This has been a really bad fall for migraines for me. I'm hoping that it's just because it's been a wet fall, with lots of mold (mold, especially the kind that grows on old leaves or rotting wood, can really trigger bad ones for me) and it's not something new and different - some kind of weird allergy that's not been diagnosed, or the start of The Dreaded Change, or something else going funny with hormones.

I had one today. Granted, there were several obvious triggers: there's supposed to be a big cold front hit tomorrow (everyone in my family, we have sinuses like barometers). The classroom where I taught this morning had a bad bulb in the projector I was using and it flickered (flickering lights can trigger migraines*), and then, when I took my car out for the so-it-won't-self-immolate recall repair, they had the bay doors closed (it's a cold day) and car exhaust was seeping into the waiting area. (I could have asked to move somewhere else, but I could just BARELY smell it, and I have a bloodhound nose, so I figured it might have been excessive to ask. And besides, it took them less than 1/2 hour - once the car was in the shop - to effect the repair)

(*I find that interesting, as epileptics often have problems with flashing lights at particular flash frequencies. I've read that there are some similarities in electrical activity between a migraine and epileptic problems. Presumably, anti-seizure drugs might help with migraines - I've read that too - but I tend to be unwilling to go on meds for something that happens fairly infrequently)

So when I got back home, instead of finishing the final marking (which I had begun) of the ecology papers, I had to take an Excedrin Migraine and go to bed. When I finally felt like my head wasn't going to explode, I got up, and tried another trick I had heard: keep the feet hot and the head cold. I put my boiled wool slippers on over the wool socks I was wearing, and put a coldpack on the back of my neck (which seemed the most comfortable place; it still made me shiver. When I have a migraine, I get cold.)

Remarkably, that seems to have worked the best of everything (I didn't take the Excedrin Migraine in time; usually I have to take it within 20 minutes of starting the headache).

****

A little Christmas something. I was listening to KING-fm's "Christmas" channel in my office this morning and they had a really sweet arrangement of "Christmas Don't Be Late" (also known as the Chipmunk song). It was arranged to sound like a Strauss waltz, almost, which was funny and wonderful.

And it made me think of the original song.

I know, some people LOATHE the Chipmunks, and I think I would if I had to hear the song on regular rotation (like if I were working retail and it was on the soundtrack the store played). But a few renditions of it in a season remind me of my childhood.

Alvin and the Chipmunks - the original version of the show - was off the air (IIRC) before I actually made the scene on this Earth, but one of the indie channels in the town where I grew up used to show re-runs of it after school. And because it was a cartoon, I watched it. (Frankly, the Clyde Crashcup segments were more favorites of mine than the Chipmunks were - and almost no one remembers Clyde Crashcup now)

So here's the original cartoon version of it. No cuted-up 1980s chipmunks, none of the recent CGI 'munks, it's the plain old "flat style" cartoon with the cheap-o animation like what I grew up watching. To me, this is quite nostalgic: