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Insomnia
I seem to be having more problems with insomnia in recent months than I ever recall having before. Yesterday, the Scientist was having day surgery to trim up a torn meniscus and I was to get up earlier than usual with him to accompany him to the hospital. That was all fine and I even made sure to shift my wake up times to accommodate that change. Unfortunately, on Tuesday night I just couldn’t get to sleep properly and then I kept moving in and out of sleep stages, so I suspect it was a case of not going into deep sleep at any point. Strangely enough I did keep drifting into some sort of sort of sleep where I would have the most bizarre dreams that seemed to come to an abrupt stop. I guess this was REM sleep even though it wasn’t satisfying. Something to check out later on, I guess.
After I dropped off the Scientist, I dropped into the office of my gynecologist that was in the medical centre at the same hospital to see if my test results were in yet. The doctor hadn’t seen them yet but I was told the biopsy came back benign and I could come back at 1pm if I wanted to discuss it with him. If it was all good I really didn’t need to discuss it unless he had anything to tell me about it. I just wanted to know if it was clear for peace of mind. I didn’t really think there would be a problem since my symptoms seemed to fit quite well with hormonal shifts I’d had before.
I went home but my attempts to nap were not successful at all. I did sleep quite briefly once and had another weird dream that ended quite soon after it started. Even though I tried to just stay still for a while in hopes of sleep taking over, I gave up after a while, only to discover I must have only been asleep for a minute or two as it wasn’t much later than when I’d last checked the time. I gave up sleep by mid-afternoon and started drinking lots of tea in hopes it would revitalise me. I also took a shower that seemed to be really helpful and just kept busy the rest of the time.
I didn’t get the call to pick up the Scientist until nearly 8pm and by this time I think the caffeine may have kicked in. Fortunately the roads were pretty clear by this time so it was easy enough to get there and back. The Scientist came out of surgery just fine and he’d been waiting for ages to be processed to go home by the meager evening staff that had replaced the day staff.
When we got home, he ate a bit and then went to bed. I stayed up, playing the game of Civilization I’d started hours earlier while waiting for the call. Soon it was quite late again and I was still feeling rather wired but went to bed. Sleep last night wasn’t a lot better and included strange dreams that I’d wake up from. I should point out that there weren’t bad dreams but seemed rather elaborate and interesting. In fact, I find it hard to imagine how so much information could fit into such short periods of sleep. I did eventually get into some deeper sleep but woke up rather early today.
I’m not too sure about the cause of the insomnia on this occasion but I wonder if the fact I missed a couple days of my anxiety medication is related. I had some bad effects once before when missing this medication but I don’t remember exactly what my sleep was like at that point. I called my doctor’s office to see about getting a new script and was given a bit of a hard time by the receptionist who seemed to think I needed to see the doctor to get it redone. It’s a shame I didn’t realize it was down to the end when I saw my gp last month or I’d have asked for that to be replaced when I was getting a new script for my thyroid medication. I suspect it was only the fact I had been in so recently that persuaded this woman to put it through although she didn’t guarantee it. She said they’d call me if there was a problem. I haven’t heard so hopefully it should be ready tomorrow. Anyway, this is one of the same medications in the same dose that Game Fanatic takes, so I took one of his tablets and will replace it once I am sorted out. I don’t know if the medicine is making a difference but it does feel like I will be able to sleep tonight. Will have to see what happens when I actually get to bed.
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Down to one teenager
A little over a week ago, we lost one of our teenagers to the 20s. :DÂ Game Fanatic finished his second decade and bid goodbye to his teen years. Actually he paid no attention whatsoever, but we parents did have a few sentimental moments about it. This was a particularly good birthday for him or at least he seemed pretty content with his day, right up to the end. We invited some friends over, along with the usual family to share the day. It went pretty well overall and everyone seemed to get along pretty well. Everyone came early enough that there was time for him to play games in the evening and to have a take out meal from our local curry place and still have a bit of time at the end of the day.
I attribute some of the improvement to the medication that he’s taking right now. We’ve been going through lots of different tablets to get to this point and still have a way to go. But at least there are a couple medications that seem to make a bit of positive difference. To me, it is a big difference for him to be more relaxed with visitors so that he can enjoy himself on special days.
