Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

I rarely get pictures with my family. Here we are – all three of us – at a wedding several weeks ago:

Well, I tried the thing. It’s weird! I have a deviated septum. I never had anyone tell me that. I just know what one is, and I have it. Never causes me too much trouble, but I started by pouring saline in the little nostril. I poured a bunch in, and I felt like my head was filling up, and I got that feeling you have when you go swimming, and you’re not managing to hold your breath properly. It was starting to drip into my throat. And then VOILA! A trickle started out the other nostril. A very slow trickle at first, but it got a slight bit more streamlike after a few seconds. I think I had full blockage in my sinuses. After about half of the saline was gone, I decided to go in the other direction. That was a little more successful. The other side dripped out a constant trickle. There just isn’t as wide a chute for it to exit since that’s the little nostril! I was trying to breath through my mouth the whole time, but it was difficult. Kept getting a little saline traveling into my throat. After I finished the whole pot of saline, my ears were squealing. I blew my nose with great success, and now I’m sitting here on the couch. I do feel much more alert and with-it with the sinus pressure gone and my ears unclogged, although my nasal passages sting slightly, probably from the salt. Ain’t no way I’m using a pressurized version of this technique as suggested in the comments on the Flickr picture I posted. It was also requested that I take a picture, but I had enough to deal with just trying to work the thing! No pictures this time. Maybe if I get good.

So in general, thumbs up, but weird!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs (a band I adore with Oberlin roots) cover “The Love I’m Searching For” by The Rentals. To be honest, I like the cover much more than the original. Shhh!

Plus, I wanted to try a new option for embedding an mp3 without using my own bandwidth.

I had a doctor’s appointment today, not because I was sick. I just hadn’t had a physical in nearly two years, and I needed to start a relationship with a local doctor. I really like my new doc. She’s a soft spoken Indian woman who wears a bindi. She stood very close to me while asking questions, and when she looked up at me, she told me I was beautiful. I minimized my current illness, saying that I was trying to get over a cold. She said that my glands were very swollen (she called the left one “huge”) and that I was too sick for a physical, so I needed to come back after a 10-day course of antibiotics. So I guess it’s confirmed by an outside source that I’m actually quite unwell. I mean, I knew I was, but I didn’t think I was antiobiotic sick. I am.

After picking up my prescription, I went in search of the Neti Pot, recommended by Roger here and others over many years. I hit the Whole Foods in Cary first, since it was near the doctor’s office. I asked the man in the health and beauty area if he had any Net Pots. He smiled broadly and said they were completely out. He said, “You know it was on Oprah!” Oh no. In America these days, that means that there’s basically going to be a “run” on the item everywhere, in stores, online, everywhere. He called over to the other store in Raleigh, and they had just one left, which they held for me. When I went over to get it, I headed to the checkout line. There, the woman said, “I must have checked out about six of these yesterday. You know it was on Oprah!”

I have it now, finally. Going to eat some food and pour saline into my nose. Then I’m going to see if my brain can handle a practice exam!

You may notice that all the archives and category links are gone. I’m trying to decide if I want those back or not. I like that idea that anyone who wants to dig into my archives has to work a little. I’m working to make this blog a very current one, rather than open for anyone to search into my last three years at will. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been making old posts private. I have to do it for every individual post, since there is no easy batch operation that does that for me. Some days I hide items in a certain category (“Work Life” was of course first, since that’s the topic I think it most important to keep private, even though my posts in that category are usually heavily veiled in tone and information), on other days I go for time periods. Slowly, I’m going underground, but only for old posts. I have no intentions of hiding recent posts. Anything that is only a few months old will remain visible unless there’s a really good reason for it to be hidden.

I had imagined that since I have been blogging less with words and posting more pictures, my readership would have dropped, but nope. I’m still getting about 500 hits a day, and these aren’t bots! So thanks, loyal readers. That makes me feel real special! Even you quiet, lurky types!

I’m still trying to clean things up on the new template. I’ve moved a lot of what was in the sidebar to the About Me page for now. I’ve gotten some of that pale print darkened up a bit, but I’m really no CSS expert, so I’m really using a trial and error approach. The whole grey people head thing is bugging me, and Gravatar has been down. Not yet sure how to fix that. I’m also annoyed that the “Pages” aren’t showing old user comments. This is particularly a problem on the Haiku page. I mean, without the comments, there are no haikus!! And the page is set to allow comments, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to try next.

If you have any knowledge that can help me, suggestions, etc, please share them. I like feedback.

In unrelated news, here’s me blowing a bubble for International Bubble Gum Week: