Java's day out

So I went to Biltmore Estate in Asheville. I have wanted to go there for a very long time. I love architecture anyway, and Biltmore is, well, fabulous. The day was comfortably cool up in the mountains.

This first picture shows the mechanism that opens the high windows in the horse stable area. The rod to the left leads to another rod that is turned by a crank. The rods turn, engaging gears that lift the window frame. I was fascinated. I'm easily amused.

This is a vine. Or it started out as a vine. OK, some vines. Somewhere in the center of what is now a trunk is a metal post that holds up a pergola. These particular vines are wisteria, which when in bloom display a grape-like bunch of pale purple flowers that have a delicious sweet fragrance. These wisteria have bloomed already, so we missed the flowers here. The gardens, on the other hand, had lots of flowers, so I hear. I didn't go down there, but the other guys did.
This is the outside of the grand staircase. It might be my favorite part of the house. It's hard to tell, though, because I liked most everything in and about the house.

But the best part was meeting my blog buddies! We were gathered together thanks to the efforts of Larry (who no longer has a blog), who with his husband Greg came to Asheville for a bit of vacation. Also in attendance were "Joe" and David. Here's David, winner of the Miss Congeniality award.

This is Joe, who is a very sexy bear, and a truly wonderful man, but didn't seem toasted to me.
And here are Larry and Greg, a very handsome and jocular couple. Lovely people, both of them.

I had a wonderful time. It was the first time I'd been out for a fun day in a long, long time. I needed it. I need to do that sort of thing more often, really.

And here's a quote I found today.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. -- Benjamin Franklin

and so it goes

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 --->

I've been surprisingly busy

A lot has happened since last I wrote. Sorry for the lack up updates, for those of you who care about this kind of thing. Here's what's happening.

• Our air conditioner went out Friday afternoon. We are not amused. We are also very hot.
• Superman is building screen frames for our windows. We used to have screens in the windows, but they have deteriorated or broken or been attacked by kids and cats until we no longer have window screens. He built the first one this morning, and it is now installed on our bedroom window.
• I saw Diva on Thursday. It was our mother/daughter relationship-building session. I took knitting needles and re-introduced her to knitting. She did fairly well. We had a pleasant and positive interaction, but I don't feel as though it was "real" in any meaningful sense. She was on her good behavior, and I was putting on a show for the therapists at the facility. Whatever. We'll go through the motions, and maybe something real will come of it eventually, but I doubt it.
• After my visit with Diva I went to Target and bought a new wallet and a small purse. We don't have a Target in this po-dunk town, so it was sort of thrilling, in that "I don't like to shop for that kind of thing" way. So I got a wallet, and I don't like it. It seemed better in the store, but upon getting home and transferring my stuff into it, the wallet doesn't do what I need it to do. I haven't done anything else about it yet. Don't have the energy.
• When Superman got home Thursday evening, he said "Let's go to the Verizon store and get our new phones." It was time, and our old phones were worn out. He convinced me to get a Blackberry. He got one too, but amusingly enough, he gave it to Twitch today and got himself a simpler phone. Twitch and Light got their new phones today. So Twitch made out sweet with his own Blackberry. Whatever.
• My advice to all who will take heed: do not get a new wallet, new purse, and a new phone all in the same day. Each one takes a while to get used to, especially a phone. It feels as though I've moved into a new house, having to learn my way around these new information spaces.
• Twitch is home for the weekend, just to visit. And to get a new phone. And to help move his sister out of her dorm and back home for the summer. He's worked a lot this weekend, but got a friggin' Blackberry out of the deal, so I don't feel sorry for him!
• And Light is home for the summer. It's good to have her home again. She's a positive, stabilizing force in this household. She takes good care of me. I feel slightly guilty that she's more of a caretaker than I am in this relationship, but I'm too busy with other stuff to let it bother me now.
• Did I mention that the air conditioner is broken? Superman is afraid it might be dead, or close enough to dead to make no real difference. It's not a new unit by a darn sight, and has needed to be replaced for a while anyway. It's been limping along for the past three years. Last year it didn't give us any trouble, praise FSM. The year before, though, it went out a few times. That was the year, if I recall, that the washing machine and the air conditioner both quit on us. Anyway, the a/c might need to be replaced this year. I'm not thrilled about the expense, but a new unit will be nice. We shall see. And by the way, I'm miserably hot. I do not like to be hot. We've gone over this many times before, and I won't belabor the point (I'll try, anyway), but yeah, I'm uncomfortable.
• I have a nasty infection in my right ear. Or on my right ear. It's in the soft tissue at the entrance of the ear canal, including the ear lobe. The lymph node at the back of my jaw is sore and swollen, as is the next lymph node below that, at my neck. It's hard to tell because of all the extra fat, but the right side of my jaw and neck are swollen. The ear canal is nearly swollen shut, and I can't hear very well in that ear. It's all very uncomfortable. I saw the doctor on Thursday afternoon, and am on an antibiotic. Things haven't seemed to improve much yet, though. It hurts and itches, which is a real bitch because it hurts to scratch it. That, plus I'm hot and sweaty (and not in a good way) puts me in something of a cranky mood.
• I bought myself a little inflatable pool yesterday. It's a rectangle, big enough for me to stretch out and almost float in. Not quite deep enough for a complete float, but it is cool and nice. I spent some time in it yesterday. I'd be in it today except that I need to drive Twitch back to school very soon.
• Sproing went with me on Friday to get Twitch. We first went to Light's college and picked up a load of her stuff. The little Aveo was really packed with her stuff, Sproing, and Twitch in it. Sproing and I spent eight hours together, most of it just the two of us. We had a blast! It was 99 & 44/100ths % fun. In a 12-year-old humor sort of way, but I can get into that when the mood strikes. Yes, we talked about farts and buggers.
• He wants to go with me to take Twitch back this afternoon, but he's acting like a little twerp and I'm not sure if I will take him.

