Alien Spouse

Pumpkins!

We got two different size pumpkins this year, because I talked Doc into it. They were locally grown, and we bought them from one of the Pumpkin Patches that spring up around town at this time of year.  It took us ages to decided which ones we wanted, but I think we got excellent specimens.

Doc didn't want to join in on the carving, so I did both of them and I saved all the seeds and flesh, so we can make pumpkin related yummy stuff.  I'd like to try making pumpkin seed brittle, and Doc's interested in trying to do a fresh pumpkin pie.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

So far this week I've watched the re-make and the sequel to the remake, but I saved the original "House On Haunted Hill" (1959) for Halloween itself.  You've got to spend time with Vincent Price on October 31st.

Ghost Train '09.

I went to work today for three whole hours!  Woot!  Then I came home and napped for two and a half hours!  Hoorah!

Now I'm getting out my thermals and wrapping myself up nice and warm for the Ghost Train this evening.  Doc C is going to wear his Brain Slug Wig, and I've made myself a knitted wig which is as much of a gesture towards a costume as I've made this year.  I'm pleased with the wig itself, it's a gorgeous turquoise and I followed this pattern but shortened it to a twenties bob, and added in curls at the sides;I was intending to add a mini witch's hat and maybe a necklace of amigurumi eyeballs, to be some sort of flapper witch but I ran out of time.

The main thing is I AM going to the Ghost Train this year, and I am very pleased about that.  Mono didn't entirely cancel Halloween after all!

Dorm of Doom Cookies,

It's traditional for  the students in my department have Dorm of Doom party every Halloween, because ours is the halls of residence that is supposed to be haunted.  The party this year has been moved to this evening because the University has an (American) football game on Saturday, so it's traditional but just because something is tradition doesn't mean you can't shift it to a more convenient day.

Anyway it was at least a month ago that I offered to make cookies that the students could then decorate at the party.  I am pleased that they all turned out really well, so you can see what they are meant to be even without icing.  Well, I suppose the skulls and the gravestones are still a touch ambiguous, but look at those bats!  They are particularly pleasing because every other time I've tried to use that cookie cutter, they've just turned into blobby things.

I was going to use up the rest of the dough making a bunch of small stars, but I ran out of baking time.  That's ok though, because it means I can make some cookies just for Doc C this evening and if anyone deserves a batch of fresh baked cookies it's the Doc.

R and R and Cookies.

I didn't go into the office as planned today, because I just could not wake up this morning, annoyingly once I was awake I felt fine.  So I called my doctor's surgery to ask if that was typical for Mono, and it pretty much is, essentially you just have to judge for yourself how much rest you need and try not to over do it.  It's most annoying, I prefer to feel either consistently rancid or consistently well, at least I know where I stand then.  As I feel pretty well today, I'm planning to go in to the office tomorrow and Friday, to try and get back into the swing of things gradually.

The other question I had for the doctor was how contagious I am still, fortunately I can safely bake cookies without worrying about giving Mono to all of the students, so I'm going to make spiced Halloween cookies for the Dorm of Doom tomorrow night.  I'm delighted to have a good excuse to make several batches of skulls and tombstones!

Ghostly Lights.

I bought these lights for my office last year, but since I haven't been there to decorate I've used them at home instead. 

They are on the mantelpiece in the living room, contained in a large glass vase which has orange and black plastic spiders at the bottom of it because I had a whole packet of them and I thought the ghosts could use a touch of colour.

One of the things I like about winter is being able to break out the fairy lights again.  They are just so pretty.

Plan for the week.

This week we are experimenting with me going into work for a few hours, because oddly I'm supposed to actually do something to get paid each month.  Outrageous, isn't it? So the plan is that I ease myself back in by going in for three hours with Doc when he has his office hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then I come home to nap.  If that works well, then I'll try half-days next week, and work up to a whole day with the odd catnap. 

Monday went well.  I didn't tell anyone to expect me, because where would the fun in that be? I knew I had to process the departmental credit cards to meet the deadline, so I just focused on getting that done.  Everyone was rally sweet to meet from a nice safe distance, I'm not even joking; one faculty member came in to ask me to print something for him and when he commented that I had been away, I explained that I had Mono.  He took a stride backwards, and I'm surprised he didn't cross himself.  It was so funny!

By the end of my three hours, I was really tired.  So I came home and slept on the sofa, but I'd forgotten just how noisy Doc C can be sometimes, he didn't mean to be but just everything he wanted to do turned out to be loud, and I so only napped for about an hour.  This turned out to be a mistake.  I woke up at 4am just aching all over, and felt awful until I took some pain killers, then I slept pretty much all of today, and now I feel human again, but I think I've learnt my lesson.