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Stuff and other stuff
After several weeks, I can just say that life carries in my world. I started working a temporary/casual job a week and a half ago. It’s the same project I’ve worked on for the past three years but I’m now working three full days a week. Except for this week when I didn’t work. It’s tiring working a full day but I will appreciate the paycheck when it goes through. First one should be this week. I’m one of the few veterans to the project now so I seem to have moved up in seniority. Most of my duties are much the same but now I am trusted with more sensitive parts of the project and am consulted much more. Interesting progression to have now that I’m on the fourth time doing this one. Anyway, it should carry on for two or three more weeks and it’s possible I will miss one more day due to a long-standing appointment for Games Fanatic on a Friday.
I didn’t work today because Lego Lover needed to have two baby teeth removed. This was the advice of the orthodontist we visited following the last dental check up. There is still one more tooth to come but I’ve been assure it will be pushed out by incoming adult teeth. Weird to think he’s fifteen and a half years old and still has baby teeth. Well, not so many now. We are still seeing the pediatric dentist here and it’s mostly good except the way they interact with him. Well, most of the time they are okay but today’s team seemed to particularly talk to him as though he were years younger. I don’t know if this is their response to a child with autism or they just didn’t think about his age or what. Â Nitrous oxide was used and Lego Lover said he didn’t notice any change from the oxygen that he started out on. Of course this was the part not covered by our insurance at all so was the majority of our out of pocket expenses. The actual extractions took just a few minutes…not surprising since one has been quite loose for six months or more. He’s now a bit uncomfortable in the mouth but I imagine that he will feel much better in a day or two when the swelling goes down and it heals up more.
My perimenopausal symptoms seem to be increasing. It’s nothing dramatic but I am now getting the occasional longer cycle as opposed to lots of shorter ones. It leaves me wondering if this will go on for years or will it be over much sooner than I expect. I have mixed feelings about it now that it feels more imminent…I’m guessing that I will be at least fifty-one by the time I have reached menopause officially unless everything comes to a halt sometime soon. I still haven’t had anything I could definitely say was a hot flash. From all I’ve heard, I should definitely recognise it as a hot flash when it happens. Maybe I will be lucky enough to avoid them.
We’ve started watching a couple of tv series here. Game Fanatic bought Game of Thrones season one quite a while ago and we hadn’t started watching it yet. We watched the first couple of episodes this week. The first one was rather gory and was almost too much for me. The second one was considerably less so. I have only read the first part of the book so far but I’ve been advised it gets worse as the books go on. Time will tell if it’s something I can deal with or not. The other series is True Blood which I’ve heard about but have yet to see. I just got the first disc out from the video shop and it had two episodes on it. I have read the first two books in the series this is based upon and liked them a lot. The tv version seems pretty good so far, even though there is the occasionally gory scene….still nothing like what I saw on Game of Thrones.
Meanwhile I’ve also been reading a bit more. I ready quite a bit of Greek and Roman mythology for the Coursera class I finished recently. I still have a bit more reading I want to do from there. I also started reading the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I heard her books described as not fitting neatly into a category but I would say it is basically a romance at heart. At least so far it is. I’m most of the way through the first book and already considering the next one. There is tv series of this book currently screening but not on a channel we have free-t0-air. I do find the book really engaging and that’s not happened for a while. I just have to watch out that I don’t read too late into the night as it really messes with sleep patterns.
I suppose there have been other things happening but they don’t come to mind right now. Perhaps I will sit down and write it out a bit sooner next time.
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Transformers: Age of Extinction 3D
As a family, we went to see this movie this afternoon. I normally wouldn’t be too bothered to see this in the cinema but this was Lego Lover’s big movie and he really wanted us to all go together. Funnily enough, he never did see the previous installment of the series in the cinema and this time we see it on opening day. That almost didn’t happen as it should due to a curious ad at the Supanova convention last weekend. On entrance we were issued with wristbands of different colors, depending on which sort of ticket we purchased. On the wristband was essentially an ad for this movie and the date of June 27th. Hmm…it all seemed a bit odd to both the Scientist and me, because new release movies generally start on a Thursday here. If there is a change, it’s almost always earlier in the week rather than later. I jokingly commented that perhaps the wristbands were imported from the US. Either I was correct or the convention got wristbands that were meant for use in a different region.
