I had a really nasty migraine on Monday night, especially disappointing since one of my friends from Iraq who is stationed here in Spain was leaving the next morning and stayed with us since he had to move out of his house. Unfortunately, I was in so much pain that the only time I got out of bed was to throw up and didn’t get to hang out at all. By the next morning, the worst of it had passed but I am always left with what I call a “migraine hangover”, where I’m still a lot more sensitive to everything and it takes a while for my headache to go away completely.

That was Monday; today is Thursday. And my head is still killing me. Fortunately nowhere near the caliber it was earlier in the week, but bad enough that I was having to take something for the pain. So while I was at work and talking to my coworker, I reached into my desk and grabbed my bottle of Assorted Headache Medicines - 200mg Motrin, 800mg ibuprofen, and Excedrine Migraine. I hadn’t taken the Excedrine in a while so I figured I’d try them today, and so I popped two.

After about a half an hour, my headache started breaking up, so I went to the other side of the building to scan some documents. While I was standing there, this strange feeling started coming over me, and I started feeling like my ears were plugged up and I couldn’t get a good sense of balance. And when I coming back to my offfice and someone came out of their office and said something to me, and I noticed I couldn’t really focus on her and everything was getting really, uh, dopey. And that was when I realized I must not have taken Excedrine at all, that I must have taken the wrong bottle and downed Percocets from the bottle from when my back was hurt.

I quickly continued to get worse and worse, to the point I thought I was going to throw up and had to run stumble out of the building so I could not throw up all over the pretty white tile floor.  Fortunately, I never did throw up.  Unfortunately, the nausea did not get any better.  B coincidentally came to my office just after I had realized I took the wrong medicine and he took me home where I lay on the porch swing and passed out until the kids got home from school.

I’ve felt horrible ever since then (one of the side effects of Percocet for me is that it gives me a headache…lovely!) and have been laying on the sofa all night.  One of my guilty indulgences, America’s Next Top Model, came on while the kids were eating dinner and I was watching when Isak and Anja came to the sofa to snuggle with me for the last few minutes.  They watched the photos of the women being shown and then the elimination round.

And as I lay on the couch with my gnarly gnasty hair and my droopy eyes and blotchy skin, Isak told me that he thinks I should be America’s Next Top Model.  And that I should do my hair and put on some nail polish and then I could be in a magazine, and he would buy the magazine.

Here kid, for that you get a $50 raise in allowance.

Isn’t she just so, uh, charming?

As we’re laying in bed watching the end of the race, it thunders a few times and then the rain starts.  Except this didn’t sound like any old rain, this rain sounded like it was about to come through the roof!  I knew it had to be hail. I looked outside and sure enough, the driveway was white.  There were boxes flying, garbage cans rolling, tricycles in the middle of the road, and to get out the door to move the bikes under the shelter I had to push the door through the pile of hail that had accumulated directly in front of my door.

Crazy weather we’re having!

At lunchtime, I sent Isak out to go get Anja from her friends’ house.  She came home and rang the doorbell - she will never come in the house without ringing the doorbell first.  I opened the door to tell her that I am not her butler and she can let herself in, but she said, “But I caught a frog!”

Typical Anja, wearing her pretty little dress and pearls and catching frogs.