Tonight I'm going to take some Tylenol PM to make sure I sleep through the night; tomorrow I'll see how I'm feeling when I wake up. but hopefully I can go in for my scheduled three hours.  Then I am coming home, putting in ear plugs and sleeping.

A Big Bowl of Halloween

Doc C took me into the office for a couple of hours today, and then I came home to sleep whilst he went food shopping.  Before he left I said something about maybe getting some Halloween sweets, and when he came back he had a whole carrier bag full.  I laughed, and told him I hadn't meant him to go quite that crazy, and he was all "What? This is nothing, this is the bare minimum!" and then ate 14 Almond Joys.*

As was clearly required if only for blog posting purposes, I immediately had to take some photos, so I set the bowl up next to my huge volume of Poe and a nice candle-in-a-storm-lantern.  As you will probably observe my career in product placement is already over before it had any opportunity to begin; almost all of the logos in this picture are either upside down or partially obscured.

_{* Footnote regarding Chocolate for British Readers:}

_{Almond Joy are like Bounty bars, but with an almond perched on top of the coconut.  They're nice!  If you really want to approximate a Bounty whilst here, then you need to look for Mounds; which ironically do not have as much of a mound because they don't have the almond on top.  American chocolate naming conventions are most peculiar.  For example what we would think of as a Milky Way is called a Three Musketeers over here, and how does that make any sense at all?  It only has TWO components - The fluffy stuff in the middle and the chocolate, so where does the third Musketeer come into it?  Has he nipped out for a bit?  Oh, and I have no idea what an American Milky Way is like, but I am pleased to say that Kitkats are exactly the same over here, which is very reassuring.  Actually the thing I'm most surprised to be unable to find here is a Dime bar, I mean how American sounding a product is that?  The closest I've found is a Heath Bar, but it's not quite the same texture of brittle toffee and the chocolate also needs some work in my opinion.}

Channelling the Spirit of Martha.

Whilst tidying up the house I decided to Halloween the living room up a bit.

We don't have any suitable sweets (American Translation: Candy) or Biscuits (American Translation: Cookies) to hand, so I made do with fruit instead.

I honestly didn't purposely position this installation of apples in a Halloween sweet bowl it in the shaft of sunlight.  The sun moved around, and I suddenly realised I had created probably my most twee decoration ever.

House Work and Horror Movies.

Doc C gets home from Denver this evening! I have been tidying up the house so it all looks nice when he gets back.  I'm putting off the vacuuming until sun has moved round, because right now it's streaming in through the living room windows creating optimum sun-bathing conditions for Nancy and she looks so very sweet. If it were Edith rolling around in sun beams I would just get the hoover out right now, because Edith has worked against my whole plan, by peeing on the bathroom floor just after I'd cleaned it.  This is not as helpful as you might imagine.

When I'm tidying up I like to have a film on TV in the background, to keep me entertained whilst I potter about.  This afternoon the schedulers in their infinite wisdom gave me "The Cell".  Who on earth decided that 1 in the afternoon was the perfect time to screen that?  I wouldn't say it's a particularly good film, but the visuals in the dream world are amazing and Vincent D'Onofrio can be so frightening when he puts his mind to it!  And he seems so nice in "Law and Order: Criminal Intent"... To be fair a nice sunny afternoon is my preferred time to watch a scary film, the TV screen gets washed out a bit so you can't really see what horrible things the bad guy is doing and that then makes it SO much easier for me not to get over-involved and freaked out. Why do I even bother watching scary films then?  I really don't know, but for some reason I seem to actually like being scared in small semi-controllable doses.  Usually whilst I'm watching the film, or reading the story, or riding the ghost train, I'm jumpy but laughing at it all.  It's later when my brain starts analysing the scary stuff that I get myself freaked out. 

Which is all a long winded way of saying that I may possibly have, maybe, watched too many gory murder mysteries and spooky Halloween stuff whilst Doc has been away. And OK, yes, I've been sleeping with the light on in the hall whilst Doc's been away, and I am really looking forward to him getting back.

This Weekend's TV Starring... A Whole Bunch of Really Cool People!

Me and the cats have been catching up on our TV viewing in a big way whilst Doc's away, yesterday was detective shows overload and today has been kid's Halloween movies thank to ABC Family doing back-to-back themed films for the whole damned day.  I was planning to read some Edgar Allan Poe, but no I ended up glued to both proper Addams Family films.  LOVE them, obviously.

