Well, blister it.
I've been ill this past week....nothing serious, just the Crud going around, involving congestion, coughing, headache, etc. Finally called the doctor's office on Wednesday and the PA called out a couple of prescriptions, one for an antibiotic (a course of antibiotics taken over just five days? Sweet!) and a decongestant.
Feeling better, which is good, except this is the second night without sleep. Not so good.
I'm a lousy sleeper under the best of circumstances, but this is unusual even for me. A friend has mentioned her problems sleeping, and that it's due to a medication she's been given, so that got me to thinking. Hmmm. I wonder....?
Not like there's a lot else to do at 5 something in the morning, after all.
Googled Pseudovent, the decongestant, and there it is, listed under the "more common" side effects: sleeplessness (insomnia).
Mystery solved! Except I'm supposed to continue taking this stuff for several days yet, and while it's true I'm accustomed to functioning on comparatively little sleep, even I require some shut-eye. Perhaps when I go to the store today (as I do most days; it's ridiculous) I'll ask the pharmacist if there's another decongestant that doesn't have that particular side effect, and if so, I'll call the doctor's office to request it instead.
It'd never occurred to me 'ere this that insomnia can be a side effect of a decongestant. Sort of thought, if anything, decongestants tend to knock one out. I'm going to try to remember in future to ask the doctor's office check for that as a possible side effect, and try to prescribe a medication without it.
Month: April 2006
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Hat Tip to Plumtree, who found what has to be the most, well, memorable obituary I've read to date:
Dykes, Elsa Chambers
DYKES, ELSA CHAMBERS - age 96 of Alcoa, died at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday,
February 28, 2006 at Transitional Care Center, Maryville, of liver
cancer, the symptoms of which arose about six weeks prior. Her husband,
Boone Dykes, son of Rev. James Robert Dykes and Margaret Orleans
Creswell Dykes, died in 1965. She was the third child (of 11) born to
James Phillip Chambers and Zora Melvina Collins in a house at Chambers
Creek, in Swain County, North Carolina, built by her father-"after the
barn was built." A spring branch rose behind the house and ran through
the yard. Social life on Chambers Creek consisted of going to the
Baptist Church and to baptizings. (In the creek, usually where it
flowed into the Little Tennessee River.) She and her slightly older
sister, Ethel, decided to baptize their mother's chickens in the spring
branch. "We baptized all we could catch," she said. "Once was usually
enough. They learned to run from us." She said that if you lived on
Chambers Creek and weren't Baptist, you were considered "quare-turned."
She said, "The Kirkland cousins moved up from Bryson City and they were
Methodists." Parents entertained children. Her mother sang Celtic
laments of death and heartbreak, blood and treachery. "Dad," she said,
"was more for the silly, funny, songs." The first trip she remembered
was standing with her siblings, on a rock sled built by her father,
drawn by oxen he had broken to harness, going to Bushnell, or perhaps
Bryson City. Her last memorable trip (other than going to North
Carolina to see new great-grandchildren) was a board a jet with her
younger sister, Marian and her husband, Charles Harrison, and fly to
Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, B.C., and take a cruise ship to
Alaska. She was about 90. Every child in her Chambers Creek School
(which was also a church, community club, funeral parlor and social
center) was a cousin. Her father said, "I'll not have my children
marrying their cousins, and they are going to go to college. They moved
across the mountain to Blount County in 1918. None married a cousin and
all, except the two who died young, went to college. James Chambers was
a drover for the herds of cattle brought from the North Carolina
Mountains to the railhead in Tennessee. He, and others, would stay
overnight at the home of a cousin, Becky Cable, in Cades Cove, on the
drive. In Maryville he took a nickel and went to a moving picture show.