Anyway, Lego Lover has been eagerly awaiting this movie for months. And if not for the release of The Lego Movie a few months ago, it would be his only cinema experience for the year. Until today, we could count his cinema outings on one hand. Today makes six in his fifteen and a half years. Half of those movies have been Transformer movies. All but one of those movies have been with the whole family. Game Fanatic didn’t want to see Toy Story 3 with us so stayed home a few years ago. I would have been perfectly happy to wait for the dvd of this movie to come out, but Lego Lover really wanted us all to go together so that’s what we did. We arrived well in advance of the starting time, partly so we could get discount tickets and partly to make sure we got seats at the time we wanted I needn’t have been concerned about missing out on tickets as the cinema was mostly empty. Perhaps this was due to it being a mid-afternoon showing, before school let out. Â I’m not sure if we were in the same cinema as for the Lego Movie or not. But we had the same experience at the beginning when the ads and previews started to run but no picture. Last time the audience (very small) sat through the whole set of ads and finally I went out to the front to advise of this. Today, the Scientist went up, quite a bit sooner. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence considering the previous time was in April which leaves me wondering what is being neglected at the cinema. I don’t have a problem missing the ads but I imagine the advertisers would.
We got special 3D glasses for the movie instead of just using ones we had from previous movies. The only special part was the small accents on the side of the ear pieces. I guess they might be collector’s items…although more valuable if they hadn’t been used already. :) I had forgotten how very long these movies are so it seemed like it went on for longer than the previous ones. Apparently I have easily forgotten how long the action packed movies are. Plenty of bang for our bucks, to be honest. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. It’s not really the type of movie I go in for, but it did have plenty of entertaining parts. And for those that were less so, it was always interesting to pick out some of the movie cliches typical for an action film. There was even a really cute nod to an interest of Game Fanatic’s included that we all really liked.
Lego Lover, really loved it and was talking non-stop about it with his brother on the way to the car, then to all of us at home, then later on when I took him back out to buy Transformer toys in the toy sale that just started today. It makes me happy that he loved it so much and also happy that he wanted to share it with his whole family. The funny thing is we were talking just today about his extremes of very happy and very unhappy as a younger child. He was never much in the middle until he got older and matured. But today his joy reminded me of his younger days…just pure bliss. And now, of course, he has two new toys in the series and is so pleased with them too.
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It was twenty years ago today…
I misrepresent the fact when I say twenty years ago today as this was true on the 4th of June.
More correctly, it was twenty years ago this month that I first step foot on the continent and country of Australia as I arrived in Sydney, wearing a red shirt I remember was once a favorite. It was only just still fitting me as I was already five months pregnant with Game Fanatic. It was short-sleeved, which wasn’t exactly ideal for the early days of winter, but it was comfortable for travel. I don’t really recall much of that first stop now but we took another plane to Adelaide where there were only about four terminals. It was much smaller than I might have imagined, even for 1994. We then flew from Adelaide to Perth and arrived on a rainy, cool day at Perth domestic airport. There were a bunch of people at the airport to greet us, mostly people I’d never met before.
I will say now that making a move to the other side of the world is quite a big deal and can be quite stressful. Add the fact I was pregnant with my first child and had certain family members trying to keep me home, and it was much more so. The one aspect of those first days I remember well was how much it rained and rained. But then the sun would come out and we’d see rainbows. It was a pretty regular occurrence that first middle of the year winter and it still happens reasonably often during the rainy winters here. I was very homesick at the start but I think that kind of disappeared in October when Game Fanatic entered our lives. I really didn’t have time for any of that homesick business and managed to get through his first six months in a bit of a blur. I do remember some of it but not all. I had to get a driver’s license a few months after he was born as the Scientist had procured a job and it was pretty useful to be able to drive places rather than depend on assistance from family or do without car travel. It wasn’t really that hard once I started driving as it was all essentially opposite to the way I had driven in the US, right down to the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car. I got my license and I remember one time I was driving  and had the baby in the backseat but had put a plastic rocker chair from a swing in the front and the police stopped me…I think it appeared I had the baby in the front seat but once they saw him firmly buckled into his seat in the back, they waved me on. At least I assume that’s why I was stopped and waved on.
It took quite a few years before I felt like this was home. Well, it’s not totally home because the US is still my native home and always will be. But I did eventually feel settled here and got my citizenship in late 1999 before travelling home the first time with the kids in early 2000. And now it’s twenty years later and it seems so long ago and yet not so long ago either that I arrived here.