The best bit is definitely spotting fantastic actors in bit part roles, as always for me, but the cats never seem that impressed when I point out things out, like  "Look how sweet David Krumholtz is in 'Addams Family Values' who'd have thought he'd grow up to be the essential quirky member of a unconventional detective procedural? And you can barely even see Carol Kane under all that latex, she is such a trooper! Hey! Hey, Look! That drunken sailor in the bar singing 'Macho Man' with Joan Cusack ? That's Tony Shaloub! You know from 'Monk"? Edith, you love 'Monk', come on!"

My absolute favourite spot today was from 'Hocus Pocus'.  Right at the very beginning you see a teenage boy called Thackary Binx, shortly before he's turned into a cat for the duration, the actor playing Thackary?  A sweetly baby faced McGee from 'NCIS'.  Fabulous.

Actually yesterday's pilot episode of 'White Collar' (Stukey - Look out for this, I think you would enjoy it) was a cornucopia of great actors in supporting roles that I really hope are recurring through-out the series and become fleshed out   The lead guys were great too, but I was expecting that from the trailers, it was an unexpected pleasure to see Willie Garson, Dihann Carroll, Sharif Atkins, Mark Sheppard, Tiffani Thiessen and, the mandatory Brit doing a pretty good American accent, Marsha Thomason (who is also fabulous in the repeats of 'Vegas' I've caught over the past few weeks.)

So yeah, I'm still exhausted from Mono, and perhaps a touch spacey because I've spent the whole day on the sofa watching TV and knitting, but at least my talent for actor spotting hasn't deserted me AND I cobbled together a blog post out of it.  Things could be worse.

Just Me and the Cats.

With Doc away you'd think I'd have the bed to myself, but Edith decided to join me and proceeded to take over the whole bed.  How do cats do that?  She can fit herself in a shoe box perfectly happily, but she needed more space than me on the bed apparently.  When I woke up this morning Edith was asleep on my tummy and Nancy was curled up on my chest, the cats love their Human Female!  Or I was the warmest thing in the house!  One or the other.

Nancy is getting more impatient with me in the mornings, and she's started biting my nose if I'm not up early enough for her liking.  At least I hope that's what it is, I suppose it could be that she's checking to see if I'm still alive and, if not, getting a headstart on breakfast.

Iced Mini Cooper.

Doc C is away for the rest of this week, he's at a conference in Denver which I was going to go to, but travelling with Mono did not sound like fun.  So I'm at home with the cats, they are thrilled.

Doc left for the airport at 8:30 this morning, and he called to say he'd arrived about an hour ago.  So I can relax now, and enjoy the rest of my "Real Housewives of Atlanta" marathon, shh, don't tell Doc C, but I enjoy a bit of supremely trashy reality TV.

And the photo is from the weekend, when we had our first really frosty morning.

My First Knitting Project.

Whilst lying around I am trying to follow a simple knitting pattern for a hat, and so far it looks ok.  It's not perfect, but really the only person who is likely to notice that is me, because we are talking about the occaisional purl when I really should have knitted.  At least I think that's what happened here.  It's not too huge a deal, and the plan was always to crochet some flowers to stick on it. 

Now the placement of those flowers will be determined less by my creative muse, and more by my random mistakes. 

That should keep things interesting! 

Casting Gold.

Naturally I knew "NCIS:LA" starred LLCoolJ and Chris O'Donell, but I did not know their boss was played by Linda Hunt. And she's in full on Edna Mode drag! Love her! I'm only five minutes into the episode, but seeing big burly action hero types being scared of a tiny little lady with a severe bob is very entertaining. Still, the theme tune isn't as good as "NCIS" classic. * * * Post Script: The casting may be golden, but who the hell is writing this show? Doc C was vocally unimpressed.

Mono Monday

Today I have slept, ate lunch and slept some more. It's been non-stop. Oh, and I also did some knitting. Maybe tomorrow I'll go really crazy.

Red-White-and-Blue Toe Socks.

Toasty Toes.

WWZD?

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself frankly.  Yesterday we cancelled my flight to Denver (Doc has a conference there, so he's still going), decided I have really got to pull out of the MA program for the rest of this semester and we were even discussing not going to the Ghost Train this year.  So that's very frustrating and upsetting, I got myself so worked up about it that I didn't sleep at all yesterday, which is not good.

Today I pretty much slept through the whole day, and when I woke up Doc C put "Murderball" on.  He's screening it for a class next week, and he just needs to check the disc is playing properly.

"Murderball" is a fantastic documentary about paraplegics playing full-contact rugby in these unbelivably intimidating wheel chairs, and the American Quad-Rugby team preparing for the 2004 Paralympics.  It's an amazing documentary.  It's also the perfect anti-dote to feeling sorry for yourself when you are having a disppointing few weeks, because you know Mark Zupan would think you were being totally pathetic (And he wouldn't phrase it quite that politely either). 

