2007-03-23
headaches and privacy fences
|I woke up this morning around 4:15 with a major headache, right across my forehead. I did take two Ibuprofen at 5:30 with my coffee and it didn't seem to help. At all. Now, I don't really consider myself a hypochondriac, but I do have some tendencies. (Having had cancer will do that to you.)
Quite a while ago I saw the doctor for something and mentioned I'd been having some headaches. I remember he said something like, if you have a brain tumor you're going to have headaches that coincide with certain activities. For example, you may have a headache when you get up in the morning then it will dissipate, but it would be every morning, not just once in a while.
So I'm fairly certain this isn't a life-threatening brain tumor, but it is annoying and I'm surprised the Ibuprofen hasn't helped. I think it's just sinus pressure which brings me to my next question. Do I even bother going to the doctor today? I've had this cold/whatever for 11 days now, been blowing my nose crazily and have had a "productive" cough for a good 8 days. Does this qualify for drugs?
More importantly, I am supposed to visit my brother on Sunday who has MS. I have to feed him and if he gets a cold/sinus infection/what have you, it is close to deadly for him seeing as his immune system is extremely compromised. I'm kind of hoping if I got medication today I would be non-contagious by Sunday. I don't know if that's realistic or not. Maybe I will call the office this morning.
***
I've noticed, up and down our street, that I seem to be the most organized when it comes to lining the trash near the curb on Trash Day which, as you may recall, is Friday. I line up the black plastic trash cans in row, with the recycle bin at the end on a jaunty angle. Then the broken down boxes, which have been stacked from largest to smallest and tied with twine, per their regulations, are placed in between the black cans leaning upright.
Yesterday, I had the chance to bundle some errant twigs and large branches which are falling indiscriminately from the ginormous oak tree in our back yard. Last fall a 15-foot branch the width of a human thigh fell directly on our new 6-foot wooden privacy fence. This was a huge source of anxiety for me seeing as we paid a lot of money to have that fence erected (with no help from the neighbors) and it blocks my daughters' view of the neighbor's naked boys frolicking in the back yard.
Yes, that's right. My neighbor, who has three boys, aged 5, 4 and 2 (with another boy due in the next couple weeks) allows her boys to run naked in the back yard. No, they're not always swimming when they are naked, although that does seem to be a favorite activity. I have to ask the folks out there who have boys: is this normal? I don't think so, but I have all girls. My girls know they cannot walk outside of the house unless they have clothes/a bathing suit/something on.
These boys are also encouraged, in the back yard and once in a great while in the front yard, to pee in the bushes. Yes, you heard that right also. A couple of years ago my oldest daughter and I were in their back yard (the last time that happened, I might add) and the little boy, who must have been about three, started to pee in a bucket.
His mother actually said to him, "Tommy, you know you're not supposed to pee in the bucket. If you have to go to the bathroom you know you are supposed to go in the bushes!
It took everything I had to keep my mouth from dropping open. Anyway, she has a lot of flesh being exposed over there. So much so, that my oldest daughter, at age four, started to point out the rare occasion when the boys had clothes on in the backyard.
Needless to say, I love our fence and I don't want anything bad to happen to it until after we move.
2007-03-23 at 9:06 a.m.
