MP: Just a Journal Entry
The big rat cage is clean and my hands are pruny. I'm tired now, with my back aching. I smell of soap and paper bedding and faintly of rat piss. I love my rats, don't misunderstand, but cleaning that cage is such a job. Although honestly, it took about an hour and a quarter, which seems like not such a big deal. Where is my stamina? But then I haven't had much stamina in a long time.
So Nicky and Anzu-hime and Survivor get to sleep one more night in uncleaned cages, because I just can't face the thought of cleaning another two right now, even though their cages are much smaller and more easily handled. What a bad parent I am.
Soon I need to try to integrate Nicky into the big cage. I'm afraid of the fights that are likely to ensue, but I'd really like to see him living with the other rats instead of by himself. Not tonight, though.
I'm worried about Zoro, who seems underweight. His energy is high, though: he's certainly not acting sick. I think I may need to switch them back to a multi-grain feed, instead of lab blocks. Lab blocks are supposedly more nutritionally complete, but I really think he needs more weight. I suppose if I were a really good rat parent, I'd be cooking meals for them. But I don't even cook for myself. Although how hard would it be to go scramble some eggs?
Pretty darn hard, that's how. Actually today was a sick day. That's my declaration. The last two nights were busy, in entirely enjoyable ways, mind you, but tiring. Thursday I went to see Cirque du Soleil's show OVO in San Jose. It's insect themed, and as all Cirque shows, really amazingly awesome. If I could afford it, I'd be a Cirque junkie, following them around and watching every performance. Well maybe not, but seriously. I definitely intend to make a trip to Las Vegas sometime soon to see all the Cirque shows in residence there. Ill find the money for it somewhere, I'm sure. Besides, it's research. I'm writing a book about a performer in an acrobatic troupe much like Cirque.
Friday night I went with several people from my choir to an expensive restaurant in Half Moon Bay, where our friend Walt was playing piano, accompanying two women singers. The singers were, frankly, bad. Most of the choir could outsing them any day, and that's just our little church choir. But it was fun to hang out with friends, and eat fancy food which I really shouldn't have, but... Mmm steak and spare ribs. Plus (and don't tell my mom) there were Brussels sprouts that were really really good. Possibly it had to do with the fact that they'd been quartered, pan fried with bacon, and were served with a cognac butter sauce. So possibly all that tasty fat negated the health benefits of eating them, but still there were a lot of Brussels sprouts on my plate and I ate most of them.
I also had one drink, a blueberry lemon drop, that was a great disappointment. It sounded delicious in theory: blueberry vodka, lemon juice, Triple Sec, and a dollop of frozen blueberry sorbet, served in a martini glass with a sugared rim. In practice it looked lovely and tasted like cough syrup. My friend owldolatrous suggested squeezing in the half lemon that had gone unused from our oysters on the halfshell, to tarten it up, and that did help, but I would still avoid it in the future. (Don't worry, the lemon had been sitting on a bed of ice, not on the oysters. And if sweeten is a word, tarten should be too.)
Anyway, I had just the one drink, so my extreme fatigue today can't be a hangover. I was exhausted by the time we left the noisy restaurant. It could be due to the headache though, which came back this afternoon and sent me to bed for a few hours, and made me do all my writing today with a hat on, to shield my eyes from the painful light.
I have noticed a correlation about these headaches. A number of my friends who get migraines said to pay attention and see if I notice any weird flashing lights before hand. I don't. But I have noticed, several times in the last couple of months, and coinciding with the onset of these annoying headaches, a scent of stale cigarette smoke. I thought I was just smelling it coming from the neighboring apartments, but I recall also noticing it while I was at my mom's, and no one in her house is a smoker. And I noticed it at church once, and in my car. Then today I was sitting in bed, feeling unaccountably tired, and I smelled it, and I thought, you know, every time I've smelled it I've been really tired, and not long after: headache. And sure enough, today, shortly after the cigarette smoke scent and midday fatigue came the light-hurty headache.
OK, so this sounds weird. At least now I think I have something to actually take to a doctor and ask about. It's like debugging a computer problem: I don't like to submit a bug or call tech support until I have sufficient data from which to make some guesses. If I went to the doctor and said, "I've been getting headaches and light bothers my eyes" that was too generic to bother with, but "I smell cigarette smoke that isn't there, and then get headaches, and light bothers my eyes", well, see that's some useful data. Gives you some ideas where to look, right?
Just agree with me. If it's enough to get me off my ass and into the doctor, it's all good, right? Plus, maybe they'll go, "Oh yes, that's phantom smoke headache syndrome, here's how you treat that."
