It's 4:16 AM. Have you been asleep at any point between sunset yesterday and now? If you answered "Yes", then that makes one of us.

What I found puzzling, at first, is that I haven't even been drowsy yet. Not even a little bit. Zero. Nothing.

It finally dawned on me what the problem is. The decongestant I got from the doctor on Wednesday has sudafed in it. That acts like a stimulant in some people, including me.

I'm supposed to take this stuff every 12 hours. Maybe I can take some non-sudafed, OTC decongestant in the evening instead of the prescription med.

Either that, or maybe after a few days of insomnia, I'll be so freaking tired, I'll fall asleep and it won't matter WHAT the freaking decongestant is.

In the meantime, Animal Planet has interesting programs on.

Nora, the piano playing cat

OMG! How adorable is this? :o) A kitty who plays piano!

In other news, Mark and I had our eye doctor appointment today. There wasn't anything significantly wrong, thank goodness, but we both need to have annual checkups because of family history and/or our own medical history. That's OK, I can live with that.

But doggone, those eyedrops used for the exam (and the blurred vision they cause) are a nuisance. File them under "necessary evil".

I think they should hire me at that doctor's office. I had all kinds of suggestions, such as having the doctors' names embroidered on their lab coats in lines of decreasing-size print, so that it looks like an eye chart. I also took the opportunity to study the 3-d model of an eye that was in the exam room. "I'd better look this over now, while I *don't* have a doctor pointing out something that's wrong. Usually, when your doctor SHOWS you models of a body part, it's because you damaged it somehow." And believe me, after the travail I went through following the knee injury, I know whereof I speak. Or write. Aaah, whatever. ;o) But trust me, when you have a doc presenting you with a model of some sort, the next phrase out of his or her mouth will be pointing out where on that body part your particular affliction is situated. So at least I got to review an eye model today, with no pressure or stress of worrying about anything being wrong. :o)

Then when the doc put on headgear that had a lamp on the front, so he could shine light into my eyes and have both hands free, I pointed out that he was mining for symptoms, and I hoped he didn't find any. And, of course, there were the instructions on where to direct my gaze, while he was shining the light in my eyes. "Down to the left... Down to the right..."

"Isn't that a dance step?" I asked, and sang it back in rhythm. "Down to the left! Down to the right! Jump back three steps..." At this point, the doctor had to turn his head, but I could see him laughing anyway. :o)

Hey, spreading silliness is serious business. SOMEbody has to do it. ;o)

On the topic of cars:
Mark brought my car home; they couldn't find any problem with it. *$%@#... Note to self: take no long drives anywhere until this is resolved. Fortunately, I haven't got any pressing reason to drive more than a few miles, nor do I expect to have a reason to drive far in the immediate future.

Also, today is the 10th anniversary of the day Mark bought HIS car.

We're not people who worry about replacing our vehicles every year, can you tell? ;o)

Meanwhile, my visit to the doctor yielded this: my BP is 100/70 (yay! Best reading I've had in months!), I still have a sinus infection, and I still have an ear infection. Result: 5 more days on antibiotics, plus a prescription for a decongestant. I hope to heck THIS works, because I've been battling with these freaking symptoms since we moved to Daylight Saving Time.

There's not a quick fix for the hearing-loss-in-left-ear issue, either. The meds will target the infection, and resolving that is the way to clear up the ear congestion. (Boo! I'd been hoping for an Instant Solution on that front, but no such luck.)

Tomorrow, Mark and I are going to the eye doctor. It's been over two years since our last visit; we're both overdue for this appointment.

That, plus my online job searching, is what's going on here these days. Well, that plus spoiling the cats, that is, but cat spoiling is a 24/7 project around here. ;o)

Aaaand surprise! My car is back in the shop. [insert list of expletives here]

It refused to start yet again, after I took a run with Joe M. to Snyder Plaza. He took SEPTA home and I called AAA.