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Wet, wet, wet
NOTE: This was meant to be posted last week but I didn’t finish it. Too much time has passed so I have posted it as it appeared last.
I seem to recall a group called that here in Australia, possibly a one-hit wonder, or perhaps more than that. I am pretty sure I don’t know any of their other music though.
I will just comment, not complain, that we’ve had rain pretty regularly this month and I am in no rush to send it packing at this point in time. That said, the winter (aka weedy) grass is growing tall throughout our yard and when we do get a new lawnmower, it will be electric. Would be good to have that cut down when it dries out for a day or two. It certainly is nice to have the rain around here and we haven’t even had anything dramatic so far. We have had threats of storms but it’s been pretty benign where we live…although not so great in other areas of the state.
I don’t know if there’s an association of any sort, but we’ve had our power go off twice in a week recently. I know this is pretty common for many areas but here we almost never have anything more than a brownout or the power flickering off for a moment or two. This seems rather a remarkable coincidence and I can’t help wondering the causes of the outages. We probably will never know but it is curious. Only the first outage was after dark so the effects weren’t too troublesome for us.
Last week the Scientist and I marked our 21st wedding anniversary. It was a really nice day and the the stormy weather that had earlier been predicted never eventuated. In fact, it was rather warm that day, and we managed to walk around to some of our favourite places without the need of any extra clothes. We even did  a repeat climb of the DNA tower in King’s Park around sunset. It’s really nice to have our kids now old enough we can go out and do our own thing instead of dragging them along or including them in our plans.
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Counting down
Last Sunday I completed my forty-ninth year and now the countdown begins to finish  a half century. I’m not feeling particularly bothered by this right now although I realise my feelings might change as I get closer to the milestone. I think mostly it will just be sad to say goodbye to my forties.
My pine mouth had improved considerably as of the Saturday but it was still there on Sunday. It just stopped being an overwhelming taste of bitter/metal by that point. I’m not sure it’s totally gone but most foods are tasting normal to me now, almost two weeks later…which is pretty much what I read when I looked it up online.
My actual birthday was quite nice. The Scientist took me out to lunch at a place called the Flying Taco which a former colleague had raved about. Mexican food is an up and coming thing around here and we like to try out the various takes on it when we can. They didn’t win too many points from us at first. They were most inflexible about changes to orders. The Scientist wanted to leave the rice and beans out of his dish and they would only allow one item to be removed and the other reduced. I had ordered tacos and wanted to have two different fillings in the two tacos. Apparently this wasn’t possible and I ended up getting a double order. My heart sank when my order arrived and I saw how tiny the tacos were. They were nice but they were very small. Just as well I had birthday treats to eat later on. Also, they claimed their chipotle sauce was hot but even for me it was barely mild and I consider my tolerance pretty average. (I have to say this as Game Fanatic has a very high tolerance so compared to him, just average. :) ) The Scientist really enjoyed his meal though, so perhaps we will go back some time and I will consider another dish that is a bit more substantial. The dishes were also rather pricey for what you got so that just added to the insult…As I later said to the Scientist, I rated them 3/5 stars…taking off one for their inflexibility and one for the tiny portions of tacos. Also, one of the taco fillings I had was mushrooms. They were pretty good but there was too much sauce and the tiny taco tortilla got soggy and broke apart rather easily.
I had a voucher for a free ice cream at Cold Rock Ice Creamery so the plan to was to visit Hillary’s Boat Harbour where we could go there and also hit San Churros at the same time. But I suddenly decided I preferred to go to Fremantle and so we did. There was quite a long line at the ice cream shop, possibly as it was suddenly quite warm/hot again after a number of milder days. The ice cream was a kiddie size with one mix in added. I got a banana ice cream with Malteasers and it was pretty good. Then it was off the the chocolateria for my free churros. It was a two person serve and the Scientist didn’t partake so we got half of it boxed to take home for Lego Lover. We made a quick trip into the markets and grabbed cut fruit salad and mango at end of day prices to be eaten much later.
We came home and I had visits from my in-laws and my brother-in-law a little later. The Scientist had prepared a red velvet cake with frosting for me. He’d had ideas of something far grander but due to my pine mouth, didn’t want to do so much if I couldn’t enjoy it. The cake was quite fine, though, and we all had a bit of it, even Game Fanatic who originally declined when it was cut.
