How Migraines Work

5.00am  The migraine awakens you to announce its presence.

6.00am  You wake up to start your day.  As you shower, you realize that the migraine has decided it will take charge of your day.

6.15am  You take migraine medicine.

6.40am  After the thought of coffee disgusts you (a very scary sign), you drive your child to sports practice.  The burning ball of fire in the sky is pure evil, as is the barometer.

7.00am  You arrive home, change out of your mismatched work clothes (another sign of the migraine), change back into pajamas and go back to bed.

8.20am  Your husband asks you to get up to drive him to the airport.  Also a migraine sufferer, he has great sympathy for your plight, but needs a ride.

8.35am  You drop off his car at the repair place (well, it will sit in the driveway anyway while he gone - might as well get this handled).  Text work that this migraine is taking over today.

8.50am  You drop your husband off at the airport.  You are ready to pull away but he's not walking in.  You roll down the window and ask if things are ok.  He gets back in the car.  We live in Illinois and you can't fly interstate without a passport to go with your state ID.  Our state IDs are not updated because there is no money because there is no budget (for a year now).

8.55am  Drive longingly past the McD's and head home to get passport while husband texts child that you will be late picking them up from practice.

9.10am  Arrive home, get passport.

9.25am  Finally drop husband at airport.

9.27am  Finally get food at McD's and take second migraine pill, as first has done nothing.

9.45am  Pick up child very late from practice.  Child is fine.

9.53am  Return home.  Change back into pajamas and go back to bed.

2.00pm  Get husband's car, grab lunch at Jimmy John's (migraine hangover food) and return home.  Child has done mise en place for dinner and is asking questions on fried rice cooking techniques.  You silently thank the gods for your child's wisdom on this matter.

2.54pm  You finish this post.

Please note that tornadoes ripped through Illinois overnight and my migraine plight is nothing.  I had one co-worker who spent the night in her basement with her kids with no power until 6am.  She made it into work.  I suck.

20 years

Today marks my 20th wedding anniversary to Ted.  (A co-worker is celebrating her 36 - she says I'm a rookie!)  Interestingly enough, it's been a time of introspection.

The dad (Joe) of the best man at our wedding (Mike) died last Friday.  Ted made the choice to go to the wake even though he and Mike have not talked in about 10 years.  They just grew apart, and despite social media, they have not kept in touch.  Ted debated about going, but Joe and his wife Kathy were such a part of his life pre-marriage and even post-marriage, it was the right thing.  He took a half day off to go.

So Ted saw some folks from Mike's group of friends.  Others were not there / had not shown up.  He saw Mike and his siblings, and some of their kids, but none of their spouses.  And not all of the kids either.  In my family, a wake is a command performance and all spouses and kids (grandchildren) must be present.  (Think we don't do it?  My dad's wake was -10 degrees out.  That's below zero.  And yep, we were all there.)

As Ted was chatting with the widow Kathy, she asked about me, our girl, etc - all the usual niceties.  Ted replied with yep, we're married, life is good, etc.  Kathy muttered that all of her kids were getting divorced.

That explained a lot.  One spouse and the kids were coming after she got off work (huh?).  Another spouse of a child who lives out of state never even made the trip (but she sent the g'kids).  The third spouse was also absent.  Of the group of long-lost friends, one is divorced, one remains single, 1 is still married (we're friends on FB) and I think the other 2 are still married.

Ted said it brought closure.  And he's happy we're still married.

Tradition says that china is the gift for 20 years.  We're getting takeout.