However, AAA's ETA was possibly going to have me waiting as long as an hour, so every 5-10 minutes, I tried to start the car again. On one of those attempts, it not only started, but continued running. I cancelled the AAA call and drove the car to the mechanic's shop myself.

I mentioned not only that the car stalled once or twice in the past couple of weeks, but that there was a smell of burnt rubber when I drove to NJ a couple of Saturdays ago.

I suppose if I need to have every part of the car replaced, one by one, over time I'll have a brand-new 18-year-old car. Sigh.

I have to submit three 2-minute audio/text files by Friday.

I chose the topics of Louis Braille, Helen Keller, and the article on assistive technology for the deaf-blind that's in my June 2006 blog archives.

Notice a theme? :o)

BTW...

I have an appointment on Wednesday to followup with the doctor regarding the Sinus/Ear Infection from Hell that I've been griping about on here for the past month or so.

In the meantime, I am putting up with a new, annoying symptom. My left ear is so congested that I've actually lost some hearing in it.

I had to interpret yesterday. With my typical Murphy's Law sort of luck, when I interpret at church I stand all the way to the right-hand side of the sanctuary (facing the congregation). This means that everything in the church is on my LEFT side, where the ear isn't working properly. Oh, what fun THAT wasn't.

Oh, and then there was the ride to Hatboro that Mark and I took on Saturday afternoon. His bad ear is the right ear. My left ear is currently MY bad ear. He was driving, so we BOTH were sitting on the "wrong" side to be able to hear one another properly. This made life interesting when we made a slight miscue and took a wrong turn, then had to get back on track by following the Google map printout. And when I say "interesting", I mean "standup comedians make a LIVING from material like this". Aaaagh.

The doc had better have something in his medical arsenal to clear this congestion up. This is driving me bananas.
----

Oh, and good news! I did get chosen to be a reader for that online language-instruction site. This could prove to be an interesting method of earning pin money.

I located a member of The Procrastinator's Club this afternoon. As I was walking home via Moyamensing Avenue, I saw a discarded Christmas tree lying at the curbside to be collected. On the pavement next to it was its green plastic stand.

I'm afraid to speculate on what sequence of events would lead to the discarding of a Christmas tree in late April, two weeks after Easter. Let's just say I was surprised to see it, and leave it at that. ;o)

I just got an email that saddens me to no end. Edie's hearing assistance dog, Leni (sounds like "Lenny") has died. :o(

I know he was getting on in years, I know he was starting to have spinal trouble that aging Corgis are prone to developing, and I know the plan was for him to retire and become Edie's parents' pet dog when Edie was assigned a new assistance dog (which she is on the waiting list for).

But DARN. I really loved that sweet little dog. Leni made me a fan of Welsh Corgis forever, and if I ever get one, he'll be the reason why.

Sweetest. Dog. Imaginable. I'm really going to miss that cute little guy. :o(

Poor Edie! I can't imagine what it's like to lose, not just a lovable pet and companion, but a *working* dog that she's been teamed up with for over 10 years. :o( :o( :o( My heart goes out to her.

:o(

So there I was, reviewing craigslist job openings to see what kinds of interesting items are out there.

And I found one that appears to be custom-made for a person like me. Native speakers of English and other languages are to create brief audio files and submit them, along with the matching text, to a particular site. The goal of the site is creating an online tool for teaching languages.

So I submitted an audition file. To hear the audition, once the page loads, click the "play" button (sideways triangle). Creating the file involved reading a minute's worth of text aloud, submitting the audio file with the text, and then running a special program to synchronize the on-screen indicator so that it highlights the word that's being spoken, AS it's being spoken.

It's a pretty freakin' neat process. The geek in me is fascinated by the synchronizing process. I hope I end up in their pool of readers, because it appears to be something that can easily be done during free time. The pay is more likely to be along the lines of "pocket money" than a viable income, but hey -- pocket money is nothing to turn up one's nose at.

So let's see if this actually pans out, or if they're just trying to boost their content with audition files and not actually have to pay anybody. Yeah, that possibility did occur to me, but I figured a few minutes out of my life to create and submit the file was worth the risk.

