The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

The headache I had yesterday turned out to be a migraine. I don't know why I didn't think of that, after rehydrating the heck out of myself failed to make it go away. (Actually, I do know why I didn't think of that; I have a terrible time thinking straight about anything when I'm having a migraine.) Fortunately it was a mild migraine, as they go. I had a headache for somewhere around eight hours, but it wasn't bad enough to be incapacitating, and my vision never went weird.

I went to bed at 8:45 last night and by the time I woke up again at midnight, the headache was gone. I only woke up for long enough to appreciate that (absence of pain is an absolutely marvelous feeling) and turn the light off, and then went back to sleep until 3:45, at which point I woke up with just enough upset stomach to keep me awake, but not enough to force me to do anything about it. Eventually that got better, too, and I woke up for good at 7:30. I still have a cough, though.

Some day I'll remember that I just plain do not get headaches unless they're migraines, and stop trying to ignore my headache and hope it goes away, or think it's due to something else and try to remedy the something else. ( Possible TMI here )

In other news, I have the possibility of being called any time until Wednesday (including Labor Day) and sent to BU to be a "line monitor" for incoming freshmen standing in line to file enrollment papers. In short, I'd be making sure that everybody in line has the forms they need to have before they get to the head of the line and don't have the right forms. If I get called for this, I get to stand up from 8 AM to 6 PM. I don't think I have any shoes outside my Tevas that will let me do that, and I would have to dress nicely, so my Tevas are right out anyway. I rather hope I don't get called, but I said I would be a backup person in case one of the people who wanted to do it couldn't, so now I'm stuck with it.

If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said there's no possible way it could have been a nice day out today. I'm glad I was wrong.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon trying not to have a stomachache and something that wasn't exactly vertigo, but made my head feel wrong every time I stood up. I think it was a mild migraine echo. It did go away after about three hours or so.

I have something like a list of things to do this week, including finding out what the ATA wants me to do about proof of eligibility for the certification exam. They want proof that I've got the MA, but my transcript (according to KSU) won't say so until June 6 and I have to send out the application forms and proof of eligibility and registration fees all together by the end of the week. I have the transcript I used as proof of SSN in order to get a learner's permit, but that was over spring break and doesn't prove anything except the fact that I was enrolled as of March. I sent e-mail to the ATA asking them what I should do about that.

I also have to return the key to my advisor's office (I should have done that last week but I got sidetracked), call the driving school (ditto), and start putting together a glossary of sorts for commercial and legal translation, since I don't own a commercial and legal dictionary. I need a good medical dictionary too. There's the one everybody says is good, and then there's the one I saw at the ATA meeting, which costs an arm and a leg, but what I saw of it is amazing.

I wonder if I can arrange a driving lesson that takes me out to the Akron airport, so I don't have to call a shuttle service for the outgoing trip? That would be sneaky of me.

Today is also a good day for making soup. I've got so much food around, due to having my family around this weekend, that soup is about the only way to use it up. And it's back to being cold and cloudy again, so it's a definite soup day.

All right, I've had it. I went from having a cold and cramps to having a cold and a migraine. Raw throat, raw sinuses and headache. Not fair, damn it!

Yes, I'm whining.

EDIT: I'll be damned. Migquine works, as long as I take it as soon as I notice I can't see straight. Halleluia. Now if only it would do something about this cold...which it won't, but I'm not laid out in bed wishing my head would just fall off and have done with it, so I'm moderately pleased.

All right, any time these bloody migraines would like to stop and let me get some actual work done, that would be very nice, thanks. I can't read if I can't see straight, I can't write if I can't think straight and I can't do anything at all if I'm lying flat out in bed trying to keep my breakfast where it belongs before falling asleep for a couple of hours.

I swear I've torn my retina again. Unfortunately I don't have insurance that covers that stuff any more, and I can't afford to have it fixed again without insurance.

I am not pleased about this.

I'm upgrading that migraine from a little one to a medium one, since it involved lying on the floor in my living room for half an hour. Sitting up made me nauseous. It seems to be gone now, but it shot my morning all to hell and now I don't feel like going outside at all. I'm in the "freezing and sleepy" stage that usually shows up during or after the headache.

At least I figured out how to submit my Terminology & Computer Apps assignment from here instead of from the lab on campus. Macs are really wonderful at cross-platform utilities (StuffIt will create Zip files, which is how I'm supposed to submit these assignments).

I need to go grocery shopping again. See previous comment about not going outside, and previous entry about the sidewalks, though. Where's a magic wand when I need one?

I could at the very least start in on the research I was supposed to be doing in the library this morning. I can get to the online catalog from here, which is a very useful thing. If I still need a nap after that, at least I'll have accomplished something today.

This weekend was one of the less fun ones.

Friday night I finally got around to using up the scallions I bought earlier last week (scallions are one of the nastier things to forget about in the fridge for a while). I made egg and lemon soup with scallions in it. I think next time I'll leave out the scallions and try mushrooms and rosemary instead.

On Saturday morning we loaded the kittens into the carrier and the carrier into the car and went off to the vet in Everett. More specifically, we went to the Mass Pike and discovered there are absolutely no signs that say anything about Route 1 until after the airport, at which point they say Route 1A, which is different. We never did get to the vet, because when I called them to tell them we were going to be late, they said we'd have to reschedule, and we didn't hold out any hopes of getting there any other day either. So I called the Metro Cat Hospital in Washington Square, and made an appointment for Tuesday, and then got a migraine. I should have known it was coming when I was having problems reading the phone book.

Saturday night I left my bedroom door open to see what would happen. What happened was an extended wrestling match all over the top of me until past midnight, at which point the kittens all curled up on various parts of the bed and fell asleep until 3:45, at which point the wrestling started in again. Outcome of experiment: keep door shut if sleep is necessary.

Sunday consisted of a trip to the grocery store and most of the making of Italian chicken soup. All it needs now is scrambled eggs and spinach, and I can do that when I get home tomorrow night. Other than that, not much happened on Sunday. I found out about the Columbia disaster on Sunday morning, and I haven't really processed it yet except to say that Fox News has lost me for good. They had, underneath a picture of somebody from NASA expressing grief and sympathy to the astronauts' families, a banner that said something about the event "so far not being linked to terrorism". Hello, not every tragedy is a result of terrorism. Does this mean that the next time there's an earthquake in California, somebody will be looking for links to terrorists?

There's a rant in there somewhere, but I don't have the time for it now.