mumps, probably

Weird. Cheek still hurts a lot, but the swelling is going back down some. I feel like crap; totally exhausted. And yesterday afternoon, my neck started hurting, and I had a fierce headache. I can still touch my chin to my chest, so if it is meningitis, it is not severe (and that comes in ranges, like all the rest of this stuff, including asymptomatic! Yes, you can be walking around with mumps and meningitis and NOT KNOW IT! Yikes.). I'm still avoiding the doctor, on the general premise that if they decide it is meningitis, they might want to make sure it is viral and not bacterial and (ew) stick a big ole needle in there. Thank you, no. And no freaking way am I taking antibiotics pre-emptively. If it was ever obvious I had a virus, now would be the time.

Anyway, mostly I'm just trying to keep my head tilted back or at least level, because bending it down hurts. I'm sleeping more and I've given up on the rosetta stone stuff for now. R. came home early because child care cancelled again and I just don't have it in me to cope today.

And of course there's enough of an inversion that the wood smoke is just _sitting_ in the air making us all feel that much worse. Bleah. Easily one of the most obnoxious things about New England.

reading

_Take Your Kids to Europe_, 7th ed. Nice stuff, altho aimed at school age kids (6-16). Advocates traveling as a family, out of the country, to Europe for an extended period of time. Some of the rationale for the details is, well, very white middle-class suburban. And of course the whole thing has limited utility for traveling with an infant/toddler/preschooler. That said, a goldmine of information, particularly the camping, home exchange and home rental stuff. I knew about family rooms at hostels, and as near as I can tell I'm as good or better at finding interesting stuff to do/shopping and cooking overseas/navigating overseas than the author was at least at the beginning. I've gotten many a chuckle out of reading a description of something the author discovered for the first time overseas -- that I can name several instances of in the US. Whatever.

Biblio/resources list is pretty good. It was especially nice to find a relatively complete list of guidebooks-for-families and menureaders, having just gone through the process of researching those myself.