M mötte Lassie (this subject brought to you by M.)

My headaches have been a little better of late, but I was hit with another of the Bad Sort this afternoon. It was out of the blue, too. At my last prenatal visit, the midwife assured me that I shouldn't worry about taking as much Tylenol as I needed (well, every four hours, following the normal dosages, etc, of course) which made me feel better. I had been attempting to only take them when I was sure it wouldn't go away on its own, and by then, it was so bad that it couldn't touch the pain. Since then, I have made more of an effort to take it at the first sign of a headache coming on (which is made easier by the fact that I now know that it never worked, hoping it would go away on its own) and it seems to keep them at bay, for the most part. This did not so much work today, and by the time I got home, I was miserable, and took a very long nap indeed. Naps almost never help my headaches but I'm compelled to try it now and then anyway--at the very least, you're not aware of the raging headache while asleep so I figure it works itself out. I was so out of it that I could not remember when I originally took the Tylenol, or when my head actually started hurting, so I had to wait until at least six before taking more. I mean, I couldn't even remember if it was before or after lunch. Anyway, M came home, and fetched a roast beef sandwich for me, and I drank two full cans of Pepsi* and took my booster pills of Tylenol, and miraculously, the headache is gone. It feels really lovely. I don't ask for much. :)

M had a tiny brush with localized fame yesterday at his job. He got a phone call from a customer, and the customer started spelling out his last name before saying it. (Uncommon names of the world, unite!) "D-u-d-e-n--" he began, and then paused for M to catch up. To his surprise, M said, "-b-o-s-t-e-l?" Because you know, Dudenbostel is a name that most people expect to hear! It turned out to be a cousin of the famous (again, localized fame) Dudenbostel that prompted M to guess at the ending--a luthier so well-known and so in demand that he apparently shut his website down because his backlog was already too long. DIY network has featured him on a series about handmade instruments, including three shows on mandolins. After the ten year wait, you can buy one of his mandolins for twenty thousand or so, btw, and he's at least as well-known, if not more so, for his guitars. It's just one of those unexpected little stories that need so many things to be true for it to work. The odds of M guessing the guy's name--slim. The odds of it actually being a relative--even slimmer. And even more amusingly, the customer really hadn't talked to the luthier cousin in many years, so M sort of caught him up on just what a name in the luthier world he actually is. Pretty neat, we thought--even more so than the email he replied to in Norwegian. What are the odds of him talking to a Norwegian customer while working at a weaponry supply location in Kentucky? :)

I have somehow spent an hour on this post, and I'm not sure how, except that I had to verify my facts for the previous story, which prompted some conversation, and link-finding. Strictly speaking, it's now time for bed, but I find that I'm less sleepy than I expected to be, after my long nap this afternoon. I totally got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I may have kicked the door frame in frustration that it was a workday. Maybe. And maybe that's not a good idea when one is wearing no shoes, btw. So now I will stay up late enough tonight that I feel just as out of sorts tomorrow. Great planning!

Belly update--looking much more pregnant. I don't look ridiculous in maternity shirts anymore, though I've only worn one and can still wear most of my old shirts. All of my maternity shirts (purchased by a cousin on a serious sale) are a tiny bit too casual for work, unfortunately. I may be able to get away with it occasionally I am beginning to enter the not-co-comfortable stage where it's pretty hard to maneuver myself up from a prone position, and lying on my back makes my back hurt. It's not really inconvenient yet, though, which is good. I am just so pleased that I am actually here that it is hard to complain too seriously. I've had worse problems.

*As much as I do enjoy my Pepsi, I have made a serious effort to cut down on the caffeine while pregnant. Actually, I had already cut down on the pop in general in the last few years, sticking to two per day, on average. My pregnancy rule is no more than one caffeinated beverage per day, usually for dinner. I have eliminated lunchmeat from my diet, I have stopped drinking tap water*, I have avoided peanut products when possible, I have practiced stricter food safety rules than ever before (including switching spatulas three times while cooking, and throwing away any food item that is at all questionable to me), I have fretted over how much protein I am getting and I haven't taken an allergy pill in months. Thirty-six milligrams of caffeine? Eh. Risk of miscarriage "may" be increased at three hundred, but no proof.

**Tap water is really, really scary. Google it if you want, but if you're prone to worrying, I wouldn't. Somewhere around the time I read about male fish producing eggs due to the high levels of estrogen in the water system, I started buying bottled water. Now that I'm out of the first trimester, I've been a little more lax about it (ie, I stopped boiling pasta in bottled water, and I refuse to think about it outside of my house much) but honestly, I'm not sure how long it will take me, if ever, to stop thinking about it.