The Retired Educator Does Australian Folk Songs and Is Sad

"Curses, foiled again!"

Snidely Whiplash just won't be deterred, even though Dudley Do-Right almost always emerges triumphant in the more cartoonish arenas of my life.

Why, yes, I am Nell Finwick!

Yes, this is The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show!

I am pretty sure that I did not blog about The Smell.

You'd likely not even miss a beat, as often as I bemoan the fartings and stinky poops of our caterie here at Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé.

Perhaps it is worth taking a moment to assure you that I keep a clean and pleasant Manor. Honest!

No, The Smell to which I refer now came from my suture line -- the incision from last Monday, July 6.

It would have made an entertaining video clip: I kept smelling something cloyingly sweet. Not bad, exactly, just not familiar. Funny thing was that I never smelled it when I went investigating to my *right* -- and when I took off after it by going left, well, I ended up going in circles.

Yes, I am an idiot.

When I realized the source of the odor, this Brainiac also realized that the site had been itching, as well. In terms of pain? I was guarding the shoulder but trying to cut back on post op pain meds. To be frank (echos of "Mr. Pus? Mr. Frank Pus? White courtesy telephone!"), I don't trust my own pain evaluations anymore. Sometime in the past year or so, I became a wimp.

Finally, I decided to remove the dressing, clean the area, and rebandage it. My surgeon prefers that I leave undisturbed the bandage he puts on the morning of discharge from the hospital until I come in for my first post op appointment. (Tuesday, July 21)

Okie-dokie, then!

Imagine the speed with which I threw body and soul into Denial when I saw what amounted to fresh yellowish and bloody drainage... Fresh, having absorbed into the ABD bandage as a shape slightly larger than a dollar bill.

I carefully tended to it, and used good technique in getting it redressed.

I whistled while I worked.

In a bid for sympathy, I showed The Fredster the painterly evidence, and recounted my tale of stinky woe. Perhaps I failed to mention the continuing fever and sweats, the inability to sleep due to pain. Whatever I said, he encouraged me to call the surgeon first thing in the morning.

Well... the next morning, the drainage was only the size of a quarter (What *is* this compulsion to size the Rorschach blots on bandages by comparing them with monetary currency?).

To me, that clearly indicated that -- in lieu of a phone call -- the situation merited a downgrade to email communication. I may have mentioned my aversion to telephones in times of stress? No?

So I shot off this email to my ortho's main squeeze:

Hi Suzie Q --

I have a small problem.

Surgery was 7.6.2009 and I've been doing well -- the post op pain has been a problem only when I use the arm too much, and even though I still am having low grade fevers and sweats, I am also on Zyvox which ought to kill anything.

No problems with the dressing until yesterday, when the wound started to smell a bit (kind of a sweet smell), and itch. I decided to change the dressing and clean the area. Most everything on the bandage was dry and old, except for an area at the bottom of the incision that was draining serosanguinous (pink, some yellow?) stuff.

There was a fair amount that had absorbed into the ABD pad -- a little more than the size of a dollar. I just checked it -- after about 12 hours now, the bandage has about a silver-dollar size circle of the... stuff. There is no pus or anything like that and the incision looks perfectly normal to me except for the area at the bottom where the seepage is being produced -- and, still, that slight smell.

If you think I should come in to be seen at the clinic before my scheduled appt with Bob next week, then I'll certainly come. However, I have an appointment Thursday afternoon with one of Dr. Infectious DiseaseDood's PAs. I am comfortable waiting until then, unless this gets worse, in the hopes that they'll culture it and give me an informed opinion about what to do.

What do you think?

Thanks very much,
Retired Educator

Four hours later, I sent her this, effectively refusing to take responsibility for myself, and backing out of any further investigation:

Hi again --

After all of that, I think the drainage has stopped!

I put a new ABD pad on at about 7 am this morning and now, at 11:30, it is completely clean and dry.

Sorry to have bothered you --
RE
I am perturbed with myself, since the issue was hardly resolved just because I went four hours without a dime or 1913 buffalo nickel's worth of serosanguinous drainage.

There should have been no drainage at all, and certainly not with onset a week after the surgery! Then, of course, there's the issue of nearly two years spent chasing pathogens and other deleterious tiny things. Fever, sweats, pain, drainage. There's no need to page Gregory House.

Today, I went 12 hours without drainage. So I took the damn thing off -- it's hot and sticky, and I just couldn't be bothered, HARRUMPH.

A few minutes ago, I went in to take my sponge bath, a task that feels so good once completed, but seems like it just might kill you while you're in the middle of it -- and what did I see but evidence that there had been another attempted breakout from Axilla Prison.

Whether from the sudden whammy of depression or from the fever I was spiking, I don't know, but I began to shake. I was all a-wobbolly.

Never needing much of an excuse, a break from sanity seemed in order (La Bonne et Belle Bianca was out, having resumed rehearsals with her opera company; Fred was at a Church Supper, hopefully to quash and tear assunder the slutty overtures of The Church Lady ) -- and I paused for a rousing rendition of Waltzing Mathilda. Follow the bouncing ball and sing along with Mitch!

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?",
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,
"You'll never catch me alive", said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me."
"Oh, You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me."

And so, tomorrow at the InfectiousDiseaseDood's Place, I will come clean, do a show-and-tell with a little shoulder, a little leg, a little shoulder, a little leg...

Because, dear friends, the game is [again] afoot with these doggone titanium implants: My new prosthesis is infected, Zyvox be damned.

And I am so sad.

Therefore, brethren, let us bring this Pity Party to a timely close with a rousing rendition of Along the Road to Gundagai.


There's a track winding back
to an old-fashioned shack,
Along the road to Gundagai.
Where the gum trees are growin'
and the Murrumbidgee's flowin'
beneath the starry sky.
Oh my mother and daddy are waitin' for me
And the pals of my childhood once more I will see
And no more will I roam 'cos I'm headin' right for home
Along the road to Gundagai.*


*"Along The Road To Gundagai is a song written by Jack O'Hagan in 1922. It is well-known among Australians, and one of a small number of pieces which could be considered an Australian folk tune. The town of Gundagai is a rural town of New South Wales, Australia. In May 2001 the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, named "Along the Road to Gundagai" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time." -- Wikiwikiwikiwikipeeeeeedeeeeeeyahhhh!
**************************************************************************************************
UPDATE -- Thursday, 16 July 2009
Jesus H. Christ, do I hate the InfectiousDiseaseDood's office. Ah, but that is neither here nor there, and certainly is not news.
ID-Dood made the bacteriologist -- who identified a gram positive bacteria in the stain (but not culture) from the "deep tissue" sample taken during last week's surgery -- take another look.
I can hear him saying, in his very precise way: "Check your work! Please and Thank You!"
The guy changed his freaking little, tiny mind and now says he sees no pesky pathogens after all. For most people, that'd be great news, cause for a celebration, even. For me and my medicos? It's yet another sucker punch.
ID-Dood's PA talked over me, and over me, and over me. She's ask a question, I'd start to answer, she'd start talking, I'd stop. Again and again, until I finally stopped even trying. She cultured the fluid still drip-drip-dripping out of the suture line. She ordered blood cultures and the usual labs. (I was febrile and tachy -- yawn.)
Their phlebotomist is a sweetheart of a man. He had to stick me four times and was upset with himself -- but really he did well, given what he had to work with. He even managed to get an extra tube, "just in case." Mostly, he's a pleasure because he's... normal. Nice to talk with, very professional but with a great sense of humor. Talks to the blood vessels, encourages the blood to flow. (Maybe he needs to break out of the lab for some fresh air.)
So... here I am, left hanging. Fred is oh-so-frustrated. The PA kept making blithe comments like: "Well, you should be used to this by now!" and "You should write a book, telling people how to deal with stuff like this." Good thing she cannot read minds.
I reiterated, just to have something of note to say, that I will NOT give up this implant. I told her that I needed them to get "creative." She took umbrage. [Was saying that rude? I didn't mean to insult anyone, just wanted it clear: I WILL NOT GIVE UP THIS IMPLANT, I don't care how infected is the bone.]
Fred thought of something that has me laughing out loud. I got the hospital bill today -- $40,800, with the prosthesis constituting $13,000 of that charge for a 3-day stay. He pointed out that they've removed two -- in August and then December 2008 -- and suggested that I should ask for them back! To my incredulous, "but what do I want with titanium shoulder implants that aren't... implanted?" -- he answers, "You bought 'em, they're yours!"
Cracked me up!
So. We wait. On cultures and labs. On next weeks' assessment by the surgical crowd. Once again, no one wants to be in charge.
For your inner crooner's pleasure, today we turn to the Music Outback Foundation and some fresh young Bush Bards:

