St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I had my Gaelic Storm CD at work that I played on the speakers for the occasion (usually I listen to music or the radio over headphones, so I don't bother the folks around me). Gaelic Storm is the band that played in the movie, "Titanic," in the party scene belowdecks in steerage. Lots of energy. I love it!

Here's a link to their website, where you can buy their CDs. Looks like they got a new fiddle player since their first release (which had Samantha on the fiddle--she was also in the movie), and they've removed all trace of Samantha from the website. Plus they got a couple new guys in the band. I keep meaning to get another one or more of their newer CDs but haven't done it yet.

I left work early yesterday, because I got a migraine. I only get migraines about once every year or two, which is just long enough to forget what's going on. It starts with "the vision thing," where I can't see what's right in the center of my vision. Like a spot that's missing from people's faces or from the page I'm trying to read. After a while of not being able to see what I'm looking at, the spot grows and turns into an arc that slowly gets bigger and bigger, until it passes out of my peripheral vision and I can see everything again. Then the headache shows up (or not sometimes).

Yesterday it was a dull ache with woozy disorientation and a little queasiness. What I needed most was some sleep, so I went home at 2:30, after I got all my work to a good stopping point. At home, I had some ravioli to try to fight the queasiness, and then my daughter begged me to please, please, pleeeeeease take her to Denny's (there's no food in the house that you can call a meal) and then to the library. So I did.

At the library, I turned in my audio books and checked out 3 more, including one I'm really excited about. It's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, an autobiography by Richard P. Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. My friend the astrophysics major recommended it to me long enough ago that I wasn't sure if this was the right book, so I called her from the library and spoke in hushed tones to confirm that I had the right one. I did. And I've got to say that just the first few opening pages (where he comes close to burning down his parents' house at the age of 8) are worth the price of admission. I can't wait till my drive home, when I get to listen to more!

On my way home from the library last night, I stopped to pick up the mail after over a week of making the mailman shove the new mail in and mangle the old mail. I think he'll be glad to see my mailbox empty today. But in among all the mail was an envelope with some homework assignments from my Tour Director instructor!!!

I took an online class from her late last summer, made a resume, and sent it out to a couple local places (which is where the fall/winter work usually is), but they didn't want to hire me to work just on weekends. They need people who are available on some weekdays too. But about that time, my day job got swamped and I was working so much overtime, that I didn't bother to try pursuing local work just then.

Well, now my instructor (who is based in Southern California) is offering in-person training in April, so I signed up for it. But there's a lot of homework that I have to do before the class starts. So, instead of going to bed last night to give my migraine its much-needed sleep (it's usually sleep deprivation and maybe stress that brings it on in the first place), I stayed up looking over the homework assignments and thinking about them but not writing anything down. Because, if I wrote something down, that would mean I was staying up doing homework (which is bad), when really I was just looking it over before I went to bed (which is good). But I didn't get to bed until 11:30 (which is really bad).