After the visitors had gone, we watched the old Hitchcock movie, The Trouble with Harry. I chose this one as it is rather quirky and I figured might be more enjoyable for the boys. Sadly this didn’t happen. Game Fanatic found he disliked all the main characters so much that he didn’t find it funny at all and was in quite a funk at the end. He simply didn’t quite get the sly humor of it. Sigh…this is one of those aspects of autism that can be rather frustrating. Fortunately he recovered reasonably quickly.
By this time it was rather late and the Scientist needed to get to sleep so said goodnight and happy birthday again. I really appreciate all the effort he put into the day, even if some of his plans didn’t work out as intended.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised to get a message on my Facebook wall from Game Fanatic, even if he was being rather snarky. :D
And now the countdown continues to fifty.
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Birthday magic
Just a bit over twenty-four hours ago, Lego Lover’s fifteenth birthday ended. Like all his birthdays, it was magical. He was full of joy and happiness throughout the day and took pleasure in just about every part of it. This is one of the things I like best about Lego Lover. He hasn’t lost that pleasure in having a birthday. Or that pleasure in the Christmas season.
Every year December 1 is incredibly important for being the first day of advent. He gets to start opening his Lego City Advent calendar and it’s often the first thing he thinks about. It also is his dad’s birthday, which sometimes gets pushed behind the advent calendar in priority of the day. On the first Saturday of the month, it’s time to put up the Christmas tree. In the past, Lego Lover mostly assisted the Scientist in all the goings on. This year he took on quite a bit more of the workload and enjoyed every minute of it.
The next weeks always are the period of anticipation but there’s always the promise of an advent calendar treasure with each passing day. Finally, it reaches December 23rd and another birthday arrives. He makes every effort to be up early on the day and his face is filled with a smile from the time he wakes up. When he gets his gifts, usually around the middle of the day, the smile widens with the pleasure of whatever he’s been given. This year it was a rather massive Transformers Omega Supreme set that he’d expressed considerable interest in when it was put on special in the middle of the year. It had been purchased in July but when Lego Lover made his gift list, it wasn’t on it. Not to worry, though, as he’d not realised it was even possible to be considered for his list due to not being available in the shops recently. There were several other Transformer gifts, including some dvd sets and a couple of Lego Hero Factory sets.
In the evening, there were visits from a couple family members and then his favorite pizza from our local shop. Then it’s time for cake and to keep working on building the Lego sets and showing off everything else.
Finally it reaches the end of the day and he’s still as happy as he was when the day started with that lovely smile still working its magic. He was still up well past midnight last night and was rather keen to share his birthday with his grandma in the US. She hadn’t made an appearance on Skype yet and I turned it off, thinking it was time for bed. But because he was so keen, I turned it back on, and grandma did make an appearance so he was able to stretch his birthday out just a bit longer. At the end of the chat, he was tired but very much still happy.
His birthday magic is just the joy and happiness of his special day. It’s so infectious that it makes many of the people around him feel quite happy too and that’s why I think of it as magic even though magic doesn’t really exist.
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The family that gardens together?
Last month we had rain for something like 20-21 day of the month, which is far exceeds our normal September rainfall. Our grass in the backyard grew higher and higher and I despaired as I wasn’t able to go out and mow. Eventually it grew tall enough that mowing was going to have to wait until it had been trimmed down a bit.
We had some dry and sunny days last week but I found myself down and out with more allergies/cold and tonsillitis until early this week. Â Fortunately vertigo wasn’t involved this time but I was pretty knocked out again. Twice in a month…
Anyway, I finally came out of the haze and felt well enough on Monday. The weather was also in agreement so I bought some new grass clippers and a set of hedge shears and pruners. The grass clippers were the expensive type but worked a lot better for my left handed use than the last set I bought. Just for that alone I think they were worth. The Scientist and I went out into the back yard and tried out the tools. The grass clippers were really a bit too slow for the amount we needed. The Scientist pulled out the line trimmer and managed to cut a lot of the tall grass down. Then it came down to mostly pulling the grass out by hand that was most effective. I was still using the clipper for some place but most of it was weedy winter grass.
We were making a bit of progress but time was short and rain was expected again on Tuesday. I joked that I should get the boys out to help us and then did just that. Normally I would get some fairly negative responses to such a request but both Game Fanatic and Lego Lover came out without argument and started helping. After about an hour of work, we had managed to clear out a huge area, leaving mostly outer areas of the garden to be dealt with later.