Bush Bus
Written by: Students & teachers from Apungalindum & Aniltji HLC
with Matt Hill, Music Outback Education
(C)(P) 2006 Music Outback Foundation

Verse 1
The bus goes through sand and water,
The bus is old and slow.
The bus goes through hot and cold,
It's full of kids we know.

Verse 2
Josilyn sitting in the front,
Randall's happy anywhere,
Riding along the bus is old,
Laughing along without a care

Chorus
Bush bus, bush bus
Take us to school
Bush bus, bush bus
You're so cool.

Verse 3
Little kids, big kids say thank you,
We will miss you goodbye bus,
Bouncing like a Kangaroo,
Thank you for being so good to us.

Joie de vivre!

It's Sunday morning and the fur is flying, as feline jealousies are in high gear. I am a "dog person," and so, of course, we have four cats.

Sam-I-Am considers himself mistreated and abandoned since we took in Uncle Kitty Big Balls back in May. Sammy is an impressive-looking cat, having cultivated a James-Deanesque sort of bemused glower. If there is such a glower.

He has been with us the longest, joining us after Dear Prudence passed away... when? Wow. It's been ten years. He came along to pester Monaghan -- Monaghan deserves a post all his own -- such a gentle giant. He was our Nurse Cat. He loved music. The Fredster brought him home as a "surprise" one Thanksgiving morning -- he appeared to be nothing but long, black, matted hair and proved his quality by enduring his first brushing with dignity. His death was very hard on Fred -- it came at a time when he was dealing with his diagnosis of adult ADHD, the loss of a job, my usual dramas, a new house -- beaucoup de stuff. Monaghan sort of marked the trajectory of his personal journey. Fred could not accept that the sweet thing was very, very ill and I had the awful task of forcing him to the vet, knowing that Monaghan would not come home again.

Among many other Monaghan Mysteries, we could never figure out how he managed to have such cold, minty breath.

Dear Prudence was a great influence on this oh-so-serious animal, as she was just a lovely ditzer. Sadly, she wasn't with us long. She apparently had a stroke that sunny summer day... and the forensic-inclined vet who examined her just minutes after her death opined that she may have had an undiagnosed seizure disorder. I miss the little thing. She was so naturally tiny that the shelter from which we adopted her was unsure of her actual age. Turns out they were a little off, the vet, too -- or Prudy set a record for Youngest Estrus. We were holding off on having her spayed because the vet refused to operate on such a young kitten. Ar ar ar!

The poor thing clawed her way out of a window screen in the middle of the night and when we managed to corral her the next day, she had obviously experienced a great deal of sexual trauma. As in gang rape.

Dear Prudence loved pretending she needed saving -- from trees, rooves, car tops, boulders. Typical girly-girl.

Sam-I-Am was born in a Walmart store. His mother was hit by a car after being chased outside, and her kittens were promptly delivered to the local shelter. Sammy was pitiful -- covered in fleas to an extent I'd not thought possible, really too young and tiny for adoption (but we're so glad they fudged the numbers for us!).

[beep:beep:beep: John McCain is on Meet the Press. His response to the implications of the burgeoning Cheney scandal and the possibility of an investigation: "What's the positive that could come from dragging this out in public when we already know bad things were done?"

Damn straight! Why examine our conscience -- I mean, we *get* it, already: Big goofs, they happen!

As for Sarah Palin and her baling out of the discomforts of governance? "I wasn't shocked. A bit surprised... I am confident she will be a major factor on the national scene..." And, explaining her reasons for resigning, as laid out by Palin in a breathy private phone call: "How can she best serve?" It is all about finding the best place, the most effective position, from which to wield her intricate policies. Warming to his mental notecards, McCain then goes on to blame the media, the ethics charges, and "sustained personal attacks." He does a fine jig when asked why he won't back her candidacy for future office.

Dance, John, dance!

David Gregory: "Knowing everything you know now, would you nominate her again?" Pirouetting, doing a great job of spotting as he whips around, McCain says: "Absolutely, absolutely." Said with the stiffest smile I've ever seen.

She really *owes* this man for his kindness, for his reticence to say what we all already know.

Looking more closely, though, I think he is either suffering eye strain or communicating in dotty dashes of blinking -- yes, Morse code blinking!

Calling on my somewhat rusty code skills, here is McCain's Morse text, translated:

.--. .- .-.. .. -. / - --- .-. .--. . -.. --- . -.. / -- -.-- / -.-. .- -. -.. .. -.. .- -.-. -.-- .-.-.- / ... .... . / .. ... / .- -. .- - .... . -- .- .-.-.- / .-. ..- -. --..-- / .-. ..- -. --..-- / .. / ... .- -.-- --..-- / .. -. / - .... . / --- .--. .--. --- ... .. - . / -.. .. .-. . -.-. - .. --- -. .-.-.- / .. -. / - .... . / .-- --- .-. -.. ... / --- ..-. / ... .- --. .- -.-. .. --- ..- ... / --. .- -. -.. .- .-.. ..-. ---... / ..-. .-.. -.-- --..-- / -.-- --- ..- / ..-. --- --- .-.. ... .-.-.-

On the need for additional troops in Afghanistan: "Let's not go back to a Rumsfeld war..." Hmm. When was the last Rumsfeld sighting? And... John, how are we to avoid the repetition of such errors if we don't give them a good airing, a close and public look? It's not that there is a subset of the citizenry jonesing for some bitchslapping of the Bush administration for its more criminal endeavors... Oh, wait. Yes, there is such a group of reprobates! That's precisely what I want, for instance.

Despite his tendency for duplicity, I still like McCain and will never understand why he shot himself, again, in the foot last time out, reviving doubts about his judgment and temperament.

John, remember to spot as you turn, else all that spinning will make you dizzy. Whip, whip, whip! beep:beep:beep]

Um, anyway. Choo choo?

After Monaghan died, the entire household here at Marlinspike Hall, deep deep in the Tête de Hergé, seemed to age and become somewhat musty. There was a lot of sneezing and blowing-of-the-noses. Sam-I-Am began to put on weight and undertook a deep study of cat-napping.

It was at this point that a rather ragtag pair of siblings began to haunt the moat area of The Manor: now known as Uncle Kitty Big Balls and his sister, the mercurial Marmy. In a creative stretch, they are also known as Little Boy and Little Girl. Okay, and occasionally: Pickle Head and Fluffy Butt. Then there is the ubiquitous unisexual appellation of Stinky Boy/Girl. Trust me, this family line has produced some bodacious foul odor producers.