My new motto for the remainder of this crappy virus is "What Would Zupan Do?"

A Handful of Tablets.

These are all of the various pills, caplets and tablets I'm taking with breakfast at the moment. They are mainly vitamins that I'm hoping will help with the Mono. 

Hey, taking a few dietary supplements can't hurt can it?

The Many Many Ways in Which Mono Sucks. And One Silver Lining.

I think I'm going to have to change my Halloween costume plans, because there is just no way that I can see myself making the Bride of Frankenstein wig in time.  It's theoretically possible, but I really think it's just too ambitious at the moment.  Mono sucks all of the energy out of me, and I'm getting really frustrated with the daftest things.  We went to KMart and bought a cheesy wig for Doc's brain slug to nest in, and it took me at least an hour to get the slug sewn on.  It just wouldn't sit in the right place and look in the right direction, I had to keep taking it back off and starting again, and I got SO grumpy about it.  Poor Doc offered to help by wearing the wig whilst I sewed the slug on, and I was extremely sarcastic about that suggestion, which in retrospect was very unfair of me.  Although I still can't quite see how he thought that would work... Anyway...

This Mono thing is just ridiculous. Realistically I'm going to be convalescing for at least another two weeks, I hope that's a pessimistic estimate but let's take that as our working model. This means I have to make some decisions about work, as well as my other commitments and plans.  Work is actually ok-ish, in that my manager is being great about the whole thing and insisting I look after myself, but I want to just have a little chat with HR to see how the land lies on this sort of illness.  I want to know how it's going to affect my annual leave (I will be absolutely bloody furious if I can't go home for Christmas because of this) and if there are any problems I haven't even thought of.

As for my classes the main issue is that they are in the evening, so that's an extra three hours at the end of my working day on Monday and Wednesday and that was tiring even before I had Mono.  I can see myself managing to attend the classes if I rest all day by not going into work, but that seems really cheeky to me; particularly as the tuition is being waived by the University because I'm a staff member.  It's a conundrum.

Finally Doc has a conference in Denver next week, and I am supposed to be going with him.  I've been looking forward to it for ages now, and we've already booked our flight and hotel, but I'm just not sure traveling is the best idea.  Once I get there, I think I'll be fine; I'll send Doc out for food and then just stay in the hotel room watching cartoons and sleeping, the only difference will be I won't have cats walking across my tender spleen at 6 in the morning.  On the one hand, I know the travel itself will be exhausting; but on the other hand Denver has a branch of Lush and I'm fairly sure the retail therapy of stocking up on moisturiser and fabulous smelling soap would be a big help.

I did consider putting another vote up in this post, so that I could canvas for your opinions on these issues because when I'm ill I prefer to abdicate decision making responsibility to someone else, but I know I can't do that.  Apparently I'm an adult now, and that means making my own mind up about these situations.  sigh.

Oh, the one good thing is that I have lost more weight, despite the whole lying around and not going to the gym aspect of the illness.  Don't worry!  I'm not doing it on purpose, and I'm trying to make sure I eat well, but if not having much of an appetite and fighting a virus ends up burning off some fat, well let's not look that gift horse in the mouth.

Science Fiction - Double Feature, Dr X Will Build a Creature.

We went to feed friends' cats whilst they are away, and stopped at the chemist (American Translation: Drug Store) to get some vitamin A and Zinc, because I read they can be helpful with Mono.

They have a great range of Halloween stuff there, so we browsed that as well.  I had noticed last time they had some cheesy looking CDs and DVDs on offer at $3-for-2, but I hadn't really looked at them because how good could they be?  Um, AMAZING!

I am now the proud owner of the following classic B movie horror double-bills;

• Monsters and Madmen - Featuring "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" (1962 and the title that really drew my attention!) and "Beast of Yucca Falls" (1961 film in which Tor Johnson is accidentally mutated by an atomic test)
• Threshold of Terror - Featuring "Bluebeard" (1944 film starring John Carradine) and "House on Haunted Hill" (The 1959 film, directed by William Castle and starring Vincent Price)
• Chills - Featuring "Dead Men Walk" (Made in 1943 and featuring the classic evil identical twin storyline) and "The Monster Maker" (1944 film which I'm given to understand co-stars a man in a gorilla suit)
• Tales of the Undead - Featuring "Atom Age Vampire" (No clue! Apparently it's a dubbed Italian film from the 60s) and "Revolt of the Zombies" (No idea! Zombies from 1936 have got to be worth a look though)

So that is 8 fabulously tacky creature features for $6, and all of the DVDs also have a cartoon too.

And Now The Weather.

Look a picture!  And I even edited it and put in those fun cloud graphics!

So when I was last in the office it was in the 70s, and the sky was blue.