Anyway. So I've not been writing these like I said I would. See how long my resolutions last? But I'll keep trying. Anyone of you migraine people ever had olfactory hallucinations as your headache aura?
So Nicky and Anzu-hime and Survivor get to sleep one more night in uncleaned cages, because I just can't face the thought of cleaning another two right now, even though their cages are much smaller and more easily handled. What a bad parent I am.
Soon I need to try to integrate Nicky into the big cage. I'm afraid of the fights that are likely to ensue, but I'd really like to see him living with the other rats instead of by himself. Not tonight, though.
I'm worried about Zoro, who seems underweight. His energy is high, though: he's certainly not acting sick. I think I may need to switch them back to a multi-grain feed, instead of lab blocks. Lab blocks are supposedly more nutritionally complete, but I really think he needs more weight. I suppose if I were a really good rat parent, I'd be cooking meals for them. But I don't even cook for myself. Although how hard would it be to go scramble some eggs?
Pretty darn hard, that's how. Actually today was a sick day. That's my declaration. The last two nights were busy, in entirely enjoyable ways, mind you, but tiring. Thursday I went to see Cirque du Soleil's show OVO in San Jose. It's insect themed, and as all Cirque shows, really amazingly awesome. If I could afford it, I'd be a Cirque junkie, following them around and watching every performance. Well maybe not, but seriously. I definitely intend to make a trip to Las Vegas sometime soon to see all the Cirque shows in residence there. Ill find the money for it somewhere, I'm sure. Besides, it's research. I'm writing a book about a performer in an acrobatic troupe much like Cirque.
Friday night I went with several people from my choir to an expensive restaurant in Half Moon Bay, where our friend Walt was playing piano, accompanying two women singers. The singers were, frankly, bad. Most of the choir could outsing them any day, and that's just our little church choir. But it was fun to hang out with friends, and eat fancy food which I really shouldn't have, but... Mmm steak and spare ribs. Plus (and don't tell my mom) there were Brussels sprouts that were really really good. Possibly it had to do with the fact that they'd been quartered, pan fried with bacon, and were served with a cognac butter sauce. So possibly all that tasty fat negated the health benefits of eating them, but still there were a lot of Brussels sprouts on my plate and I ate most of them.
I also had one drink, a blueberry lemon drop, that was a great disappointment. It sounded delicious in theory: blueberry vodka, lemon juice, Triple Sec, and a dollop of frozen blueberry sorbet, served in a martini glass with a sugared rim. In practice it looked lovely and tasted like cough syrup. My friend owldolatrous suggested squeezing in the half lemon that had gone unused from our oysters on the halfshell, to tarten it up, and that did help, but I would still avoid it in the future. (Don't worry, the lemon had been sitting on a bed of ice, not on the oysters. And if sweeten is a word, tarten should be too.)
Anyway, I had just the one drink, so my extreme fatigue today can't be a hangover. I was exhausted by the time we left the noisy restaurant. It could be due to the headache though, which came back this afternoon and sent me to bed for a few hours, and made me do all my writing today with a hat on, to shield my eyes from the painful light.
I have noticed a correlation about these headaches. A number of my friends who get migraines said to pay attention and see if I notice any weird flashing lights before hand. I don't. But I have noticed, several times in the last couple of months, and coinciding with the onset of these annoying headaches, a scent of stale cigarette smoke. I thought I was just smelling it coming from the neighboring apartments, but I recall also noticing it while I was at my mom's, and no one in her house is a smoker. And I noticed it at church once, and in my car. Then today I was sitting in bed, feeling unaccountably tired, and I smelled it, and I thought, you know, every time I've smelled it I've been really tired, and not long after: headache. And sure enough, today, shortly after the cigarette smoke scent and midday fatigue came the light-hurty headache.
OK, so this sounds weird. At least now I think I have something to actually take to a doctor and ask about. It's like debugging a computer problem: I don't like to submit a bug or call tech support until I have sufficient data from which to make some guesses. If I went to the doctor and said, "I've been getting headaches and light bothers my eyes" that was too generic to bother with, but "I smell cigarette smoke that isn't there, and then get headaches, and light bothers my eyes", well, see that's some useful data. Gives you some ideas where to look, right?
Just agree with me. If it's enough to get me off my ass and into the doctor, it's all good, right? Plus, maybe they'll go, "Oh yes, that's phantom smoke headache syndrome, here's how you treat that."
Anyway. So I've not been writing these like I said I would. See how long my resolutions last? But I'll keep trying. Anyone of you migraine people ever had olfactory hallucinations as your headache aura?