Seriously, it seems like lately I'm living a refrain of "I just have to get through this busy bit and then I can have a break." Hah! It's all just one ongoing busy bit and I'm afraid I'm burning out a bit, with no break in sight. So, what's been happening lately?
Last week, in a kinda surreal happenstance, I got a box of cookies delivered from my dentist, in honor of my birthday. Don't get me wrong, I was very surprised and pleased, but cookies from my dentist? It caused a bit of cognitive dissonance! It was a mixed box with a little card like in Pot of Gold chocolates, with a picture of each cookie and a description of what was in each one. So I went through the box, sorted out all the ones with nuts for Stuart and saved the rest for myself. Dessert time rolled around and I had myself a mug of tea and a cookie.
I'd gone to bed and was trying to fall asleep when I realized that I wasn't feeling very well. In fact, I was having a moderately nasty allergic reaction; swollen, itchy mucus membranes, itchy, sore skin, running nose and eyes. Yuck. Since my breathing didn't seem in danger, I took some antihistamines and plunked down on the couch to wait it out without waking Stuart. By about 3:45am, I was feeling like my exhaustion might be strong enough to override my remaining symptoms, so I crawled off to bed. I did my best to work from home the next day, but I was hardly on my top game and I wasn't really over it all until even yesterday.
The thing is, although it was definitely an allergic reaction to something, I'm not 100% sure to what. If the cookie somehow had sub rosa nuts (which is definitely possible) then I should have started to notice a problem within minutes, if not seconds! I didn't eat anything else that night and we were at home, with nothing new about. So what caused it? No freakin' clue - which is a bit scary, if I'm silly enough to think about it.
Fortunately, I was feeling better enough by Friday evening to head off with Stuart and Mom to see Eddie Izzard at the Jube. The only disappointing part of the evening is that he wasn't wearing a fabulous outfit... just jeans and a tail coat over a t-shirt. Le sigh. He was funny though. Admittedly, I wasn't even near to healthy, but still, I had a headache from laughing so hard. He has a core of planned material, but he wanders off on crazy tangents and ends up in the weirdest places. I'd love to sit and chat with him sometime; I think he's probably similar to Robin Williams, in that that quality is always on, to one degree or another. There's no way I could duplicate the lead up, but phrases that will stay with me forever: "Badgers can be choosers" and "Jazz chicken".
After two nights of insufficient sleep, I was probably in just the right head space to go to the circus. I think the whole trip would have been surreal, even if I was healthy and well-rested, at least compared to my childhood memories. We used to see the Shriner's Circus in the municipal indoor arena, now it's in a tent pitched in the parking lot of a furniture store. And maybe I wasn't paying attention before, but I certainly don't remember the PETA protesters. The insane commercialism was pretty familiar - we were reasonably conservative in our purchases, but you can drop A LOT of money. Elephant rides, face painting, cheap food for astonishing prices and a cornucopia of cheap shiny plastic toys. Most of the acts were pretty disappointing, not even holding Ella and Myles' attention, but performers from China and the guy on the spinning aerial walk thingie were a hit. I doubt we'll go again, but since it seems likely to be a dying experience, I'm glad we did it once.
On Tuesday, I raced home from work, gave Ursa the shortest walk ever and headed out again with Steve and some of his family. He'd bought tickets to go and see Celtic Woman and they had a last minute drop out. I'd only seen one of their PBS specials, but it seemed reasonable enough for a free ticket. It was in the Corral on the Stampede grounds - not really designed as a music venue and I do not recommend floor seats, but we made do. The show itself was quite impressive - those ladies can really sing and the band was very good. The fiddle player, Meirie (sp?) is a firecracker! They even had the award winning bagpiper, who opened the Olympics, playing with them. My only less than glowing comment is that this particular tour is called "Songs from the Heart" - the hook being that all the songs have the word "heart" in them, and by the end I was wishing for some Metallica or something to cut the saccharine. They are all good songs individually, but all together for three hours was a bit much! And Calgary made a lasting impression on the tour, by being the only crowd to sing along with some of the songs. :)
Mom and I are hosting a Victorian Tea on the weekend, so last night I attempted Chocolate Dipped Florentines. They are fiddly little things, not hard exactly, but definitely requiring a full complement of patience. For a first try, I think they turned out ok, but I will probably try them again some time and tweak my approach a bit.
Sadly, they took a bit longer than I'd planned, so I didn't get to bed early like I'd hoped. I'd started getting a bit of a sore, scratchy throat yesterday and it's only gotten worse today. It's the dry, swollen, itchy feeling that goes along with growing lymph glands and I have the beginnings of a sinus headache. This has not been a great year health-wise, but then, it's also been pretty stressful. I need two weeks somewhere that I can't do anything but sleep and read, but it's not going to happen. Awareness is not the same as a break, but hopefully I can make do.
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