"He came home quite impressed," his daughter said. Later, like his
in-law, Rev. Bob Dykes, he decided moving pictures were not
Baptist-kosher. But he did contest to see "Gone With The Wind." Zora
Collins Chambers' grandfather, Alfred Cline, served in the Civil War in
the Thomas Indian Brigade and was assassinated on his front porch when
he returned. Probably one of the red-headed Kirkland cousins, some of
whom spent the war year at home, robbing, pillaging, burning barns and
stealing cattle and grain. (Much of it Alfred Cline's, a preemptive
strike, as it were.) When they came to Tennessee they went first to
Harry Proffitt's farm where the airport is now sited. They wound up at
the ALCOA farm on McArthur Road. Elsa went to Everett High School where
she played basketball and, at 16, began a not always smooth courtship
with Boone Dykes. They married when they were 23. They went to Townsend
where Boone's oldest sister, Miss Flo Dew, was a railroad executive and
ran the hotel for Little River Lumber Co. (She was married to an
engineer, Woody Dew, who she fired at least once.) Boone and Elsa had a
son, James Robert in 1933, and a daughter, Eleanor Flo, in 1935. Elsa
boarded during the week in Dry Valley with the Dunns (in-laws) and
taught at the one-room Red Bank School-mostly little Shulers, Efflers,
Skidmores, and Sullivans. She would ride in from Townsend on Monday
morning with Jake Farmer, dairyman, and ride back Friday afternoons in
the A-Model coupe with her husband and two children. Sometimes she took
her three-to-four year-old son who could be induced to sing for the
older children (with a perfect ear for volume and somewhat dubious
harmonics.) Later in the 30's she moved to Townsend Elementary School.
In 1944 they moved to Alcoa where she taught over 30 years at
Springbrook and her husband worked for ALCOA. She was a member of Alcoa
First Baptist Church but stopped attending when, several years ago, the
Southern Baptist Association set about purging "moderate" preachers and
professors, decided the Bible was absolutely inerrant, that the head of
the SBA was more infallible than the Pope, and decided the Baptist
women would be much better Christians if they sat down, shut up, and
obeyed their husbands. Her conduct, her diet, and her religion were
austere to the point of being ascetic. She was thoroughly conventional
and a strict enforcer of the rules--many of which she made up as she
went along. She was preceded in death by siblings; Oscar, Ethel
(Holloway), Viola (Herrick), Vega (Burns), Arnold, Rena (Swift), Ivan,
Mary Evelyn (who died as an infant and Norman (who died at 20.) Her
daughter, Eleanor Flo, died in 1996. She leaves her son, Jim Dykes,
Rockford, and youngest sister, Marian Harrison, Maryville. She was 18
and a senior at Everett when her youngest sister was born. "We all took
care of the babies and Marian was mine," Elsa said. Marian wept
bitterly when Elsa married Boone Dykes. "I knew I was losing my
'mama,'" she said. Boone and Elsa "ran off" to Clinton to marry,
attended by his sister, Georgia, and her husband, Barney Ballard. She
also leaves grandchildren, Mrs. Warren (Heather Patterson) Earl, and
Eric Patterson, both of Charlotte, North Carolina; five Dykes
grandchildren, Katy, Kelly, Bob, David, and Sally. They all live around
here except for David who teaches at the University of New Orleans when
it is not under water; great grandchildren are Ethan and Joel
Patterson, Eric and Rebeccah's boys, and James R. (Jade) Dykes and Mrs.
James (Jennifer Dykes) Stamper, Bob's kids.