Today it has been misty.

This weekend there is snow predicted.

Exactly how long have I been asleep?

A Plan.

Ok Internet, here's the plan.

Tomorrow I will take a photograph of something, anything, and I will post that picture on my blog Alien Spouse.  It's wild.  It's crazy.  It just might work.

I'll warn you now it's highly likely to be a photo of Nancy's furry little bottom, because she seems quite determined to take every opportunity to shove it in my face.  I am not speaking figuratively.

It Is Confirmed To Be Mono.

The doctor's office just called to confirm I do indeed have Mono, which makes sense given every single one of my symptoms was pointing to that diagnosis. The nurse firmly reminded me that this is a virus that will run it's course, but all I can do is rest until it does.  She also said this can take weeks, or has been known in some cases, to take months.

Tell you what, I'm going to have another cup of tea with a slice of Doc C's freshly baked banana bread and do some positive visualisations of me running around as fit as a flea within weeks.  Months is just plainly ludicrous, I can't be doing with lollygagging around the house for that long.

In the meantime, I've finished my "Frankenstein" essay in which I've managed to extrapolate a whole sado-masochistic marriage from a two sentence description of a painting.  Don't worry, I had Doc check it wasn't merely fevered ramblings before I e-mailed it in to Jill. 

I Dream of Sleeping.

Still no news about my blood tests, but I can report that I was at work for a grand total of two and a half hours yesterday.  This was just enough time for four colleagues and two students (one graduate, one undergrad) to tell me I looked terrible.  Mainly they thought I looked pale, which considering I am a blonde who avoids the sun isn't exactly news, but apparently I was even paler than I usually am. Imagine, I must have bee practically translucent.  Doc brought me home, and I napped for a couple of hours, before setting up my work computer laptop so I can access most of the software I need to do some work from home.

Not exactly a strenuous day, but I was so tired by the time I went to bed that night I actually dreamt about settling down to go to sleep.  It's quite something when even your sub-conscious is nagging you about accepting you need to get some more rest.

Apart from making sure I can keep my job, I'm also trying to keep up with my class work.  I have a 2-to-3 page paper to write, which is a close reading of a quote from "Frankenstein".  I've chosen the description of a painting in the Frankenstein library, which is only two sentences in the seventh chapter (page 76 for those of you with the Bedford/St. Martins 2nd edition), but I think it explores a lot of themes of the novel as well as indicating a much darker possible reading of the romantic relationships within the text.  It sounds quite good in theory, doesn't it?  The problem is that it seems to be coming out like that weird post I wrote the other day, I just can't seem to articulate my analysis clearly or, more to the point, provide solid textual evidence.  I am going to go through an look up each and every word in the OED and hope that gives me something to hang the whole essay on.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Health Update.

Note to self: Do not write blog posts when you are so tired that you are verging on incoherent.  Jeez.  Sorry about yesterday's post, it seemed really important at the time, but it did get a bit damn circuitous didn't it?  And I have a paper I need to do for my English class as well, I hate to think how that's going to turn out.

Anyway I spoke to my Doctor this morning and the results aren't back on all of my tests yet, so all we really know is that I have a low white blood cell count which points to a virus.  My Doctor said she's pretty sure that it is Mono (Gladular Fever), but that's one of the tests we're waiting for still. She's writing me a note for work recommending I take some more time off, and I'm going into the office this morning to talk to my manager and work out what the best thing to do is.

I think I could probably handle being back in the office, as long as I could beetle off for a nap as and when necessary.  Actually, I'm pretty sure EVERYONE would feel better about work if they had a comfy sofa to zizz on as and when it seemed appropriate.

Some (Channels) You Lose.

This week just gets better; ofcourse I've slept my way through most of it thanks to this stupid bug, fainted at the Doctors and today Doc called Charter to cancel our cable. That's a little dramatic, but it was only because the Charter person was actually helpful this time that we still have at least a basic cable package. The problem is that we have come to realise we are paying a lot more than any of our friends round here. This is because Charter has the monopoly over the particular townhouse complex we live in, so our choice is them or nothing. There is nothing for us to bargain with, apart from all out cancellation. After a lot of thought we decided that we could survive on Hulu and NetFlix, so Doc called to cancel. Last time he called to have this conversation the person he spoke to could really not have cared less, this time they talked Doc through our options until we reached a compromise. We have lost BBC America, Nicktoons and Turner Classic Movies, which is a bit of a blow, but it saves us $30 a month and that money can go towards the ticket-home-for-Christmas fund. Yay!

Yarn Buying Trip - 50% Success.

