Today just kept getting better and better, not a hard thing to do when a migraine wakes you up at 6 in the morning on a Sunday when you’d been planning to catch up on sleep after an insomniac week. Coffee didn’t help, I felt sick, dreams had been weird. But Beta and a girlfriend spent the night in a tent in the backyard and it’s hard to be crabby around happy (and non-giggly!) 12 year old girls who are polite and leave you alone. And Gamma slept late so I had a lot of time to sit around drinking coffee and feeling sorry for myself.

Then Gamma woke up and she was in a great mood, and Beta helped me put the tent away, and the friend’s dad picked her up and he was friendly. Then I dropped the girls off at their grandparents for a couple hours and went to the gym.

It was the first time I’d lifted weights with a migraine headache. It wasn’t really a problem, workout-wise, especially in the beginning, except for the blinding pain at the end of each set. But I could get roughly the same number of reps as always; maybe I was working at about 80%. And towards the end of my workout I felt so sick I finally gave up and went back to the inlaws.

Today is Father’s Day in Austria. It’s always a week earlier here than in the United States, and it fucks me up every year. I can never remember which country has it first, and every year I end up giving up in confusion and my dad never gets any ties or aftershave or Playboy paperweights from me, just a flakey long-distance call, and neither does my father-in-law, although the latter seemed genuinely happy when I shook his hand and wished him a happy Father’s Day. And I meant it sincerely, I am very fortunate to have him as a father-in-law. He is an extremely good man and wacky enough to be interesting. I felt like hugging him but that would’ve freaked him out so I just sort of patted him on the back.

Beta and Gamma gave me two nice potted flowers, which made me happy.

To celebrate the day, my mother-in-law cooked, and she is a great cook. She makes everything from scratch. Her mother was a cook in an inn someplace and she inherited the talent. We had the usual old-country cooking, some noodle soup today, some sort of beef thing and gigantic dumplings in a wonderful sauce. I’m sorry that I can’t describe it more precisely than that, I am still getting over this fucking headache, but it was good food. The girls even ate a lot. Of course it totally messed up this diet I’m on but hey, it was Father’s Day.

Actually, I’m wondering whether this was really a migraine, or if maybe I was poisoned. It had a real hangover feel to it, similar to a couple of times in the past when I’d had food poisoning, and I *was* at an embassy function yesterday where there *was* a buffet and I *did* eat a lot of these tasty spring rolls that *had* been sitting out for a long time andn *did* contain egg…

Then after lunch we hurried home, which wasn’t easy because the girls wanted to watch television and I had to talk them into leaving because Alpha had said she *might* be able to come home early for a few hours so be home at 1.00 but don’t tell the girls so they won’t be disappointed in case she can’t make it. But she was there, we were all very happy to see her. The day just kept getting better and better.

What else happened? Gamma took out the braids I’d made her and looked like an angel with her long wavy hair; so a few minutes later I was braiding Beta’s hair too. I enjoyed this because it’s not often I can spend so much time in Beta’s proximity so pleasantly. We’re going through this awkward phase of redefining our relationship sort of, as teens and parents do. Are we nice to each other? Do we slug each other? Head butt? She’s sort of standoffish at the moment so it was nice to do her hair.

For some reason I’ve always been the hair person in our house. I like it. I’ve always liked French braids, for example, and taught myself to do that (more or less) for the kids.

And now the day draws to a close. The girls are in bed. The cats are outside. The rain (and lightning) seem to have stopped. Alpha will be home in an hour or so. The headache is almost gone, and I’m sitting here, scanning Bugs.