This served to drive Sammy nuts -- his nose gone into overdrive, haunted by the markings exterior to Marlinspike Hall that easily invaded his space through the as-yet-to-be-repaired late Renaissance chinking, especially pervasive in our wing. (Spring cleaning usually keeps us busy twelve months out of twelve...) We plan to spend the $70 per 3 1/2 gallon bucket next "spring" and use PeneTreat: Log Home Preservative: "PeneTreat by Sashco is a borate-based wood preservative that forms a shell of protection to defend against rot, most wood-destroying insects and fungi." Yes, we are borrowing a page from those intrepid North American pioneers.

C. h. o. o.

And so it went that Miss Marmy turned up preggers. Huge, sway-backed -- a real test of her tiny body and mind. We couldn't let her remain out in the open, struggling to feed herself and escape outdoor dangers. Enter Miss Marmy!

She defies description. I'll not even try.

At eight months old, she delivered a litter of five kittens: Speckle-Belly-White-Foot, Fuzz Bucket, Little Girl, Mascara, and the one, the only Dobby. All were adopted out, eventually, except for Dobby. We kept him -- The Runt, and Our Little Idiot. That'd be him on the far right.



Sammy's head was likely spinning. He went from a staid life with Monaghan, and virtually free reign over a whole section of The Manor, to cohabitating with a Hormone Freak of Nature, to the truly terrifying period of dealing with Marmy -- and her pronounced lack of maternal instincts --
and the cinq chatons.

Once we adopted out the four -- life settled down for our Walmart hero, and life became good. Marmy remained aloof but still was young at heart and soon was racing like an addled nutjob down spiral staircases and leaping among the Caravaggio collection. Dobby proved to be a stellar little guy and definitely came to love Sammy -- seeking him out for play and nuggling.

Um, it was also a time of sexual experimentation for our now completely sterile brood. Sammy and Dobby continue to have periods of confusion about their orientation. Progressive and open-minded as we, of course, are? We don't judge and only intervene when Sammy's weirder efforts begin to elicit cries of fear and pain on the part of his little boy-toy.

Then... Uncle Kitty Big Balls began to come around again. I had thought him dead. And he looked pretty close to dead, closer with every subsequent visit.

In late April, as I lay in the ICU, hooked up to a ventilator, Fred came to my bedside looking all emotional and distraught. "Awww," thought I, "he is really worried about me, poor guy..."

"I need to talk to you about something important," he began. Calling it a "talk" was certainly a stretch, given that I had a tube down my throat...

"Little Boy came by The Manor today, begging for food. He could barely walk. I think one of his back legs is broken. He looks bad, real bad... I want to rescue him. I know you are, really, a dog person (Ha! And here you thought I had totally lost my train of thought -- choo to you!) and that we already have three cats, but I hope you will say it is okay."

After one of the nurses increased my oxygen and suctioned the hell out of my bronchs, gave me a little something for pain, re-positioned me, and fluffed a pillow or two... I held out my thumb, in the "up" position... and so it went. Had I a clue what I was approving? Not really. Some Dilaudid delusion...

Several thousand dollars and a few surgeries later (which NO, we could not afford but *did*, anyway, out of love for this strange little guy fighting for his life), Uncle Kitty Big Balls rounded out the feline contingent. He's almost alien in the depth of his affection for us; He seems to understand that he was at death's door and that The Fredster saved him. Me? I am some sort of side dish that he cannot quite comprehend. He thinks the wheelchair is a demonic vehicle out to run him down. Sometimes he is right.

It warms our hearts to see him playing, to have him curl up as tightly and as close as possible. He has begun to gain weight and his fur is coming back in.

So he is a little over the top in his rough-housing. So he will eat everyone's food so that he won't be hungry ever again. So he didn't seem to understand the point of the litter boxes, at first.

The others need a little toughening up -- and so long as it is done without malice, we let Pickle Head swat at them to his heart's content. It's an invitation to chase, to begin a round of hide-and-seek.

Still, when I wake, as I did this morning, to piles of cat hair all over Captain Haddock's antique Karabagh rug and a whole bunch of waling going on? Especially now, when I can barely move without cursing because the "good" shoulder is even dillydallying with the Pain Scale?

I smile at the intricacies of their relationships, at their liveliness. Sammy looks like a kitten, Dobby is trying out a little assertiveness and is thrilled with himself. Marmy so admires her fluffy butt. And Uncle Kitty Big Balls is simply pure joie-de-vivre!

48 Minutes Ago OR The Tip of the Iceberg

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project

By SCOTT SHANE 48 minutes ago

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.

The question of how completely the C.I.A. informed Congress about sensitive programs has been hotly disputed by Democrats and Republicans since May, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to reveal in 2002 that it was waterboarding a terrorism suspect, a claim Mr. Panetta rejected.

The law requires the president to make sure the intelligence committees “are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.” But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be done “to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters.”

In addition, for covert action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says that briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Okay, so I threw in "torture" as a tag.

Call it habit.

I'm just sayin'

I'm home!*

The Good Doctor ShoulderMan worked his magic on Monday, gifting me with a new left shoulder. He had to do some rearranging but he made it work.

But, of course, this being me (me, under the everloving influence of La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, both of us under the magic skies deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé) -- well.

Well, on the "deep tissue" stain, we finally found bacteria waving back at us, all gram-positive-y, upbeat, and downright defiant. But, of course, this being me (me, under the everloving influence of La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, both of us under the magic skies deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé)-- Wait one freaking minute! (The fog of anesthesia?)

As of Day 2, there was, natch, no growth on culture! My Infectious Disease Dood's eyes are bugging out. Bless his bones, he cannot decide when, and how much, to lie to me -- in his mind, I think, he sees this as "managing" the patient.

Because, you see, I refused insertion of a PICC line. They thought I was just posturing, joshing, when I made the declaration before surgery. But, of course, this being me (me, under the everloving influence of La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, both of us under the magic skies deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé) -- arg! Sorry about that, and je vous prie de bien vouloir m'excuser, too -- covering all my bases.

So, Infectious Disease Dood decides that I need Zyvox, a ridiculously expensive antibiotic that just happens to have serious interaction issues with 3 of my meds, as well as some nasty side effects all on its own. The deciding factor? Insurance coverage, as the $1500/week cost doesn't fit my very tired budget. Anyway... Fred and I think it was all a plot. As in, ID Dood was expecting BCBS -- Bull Crap Bull Skeet of Tête-de-Hergé -- to refuse coverage.

I was held hostage, told I could not leave the hospital without either the Zyvox or a PICC line with trusty i.v. med balls full of vancomycin.

[I know that it's overkill for the vanco hyperlink to refer back to this blog, but it astonished me, upon searching, to find out how much vancomycin has occupied my life and mind, and what it has come to signify. Allow me that rare {raspy cough} professorial moment of recommending a read of Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5. Wunnerful wunnerful commentary --

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

I'm just sayin'.]

Fools! They didn't know with whom they were messing. Once Fred, all bleary-eyed and pooped, arrived... well, we were hell-bent on leaving the hearsepital. At that point, ID Dood and His ID Minions began weaving tangled webs.

