Dale Miller

As I was typing the previous entry, I heard a commotion at the cat door. My orange visitor has returned. He/she is barely in the house, just plopped and watching. Oscar is about five feet away, also watching. I would love to get a picture, but I suspect if I reach for the camera the visitor will be spooked and run off.

The issue was resolved when Ashley decided to defend her territory. The orange cat is bigger than she is, but apparently not as inclined to be bossy.

I’ve moved into the next phase of my illness — whatever it is. I’m no longer suffering from splitting headaches, and my muscle aches have mostly gone away. This is very good. My sinus drainage has gotten worse, but I can live with that. I sound horrible, though. I am still coughing, and have started to sneeze this evening. Anyone who has spent time around me knows that my sneezes are the type to be heard a block away.

I seem to be improving, at least. it’s a nice feeling.

There are 65 Fahrenheits on my deck. They are variably-polarized, though, so it’s possible that they may be seen as 19 Celciuses or even 292 Kelvins.

Yesterday I started off feeling marginal, but good enough to go to work and class. I was coughing a bit, but otherwise was just a little sub-par. As the afternoon wore on, I began going downhill, and by the time choir rehearsal rolled around I was certainly not my best. Bouts of coughing during a requiem add a certain something to the sound, but it’s not a very desirable something. I had a headache by the time I drove home and crawled into bed. I awoke at 3:30. By then I had a splitting headache, my sheets were soaked with perspiration, and it hurt to move. I got up long enough to send a note saying I wasn’t coming to work, took a BC powder and climbed back into bed. Apparently that was as bad as it’s going to get, because now I’m back to just the occasional cough and feeling somewhat puny.

I really hate getting sick.

I made myself a promise at the beginning of the year that I was going to see how long I could go without missing work or class. The answer is: until today. I felt truly lousy when I woke up this morning. As usual for me, it revolves around my sinuses rebelling against the rest of my body. I think they want to let me know who is really in charge. As a result, I have spent most of the dallying in bed, dozing at times, and having truly strange dreams. One piece I remember had ladybugs acting as spies for the rival organization (what rival organization? I have no idea. I don’t even know why anyone would care. But the ladybugs were spying anyway.)

There are times, particularly when I feel bad, that I wish I wasn’t quite as far in the middle of nowhere. I would truly love a nice pizza tonight, but there’s no way I’m going to go get one, and no one delivers here. I need to find a mercenary college student that I could pay to bring me pizza.

Sleeping in this morning — yeah, right. I woke up at 4:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep. :(

Apparently UALR will be opening at 10:00 tomorrow. That means I have to go to work, but I will be able to sleep in. That’s at least better than rising in the cold dark morning.

The ground outside is still ice-covered, and the temperature is supposed to remain below freezing for the rest of the day. However, I have heard cars going past on the street, which makes me suspect that UALR will probably be open tomorrow. With that in mind, I just spend several minutes scraping ice off my windshield. It seemed more reasonable to do that while it was 25° and daylight than wait until tomorrow morning when it’s 18° and dark. That comprises one of the two useful things I have managed this weekend. The other was to do laundry. I’ve pretty much spent the rest of the time reading, sleeping, or playing at the computer.

It’s been an interesting evening for the feline residents of the house. While sitting in my chair and reading a book this evening, I have watched two different cats come in the cat door and take a look around. One was an orange tabby and the other solid black. I’ve seen the tabby before, but not the black cat. I wonder how many others wander in from time to time. Oscar and Cinderella made their displeasure known and neither stayed very long. I felt rather sorry for them, since it’s cold outside.

It’s been a long, reasonably pleasant, mildly productive week. I have DBD::Oracle working on Solaris — finally. I have started migrating/replicating our access control system from Oracle to Postgresql, and I’ve begun messing with the style sheets for the new UALR web site design that’s supposed to be going live on Monday. I am probably going to have a love/hate relationship with style sheets before everything is said and done. Very flexible when they work, very frustrating when they don’t.

I had plans for today, but weather changed that. The Weekend Theatre held tryouts for their summer musicals this morning. I had alternately talked myself into trying out and not doing so. Waking up this morning to find ice on the ground made that decision for me. I didn’t care about tryouts enough to risk sliding off the road on the way there. The other thing on my agenda was going to the UALR homecoming basketball game this evening. The game is still on, but the homecoming festivities have been delayed a week.

It’s presently 25° outside and there is still a coating of ice on the ground. Normally I don’t mind sitting home on a Saturday, but today I have felt penned up. It’s the classic “cabin fever” syndrome. Knowing that doesn’t change it, however.

Arkansas weather needs to get with the program. Having 70° days while I’m at work and then freezing up on the weekends is no good. It should be the other way around.