It was rather nice having all of us out there working towards a goal and getting a bit of enjoyment from it too. I really appreciated the help the boys gave and mostly appreciated how willingly they joined in.
I’m under no illusion this will become a regular thing but I do hope we can join together in this way again when the need arises.
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Plans undone
The plan was the three boys in the Scientist’s family would join their mum with their families at some villas in Mandurah (about an hour south of Perth) on Saturday for an overnight stay. Not much was planned but what little there was on our part was on on track until Friday. I was woken rather early by the mad barking of the dogs when I knock came at the door (my replacement trackball). As I need to be up fairly shortly, I didn’t return to bed. The Scientist said I looked really bad…like I was quite ill. My face was puffy and swollen… I didn’t think much of that as it was morning and I often feel puffy and swollen when I get up. I got ready and took the dogs to the groomer and went off the Coventry Village markets to get some ingredients for the chickpea and veggie patties I planned to make for the Scientist’s mum (this was to celebrate her 70th birthday last week). I was tired when I got home and had a nap before picking up the dogs. Then I spent most of the afternoon in bed. Tiredness and aches and pains had set in with a bit of a scratchy throat. Sigh…
I had hoped I’d feel better later on but didn’t so I stayed home while the rest of the family went off. It did save us putting the dogs in a boarding kennel…which I’m sure was an improvement for the dogs in their weekend plans. I actually had the house to myself for a whole day, something that almost never happens. Too bad I felt terrible. I did feel a bit better when I finally got up on Saturday. I chatted to my mom on Skype for a while then did a bit of cleaning around the house. Not a lot but just to make a bit of headway into some of the mess here. As afternoon wore on, my energy levels dropped again and I was back in bed…but at least I accomplished something. I spent most of the evening on the sofa, watching Saturday night tv…British detective shows on ABC1.
I think the dogs were feeling out of sorts as they were quite hyper through the day, which required a fair bit of attention on my part. Their routine was totally undone by the lack of the remaining family members. But come bedtime they were happy enough to sleep away on the bed with me. Even though there was more space in the bed, I still seemed to have a dog squashed up against me in the night. Reminded me of when Lego Lover was small and often pushed me right to the edge of the bed, despite his small size.
I was having a decent sleep, I think, when it was completely broken by the sound of the phone ringing. Any time the phone rings in the night, I am worried it will be bad news. I picked up the phone and it turned out to be an old friend calling from the US. She had mistakenly thought it was about three hours later than the 4am I saw on the clock. Once it was clarified how early it was, she hung up and said she’d call later. Getting back to sleep was then the problem of the hour.
A few hours later I woke to noise from the dogs. I got up and opened the door so they could access the pet flap and go outside as required. It didn’t seem either ended up going out and they were soon sleeping again. Moving forward a couple more hours and the dogs were getting a bit antsy. I saw that it was past time for their food and got up to feed them. It is as this point I discovered the screen door was closed and the pet flap was useless. The poor dogs couldn’t get out and the cat couldn’t get in.
My face was again puffy and swollen on Sunday, much like it had been on Friday. But I did feel a bit better as I was up and about. My friend called again and we talked for a while. It was a rather awkward call as we had loaned some money to the friend recently and now it had been spent and she was asking for more. I assume that was the urgency which required her to call so early, even by her calculations. I told her we couldn’t help any further. We talked a bit longer and then she had to get going.
I pottered about the house a bit and washed some dishes before settling on the sofa and playing Animal Crossing on the Wii then playing some games on my tablet. Before long it was mid-afternoon and the Scientist and boys had returned. It was good to have them home and I got to hear all the stories of the weekend within short order. The dogs were quite happy to have life getting back to normal at home.
It’s a day later and I’m still feeling a bit tired and run down but I’m hoping some activity will change that. I am sure I didn’t have the flu and not even a cold. I’m guessing it might have been some allergy thing as most of my symptoms could be consistent with an allergy attack of sorts (although it usually manifests itself into a head cold or something similar). Most of the reason I stayed home was fear of spreading germs so I possibly could have gone there but might well have stayed in the villa and slept much of the time. Ah well, another time we will go again…The Scientist and boys liked it so well they want to go back again and show me Mandurah.