Doc took me to the OTHER yarn shop today. We actually had to go to the next town over and everything.  I know!  This one is called Unwound and it's a bit smaller than Yarntastic, the shop that's in our town, but I feel like it has a wider range of yarns.

I don't know what it is about small speciality shops, but whether it's yarn, comics or records, I always feel like I should have done more research to earn the right to be there.  It's intimidating, and somehow whatever I wanted to ask about or buy seems to be totally ludicrous when I'm trying to explain it to the person behind the counter.

This shop didn't have eyelash yarn either, (although they weren't quite so dismissive of it as Yarntastic, I still got the impression that eyelash yarn is really not quite the thing) so Doc and I had a look to see if there was anything else that would work for his brain slug wig/hat, he chose a nice alpaca blend in a really lovely brown.  I had also intended to get a couple of balls of cheap fluffy acrylic in black and white, but I got all flustered and bought a dark red cotton.  I did manage to get some knitting needles though, so there was some progress.

Then we came home and I slept for two hours.

I think I may have to rely on the internet from now on, it's not ideal because I won't be able to feel the textures before I buy but at least that way I'll be able to buy exactly what a pattern calls for.

Squirrel Frenzy.

Doc got a new bird feeder, which the birds love, but they are messy little whatsits and spill sunflower seeds everywhere.

When I got up to feed the cats this morning, I noticed that there was a squirrel having breakfast on our balcony tidying up all the seeds the birds had thrown around.

The cats were totally oblivious.

I sat down to watch Nutkin, and Edith came over to me to get some attention.  As she was prancing around me, she happened to look out of the window and suddenly froze.  Edith had seen the squirrel.

Edith waited until the squirrel turned it's back and then commando crawled across the floor to the window.  Nutkin saw her, but pretty soon worked out Edith couldn't reach him and carried on eating.  By this time Nancy had noticed Edith's rapt attention and had joined her by the window. Both cats were chattering in frustration, and pressed up against the glass in the hope that this time they would find a way through.  Edith was even scanning the walls, I think just in case she'd missed a hole or something over the past year of living here. 

It was easily the most entertaining half hour I've had this week.

The Short Version

"Hey, look a Puppy!

Tears for Fears...

My head feels funny..."

(Slumps left)

Seriously, I WILL Faint.

Ok, so my Doctor doesn't think this is Swine Flu or anything H1N1 adjacent, which I am very pleased to hear.  She thinks it might be Mono, which I think is what we refer to as Glandular Fever in the UK.  I know I was tested for that as a teenager, during my summer of mysterious falling asleep bloody everywhere, but I don't think I actually had it.  Do you remember Mum?

Anyway, I was sent for blood tests which are never my favourite thing.  It's a pity, because I have lovely veins and nurses never have a problem actually getting the blood, it's just I get a touch of the vapours.  I hate it, because being my Mother's daughter, I do not like to make a fuss and fainting seems so attention seeking.  I always warn whoever is taking blood that I don't react well, but I tend to underplay it because it's not like I totally freak out at the sight of needles or anything. This time the nurse asked if I'd like Doc C to come with me, and I said yes. The nurse sat me down in a funny little sofa thingy, with arms that folded down in front of me.  There was a very faded sticker of a puppy on the left arm, and I took a couple of pictures of that mainly because I was trying to stay upbeat by not thinking about the whole blood thing.

The nurse very quickly found a good vein, and complimented me on how nice my veins are, so she soon had the needle in and was busily filling up the various vials.  I didn't watch and was talking to Doc C who was literally holding my hand through the whole thing. When she had finished, she took the tourniquet off my arm, and walked my blood around the corner to the lab; just as "Shout" by Tears for Fears started playing on the radio. 

At this point I thought that I turned to Doc, and said I feel a bit faint, and just moved into a chair with a slanted back with a bit of help from Doc.  However, according to Doc I looked him straight in the eye said "Tears for Fears... My head feels funny..." and then my pupils dilated and I slumped over sideways.

Poor Doc C was, and I quote, "totally freaked out" and had to shout for the nurse, who came racing back with a paramedic and smelling salts.  Actual smelling salts!  I had no idea those were a real thing that were still used!  They tried to wake me up, and then all three of them moved me to the chair I woke up in.  I had to sit there for a while because my blood pressure was really low (I am, indeed, my Mother's daughter!) and they didn't want me to leave until it got a bit higher.  Well, that and my lips had turned blue, which is never a good look.  After about ten minutes the nurses decided I was recovered enough to let me go, so they sent Doc to pull the car round and walked me to the door.  They told me to go straight home, to rest and drink plenty of liquids.

The really weird part was that I had no idea I had actually passed out.  I thought I'd just got a bit light headed, but it wasn't until Doc told me the whole story in the car that I found out I'd actually lost consciousness.  Weird!