Case managers arrived. All nurses with decision-making capacity suddenly were off the floor, scarfing down lunch. And didn't I wish to order lunch? And, uh-oh, the medication you must take before eating hasn't come up from pharmacy. Let's get a blood sugar and another set of vitals! And then they sneak in: They'll be up to put in the line in about 2 hours, no need to go down to Interventional Radiology, how great is that? [I despise the huge, cold, scary room down in IR.]

They promise a nirvana-inducing insertion, complete with a soundtrack. And lest I scoff, they cite:

PICC the Music and Travel to the Port of Relaxation: Preliminary Results of the Effects of Music on Perceived Pain and Anxiety During the Placement of Ports and PICCs
Journal of Radiology Nursing, Volume 26, Issue 2, Pages 61-62
C. McDaniel, M. Burkett, M. Cormier, J. Duvallm, S. Davis, L. East, G. Gilmer, N. Mahaffey, M. Moran

Giggle.

We left. Politely. Give me a call when you all figure out the antibiotic situation, okay?

Amazingly, BCBS of Tête de Hergé decided to fork over the money and my pharmacist, who inexplicably informs me that "[i]t's like déja-vu," promises that I'll have these ridiculous little white tablets by noon the next day.

My BCBS policy, for which I pay $1328/month [Remember: my (private) disability income is a whopping $1996.20. Without that luxurious twenty extra cents, all would be lost!] -- My policy dictates that I pay for medications and then receive reimbursement of whatever they think arbitrarily fair.

So what a hoot it was to have Discover Card's Fraud Unit calling me, all breathless. Did I know that a $3030.00 charge was just made at the nearby Huge Grocery Chain? That was for a mere 14 days worth, ID Dood suggesting I buy the Zyvox in 2 wk lots, in case I need to stop it for some reason or other. Anyway, to the inquiry about the charge:

"Yep!" said I.

There was a tremendous pause. It was absolutely KILLING the woman on the other end of the line to not be told WHAT I had bought. So she rephrased the question, and, on cue, reiterated the pregnant pause.

"That's right!" I crowed. Her frustration was now palpable.

Why not give her something to liven up the day? Let her imagine an elegant late dinner of lobster and caviar, un petit souper à la parisienne [or A Family of Sans-Culottes refreshing, after the fatigues of the day]. Just a little casse-croûte thrown together by a retired French prof whose purchase habits extended to extravagances of generic yogurt and diet cola. Okay, okay -- I also splurge on almonds and good coffee.

By the time the credit card gods were appeased, the antibacterial troops put all in a ducky row, my clothes 'n sundries put away, urgent emails answered, ablutions completed, phone calls returned? I truly felt like shit. I was febrile to the tune of 101 degrees, sweating, and hurting like the proverbial Dickens ["Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine!" -- ummm, any excuse for passing on my favorite Dickens quote].

Alas, poor Yorrick (sic), a quick and easy search about the origin of the phrase "hurts like the dickens" reveals the following:

Posted by James Briggs on December 18, 2001

In Reply to: Re: Hurts like the dickens posted by R. Berg on December 18, 2001

: : My son said this at supper tonight........."It hurt like the Dickens". We wondered if any one knows the origin? I have also heard "scared the dickens out of me". Any enlightenment would be appreciated.

: From the archives, here's a response to the same question.

: Posted by ESC on January 12, 2001:

: "Dickens" is a euphemism for "devil" as in "'what the dickens,'.an
expression common centuries before Charles Dickens was born, having been used by
Shakespeare in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'." "Morris Dictionary of Word and
Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977,
1988).

It may be an altered pronunciation of "devilkin"

En tout cas... since then, it's been a topsy-turvy time but anything beats being in the hearsepital. And, thank goodness, we only have to visit ID DoodLand once a week versus the usual three or four times.

My MDVIP Go-To-Guy? He opined in an email: "I'm glad it's over and done with. We are all a bit skeptical that this will take care of everything but please try and keep positive thoughts and prayers as we all are trying to do." I have noticed that since his switch to MDVIP, he communicates much more freely and makes frequent reference to prayer, saying that I am being kept in prayer. At first, I was somewhat taken aback. Now? I am thoroughly appreciative and almost virginal in the prose with which I write him.

However, I will visit Holy Ruin on the first person to suggest removal of this prosthesis.

I'm just sayin'.

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

*graphic of huge mouth courtesy of BENBENEK BLOG -- from an entry which consists of the following:

I’m just sayin’…
I’m pretty tired of people using the phrase “I’m just sayin’…”

Anacoluthe!

"Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon! Subtropical sea-louse! " I stared, enthralled, at her pink sweaty face while La Belle et Bonne Bianca Castafiore paused to take a breath.

"Swine! "


That apparently exhausted her reserve of beloved Captain Haddock exhortations in English, for the next thing I knew, she was belting them out in French:


"Perroquet bavard! Sale menteur!
Anacoluthe!
Analphabète!"

Clearly, she enjoys the alliteration in English, and the vagaries of a lost insult in French.

Vagaries? Maybe to us... mais pour le capitaine Haddock? No, he was schooled by Tête de Hergé himself! "Anacoluthe"? Nothing but a blurt-out? Not hardly, as the kids say.

The Blessed Wikipedia explains:

An anacoluthon is a rhetorical device that can be loosely defined as a change of syntax within a sentence. More specifically, anacoluthons (or "anacolutha") are created when a sentence abruptly changes from one structure to another. Grammatically, anacoluthon is an error; however, in rhetoric it is a figure that shows excitement, confusion, or laziness. In poetics it is sometimes used in dramatic monologues and in verse drama. In prose, anacoluthon is often used in stream of consciousness writing, such as that of James Joyce, because it is characteristic of informal human thought.

In its most restrictive meaning, anacoluthon requires that the introductory elements of a sentence lack a proper object or complement. For example, if the beginning of a sentence sets up a subject and verb, but then the sentence changes its structure so that no direct object is given, the result is anacoluthon. Essentially, it requires a change of subject or verb from the stated to an implied term. The sentence must be "without completion" (literally what "anacoluthon" means). A sentence that lacks a head, that supplies instead the complement or object without subject, is anapodoton.

And "analphabète"? Well, that's just pee-in-your-pants funny. Ah, but the poor dear was not in a joshing mood, all pink and sweaty, her violet-besotten frock-and-sash a muddled mess. Still, even at such a moment, Bianca is one of the few women whose strong calf muscles will always nicely set off a red pointy-toed stiletto pump. Such natural gifts, in fact, are divine appointments of grace in this anxiety-driven, pain-filled world of ours.

You see, la Belle et Bonne Bianca Castafiore had just been pulled over by the cops --a mere kilomètre from Marlinspike Hall, the warm hearth of home -- and given two tickets and a summons to appear on August 12. Before I could express both my wrath that she was driving my darling Ruby to begin with, and my pleasure that, whatever the circumstances, both she and Ruby were apparently unharmed, the Dastardly Diva exclaimed:

"Et c'est tout à fait de ta faute, toi! And it is all your fault!"

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Comment ça?"

It turns out that she would never have forgotten to renew her driver's license if I had not been such a distraction, with all my drama, fever, infection and such. When I pointed out that she had been absent for a good period of the "drama," and was not overly concerned when she actually had been at The Manor, she looked me square in the eye, and... sniffed.

There was a brief lull during which either one of us might have chosen the higher way and opted to be the better person.

"The only reason le flic nabbed me for speeding was that I was practicing getting you from zee Manor to zee 'opital in whatisityoucall? Ah, yes! Zee no time flat! Comme je t'ai dit, tout, tout, tout -- c'est tout à fait de ta faute!"

