After four consecutive sleepless nights I wound up looking like Helena Bonham Carter.

I am overwhelmed. Today I was deluged with inquiries (okay, two) asking how come I stopped writing Howdygram posts last week and what the hell was wrong with me. Yesterday’s post probably should have been self-explanatory but in case I wasn’t clear, I’ll reiterate. I WAS EXCEPTIONALLY UNWELL. After four consecutive sleepless nights from the pain of diabetic neuropathy I wound up looking like Helena Bonham Carter, which scared the crap out of Sam and the entire population of north Texas.

You may be pleased to know that I’m considerably better now, no longer in any pain except for my arthritic knees, and I’ve been sleeping nicely at night again. I even made a beautiful batch of low-carb biscuits for dinner tonight — my favorite food next to Mongolian chicken — and still have enough leftover for my favorite idiotic bedtime snack, Bogus Donuts. Basically, you take a couple of leftover low-carb biscuits made from CarbQuik, slather them with Walden Farms zero-calorie jelly in the flavor of your choice and then dust them with granulated Splenda. If you close your eyes you can almost convince yourself that you’re eating a couple of bismarcks. I’m not joking.

Notice anything new about the Howdygram tonight? In a fit of wild graphic design fury I: 1) changed the accent color from pink to neon red; 2) updated the banner logo; 3) created new sidebar titles; and 4) that’s all. You’ll still run across assorted pink graphics embedded here and there throughout the blog because no sane person has the patience or motivation to examine 1,190 previous posts just to change a few color codes. However I did consider it briefly. Very briefly.

Sam is working all-night shifts this week from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. through Friday. This leaves me with way too much free time and nobody to play with, but fortunately there are plenty of Doris Day movies on the DVR and April 5 is Melvyn Douglas Day on TCM.

Please make a note to record any or all of the following Melvyn Douglas movies, which start at 5:30 a.m. Central time on Friday: Prestige (1932) with Adolphe Menjou; The Vampire Bat (1933) with Fay Wray; Dangerous Corner (1935) with Virginia Bruce and Conrad Nagel; She Married Her Boss (1935) with Claudette Colbert; I’ll Take Romance (1937) with Grace Moore; Fast Company (1938) with Florence Rice; The Shining Hour (1938) with Joan Crawford; The Toy Wife (1938) with Luise Rainer and Robert Young; and Our Wife (1941) with Ruth Hussey. Personally, I can’t wait. Melvyn was one very cool dude.

Thank you for stopping by tonight. Please shut the light when you’re done, okay?