Argh. The fever I got rid of a couple weeks ago is starting to come back. I guess I'll be back on the phone with the doctor's office tomorrow. Phooey, but this darned bug is persistent!

I guess that this is an opportune time to be between job assignments. At least I can get some doggoned rest, for once. (She writes, while sitting up at 11:53 PM watching a late-night hockey game. Way to get some rest, huh?) ;o)

Now that I've got some free time, I've been looking around online at the various features of myspace. In the process, I've added several acquaintances and friends to my Friends list. I even happened to reconnect with one friend and former AOLer within days of the birth of his second child... how's THAT for good timing? :o)

So if you happen to be on myspace, stop by and send me a "friend" request. The link to my Myspace page is on the left-hand side of this screen.

Interesting little side note: every one of the people/organizations on my Friends list so far has a hockey connection. The one who is The Other Donna is, along with being my longtime friend, a fellow hockey fan. The others are all either people I've met (online or face-to-face) or groups I've joined due to my being a hockey fan. Maybe that will help the onset of the dreaded Hockey Withdrawal Syndrome that always sets in once the Flyers and Phantoms are both finished playing (which they both are).

Oops. I didn't realize that I hadn't posted since my job assignment finished. Well, not until the weekend, when Karla and Joe M mentioned it to me.

So, here we go: quick update time. I'm still fighting this #$@*$%& flu or whatever it was that had me out sick for several days. I don't think I've had a fever since I took the antibiotic a few weeks ago, but the cough, congestion, occasional earaches and fatigue have yet to dissipate. So between resting to get rid of this bug, readying for events like Easter and the Phantoms Phan Club banquet, and wrapping up work on the Phantoms player's scrapbook that I volunteered to do in the fall, I haven't been blogging.

But I turned in the scrapbook last night (and after working on it all this time, I almost hated to part with it), Easter has come and gone, the banquet was a week ago Monday, and I've finally got some actual free time. So, what have I been doing? Sleeping. For the past few weeks, I could tell that I was tired and needed extra rest, but this is ridiculous.

With any luck, I'll actually be able to keep my eyes open in the near future, so there'll be some posts with actual events in them. ;o)

Surprise! I found out this morning that my job assignment will be extended one week. My new end date will be April 6.

That's nice. First of all, I like working there, and second, this will make up for the fact that I missed 4.5 days of work between March 16 and now. (I ended up leaving work on Friday by 12:30... I was just too ill to last the entire workday.)

'Bout time I have a bit of GOOD job news to report, no matter how minor.

Good morning. I want to go right back to sleep. Instead, I'm sitting in a subway train at 6:35 AM.

Why? Because the temp agency called me yesterday and harangued me for missing so many days recently. It was implied, but not stated, that my Future Relationship With the Agency would be strained if I called out today.

So I'm going in, even though I really shouldn't, just so I can keep that particular option open for future long-term assignments. Though what I feel like telling The Agency right now would certainly impair my chances of getting another assignment in this lifetime. It'd be an unfeasible suggestion, anyhow. I mean, is it even possible for a temp agency to attempt a biologically impossible reproductive act? I have my doubts on that score.

Bunch of scrooges. All they want is their profit, which they only make when I report to work. Beyond that, I can drop dead for all they care. Hey, at least the rules we're playing by are crystal clear to me now. Knowing where I fit in the scheme of things will make that much easier on me from here on out. Temp workers = cash cows. No more and no less.

Whew. What a mistake it was to go in to work on Tuesday! By the time I got home, the fever had skyrocketed and I spent yesterday and today at home.

I also saw the doctor, who diagnosed infections of my sinuses and both ears. (I never seem to have one of those without the other, anyway.) And, also as usual, the throat has joined the party with laryngitis and a persistent cough.

But at least now I have some prescription meds to battle the symptoms with. One antibiotic and one decongestant, to be precise.