This may have been when I felt compelled to make a few observations relating to personal and communal responsibilities, perhaps even a remark or two on hygiene -- I don't sniffin' remember.

Even though I had promised the more levelheaded Fredster not to make mention of it, I found myself, in my best scary voice, relating how, on a frigid, late-spring, early afternoon during one of her lighthearted jaunts around Europe, icicles were glinting on the Marlinspike's eaves -- and the alluring scent of two putrid cans of half-eaten Libby's Vienna Sausage* stuffed in the serpentine bottom drawer of a 16th century French armoire -- beautifully restored as a well-stocked wet bar -- led Fred and me, on behalf of our spry-tongued seafaring benefactor (and hers) -- the good Captain Haddock -- to jimmy the lock of her appartement. {don't touch my paragraph}

Slowly she turned... her BB-gun pupils a steely grey -- "Yes? Ah. Oui?"

"Yes," I continued, "we have been inside. We have seen it with our own eyes, and we are shocked, Castafiore, shocked! Whatever could you have been thinking? What will our spry-tongued seafaring benefactor conclude when he hears about this abomination, this perversion of his family's ancestral home?"

La Belle et Bonne Bianca hung her head. Without looking up, in a steady voice, sounding well-practiced, she recounted the story of Her Fall, beginning with the unthinkable -- how the Faust of Gounod had finally, and for the first time, had a closing night -- and how all those arty Anglophiles were rubbing it in with glee: The Mousetrap wins; It has never stopped running since its premier at London's Ambassador’s Theatre in 1952.

There would be no more "je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir" until the financial wizards of the world managed to staunch the bleeding that was hemorrhaging the bottom lines of the operatic universe.

The Castafiore, out of work and desperate to continue to earn a living, fell back on her early training as itinerant seamstress to the Wandering Renaissance Reenactors of Belgium, and, unexpectedly, Wales. All that time we assumed that she was touring Faust -- and okay, yes, I was a tad bit self-absorbed with the cartography of my own navel.

Still. Still! "Bianca... How? Where did you get the money?"

"I borrowed it, it was easy. I borrow, then I borrow again, at a better rate, and swap-switch the debt. You know -- take from Peter and give to Paul and, above all, keep washing the Messiah's feet -- no one ever takes a close look at the beautiful chica whose long hair and boobies are all hanging out..." said my friend, her bitterness spilling over. "I just wanted to be able to send money back to my familia rustica, trapped down on the farms outside Roma. Is that so wrong?"

"You really have a flair, you know. If I did not know quite a bit about Chenonceau, I might have fallen for it. I mean, really, Castafiore! How much were you going to charge?"

"That is the trick, mon amie. I would ask 'only for what you can spare, to defray the costs of upkeep.' The tourists? They would squirm in guilt, they would take out their portefeuilles and fill the coffers with their monies. After all, Francois Ier is the epitome of the Renaissance... and toss about the story of Leonardo da Vinci having died in his arms, cared for during his final days in the King's own bed chamber." Her eyes were glowing; She was far away.

She and her unemployed theatre cohorts got it in their minds to gut the Captain's appartement and build a replica of Francois Ier's bedroom at Chenonceau. Never mind how confused her explanations could get in an attempt to distinguish his digs at Chenonceau from the official residence at Château de Blois, and how they managed to confuse the one with the other in her imaginary trip down the Loire Valley.

And how was she going to get people in and out of the place without stirring, umm, lots of suspicion? Easy... cut a door through the three feet of stone leading to that nice shady spot at the northern end of the moat.

We never would have seen or heard a thing.

Hard times... they surely do bring something out of people. We sat and stared at one another -- me, determined to never complain again, because that risks causing people to be carted off to jail, so abstracted are they by my constant grief, and The Castafiore? Sorry mostly at having been caught, but also regretting the end to subterfuge, she was thinking of all those nice doublets waiting to be sown and beaded at 600 Euros a pop.

*"Vienna sausages are life’s 'fuck you' waiting in the cabinet when you’re hung over and depressed..."

Palin trumps Jackson and Grader Boob wishes me well

In case any readers or passing trolls are wondering, the reason for the frenetic posting today is that surgery is tomorrow.

I am nervous.

I really should not be, given that this will be the... give me a minute... the seventh surgery done by this particular operator, since 2005. The sixth since we began this mucked-up odyssey against infection last summer.

He's talented, famous, and more importantly, he practices good medicine.

Still, despite the wrongheadedness of it, I feel like I have been primarily... lucky.

Last August, I ended up in ICU on a vent. Then again in April of this year. And through all of this, we have been unable to identify the offending organism.

I am worn down, exhausted, in a world of pain, able to do less-and-less. I am full of self-pity.

Anyway. I just got an email from Brother-Unit Grader Boob. He claims that he is taking his "organizational scheme from Governor Palin," as in:

"Before I continue with my resignation, I'd like to thank the American troops who are fighting abroad to give me the freedom to quit."

He goes on to note that, "[w]ell, at least she interrupted the Michael Jackson death watch."

Truly. Isn't it a frightening glimpse into American culture, that this woman should prove to be the newsmaker to shift a dead, mentally-ill, drug-addicted, worldwide pop icon from center stage?

Anyway, Grader Boob and I have communicated through, and hidden behind, sporting events our entire lives. I remember watching bowl games with him, snug and secure in my big brother's presence, while my family and country went about the process of disintegration. He's been an awesome brother, and I would do anything for him. You know... like if he were reading this and all, it would be nice for him to know that, trust in that.

Ahem. Anyway, he has already left Wimbledon behind (fourth set now, Roddick kicking booty in hopes of tying the match at 2 sets all) and is getting his head into Le Tour de France. Grader Boob was an accomplished cyclist. I say was because:

"Right now, I'm watching the le Tour prerace show and I look over at my cycling shorts and realize that to squeeze into them would be truly an eyesore."

He closes by telling me about the class he is teaching: "[A]pparently, they're still at the stage where they like to mutter smart ass answers under their breaths, not at all concerned about offering up a more insightful response. Hopefully, that will change as they delve into the readings. Hope springs eternal!"

He also promises that "I'll be thinking of you tomorrow, sending good thoughts up into the heavens and some semi-articulate prayers towards {Tête de Hergé}."

I couldn't be more blessed.

Words, despite my best efforts, pale.

We, The Troika* of La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, The Fredster, and myself, The Retired Educator, along with two of the four felines, watched American History X last night. The cats in question were Dobby, our little idiot, and Uncle Kitty Big Balls, Dobby's Uncle, the newest addition to the entourage. Dare I say that UKBB is the newest addition to The Troika, or would that just be... silly?

*We use, of course, the European Commission Glossary of Justice and Home Affairs definition of TROIKA: A meeting of ministers of the current past, present and future presidencies of the EU. Except that we are not, at present, current past, present and future presidents of the EU. It may be, for all you know, that we are, rather, a Russian carriage pulled by three horses abreast. Except that we were also that plus two cats. Meh! Probably? Probably, we were a Troika in the simple sense, so like a simple syrup, of three [simple] humans -- the lexically tight version of Princeton's Wordnet, which strictly specifies: Three -- the cardinal number that is the sum of one and one and one.

Were I purposefully obfuscating or trying to buy time so as to buff up something of import to say... I might posit the Wiki that Troika is a chocolate-based confection made by Nidar AS of Trondheim, Norway, using three distinct layers, hence the... okay, okay! Anyway, the top layer is soft raspberry jelly, the middle layer is truffle, and the bottom one is marzipan...