Great great grandchildren are Michael and Jacob Stamper, fondly known
as the hell-imps, and Isabell Stamper, due for debut any moment and
"the sooner the better," according to her mother, Jennifer. Isabell's
iron willed great great grandmother held on for several days, waiting
for Isabell, but finally had to turn loose. She also leaves God knows
how many cousins and nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews
and on and on, many close by and others scattered from hell to
breakfast. When she died a library, with many volumes of Appalachian
folk history, burned down, to paraphrase Alex Haley and we shall not
see her like again, to paraphrase Shakespeare. Even individually, she
and her daughter-in-law, Peggy Elaine Booker Dykes, were not always
rational observers of Pat Summitt's Lady Vols. Together, they turned
into a two-woman lynch mob. Given her sister, Marian's, joining them,
males considered it safer out on the porch. Many believe that, even
gone on, they are keeping a hot, beady, eye on tournament season. She
went to Maryville College in an era when referees were more tolerant of
physical confrontation. Girls playing for rival colleges were sometimes
"maimed" as we would say today. Sixty-two years later, in answer to a
timid and diffident question, she said, "We wanted to WIN!" At Alcoa,
high school girls-faculty basketball game, the girls learned quickly
that it might be safer to give "Mrs. Dykes-46-year-old-teacher" some
room when she decided she wanted a rebound or a layup. No Alcoa girls
were maimed. At the University of Tennessee, after her children were
grown, she did a paper on Sir Thomas More. She got her "A" and one of
those sheepskins, but was as emotionally involved with "The Perfect
Knight" as she was with James Buchanan or James Knox Polk. Sir Thomas
More and his virtues passed, unmourned, into that golden haze of misty
memories. When the Chambers family moved to Tennessee Elsa's
grandmother Collins and grandfather had established a general store on
Harper Avenue in Maryville. In 1923, when she was 13 or 14, women won
the franchise. She marched, with her grandmother Collins, to the polls
and watched her grandmother vote. When she was 21 a Republican came and
got her and took her to the polls where she voted Democrat. " I said, "
'Thank you very much,' when I got out at home," she said. Memorial
services-with Bible verses, music, singing(no dancing) laughing,
crying, Baptist wine, casseroles, ham, biscuits, and unbaptized
chicken, will be announced later, when the tribe can be rounded up.
Donations may be sent to the American Cancer Society, 871 Weisgarber
Road, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37909. Arrangements by Cremation Options,
Inc. (865) 6WE-CARE (693-2273) www.cremationoptionsinc.com
Published in the Knoxville News Sentinel on 3/5/2006.
But wait....there's more!
Dykes, Elsa Chambers
DYKES, ELSA CHAMBERS - memorial gathering, 875 MacArthur Road, Alcoa at
1:00 p.m. Saturday, April 15. Come off Pellissippi Parkway where it
dead ends at Clark's Grove and turn left on Old Knoxville Highway. Go
about a mile-to Doug Hill's Produce Barn on the left and some brick
bank on the right (where the Meadow Lark used to be) and slant right on
MacArthur Road. Go one mile to intersection of Wright Road. Go another
50 yards and it is an asphalt driveway on the right, going up the hill
to the crab orchard stone house. Park in the field. Hide your beer in
the car. No dancing. We are still Baptists. If you can't understand the
directions, call Jim Dykes, arrangements by Cremation
Options, Inc.Published in the Knoxville News Sentinel on 4/13/2006.
I don't know who wrote these pieces, but I'd sure like that person to write my obituary.
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Yesterday afternoon when I drove to collect Dmitry from tutoring for the last time (yee-HAW!!!) it was to find the traffic lights dead at the intersection of Camp Bowie and Horne. This was causing a large stack up as the multilane streets - with left turn lanes - fed cars into the intersection. All of a sudden the stoplights came back on, and traffic began to move smoothly again. As I passed through the intersection I glanced around, expecting to see the traffic department crew who'd been fixing the broken-down lights.
No one there.
Huh! Strange. Didn't think any more about it, however.
After collecting Dmitry I stopped by a cobbler to drop off one of Don's favorite pair of dress shoes (to be yet again resoled, reheeled, and reglazed), and the woman mentioned the power having been inexplicably off for about 15 minutes. This, we agreed, would explain the traffic light outage.
This morning the news filled in the blanks....it was one of the rolling, random electrical blackouts triggered by the unusually high temperatures during a time when a fair amount of equipment is down for maintenance. According to the same article, there's a La Nina event transpiring in the Pacific Ocean which will probably mean a hotter-than-usual/dried-than-usual summer.