Which is good, because I'm going in to work tomorrow if it's the last freaking thing I do. I am NOT going to have a truckload of undone work stacked up to the flippin' ceiling when Renee comes back on Monday. There's likely to be some backlog remaining, but no way am I going to have nearly-this-whole-weeks' worth of stuff left untouched.

I'm going to go wilt now. Crud, I'm tired.

Uh oh.

I spoke too soon.

101.5 was not the number I was hoping to see. Then again, I wasn't hoping to wake up feeling lousy at this hour, either.

*&%#$+!!! My last two weeks of this assignment and and I end up missing time. I don't need this.

The fever *finally* broke at about midnight. So I wanted to come to this afternoon's game, which meant going to Mass this morning. (Because you can't be too sick for church and well enough to go out and do other stuff.)

So I've spent a pretty much normal Sunday and I don't feel like death yet. (I have laryngitis and *sound* like death, but that's another story.)

I think I can go to work tomorrow with no problem.

AGAIN the temp is up to 102. *%&$#!!! Three days and the fever hasn't broken yet. The only change is that a sore throat and a cough have shown up to keep the aches and the fever company.

OTC stuff hasn't been getting the job done, and I want these symptoms *gone*. Time for the BIG guns. I have some prescription-strength ibuprofen, and I just took one. That should help. I hope.

In other news, Mark's channel surfing brought us to the last 1/3 or so of "What's Up, Doc?" I roused myself from my torpor to watch it, because that's one of my favorite comedies ever. The mark of a *really* funny movie is if you have the thing practically memorized because you've seen it so many times, but you still laugh. Or, in today's case, you know that laughing is likely to trigger a coughing spell, and you laugh anyway. :o)

Time to get back to watching the Flyers game.

A few days in advance of last week's bus trip, I downloaded an hour of white noise. I saved it on both my MP3 player and the memory card on my cell phone. I got it so I could play it on the bus ride home and override the ambient noise in the bus. I couldn't sleep, an issue I often have on a moving vehicle, but I did get to rest in relative peace. As I discovered at the end of the ride, when I turned off the white noise and removed the noise-reducing earphones, I had successfully masked not only most of the DVD that was being played, but also most of the ambient conversation and ALL of the bus motor, the a/c, and the whooshing of the pneumatic windshield wipers.

I've discovered a new use for a white-noise device: drowning out the show on TV that you'd *really* rather not hear while you're trying to nap.

I still don't feel well. Resting on the sofa with one or two purring stripey critters for company is about all I'm fit to do. Mark, meanwhile, is channel surfing. No problem.

Until I overheard this emanating from the TV set: "She's seen here using her roommate's toothbrush to scrub the toilet bowl, then putting it back as though nothing happened."

OK, there went my drowsiness. Now I was wide awake, and queasy into the bargain. "EWWW! What in heck are you *watching*, anyway ?"

It's some program called "Caught on Tape". From where I sit, if you're setting up hidden cameras to catch your roommate pilfering your stuff (as in another scene from the same program) or playing revolting pranks, you're faced with two options. Either upgrade your roommates by moving in with SANE people, or fly solo and live alone.

But in any case, I didn't want to watch OR listen to this program. Hello, sound masking. Cell phone: on. Earphones: in. White noise file: looping. Goodbye, unwanted TV audio.

Eventually, Mark surfed to some other channel. But I didn't have to listen to any more disgusting stuff in the meantime.

Whoop-de-do. The temp's down to 101. I'm not celebrating too much, though, because like I posted yesterday, people's temperatures tend to keep climbing well into the evening.

For the first time in 11 seasons, I think I'm sick enough to miss a Phantoms game. That's in part because I feel awful and need rest, and in part because I don't want to give whatever this is to anyone else.

The weather's hideous anyway. It's sleeting and the roads and pavements are icing over: my un-favorite weather conditions, to be sure, regardless of my health status.

At least the cats are happy. They love having Meowmy home during the day, particularly when she's like a 5'3" heating pad for them to sit on. I'm even better than sitting in front of the heating duct, because I give out skritches. ;o)