Wiki also breaks the troika down into a Russian folk dance in which a man dances with two women -- given Fred's situation, lodged as he is between myself and The Castafiore, that could be the genesis of the germ.

Or not.

As I was saying, we all professed to be left with the same feeling after the movie – and for once, I found a way of expressing it that was clair comme du cristal, même limpide comme de l'eau de roche: Mwahahahahaha!

In other words -- you know how nouns are introduced, fleshed out, amplified – so that the move to a pronoun is smooth as silk, obvious, not at all a hitch or a glitch? Well, even the ambition of seamlessness was lacking to this cinematic effort. As the vague neutral pronouns were tossed glibly about, it was like, you know, lacking clear internal reference.

I swear, when I said it last night, we all, human and feline alike, nodded – it was a case of deft, classic-prof insightfulness. Honest.

Letting all -- or any -- of that be as it may – Edward Norton delivered a virtuoso performance. The film was worth seeing just to witness his various incarnations at different ages.

But an insightful look at skinhead culture this movie was not. It was as if all meaning had been voided from terms such as neo-nazi, as if a swastika were just an arbitrary intersection of lines.

Maybe insight is not requisite.

Maybe it was enough just to play out an instance of curb stomping... about which words pale.

in real time...

9:48 am, Sunday, 5 July: Andy Roddick takes the first set!

Andy!

Like everyone else, I have always wanted to blow bubbles on Andy Roddick's belly.

He played really well today, taking Andy Murray in four sets.

He actually seems to be *executing* a game plan, mentally tough, focused -- instead of fighting through his matches in a reactionary mindset, not really controlling play.

Great service placement. Nice flat forehand.

Sweet peek at those tan, sculpted abs as he strokes through a backhand, his shirt tented in the swirl of the breeze...

He's a mature player now. It's his time.

Can Roddick take Federer in the final? I am not sure. I haven't seen him yet seriously raise the level of play on demand -- and that will need to be an available skill come Sunday.

Mentally? I never thought this would be true -- but Andy seems much more together than Roger.

I hope someone will take the time to advise Roddick against an overuse of drop shots. They worked well today, but not *that* well!

Awesome first serve percentage. 77%, around there.

On the technical side, his face has never been so sweet as when he fought back emotion just now, after beating Andy Murray. A clear smile free of worry.

Wow. An all American Ladies Final -- and if Roddick can take Federer? A heck of an Independence Day weekend.

About the ladies... I am not a big fan of The Sisters.

That said, I am pulling for Venus.

An Infinite Storm of Beauty -- Thanks, TW!

It was a heck of a day. Shades of Calling Dr. Hackenbush!

Part of the problem is that these days run together without any elegance, without any redemptive quality, without remorse.

I do something that might be called "sleep hygiene" beginning at 11 pm. This entails basic stuff: turning off the television and any other noise machines, including mp3 players, finishing the last e mails, the taking-of-the-meds, and the always important book selection. Next, I evict any living thing that does not have, as raison d'être, encouraging my goal of sleep. Fred? He guffaws, tries to dig in and watch the local news -- maybe even a few minutes of a late night show. The poor boy, he never wins.

Of the felines, Sam-I-Am is Master of Nuggling. He thoroughly gets the need, ably knows the terrain, has the most experience, and -- were I to actually sleep for any real period of time -- might hold the title of Sleepmeister of Marlinspike Hall.

Unfortunately, while I get good and sleepy from the drugs and whatever novel I'm reading, I wake again in 45 to 90 minutes.

For some reason, at that point, I am awake until about 3:30 am. And whatever happens, I am always definitively up at 5 am.

Why am I writing about this -- again? I dunno. I guess that as I dealt with the preop madness at the hospital this afternoon, I really was feeling the lack of reserves that results from that much pain and that little sleep.

I was Stupid.

The nurse doing all the work persisted in her cheerfulness, though it turned out she had a penchant for melodrama. From one moment to the next, my surgery risked cancelation, my blood type and crossmatch required stat calls to the blood bank, the chest x-ray and EKG needed repeating because -- DANGER! DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! -- they were abnormal in April... on and on.

However, blessed be her name, because she was a fantastic phlebotomist. One stick, and she got it all, using the smallest of butterflies, barely inserted, and milking every yummy ruby drop.

I tried to lie to her several times and she caught me in every fib.

What, for example? Well, there was the pneumonia falsehood. It seems that if you have had pneumonia within the previous 8 weeks, you have to truck on up to Radiology for a chest film. We had just gone over the lackluster events of April, when it occured to her that respiratory arrest and being on the vent might have also been a reflection of some infectious process of the lungs, commonly named a pneumonia.

"Huh?" I said, in my best Stoopid.

"Let's look it up on the computer," she countered, in her finest Chirp.

My way? No problems, no additional testing required.

Her way? "Oops, it looks like some pneumonia *and* some pulmonary edema... Heart failure!"

More pecking at the keyboard, more Inquisition, more testing required.

Other lies included smoking history, and the fortuitous elimination of a few disease processes -- why not omit in the hopes of getting out of the hospital and into downtown rush-and-happy hour traffic by 6 pm?

As it was, we got there around 1 pm and left at 5:45. Fred is a trooper.

It is Magic Time again, so easily. Implementing Sleep Hygiene Protocol.

But tonight, my eyes won't work for reading, and are, in fact, crossing as I type. This isn't uncommon, and so I turn to my Brother Units for assistance.

Since Grader Boob is working out the kinks in his first summer school session in a long while, and is therefore in crisis mode (his favorite mode) and since I had not paid TW's blogs a visit in an obscene period of time -- well, TW it is.

Below are three photos he recently posted over at American Idyll. What I saw in them tonight was a wonderful flattening of the field. Color and texture harmonize (at the expense of the usually sought after sense of depth, that which is a canyon) to create a beautiful and complex flatness. I felt like I was looking straight into possibility of seeing both the forest and the tree.

They have been lifted from his entry for Tuesday, June 23, called An Infinite Storm of Beauty, in which he offsets them with this quote from John Muir:

"When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."

Mr. Pus? Mr. Frank Pus?

We were off to see the surgeon yesterday afternoon.

For reasons all his own, Fred chose to remain in the crowded waiting room, trying to read midst all the noise of the television, the chitchat, and the cell phone tag being played -- continually -- despite signs forbiding their use.

I am grateful to have been worked in. Okay? Very grateful.

Still, if only sleek competence might join that terrific availability!

The appointment was at 3 pm. I was called back at 3:50 and was stashed in one of the cast rooms (orthopedic surgeon). Then someone needed a cast, so I was switched to an open exam room. Unfortunately, when I was swapped out, my paperwork did not follow me.

Yup. They "lost" me.

Luckily, I had a good book to read -- an André Dubus novel. Even more fortuitous? I had water and pain medication -- some of that soon-to-be-banned Percocet. My surgeon is much sought out, and he had not planned on needing to see me, so I didn't start to feel uncomfortable in my little room until about... 4:45. The door suddenly opened and one of the doc's assistants poked his head in, said he was looking for the doc, then disappeared. A few minutes later, his nurse threw the door open (does no one knock?), made "Aha!" noises of discovery, and slammed my paperwork into the file holder on the door. As she was walking away, she called back to me, asking whether I "had my films."

Errrr. Well, I was returning the x-rays we took for the expert to peruse back on June 9, but got the sense those were not the ones about which she was asking. So I powered up my chair and chased after her.

Yes, an order for 2 views of the shoulder had been given, and no, it hadn't been done.

