Meta, random stuff, and a promise

First, the promise: I owe you a post about my most wonderful day in Asheville at the Biltmore Estate last Wednesday. I took a whopping 27 pictures! If I recall correctly, I believe Larry* said he took a few hundred. Yeah, I'm not much for taking pictures. So I promise to write at least a little bit about the Biltmore trip. But I'm not putting a time limit on that promise, because, well, I know me.

I'm doing a lot of these "random stuff" posts, and frankly I'm getting tired of it. Not tired of blogging, mind you, though the increasing time between posts might suggest otherwise. I'd like to write something deep and meaningful, perhaps philosophical, but my brain has been wandering to the shiny recently.

I finally, after much mumbling about good intentions and such, have added a blog roll to this site. It has been over a year since I had a blog roll, and man, Blogger has made it much easier to generate those things. There are a bunch of blogs I "follow" with the Blogger gadget that does that, and I was able to pick which ones of those I wanted to put on my blog roll. I did not put all of them up, as some of the ones on my "follow" list either haven't been updated in months or are ones that I don't check regularly. I suspect some of them have folded. At any rate, if I missed your blog and you would like me to add it to the list, just send me an email (see the profile page for the address).

I'm pleased to say that some of my long-time blogger buddies have earned the coveted (by some) Content Warning on their blogs. Though I have no need to achieve that accolade, I appreciate the dedication and hard work (a-hem) that these devoted men have put into their image searches. Congratulations, fellas.

I mentioned my infected ear in my last post. Just inside the outer ear, above the lobe, has a pocket of infection. It's been bothering me for nearly two weeks now. I saw the doctor, he put me on antibiotics, it still hurt like a mo'fo' after five days so I took my ear back to him. He put me on a brief course of Prednisone to attack the inflammation. (Prednisone and I don't get along well, and he knows it, so he kept the dose relatively low.) Finally the ear is getting better! The swelling is down significantly, it doesn't hurt constantly, my lymph nodes are no longer sore and swollen (that happened after the first few days on the antibiotic, thankfully), and the itching has subsided. Superman helped me clean it out a bit this evening. I'll spare you the details. He put some hydrogen peroxide on the sore and it bubbled beautifully. The thing is finally healing!

We saw Diva on Tuesday for a therapy team meeting, my first one. They are a monthly delight, and I missed the first one by attending class instead. "They" were not amused. "I" don't give a shit. Anyway, we had the meeting and it was a meeting. She's doing well in school, somewhat surprisingly. The individual attention helps, I'm sure. They've got her on quite a few meds. Whatever. She behaves well enough most of the time, with the exception of a few fights. No biggie, though, evidently. We had some time after the meeting to visit with her and meet her new therapist. (The other gal left for a new job. I don't blame her.) Things were going along smoothly until I denied her something she wanted. BAM! She completely shut down, wouldn't look at me or Superman, wouldn't talk, nothing. She didn't look mad, didn't actively pout, she sort of went blank. No emotion. It was like turning off a light switch. The new therapist was there to see it, for which I am thankful. It may not seem weird as you read this, but it was striking. It's more of a gut/emotional reaction thing, and I'm not writing about it very well. However, I'm glad she demonstrates for the staff there how "off" she is.

Short hair is easier than long hair. It looks kinda funny, but it's cool, easy to wash, a snap to dry, doesn't need a brush or comb (yeah, it's that short), and feels nifty when I rub my head. It also doesn't wad up in the shower drain to cause nasty plumbing problems. We all appreciate that.

Maybe I'll get my head together and write something meaningful this week. Here's hoping!

*There is no link to Larry's blog because Larry no longer has a blog. His partner Greg does, though, and it's there in newly minted blog roll over there --->