I Fully Intend to Leave The Sofa - Tomorrow.

Ok, so I didn't physically you know go to the actual office today, but I did read all my unread e-mail and reply to anything I needed to. Then I had a nap for two hours.

I'm still exhausted; and achey; and my ears are ringing.  It is tedious.

Tomorrow I have got to go into work, for the morning at least.  There is stuff that I need to do, damn it!  Plus I have my sick leave balance is now in the negative again, and staying off work any longer is going to get expensive.

Convalescing.

Tomorrow I am intending to go back to work, so today I'm not going to take any cold/flu stuff to see if this bug is sufficiently out of my system and not just masked by DayQuil.

I'm still keeping my doctor's appointment on Friday morning, because it is so annoying catching every little thing that goes around campus.  Maybe I need more iron in my diet, or perhaps I should have some vaccinations.  I don't know, so let's hope my doctor can suggest a miracle elixir that sorts this all out.

Still Bleugh.

I'm at home today, curled up in the living room covered in blankets and cats; drinking tea; reading English Lit. Crit. and grammar books and, of course, dozing.

When I checked in with my boss this morning I mentioned I also had a stomach ache, and she said combining that additional symptom with the exhaustion, and general cold/flu like complaints, pretty much added up to what two of my co-workers have had in the last couple of weeks.  Which was Swine Flu.

Now, I'm not convinced myself because I still haven't seen my doctor, and I don't actually have a fever or even a particularly high temperature.  Bearing that in mind, I'm going to work on the premise that I either a) do not have Swine Flu, or b) the combination of tea, sleep, over-the-counter cold/flu meds and large amounts of vitamin C have nipped this nonsense in the bud.

I really hope it's a) with a hint of b), and I most sincerely do not want Doc C to catch any little piggy illnesses.  That would be miserable.

Stupid Bug.

I am ill.  Again.  Arghh!

Well, I say "again" but I suspect I've been soldiering on with the same thing for a while now, so I've had a low level sore throat since, what, August?  In the past six weeks I've gone through three or four bags of Hall's Plus Honey-and-Lemon flavour with a soothing syrup centre.  They are the closest things I can find to Lockets.

This weekend I was exhausted and achey, so this morning I called my doctor's surgery to make an appointment for this afternoon, and then called into the office to let them know I wouldn't be in today.  Then I slept, until the doctor's surgery called back to cancel my appointment because my doctor is ill.

That can't be good, can it?

Bonfire of Bad Design.

You may remember that I recently bought a new lunch bag, because the small cooler I had was just too annoying to be used every day. Similarly, since we arrived in North Carolina we have been using a wooden drying rack to dry our clothes, and for two years now it's been annoying us.  It was all wonky and unstable, but even more frustrating was that it would collapse, usually just when you had your arms full of wet clothes and were about to start hanging them up.  Gah!

But no more!  I will suffer bad design no longer!
 

Yesterday we bought a new metal drying rack, and in the evening I folded up the wooden rack for the last time before I chopped the bloody thing to pieces with a hatchet and we made a fire out of it.  In fact it may well have been the most satisfying fire ever, ever, ever.

 

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Sunday Task List

I have got so much reading still to do for my class tomorrow, and I want to make cookies, and I should really clean the bathroom, and Nancy needs another pill, and I have got to do some laundry, and the living room could do with being tidied, and when was the last time I brushed Edith?

I may have to have a nap.  There mere thought of all of that is exhausting.

Shopping.

Don't you just love the first Saturday after payday?  The endless possibilities?  The things you've been putting off buying that are suddenly within your grasp?  Love it!  I'm not talking about desperately exciting stuff even, I just needed to spend some time browsing denim and stationary for my classes, I'm very easily amused.

This morning I had an appointment to get my hair cut, and buy hair styling product. Straight after that we drove off the mountain in search of jeans and other necessary things. 

Doc particularly likes American Eagle jeans, and there is one in Hickory so we went there.  He quickly found a stack of stuff to try on, but I don't find AE jeans very flattering on me so it took me a while.  Once I did make it into the changing room things didn't really improve much. Call me crazy, but I don't like ultra low rise that seem to be so very fashionable.  For one thing, I have a long body, so finding tops that are long enough to meet normal jeans is challenging enough thank you!  Plus there is the small matter of there not being enough waist-to-hip ratio difference to keep the stupid jeans up, so you have to spend the whole day tugging at the waist band as it creeps down your hips.  Annoying. Anyway, all of the AE jeans seemed to be distressed in various unconvincing ways that I'm not convinced do anything at all for a girl's thighs; so I didn't buy any there. 