And just my luck to get the pissed-off x-ray tech who is alarmed by the look of what she develops, thinks it has to be because the x-ray (not my bones) is bad, and repeats, repeats, repeats the most painfully posed view of all. Finally, I ask her if she gets that there is no real bone in there, constituting a proper shoulder, to which she replies, "But you haven't had your surgery yet, honey. This is your pre-op visit."

Who was it who then fairly yelled something sort of obscene, but not entirely?

It took her 6 exposures to get her 2 views done, and it was well after 5:30 before I got back to my cell. At this point? I am having spasms in my legs and back, and my temp is doing its late-afternoon spike-thing. And I am hungry.

I had many questions and arguments I wished to present -- but by the time the obviously fatigued surgeon and I finally met? I didn't care that much about anything beyond getting home. The pain was out-of-control and the x-ray tech had done nothing but aggravate things.

Still, we managed to cover a few things. I won zero, nada, zip in terms of concessions I was seeking -- like No PICC line, no vanco, no to any iv antibiotics unless and until a pathogen is grown out of the cultures and a sensitivity test results.

Apparently, I am to change my mindset. We're suddenly going more for medicine as an art form than medicine as founded on scientific principles. He wants to go ahead and put in a total prosthesis, even in the presence of infection. Thus far, on this side: there was a hemi put in in 2002 -- a surgical failure; then in December 2008, he had to remove it as well as several inches of humerus, giving the lame excuse that it "exploded" with pus; in April 2009, he was sure things had cleared up (despite my fevers, sweats, and pain), but found more infection, and therefore inserted a second spacer. For the past one year+, everyone has been careful to tell me that a prosthesis could not and would not be put in when there was the least little doubt about continued infection.

Ah, but things changed. (don't ask me how, i dunno) As of yesterday, we are going to proceed and just hope for the best, by God.

I told him about the running joke here at Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé, wherein one of us (usually La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore) pretends to page "Mr. Pus, Mr. Frank Pus!" -- and he didn't laugh.

His eyes widened, though.

Anyway, I told him that if there was frank pus, or any really overt signs of infection, I would not be comfortable receiving the prosthesis. His head went up-and-down but I am not convinced he really heard me.

Oh -- and it turns out that my acromion is fractured. That seems to have captured his attention more than anything. And would you believe that I forgot to ask him what he needed to do about that? I was so tired.

Based on the fact that this is not my first go 'round with an infected joint, I can assure him, you, and anyone who would care to listen, that this freaking spacer is definitely serving as a culture dish. It is the fever, the sweats, the increasing instead of decreasing pain upon which I base my wacky-wacky opinion.

Believe it or not, we never even got around to discussing what happened post op last time -- those annoying episodes of respiratory arrest. Three of them in 8 hours, the last not even remembered -- they just intubated and hooked me up to a vent. The theory back then was that I had pneumonia that went unspotted before surgery... So I guess the only relevant advice might be to not get pneumonia ahead of time, this time.

How was Fred when I was finally done? Testy. And let's just leave it at that.

Tomorrow, preop labs and ridiculous interviews at the hearsepital.

Anyway... not the greatest appointment just prior to surgery. I suppose I wasn't the best patient and clearly, he and his staff were in just-back-from-vacation mode.

I trust him. It will be okay. Right? Right.

Wingnut with Moonbat Tendencies: The Political Blogger's Bait-and-Switch

Apparently, Darwin is not done with me. Bloggers that once prompted me to yank out strands of my strangely thinning hair are now making me guffaw aloud.

nota bene: My most egregious guffaws pale in comparison to the grunting and screeching of the women racket-euses currently breaking the sound barrier over at Wimbledon, or, as the locals call it: Wimpleton. Michelle Larcher de Brito is the current bad girl in the groaning arenas of the staid grass courts. She is sixteen years old and while cast as a future vedette, she is also being booed -- not the foundation for fond memories, for the tennis crowds or for the budding star. As usual, the world of tennis jurisprudence is laughable. TimesOnLine notes that: "Tennis officials are now calling foul on grunting. The problem they face is determining whether a noisy exhalation of air is natural or done on purpose to put off an opponent."

Wow, gosh, golly-gee, I hope they can dig their way out of that conundrum.

Back to the train of my thought.
Choo-choo-choo.

Oh, hell. I am not a preeminent blogger (O, get up off the floor and be quiet); This thing must be written in ways that make me laugh, in ways that answer my needs. Communication ought to be my goal, but really? I blog to feel better.

So screw the ready apologies, and enjoy a Thurber moment, from his essay University Days... which opens with Thurber's own trouble with the microscope in his Ohio State botany class and ends with Bolenciecwcz, a university football star, fumbling his way through Economics 101.

I need to do Thurber at least once a year, more often when my years resemble this year. Better to shut The-I-Me-Me-My down, better to be doubled-over from a severe case of Hoots -- than not.

I remember being forced to listen to Thurber being disparaged in a most unsavory and recherché comparison with Don DeLillo's End Zone. Can you believe that? DeLillo's End Zone versus Thurber's short piece University Days?

I'm just sayin'.

Somebody Somewhere Needed Tenure -- in a bad-bad way, way -- Way-y-y-y Down, Down, Down in Gothic Wonder-wonder Land!

ABD, the blessing in disguise.

Choo-choo-choo:

Another course that I didn’t like, but somehow managed to pass, was economics. I went to that class straight from the botany class, which didn’t help me any in understanding either subject. I used to get them mixed up. But not as mixed up as another student in my economics class who came there directly from a physics laboratory.
He was a tackle on the football team, named Bolenciewcz. At that time Ohio State University had one of the best football teams in the country, and Bolenciecwcz was one of its outstanding stars. In order to be eligible to play it was necessary for him to keep up in his studies, a very difficult matter, for while he was not dumber than an ox he was not any smarter. Most of his professors were lenient and helped him along. None gave him more hints in answering questions or asked him simpler ones than the economics professor, a thin, timid man named Bassum. One day when we were on the subject of transportation and distribution, it came to Bolenciecwcz’s turn to answer a question.
“Name one means of transportation,” the professor said to him.
No light came into the big tackle’s eyes.
“Just any means of transportation,” said the professor.
Bolenciecwcz sat staring at him.
“That is,” pursued the professor, “any medium, agency, or method of going from one place to another.”
Bolenciecwcz had the look of a man who was being led into a trap.
“You may choose among steam, horsedrawn, or electrically propelled vehicles,” said the instructor. “I might suggest the one which we commonly take in making long journeys across land.”
There was a profound silence in which everybody stirred uneasily, including Bolenciecwcz and Mr. Bassum.
Mr. Bassum abruptly broke this silence in an amazing manner. “Choo-choo-choo,” he said, in a low voice, and turned instantly scarlet. He glanced appealingly around the room.
All of us, of course, shared Mr. Bassum’s desire that Bolenciecwcz should stay abreast of the class in economics, for the Illinois game, one of the hardest and most important of the season, was only a week off. “Toot, toot, too-tooooooot!” some student with a deep voice moaned, and we all looked encouragingly at Bolenciecwcz. Somebody else gave a fine imitation of a locomotive letting off steam. Mr. Bassum himself rounded off the little show. “Ding, dong, ding, dong,” he said, hopefully.
Bolenciecwcz was staring at the floor now, trying to think, his great brow furrowed, his huge hands rubbing together, his face red.
“How did you come to college this year, Mr. Bolenciecwcz?” asked the professor. “Chuffa chuffa, chuffa chuffa.”
“M’father sent me,” said the football player.
“What on?” asked Bassum.
“I git an 'lowance,” said the tackle, in a low, husky voice, obviously embarrassed.
“No, no,” said Bassum. “Name a means of transportation. What did you ride here on?”
“Train,” said Bolenciecwcz.