Oh, joy.
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It's a bit shy of 4 p.m. and here we are.....been to church and to Kirstin and Matt's house for a lovely Easter lunch, including an egg hunt. This should be the last year Christ Chapel holds Easter services at Will Rogers' Auditorium, as the move-in date for the new sanctuary is August 20th. I dunno....considering how many people show up for the two services on Easter (a couple of thousand each time, I believe), either they're going to have to have more than two services, or the sanctuary's a whole lot bigger than I thought it's going to be.
Dr. Kitchens preached an excellent sermon, regarding, reasonably enough, the resurrection of Christ and how the evidence supports its being true. BION I even noticed Dmitry following along with the sermon notes, even attempting to fill in some of the blanks.
Amazing!
Charles called this morning to wish us a Happy Easter, having just returned from church on the base. Said it was a very nice service. He inquired as to when the family party would be, and called during it so he could talk to multiple family members. This morning he told me while he's still hoping he'll get some significant time off between the end of sub school and the beginning of machinists' mate school, he might only get three days. :^(
Kirstin and Matt's house is admirably set up for a large party, with plenty of seating. Dmitry hid the eggs for the egg hunt, which was amusing, seeing as how he's never actually hunted any himself. He did a pretty decent job, I thought! The funniest thing was the difficulty the kids had locating the very last egg, which was sitting in plain sight, at their eye level, on a window ledge:
See it up there? On the far left of the window ledge?
See it? It's still there! At one point all the children were right in front of that window, totally incapable of seeing it. Finally Benjamin spotted it. ;^)
Just a picture of Marebear, with Brianna coming up from behind. The girls looked too delicious in their Easter finery!
BTW, these photos were taken with my cell phone as I forgot to take a camera with me. Here's one of Justin and Jill with little Cole, who's getting to be a big boy now, with hair and everything (not that you can see it from this angle):
The other day I was at the SuperTarget close by, and came across one of those signing episodes that blow me away:
Don't you love it? Regularly $3.99, but on sale for 2/$8. Even if I'd wanted one of those loaves I wouldn't buy one. Does anyone pay any attention at all when they're placing the signs?
Just talked to Alex, who says Beth's mother is up there for the holiday, they went to church this morning (he played the tuba at two services and he and Beth minded babies at another one), then to a barbeque for lunch. Sounds like they had a lovely Easter.
As I hope everyone here did.
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By jingo, one never knows what the day's mail will bring, does one?
Yesterday I was both puzzled and a bit taken aback to receive what appeared to be an invitation or thank you notecard in Kirstin's handwriting, addressed to herself at our street address. Figuring that what with three small children and hosting Easter lunch for the family she could be forgiven for getting a trifle confused, I opened it.
Okay, now I was concerned. It was a Mary Englebright (or whatever her name is) note card, written by Kirstin, and dated April 13, 2005.
Checked the postmark....dated April 10, 2006. Hmmmm.....
The note concerned what was going on in her life a year ago, such as having fired their realtor.
Jessica was over visiting, and Don arrived home, so the three of us batted it around for a few minutes but couldn't come up with any logical explanation. Since I was going to be over babysitting Kirstin's kids today, I took it along with me.
Anyone guess? Took her a couple of astonished minutes, too.
A year ago she was in some small group or something like that, and everyone had to write a note to themselves about what was happening in their lives at the time, seal it up, address it, then give it to the leader. It'd be mailed the next year, with the idea being they'd open it and compare their lives a year ago with their lives now.
Since Kirstin was in the process of selling her house, without having purchased another one, she chose to write down one of the true constants in an otherwise inconstant world, i.e. her parents' address.
Then she promptly forgot all about it.
Hint to anyone who might think something like this is a valuable exercise: Take a moment to write an explanatory note to yourself as the opening sentence, for otherwise you're going to think you've lost your mind when the year-old letter to yourself arrives.
Look what some people in southern California are paying for a gallon of gas:
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