Oooh, I thought I was the only one who can hear the joints in my skull shifting. It feels good after, like when your ears pop. Most interesting! If treatment has applications for headaches maybe I should be more interested, especially after all the various blows and bangs to the head.

Today I spent hours barging around the yard getting ready for spring and for garbage day. I had a brief glimpse of three hummingbirds together and for sure one was Little Buzz. One of the others was a chick and I'm not sure about the third. If that was the family, that was the first time I've seen the babies together since their first morning out of the nest when they were so comfortable perching on the clothesline.

Hummingbird families have a schizophrenic love-hate relationship that reeks of teenagers (says the cranky old person). The young ones sit around and peep, hoping for a feeding. Little Buzz alternates between feedings and the kind of aggression that starts with sitting on the young'un's head, easy to do with those hovering skills. She is not above dive bombing about fifty times in a row. That was hard to see because I despise relentless harassment, and also baby hunched down clinging to a branch and displaying the freeze and submit response.

I wouldn't have believed that a hummingbird can raise the ruff of feathers all around its head until it looks like a shiny fuchsia lion's mane. Looked very serious indeed.

Fortunately they still get along well enough to do a feeding in front of me and make noise all day long: Chip chip chip-chip! Chip chip chip-chip! Peeep! Peeep! Peeeeep... so all is well in the garden today.

I'm far more interested in the horse. Thoroughbred. Nice looking horse. Would be prettier without the blaze IMHO but that's beside the point.

Katie, yeah, one of the things on the intake questionnaire was had I ever hit my head. I've had several knocks, some of them severe enough that I probably should've seen a doc and taken it easy for a few days, although I never did. That reminds me, I need to call an attorney for some lady who slipped and fell at the college pool.... I'm on record for falling there because it knocked me out and they called the campus police to come get me and take me to a doctor, which I declined. Whoever is suing the college, both attorneys keep calling me.

Okay, done.

The back of the head massage, manipulation, whatever they call it, feels the oddest, but in a good way. I've had something like 6 appts. with her and at two of them, she put on gloves and was doing stuff to the bones inside my palate, inside my mouth. I could feel it! It was so odd. She told me that people with sinus stuff sometime feel relief with that. She'd doing it to me because I had braces twice, school age and adult, and a total of 8 teeth pulled, including wisdom.

I've got private insurance, which I trust is going to pay for some of this. It'll take a while to percolate through the billing process. I'm told that Kaiser has osteopaths but that they don't let them practice osteopathy for some reason. Weird.

I'm going to send you my last field bio homework assignment, Katie, there's a bunch of stuff on Anna's hummingbirds in there. I didn't quite understand whether or not a chick fell out out the nest? or are they learning how to fly already? They have two broods a year.

Java, is the head massage called cranio-sacral massage?

If so, I've had that and gotten good results...though it was eons ago. It felt weird to me, though I never really felt the bones moving. Might not have had the best practitioner.

Toddson!!

> I also have an overpopulation of Dermodex Brevis - little critters living in the oil glands in my eyelids and blocking them. The cure is scrubbing my eye area (external) and eyebrows with a wash that contains tea tree oil. It's working, he says.

I used to have this! I have an eyelash that grows into my eye instead of out like they are supposed to do, and the last time I went to my optometrist to get it pulled out, they gave me a brand new med. Use it two weeks, and you'll get rid of that permanently, they told me. I did, and haven't had it since. Let me go find the box.

java, the chicks flew out of the nest a week Monday and have never been back. They flew well in short bursts and now have aerial skills.

Rx only, NovaBay Pharma i-Lid (tm) cleanser Hypochlorous acid cleansing solution

Sounds like a plan, bonny.

Hey! You know what I needed in my life right now? Roommate drama. This morning J, who is weird and a tin hat conspiracy dude but considerate and pays bills on time, slipped a copy of a letter under my door that he had given to R. It was all complaints about her dog, who is an 8lb rat terrier and, we all agree, an asshole. It was a solid page complaining about his barking and how it keeps J up and gives him stress headaches.

Now, J lives in the master suite in back and never hangs out in the common spaces. We literally have no way of knowing if he's awake or asleep, here or gone. He has never said word one to her or me before about the barking. Never come out (or even texted) to tell her he was trying to sleep. We had no idea he could hear Wiggins back in his room. She was conciliatory via text and left him potato salad and ear plugs. He responded by insinuating that she's a neglectful owner.

Whatever, man. 1) we were VERY CLEAR when he moved in about the animals. 2) again, he needs to be a fucking grown up and use the word noises. 3) if he has so much experience with animals, how about constructive suggestions or a sample lesson? 4) he never spends more than five seconds at a time with the dog so he has no clue. 5) our yard is literally surrounded by yards with other barking dogs.

They are communicating directly (and R is sharing their convo with me) but I reassured her that I am 100% Team Asshole Dog. She is super upset and feels badly that I am even peripherally involved, but really I have no fucks. You don't like it, J? Give notice and go. Technically I could boot him if I wanted since he's subletting from me.

We would all love it if Wiggins chilled out. He's getting there. He's only two. He almost never piddles any more.

Holy cow that was fast. It seems like I was hearing that eggs had been laid, like, 3 weeks ago. Must've been longer than that.