity with fierce violence.
He's fascinated with music. Or noise. Fred bought an old spinet piano several weeks ago, and Buddy lurks as Fred pecks at the newly tuned keys, looking over his shoulder, trying to find a way inside (what is a piano, after all, but a big box?). He walks on the keys, jumping straight in the air sometimes at the sound he himself produced.
Yeah, so another piece of electronics that mocks me is the video camera, I loved my little Flip thingy, but I also dropped it into a sink full of hot soapy water. The new one, refurbished, is a mainstream model, meaning: it's not for me! I can't get my hands to find one ergonomic boon in the design of the thing.
So, of course, we decide we're gonna make a movie of Buddy and the Piano. I dug through piles of buzzing, whirring electronic gadgets, found the camcorder, and did a test shot of the Maine Coon flexing his paws and claws in preparation for a Beethoven piece he's been practicing.
Then, of course, as we proceeded in solemn cortège to the funky spinet piano (for which Fred has yet to purchase a bench), and Fred began a rousing version of Oh My Darling Clementinewhile the cat lolled on the cat tree just behind Fred's right shoulder. Buddy mostly stared (glumly, very glumly) at me and the stupid camera.
The stupid camera's battery died.
Okay, fine. So this morning, after the Night of MP3 Battles, I figured I would get the now properly charged camera out for some practice. It requires too much of my hands but practice can occasionally improve performance, I hear.
But I only produced nonsense. So, of course, I am posting it, with these caveats:
1. I know my house is a mess, so hush;
2. No, I do not abuse Miss Marmy Fluffybutt, I don't care what she tells the SPCA;
3. I know my filming skills suck, thankyouverymuch (see aphorism about "practice" above)
4. Fred was worshiping with the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists;
5. Yes, I know my feet and hands don't "look right." I have CRPS, you ninny;
6. I'm really sorry for posting junk... but I am bored and the only other things to do right now are dishes, laundry, and vacuuming;
7. Ignore the raspy voiced narrator, she is an idiot.
Oh, and I promise not to encourage Buddy in his interest in the microwave.
okay, so this video is even worse than i imagined... also, i forgot that youtube won't accept (from me, at present) vids longer than 10 minutes. so you missed the update of my feet. have no fear, we'll capture some beauty shots of those things at the end of my legs.
Recent mentions of Buddy, the Freakishly Large Kitten (adopted with not even an inkling of a suspicion that he was a Maine Coon, the sort that do not achieve adult size until their third year...) have made me a sentimental fool. So it's a Buddy Retrospective!
I have no shame. It's 1:30 in the morning -- no, wait! It's but a half hour after midnight -- and I feel... catty.
The seemingly diminutive kitten...
....meets the Dobster for the first time:
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So I thought I'd do a very little mopping. Buddy thought he'd help.Clearly, the following things are true in BuddyLand:1. Nothing bad can happen on Buddy's Blanket. Buddy, himself, has positioned (and repositioned, ad infinitum) said Blanket with an eye toward strategic advantage. It lies next to the refrigerator, a tremendous source of wonder for him, and, paradoxically, warmth. The little square of cloth is always carefully situated between the trash can, from which goodies may fall, and the Food and Water Bowls, the center of Buddy's Universe.2. Only an attack on the Food and Water Bowls is sufficient cause to go to war.3. While #2 is true, it is also true that he who fights and runs away, maylive to fight another day. These conflicting truths make the decision to go to war much too much of a decision for a very small animal and leaves only #1 as uncompromisingly reliable -- Nothing bad can happen on Buddy's Blanket.
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Buddy the Kitten versus The Blanket
[my favorite captured moment]
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Ah, do you remember his "soft paw" training, for which foresight we are thankful several times a day?
Soft Paws. I was able to make two very short videos of Buddy's training. As usual, what I recorded turned out to be aberrant from the norm. Dobby has become jealous of the Big-Little Guy and so his pink nose turns up quite close to the camera every time. He's a bit of a diva. And Marmy even has decided that there must be something inherently rewarding about this camera business, but when she pops up (she's the one who always looks a little confused), that scares Buddy in the extreme. Her terrorism of him, early and often, is now paying its dividends. In one of these videos, he has turned to chase the beloved mouse, after successfully tapping my hand at the Soft Paw command, and then he FREEZES. That would be because Marmy Fluffy Butt decided to appear, just out of camera range. It is a testimonial to her ridiculous power that the kitten nearly ceases to breathe, holds his crouch, and -- though we cannot see them -- allows his pupils to madly dilate as he points like a Bracco Italiano after feathered game in old Lombardy.
I've come to dearly love Buddy's face. He is so clueless, you might think. You might even hold this wrongheaded opinion for six months or so, and who could blame you? Because until you have the chance to watch his cagey self on video -- hitting rewind with frequency -- you are fooled by the vacant expression, the goofy grin.
He's sly, this one.
He has developed little tics as he plays Soft Paw Fetch. He wants to NOT tap my hand. Or if he gives in, and goes for a tap, he wants to claw me to death, just a little. But then he won't get the mouse. So he bobs and weaves, ducks his head, does a little rope-a-dope.
If you see Buddy tap my hand but not receive the Fetch reward of a Tossed Mouse, it's because he forgot the soft part of the command. When that happens, he does sometimes have to do some Quality Control calibrations, the first of which is always to offer his head as a paw replacement. This is terribly important to him, so I give him verbal praise, but repeat the request for a Soft Paw. It's cool, watching him weigh how much he wants what, what he's willing to do, etcetera.
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Next we have the Old Married Couple Series. These are three videos of Dobby and Buddy, who suddenly have decided to promulgate peace, love, and understanding instead of trying to wipe each other from the face of the planet. Okay, so Buddy is something of a recidivist, as he goes for Dobby's throat in the second video -- but he gets over the impulse and is soon right back to being a perversely large kitten, and all cuddly again in the third take.
As usual, please ignore the audio. Seriously, it's embarrassing.