Anyway! Now that I am rejuvenated, I must go back to my beginning -- you recall that, yes? My observation that I remain in the evolutionary stream? "Darwin ain't done with me yet"?

All because über-ultra-conservative wingnuts (I prefer the unadulterated wingnut to the hyphenated form. O, get up off the floor and be quiet) -- all because they have me stuttering when I write, laughing when I read.

They do things like write a fairly cogent post about, say, Sonia Sotomayor -- in the guise of -- oh, I don't know -- a post about Obama's inability to speak without use of the teleprompter. Follow along now, it makes perverted sense! Then The Dickwad -- oops, I mean The Wingnut -- directs traffic in the comment section, where perversion goes to be brought to fruition. Now... my example is of a Two-Stepper but to really make nice with The Evolutionary Bilge, you should go in search of a nicely done Three(or Four)-Stepper, usually constructed with an intermediary entry that serves to narrow the topic focus. In this instance, I could see a post about The Supreme Court reversing one of Sotomayor's rulings... and wouldn't it be absolutely Faustian were that to turn out to be something about discrimination "against whites"? Mwa-ha-ha!

Ah, but what actually happened in this particular real blog is... well, more boring. But very, very effective as wingnutting goes.

She advertised an upcoming post with the following headline: SOTOMAYOR GAY? WHO CARES?

It's freaking brilliant. You'd think she might even have schooled Limbaugh, given her facility with The Introduce-{Smile Benignly}-Then-Duck-and-Weave Maneuver. I used to give the standard warning -- don't do this maneuver at home -- but I must confess that, liberal though I may be, I believe that HOME is the ONLY appropriate place for such tactics!

Read, and learn:
"Okay, now the speculation about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is getting stupid. Whether she’s the sharpest knife in the drawer, or a bitchy bully, or a reverse racist seems mild in comparison to the current 'is she a Lesbian?' nonsense. So what? Even if she is, what the hell difference does it make?"

WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT. Short pause, then:
"Don’t get me wrong, some things I don’t know about her do worry me. Mainly because Barack Obama chose her, and I don’t trust him as far as I can throw the Empire State Building. I worry that she might not be supportive of abortion rights, or gay marriage. But, that’s because I worry that the Pretendident’s lip service to those issues hides a contrary agenda. The fact that he won’t actually take a stand and actually do something to protect women and gays not only worries me, it pisses me off. And, because I don’t trust him, I wouldn’t put it past him to try to put a stealth candidate on the Court. Sotomayor’s reticence on those issues is not exactly confidence building, ya know?"

And you, the reader, have left behind that titillating gasbag morcel of Homosexuality Crumbs (on sale at the Vermont Country Store, 4 oz/$12.99) for more Baseless Bashing That Is Really Incredibly Open Progressiveness.

Oh, what the hell. A bit more won't kill you. I think. The edges and ends become less round; The subtlety, what there was of it, is gone; The trustworthiness of the author? Well, Death of the Reader comes to mind as a suitable corollary for all those gasping, agonal promises about the Death of the Author.

"Some might posit that a closeted Lesbian is likely to take a harsh stand on gay rights issues in order to avoid being outed, while others would suggest that closeted or not, a gay person is more likely to have empathy for plaintiffs they can relate to identity-wise. Pure unadulterated happy crappy hogwash, if you ask me. Gay people are no more likely to behave monolithically than black people. Okay, bad example. But, I’m black, and knowing that doesn’t mean squat when it comes to my lack of support for the most Historically Historic Conveniently Black Candidate of Color Ev-ah being elected President of the United States of AmeriKKKa. Or, however the ya-gotta-vote-for-the-brother, Sistah, folks put it.

Like Sotomayor’s sexual orientation, Barack Obama’s skin color means nothing to me..."

Oh, I am blessed with an abundance of Hoots today.

Just to show you what a fan-freaking-tastic student of rhetoric -- be it wingnut or moonbat -- I am, here is a tantalizing hint about an upcoming elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle editorial effort:

Is anyone else scared (and I mean really heebie-jeebie scared) by the Burger King King?

Yeah, girder your loins, get snacks.
Choo-choo-choo!

It''s a date!

Next surgery = Monday, 6 July

Simin Behbahani, Iran's national poet

Pearls from the comment section at YouTube, both by one ccombotron, self-identified "troll":

National Poet, WTF is THAT supposed to mean? Fucking state religion.

Go fuck a national goat.

Someone, somewhere, must be very proud...

Meta-Misfirings

A rare moment of contentment: fresh Italian roast coffee, made super-strong with a dollop* of 2% milk; felines fed with no fur flying; Fred sleeps, his toothache apparently relieved; the rosy fingers of dawn are doing their thing, but in a more purpl-y way; the lotion I discovered last night (a "gift" from the hospital) still smells lightly of oranges, and is rich; The New York Times is on deck; and I have almost finished Andre Dubos' The Garden of Last Days**, which is terrific.

*dollop
1573, from E. Anglian dial. dallop "patch, tuft or clump of grass," of uncertain origin. Modern sense of "a lump or glob" is 1812.

? ON dolp, small dangling ball

**re: the Dubus novel -- Excuse me while I have one of my meta-moments. I made the mistake of looking up reviews a few minutes ago. Janet Maslin reviewed it for the NYT on June 9, 2008, and makes the statement: “The Garden of Last Days” explores the cultural chasm between Bassam’s world and Spring’s. Well, that is just wrong. But I'll not fuss about her, as I might were the rest of her review completely ridiculous, in the manner, say of Michiko Kakutani. Maslin purports to be a straightforward straight arrow, and you cannot get far without being told that she has a BA in Math. Starting out as a rock critic, then a longtime movie critic, she has been criticized in the literary genre for not being critical. Oh yeah, and she took a degree in maths. Edward Champion, sometimes my hero, notes: "Reading the New York Times’s daily book coverage makes me so disheartened that I’d rather watch Michiko and Maslin in a nude mud wrestling match."

My favorite line from a Dubus interview, from his appearance on The Bat Segundo Show: "Listen, I do believe that we live in our bodies." They were discussing the role of coffee in his novel.

Frank Rich's Op-Ed piece today is titled "40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans." It has been 40 years since Stonewall. He lays Obama bare, deservedly so, in the presence of his own promises. Remember last December, as the President-Elect attempted to stave off the critics of Pastor Rick Warren?

At a press conference in Chicago this morning, President-elect Barack Obama
responded to attacks from gay-rights advocates who say they his selection of
Pastor Rick Warren, a critic of gay rights, to deliver the invocation at his
inauguration.

Warren, a leader of the evangelical Saddleback Church in
Orange County,Calif., came out in favor of Proposition 8 — a ballot initiative
that stripped gays of the right to marry in the state. The hot-button initiative
narrowly passed, setting off a firestorm among gay rights advocates who took to
the streets in protests across the state.

Obama, who often mentioned his support of gay rights in stump speeches, though not gay marriage, said today that he is a “fierce advocate for gay and lesbian Americans,” adding, “It’s something I’ve been consistent on.”

Well, I ought to sign off, as clearly I've little original to say. That was, by the way, the source of my free-floating anxiety during the dissertation process, as the effort was to be "an original contribution to human knowledge." Egads.

Unless I manage to sleep, I'll be immersed in tennis today, as well as attempting to clean The Manor a bit. Tata, then.