Cat-filled weekend

Maine was, as always, a wonderful weekend getaway. We got home last night. It turns out to not be that much further - maybe 45 minutes - than we were driving before, which is good. I wasn't sure how well we'd do on the drive.

And I forgot my camera, so no pictures for this entry, sadly. :(

The weather was pretty icky for most of the weekend with the bands from Ophelia coming in. Friday night was extremely foggy. Saturday, we took the brunt of the weekend rain. It was chilly and muddy all day as we did our errands. The insulated hoodies we bought over the last trip came in handy. :)

We spent a good portion of the weekend at Erich's mom's house, playing with the cats. She has become the crazy cat lady in Maine, filling a decent sized one-bedroom apartment (and an outdoor cat run that's half the size of her apartment) with six cats. Three are brothers that she originally was fostering, but has fallen in love with and decided to keep. She was doomed to this-- when she first got them, they were only days old, and so tiny that she fed them with an eyedropper. (I wouldn't be able to resist). Three male kittens just shy of five months old are a riot to watch. They were all very affectionate, though. At one point when they crashed down from romping, I had one curled up next to each hip, and Erich had two cats sleeping on him.

We kept insisting we were stealing at least one, but that wasn't going to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if she did a cat head count when we were gone, though. :)

Over the course of the weekend, we stuffed ourselves with lobster (two rolls each plus a full steamed lobster), chowder, and completely unhealthy hot dogs. I'll be eating salads for a month to recover, but it's all good.

The only damper on the weekend was a sudden on-rush of sinus issues. I was fine through dinner on Saturday night. We came up to the room, and in the course of one hour, I went from normal me to a complete ball of sniffling, suffering head explosion. Erich jokingly thought I was allergic to Stargate SG-1 (which happened to be on TV at the time). By 11 p.m., it was so incredibly painful that I begged Erich to go out and try to find something to help knock me out. Of course, this is a problem-- in coastal, small town Maine, not much is open at 11 p.m., even on a Saturday night. A gas station up the road turned out to be the best help, and he came back with some decongestant pills. I promptly took the dosage, hoping to get to sleep.

No such luck. The pressure just got worse and worse. I couldn't blow my nose. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't tip my head over. I definitely couldn't sleep. My sinuses felt like they were being pulled by a vaccuum cleaner. And on top of that, I started tripping on the cold meds, getting the shakes and paranoia that is the "if nervousness and sleeplessness occur, discontinue use" warning on the back. Here I was, in a hotel room in Maine after midnight. Erich's asleep and I don't want him suffering with me, so I don't turn on the TV, don't turn on the lights. I was convinced it was going to be a long, difficult night feeling completely stir-crazy.

Ugh.

By about two a.m., thankfully, my exhaustion overtook the meds and I managed to get a few hours of sleep. We grabbed better meds yesterday morning that seemed to do the trick. But I don't recall ever having a night that bad. And now I know that Actifed is on that list with Nyquil of "never, ever give to Mel at bedtime, or else."

I'm still a bit congested today. I'm not sure whether it's a headcold, or it was just a massive allergy attack brought on by all of the moisture (mold, perhaps?). I know the pollen and mold counts are very high around here today. But other than the sniffles, I feel just fine. So who knows? In any case, despite the sinus attack from hell, it was a great weekend. I'd already planned on taking today off, so I'm catching up on some laundry and house chores and will otherwise just kick back and relax in case this IS a cold.

Time for coffee and the first load of laundry.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Arrrr....

~ Mel.