I did try on a short grey-and-pink tartan pleated skirt, which I liked, but I think my days of getting away with pleated tartan mini-skirts are behind me.  It looked quite good on (The Doc said so!), it's just, well, where the hell would I wear something like that?  To work?  Ha!  Clearly I am becoming more sensible, because that strikes me as vastly inappropriate for the office.  So I didn't buy that either. In fact all I did buy was a pair of grey cable knit tights, which looked nice and warm.  Sensible.

So we went to Old Navy, where I was confident I could find something that would work.  I bought a new pair of painter jeans, and another pair of the flirt jeans I've been living in for the last two months.  It's time to move on and accept that belted in size sixteens just look silly on me now.  I also bought a skull-and-crossbones water bottle, and some more knitted tights, it is going to be a toasty winter if I have anything to do with it!

The main problem with this shopping trip was the mall we went to, which was the hellish polar opposite of the swish one we visited after my biometrics appointment.  Perhaps it was that all of the shops seemed to be blaring out really bland rock music, or that each place seemed to  use a different overpowering air-freshner, but I pretty soon had a headache and the desire to make it all stop.

We drove back up the mountain (well, Doc did, I slept the whole way), stopped off to buy chemist stuff, house stuff and school stuff, then called it a day.

Olive Eye.

Ok now that, is a full-on Nancy Martini Head!  Look at that olive eye! The picture I posted yesterday didn't really give you the full effect, but this morning I had to give Nancy a pill so she was very wary of everything and had her eyes wide open.

We have to give Nancy a course of 5 pills over 5 days, one half every twelve hours.  I gave her the first one before breakfast, and naturally she was as melodramatic as a feline can be. 

She spat most of it out, and then ran away from me, frothing at the mouth.  I'm not being dramatic, she really had froth dripping from her mouth.  sigh.

Fortunately the dinner time pill was much less of a trauma.  I made sure it went right to the back of her mouth, and then I stroked her throat until she swallowed.  It took a surprisingly long time, she is a very stubborn little cat.

Cat Nicknames.

Speaking of nicknames, we realised the other day that the cats had something like five nicknames each.

Nancy:  Piggy Big-Eyes, Nancy Pants, Stumpy, Senorita Stumpita and, her latest, Martini Head (because her eyes look like olives).

Edith:  Thunder-Paws, Floofy Knickers, Crazy Boots and Panzer Tank of Love.

I don't know why they have so many nick names, I mean it's not like they take a blind bit of notice of their names anyway.   As you can see from the photo, Nancy thinks even less of this nonsense.

Jens Of The World Unite!

You know how there are trends in baby names, and there are noticeable fashions and trends?   I am personally aware of this because I'm called Jen and so are thousands of other women.  This has lead, at different points in my Jen career, to the only two real nicknames I've ever been given - "The Bond Blonde" and "Frank".

This is clearly because Jennifer, and variations of Jennifer, has been a very popular girls name for decades. Look, I have facts to back this up:

Popularity. (Data relate to England and Wales) Although no longer in the top ten girls' names, Jennifer is one of only seven names to have been in the top hundred every year between 1944 and 1994, the others being Sarah, Elizabeth, Catherine, Heather, Helen and Maria. The ten year rankings are:

	1994	1984	1974	1964	1954	1944
Jennifer	Rank: 42 (1 in 214)	Rank: 11 (1 in 67)	Rank: 34 (1 in 147)	Rank: 45 (1 in 162)	Rank: 23 (1 in 109)	Rank: 18 (1 in 66)
Source: First Names. The Definitive Guide to Popular Names in England and Wales 1944-1994, and in the Regions 1994 by Emma Merry with support from Kay Callaghan and Chris Cotton. HMSO, London. 1995

Fascinating, right?

This has a particularly satisfying knock-on effect, which is that listed on the International Rollergirl's Master Roster there are some fantastic Roller Derby sobriquets for Jens, Jennies, Jennifers and Jennys.  It's hard to chose a favourite, but I really like Jenniferocious, because it's the only one that uses Jennifer in it's entirety, but I also really like Jen X, because it's punchy.

And now we've segued over to Roller Derby, yes, I am SO looking forward to Drew Barrymore's directorial debut "Whip It".  I cannot wait!

Tree Silhouettes.

Today the weather was bright, but cold. It was lovely!

Soon the leaves will be turning red, and falling off the trees.

Autumn is pretty much my favourite time of year.

Another happy sigh.

A Pleasant Martini Glow.

This evening I didn't have a class, so we came home and I made myself a Martini, with two olives.

What with the calorie counting and stuff it's been a while since I've had a strong drink, so it has gone straight to my head.  It's nice, I feel like I've got a little fluffy cloud round my head.

Happy sigh.