That bat costume pattern seems to have really inspired some folks. That's the second drawing of it I've seen (besides the engraving that actually goes with the pattern). The fellow who did my album cover did one as well. [link]

OK, the writers for my local paper have senses of humor.

There's a gigantic development near here that suffers from both the bad timing of the collapsing real estate market and a good dose of "You think people who can afford the rents for this are willing to live in that neighborhood?"-itis. It's only a third completed, with one building half done and one building mostly done and a quarter rented out. The developers are utterly out of money, and every year the city says "You must pay the bond payment!" and they say "We can't pay the bond payment!" and one of the banks with a lien on the place ponies up the payment.

This past summer, the process was beginning again, and this is the final paragraph in the newspaper story: "An alternative would be to invite the nearest Borg colony to beam the gargantuan bloc of buildings into the next galaxy for new living quarters."

There is hope for my neighbors.

The drawing I linked to is based on this cameo: [link]

But this dad was just so angry that it made me sad for the kid.

The mom definitely has some major issues that predate giving birth by a very long while...and the dad (as described by the mom and a couple of independent observers) definitely has some attention issues, among other things.

The saddest bit is that the child is learning to lie, cheat, manipulate and escalate as his only coping mechanisms. When I ask him to describe what he means when he says 'be nice', it's tragic how the entire concept is framed in loss and pain for him. In other words, nice isn't about feeling good about yourself or other people, but pretending to be so means you won't get punished as much.

I suffered so much with violence and abomination in my childhood, but by the grace of whatever, I was able to see how wrong it was. For this child, there is no sense of himself that doesn't involve getting over on other people in order to be safe.

Even worse, the mom sees the kid respond positively to stronger boundaries but then says that it can't work at home. Bitter hopelessness.

So, very, very sad.

I put on my big girl knickers and actually talked to my migraine doctor about my weekly pain meds. He's visibly displeased about me taking this much of them.

But...he thinks I have some "right" or something to not be in constant pain, and he has something called a "duty" to minimise the amount of pain I'm in. So he'll prescribe what it takes to keep me walking, as long as it doesn't make me sicker, but he's looking for stuff that makes him more comfortable for me to take all the time.

Problem is, I'm in so much fucking pain right now. The meds are barely touching it. Coming in to work was massively hard, and just sitting here is pretty miserable.

Ha! I just sent an email to my husbans thinking he could help Burell -- and he already put in his two cents

I don't know for sure where the cameo-maker got it. It could be the pattern maker saw the same engraving and made a pattern from that. I do know that the pattern itself has been blogged extensively and has thus been seen by a lot of people. And the pattern page includes that engraving.

Oh, ita. So very sorry. I'm glad the doctor at least prescribed more meds. I hope he does find stuff that works better without tripping his alarm bells.

Oh, ita. I'm glad your doc is keeping up the prescription and so sorry it isn't doing enough.

That's some kind of progress, ita, I hope. I'm sorry it's such a bad pain day, though.

beth, congratulations on the job! Whoot!

he thinks I have some "right" or something to not be in constant pain, and he has something called a "duty" to minimise the amount of pain I'm in

That sounds like a good answer to me - I mean, if the meds you were taking now were working, there would be a good argument for keeping you on them. But since you're not satisfied with the results and your doctor is concerned about dependence/side-effects/whatever, it's in everyone's interest to keep looking for better solutions. I'm so sorry there haven't been any easy answers so far.