And that's about it. I have a solo day trip coming up on Wednesday that I'll probably blog about on Thursday. Superman and I see Diva for more family therapy on Tuesday. My ear should get better soon, and if it doesn't I'll go back to the doctor. And now you know.

The mundane and the surreal

The mundane: I got my hair styled by a professional on Thursday, right before our family therapy meeting with Diva. Told the stylist I wanted a very short cut. She showed me a picture, I said "yeah, kinda like that." It got shorter than I meant for it to be. Talk about the butch dyke look! I hesitate to show you what it looks like. The good thing about hair is that it grows. My hair grows quicker than most. Eh. C'est la vie.

The surreal: Then we had the family therapy meeting with Diva and the therapist. The primary topic was the mother-daughter relationship. We don't have much of one, and the idea is to strengthen that bond. I spoke to Diva about my efforts to connect with her, and my perception that she doesn't seem to make any attempt to contribute anything to the relationship. Her response is telling: she showed no emotion. She didn't make eye contact with me. It wasn't like she specifically avoided looking at me, rather she didn't look at anything. Those eyes were blank. She wasn't present.

The therapist asked Diva how she feels about us being her parents, and the things we do for her and with her as her parents. Her answer was "nothing." And it's true. She has held this opinion for many years. She doesn't need us. She isn't attached to us in any real emotional way. She's biding her time until she can move out and live independently, which by the way she thinks she's capable of now, at twelve years old.

I'm supposed to go see her once a week and do some fun, meaningful activity with her. Diva reminded me that I'd begun to teach her how to knit, so the therapist jumped on that as a good starting point. Next Thursday morning I will go to Columbia, take the knitting needles and yarn I got for the child, and we will have a knitting lesson. I'm taking thin, relatively sharp, long metal sticks into a mental health treatment facility for my daughter, prone to violence and unable to control her angry impulses, to use in an activity with me, her mother, with whom she feels no significant emotional attachment, all with the blessing and encouragement from her therapist. Does this look somehow wrong to you?

Before we settled on the idea of knitting lessons, the therapist suggested that I take her off campus to do something fun. I don't know the Columbia area very well, it's too hot for me to do any kind of outside activity (picnic, visit the zoo, etc.) and I despise the shopping malls. I've got a bit of agoraphobia going on. But the heart of the matter is that I do not want to be alone with her in any kind of unsupervised environment. I asked the therapist if we could stay on campus and share some simple relationship-building activity. I'd much rather be there where I have back-up if things go poorly.

I'm going to go along with the plan, as much to make a show of participation to the therapist as anything to do with Diva. I have a small spark of hope that this may actually work, but at the same time I'm frightened to get close to her. Every time I've done so before, she's used that against me in painful ways. The child isn't right in the head. Whatever is wrong with that child is no small thing.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

But first, a picture of C. Isn't he adorable? And yes, boys, he's single! He has been such a comfort to me since he moved in a couple of weeks ago. He has helped support and encourage me as I wander through this hairy time in my life.

We were outside smoking and taking pictures of each other. He looks much better than I do. And no, girls, I'm not single.

Here's what the hair looked like hanging down my back.

OK, I almost like this picture.

This is the view from underneath when I bent over and let my hair fall in front of my face. I think the angle is cool.

And Sproing says "WTF Mom!?!?!?" And you see how cluttered the desk is. Just look at how adorable he is, and what a big mouth he has.

After, left side

Oooh, look at all those little coarse, gray hairs!

ugh. It looks a little better than this now, after it's had a couple of days to fluff out (or whatever hair does after a cut) and been shampooed a few times.

The front looks better than the back. Oh, and I had Superman shave my neck and use the 1/8th inch guard up to the occipital ridge, after I took this picture, so it's now shorter than this in the back.

Um, yeah. That mess above the forehead that's sweeping up and back? It has now calmed down and is looking kinda punky. Much better than this. I'll take some more photos after I get it styled.

Today Sproing and I had a difficult time trying to accomplish his lessons. I've had it. I can't do this, and it isn't doing him any good, either. He and I went to the middle school this afternoon and re-enrolled him there. They've got three more weeks of school, then summer break. When school resumes in August he will probably be back in the 6th grade. It isn't an ideal situation, but it may work out for the best. At this point I do not care. It's better than me trying to teach him at home.

Tomorrow (Thursday) Superman and I will attend a family therapy session with the Diva. Assuming there are survivors, I'll report on that by the end of this weekend.

What happened instead

Yes, I cut my hair! It was... cathartic, fun, spiritual even. I'm glad I did it. It needs to be styled a bit, as it looks like the butcher job that it is. But I didn't do that today. Instead...

Let me tell you about Diva. Oh, never mind, if you've been reading this blog for more than a month you've heard about Diva. Click on the "Diva" tag for way more information than you'll ever want. Shit happened today concerning the dear child. The treatment center (Residential Treatment Facility - RTF) is not doing a good job in a few respects. Our behavioral health insurance is pretty good, (thank the gods!) but only approved coverage through last Friday, which we learned on Friday. The RTF began billing us $450/day on Saturday. Since she has been out of the home for more than 30 days she automatically qualifies for Medicaid. We went through this with Sproing, too, when he was in his RTF. It was a different facility from the one where Diva is now. Diva's RTF told us to get her on Medicaid. I went to the local office and was told that the center where she is staying needs to apply for Medicaid on her behalf. We called them back, they said the agency that placed her needs to file. Yeah, it's been a runaround. Well, first thing this morning Superman got a call from the RTF saying they will discharge the girl today because of the financial situation. PANIC!!! NO! She is not ready to be here, and we definitely are not ready for her to be here.

Superman spent a lot of time on the phone. He camped out in the waiting room at the local mental health agency for a couple of hours. He came home and got back on the phone with lots of different places. He and I updated and/or completed the application info for a "children's home" place that might be a good fall-back option if we had to get her from the RTF today.

Ended up not going. There's a super-nice friendly helpful fellow at the local Dept. of Mental Health office whose position is something like an ombudsman or something. He and Superman spent a lot of time on the phone, both with each other and to the RTF. He was able to contact someone higher up in the RTF organization. We had been told that they "didn't do Medicaid." Which is total BS, of course, and our friendly ombudsman talked to someone there who was confused as to why we were given that information. She was looking into it.

Yada yada and a lot of runaround. (I may be repeating myself.) We had to make some plans, to think about what the fuck we would do if she did have to come home today. Damn, that's a scary thought. Sproing said he'd leave, would go live with one of his uncles if she came back home. I don't blame him. Hell, I might join him! What I came to tell you, though, is that we had one hell of a stressful day today. Nothing is settled now, though we are OK through tonight (as far as I know). I don't know what kind of shit the fan has for us tomorrow.

I had hoped to post the before and after pictures of the hair cut, to tell you about the plans for that, and to tell you the emotional revelation/breakdown I had about it Monday morning. (It was more about that gender thing, how I'm not particularly comfortable being a woman.) But this is what happened instead. And I'm tired. I want to go snuggle with my husband. So for now, goodnight.

Miscellany

• I ate "Pop Rocks" candy for the first time today. Freaky.
• There's a nagging feeling haunting me today, a feeling that I should be studying.
• I have been extremely tired today. I slept for about 9 hours last night, was up for 2 hours, then took a 5 hour nap. I'm still sluggish.
• I missed watching the Braves game this afternoon. Slept right through it. I see that they beat Houston 7 to 1.
• I'm getting psyched up to cut my hair. I got some pictures of the long stuff yesterday. This process is turning into something of a ritual.
• I survived the visit with Diva yesterday. It was actually almost nice. She behaved herself well. We bought her a bunch of clothes and two pairs of shoes. (two pair of shoes? pairs? Which is correct?) Then took her to see the new M!ley Cyr*s movie, the name of which I've conveniently forgotten. It's a great movie for its intended audience. I suffered through it. Greg K!nnear was good, but he had sh!t to work with, so there you have it.
• We go back to see The Diva on Thursday for a therapy team meeting. This will be the working visit, whereas yesterday was (allegedly) for fun.
• Oh, and they're talking about letting her come home for Mother's Day. That's next weekend, btw. (Get your cards in the mail to your mamas!) What a treat. (hear the dripping sarcasm)
• Have I ever mentioned how I feel about Mother's Day? I'm ok with it as far as honoring my mom and MIL, etc. I send a card and am done with it. I am, however, very uncomfortable being on the "mother" end of it. It's such a contrived pile of dung. Gonna try not to get too worked up about it this year, and let my young'uns do whatever it is they feel comfortable with. I'll smile and appreciate their intentions. If any of them forgets entirely, I'll be happy with that, too.
• My dad called a couple of weeks ago and spoke briefly with Superman. He told Superman to tell me to send him emails more frequently, updating him on the goings-on around here. The whole thing is just weird. I was here when he called, but in a different part of the house. When I heard that my dad was on the phone, I asked if he wanted to talk to me. Then Superman hung up and gave me the message. WTF? My dad is ... my dad. There's a big WTF factor involved.
• I'm losing life points, as Sproing used to say. Getting really tired again. It's that kind of day. I do this every so often, have a day when I sleep a lot. I try not to fight it. If I'm this tired, I need the rest. As long as it doesn't happen often, I'm not worried about it.
• That's about all I know right now. Further updates as the situation warrants.