Migraine City

I have had a migraine every day now for seven days. Which is probably some sort of record. (Though I seem to recall having a migraine off and on for several weeks, this one is with me when I wake up, every morning.) Oh, I take a drug which ameliorates the pain, but the headache hovers there behind the pain, waiting to come out when the coast is clear. And the drug alters my moods and makes me snarky. (At least that is my excuse for my impatience, now that it is cool and beautifully sunny and heat cannot be blamed.)

I am not one for lying in dark rooms and being one with the throbbing but light is torture.

With or without the drug, I feel like I am in a capsule, not in the same world as everyone else. That feeling of distance brings out my cynicism, I note, while watching C-SPAN.

Update on Couple in Beirut

My son-in-law's sister and her husband are finally out of Beirut. They were flown to Cyprus and will be returning to the U.S. on leave. This was not their choice. They intend to go back and wanted to go to Turkey, and wait there until it was safe to return to Lebanon.

Looking at the news, one wonders if it will ever be safe. Interesting that the U.S. disagrees with the idea of a cease fire on the grounds that Hezbollah=terrorists need to be disarmed. And that will work as well as it has in Iraq?

Beating the Heat with Hill Street Blues.

During too many days of high heat I holed up in my apartment. I had severe heat stroke as a teenager--huge blisters on chest and back, from sunburn, high fever and chills that shook the bed. I still feel the effects--inability to adapt to temperatures over 75 degrees, turning purple instead of sweating, general malaise.

With the noises of the fans and the AC, and the blinds closed to keep out the sun, holing up was more than a little like being in prison.

How is it that even if the thermostat reads 75 degrees I still know that it is blistering outside? I rarely read during the day, since there are always jobs to be done, but I would watch episodes of Hill Street Blues during breakfast and they would slide into the time allotted to jobs awaiting me.

The library has the first two seasons on disc, but since I am now nearly through both, I regret that they don't have all seven seasons. (Don't know if they are all out on disc.) Someone said that show depressed them back in the days and still does. I have no idea why. That mother of all cop shows is a comedy at heart, meant to express the upside of policing, certainly, as well as portraying the underside. (In fact, during season two there were too many long sermonizing speeches, for my taste.) It is a comedy, with aspirations of being a drama--or vice versa.

While watching it I could not help but wonder about the voyeur aspect of such shows. Probably most viewers, past and present, have never been arrested and sit in their living rooms catching the action with the erroneous sense of being in on it. I first saw show back in the 80's, of course. Not the episodes I have been watching, but later ones--forget which years. The Shakespearean portrayal of the gangs and the cops was a hoot. I have great affection for the show and for the actors, especially Charles Haid, as Renko, and Bruce Weitz as Belker. It has been a pleasure to watch them perform again in what to me are classic roles.

Beirut

My son-in-law's sister and her husband are in Beirut. I scan the faces of Americans there,on CNN, hoping to see them leaving, being evacuated.

I listen to the interviews of the bigwigs on both sides. They sound children quarreling, but with horrible consequences.

Roller Coaster Day

This morning my son, who is in his forties, was hit head-on by a dump truck that missed a curve on Foster. For a just a short time, I did not have any idea the extent of his injuries. Nor did his sister, who worried for two hours after hearing of the accident, before calling me, because she could not find the phone number for the hospital. There is no describing that feeling, but despite the terror, I felt--irrationally but absolutely--certain that he would be all right. As it turns out, he is very battered--sore from the inflated airbag in his shredded Mazda, missing some teeth, and sporting as many stitches in his head, apparently, as Frankenstein. The worst injury was to a pinky, (left, right, who knows?) which was what he first noticed when the car stopped spinning--the bone sticking out, the tendon torn. But when I talked to him nearly six hours later he was upbeat and sounded strong--and thank god completely clear-headed.

That conviction I had that he would be OK--is that common?--simple denial?

Haircut

Have no idea how long since I last had a haircut--but way too long. Hair: way too long! At that "Hand me the scissors! I am going to chop it off myself!" length. My hair all silver, curling this way and that. I looked like a wild woman. So, last Wednesday finally got it successfully chopped, by a professional. Great haircut, sigh. And it is now sort of a cross between grey and brown. I don't know how that happens, but whenever I get it cut, what goes is the silver. And usually I look younger, afterwards. Not this time. I guess 67 is the cut-off for such transformations. I look better, but just as tired as ever.

I don't know how others feel about haircuts, but I always feel liberated. And I think this one is doubly symbolic. For sometime (witness the long hiatus between posts) I have put my own life on hold. Well, I am back.

Beating the Odds: Staying Upbeat

Today I accompanied, as caregiver, my disabled client first to her doctor's appointment and then to Winco for a shopping trip. The latter was a drawn out hoot.
Despite over four hours of gruelling work of loading and unloading twelve bags of groceries not once but five times, I was still laughing right up to the end. Certainly all those dashes with a heavily laden cart, from one end of the store to the other, for forgotten cans of corn, or bulk romano-parmesan, etc., were a giggle. But the real source of my upbeat mood: two women we had never met volunteered to help us bag all those groceries. I am sorry I do not know their names. But I cite them for today's Anonymous Humanitarian awards.

It's been too long

When I finally was able to get back to this blog, I was shocked to see how long it has been since my last post. And even more shocked to find I could not get in to post without my password--which I have not used since day one and had totally forgotten, Of Course! Well, the folks at Blogger were very helpful and about 8 emails later, here I am with a new password. WHEW!

The moral of this story is use it or lose it.