As one gets older, sleeping problems can result, and James has had this lately in spades. Sometimes he is up an hour or two every night reading. Especially on work nights, this is not conducive to being alert. We have tried all sorts of over-the-counter tricks, including valerian tablets, Sleepytime tea (which has chamomile and valerian in it), and some non-habit-forming drugs from the doctor. Finally in the hospital they prescribed Ambien.

Now, Ambien has a so-so reputation. Some people who take it sleepwalk or do strange things in their sleep. (Heck, I used to sleepwalk as a kid without taking drugs.) It didn't seem to cause James any problems, at least at first. He was finally able to sleep in the hospital (the first week he barely slept at all; at one desperate point I pulled the FAR up on my phone and started reading it to him), but it's been more hit-or-miss at home. Some nights he just gets up once to use the bathroom, a few odd nights he's slept straight through, but most of the time, after Sleepytime Vanilla tea, shutting off his computer an hour before bed, and one Ambien, he's still sleeping a few hours and then waking up.

Or is he? I'm under the impression sometimes he's dreaming that he's awake.

Anyway, I had a screaming sinus headache all last night and was looking forward to some sleep relief at bedtime. No luck..."the ghost" was walking just before three o'clock. He'd gone in the kitchen to make more Sleepytime tea, and then the Ambien kicked back in and he could barely make it to bed and he practically had to take his C-PAP mask harness apart to get it on and kept falling asleep during the steps. Then I couldn't sleep for the next hour, and ended up sleeping until eleven, which put the kosh on going to Kroger early.

Because...sigh...we still have to go to Kroger. The milk is cheaper there and I like Kroger's buns better for my work lunches than Publix's and the least expensive ham at Kroger has the least amount of sodium. We got the milk home, grabbed the CVS coupon we'd forgotten, and were off again. James needed Breathe Rights, so I ran in and got him a box, plus some sugarless hard candy, and got 30 percent off it all.

There was no need to go to Barnes & Noble again, but we didn't want to sit around all afternoon, so we went to Akers Mill for about an hour. I bought the rest of the 50th anniversary Star Trek novel trilogy about Number One, and lucked out at the clearance tables: they had a bunch of cute toys half off, and of course there was still the additional 20 percent off. I got four nice toys to donate to Toys for Tots in December at a reasonable price and found a nice gift for Emma and one for Alice at the same time.

Finally home and could take a nap after watching a lovely special about Jim Henson, who would have been 80 this weekend. We both needed tissues at the end. At some point I took my temperature and appear to be running a low-grade fever. Well, that would explain how rotten I've felt today, too.

We had some of the harvest sauce tonight with chicken tortelloni; yum! Plus we each got a lunch out of it, and there were six tortelloni left over for a quick snack. We had some apple pie for dessert. For some reason, America's Funniest Home Videos wasn't on, so we watched two episodes of the animated Star Trek and then the Trek story "Assignment: Earth," one of my favorites, a back door pilot in which several elements were reused for The Questor Tapes. I would have liked to have seen adventures of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln.

Labels: books, food, health, shopping, television, toys

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:06:00 PM

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