3/2/15. The post where I whine about the weather.

3/2/15: I told you last week I would do this, so don't act surprised.  Yesterday was a full day.  I sang and played handbells in church, then we made a trip out to wine country with friends to pick up a wine club shipment.  It was a fun trip (how could a wine country trip be anything else?), but the weather was miserable. It was cold, rainy, and foggy.  Hard to believe it was the first day of March.

When we got home, it was still early evening, so we sat down to watch a movie.  And once I sat down, I realized how rotten I felt.  Not just my foot, although it was certainly doing its best to get my attention.  I felt completely worn out physically and mentally, like I'd just run a marathon while doing long division in my head.  I made it through the movie and then crawled into bed.

Fortunately, I slept pretty well and happened to have a scheduled day off work today.  I did some chores around the house, met my acting partner for lunch and a run-through of our scene, and made a trip to the grocery store.  My foot was still pretty angry and I had to make several adjustments to my stimulator, but all in all, things seemed to be going okay.

And then I was done in by a handbell.  (Okay, technically, it was a choir chime, but only a real handbell nerd would know the difference. Or that there is such a thing as a choir chime.)  I have never enjoyed the sound of choir chimes. Have you ever put a glass away in a cabinet and accidentally touched it to the cabinet or another glass, so that it makes a high-pitched vibrating sound and you have to grab the glass with your hand to make it stop?  That's what choir chimes sound like to me.  But clearly I am in the minority, since choirs all over the world continue to purchase and play them, and composers continue to write pieces for them.  But something particularly disconcerting happened during practice tonight.  I'm not quite sure what happened, frankly, but whatever it was happened while I was playing the chimes and for several minutes I couldn't hear out of one ear. When the sound came back, both ears started ringing.  For awhile I was afraid my vertigo might have returned.  In any event, whatever happened did me in for the night. 

As I think more about it, it strikes me that my stimulator is probably the neurological equivalent of a choir chime, at least in terms of the vibrations and their effect on my irritation level.  Of course, the stimulator vibrations are helping to mask a much worse sensation.  Maybe I would like the choir chimes better if they were masking the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, although I'd just as soon not find out.

I think a lot of my physical and mental fatigue is related to the weather.  As much as I'd like to hide in bed until the weather gets better (or at least consistent), I've looked at my calendar and the weather forecast and that is not in the cards.  So, in the morning I will quit whining and get moving.  And try to stay away from the choir chimes for awhile.