I didn’t stay long at the festival — It was insanely crowded. — but I simply had to visit the Mathematical Association of America booth, since I’d learned on their Minute Math page that they would be there, and they were going to have a “Mathematical Petting Zoo” with a mathematical quilt, among other things.

So I told them about the sweater. It turns out that the person I talked to was Ivars Peterson, whose book I have on my shelf at home! I told him he could find me by googling “prime factorization sweater.” He did one tweet with a link to my blog post about the sweater — and the next day my website got 28,232 hits!

You know, I’ve shown the sweater to librarians and authors before. But the reaction when a fellow math geeks found it proves that I’ve finally found my people! It feels good to have found I’m not the only one who gets a lot of satisfaction out of cool math!

She recently had to file one more motion in my case. I did not have to appear. My ex-husband did. Because I still remember so many good times together and still love the person who was my beloved husband, he still has a lot of power to hurt me. But I didn’t have to even see him. And my lawyer tells it like it is. She stands up for what’s right and will not be pushed around. She acts in my behalf in situations where I wouldn’t have the strength to do it myself.

But I can definitely cheer her on!

The answer: Yes! My pretty, pretty Prius now has 162,000 miles on it and is running great. It gets 45-50 miles per gallon. Every time I’ve taken it in to be serviced, except for the 150,000 service when it needed new tires, the cost of servicing has been low and reasonable, somewhere around a hundred dollars, if that. (This contrasts with the old car I had before it that had something that cost about a thousand bucks every time I brought it in, when I only had it for a year and a half.)

And, now it’s paid off!

Mind you, in August, I’ll stop getting child support. And my son will head off to college, so there will be college costs. But it’s still nice having my car paid off.

And something funny. What do you think the credit union put in the envelope with my final statement? That’s right: An ad for a great rate on a new car loan! Because everybody wants to have a car payment, right? Wrong!

Well, I was very skeptical. There are some things that don’t fit. But I diligently read up on them to find out what they feel like and how they are different from TIAs (the literature admits they are very very similar, even calling TIAs from vertebral artery dissection, “pseudo-vestibular migraine”).

They are basically like migraines, but with dizziness in place of headache.

But this weekend, I felt lousy. And it made me very happy — because it completely fit the profile and description of vestibular migraine. It came on gradually, after I slept in too late and didn’t take my morning meds when I should have. This is a scenario that often would have given me a migraine.

I felt dizzy and yuck. A bit of headache, but not much.

Today in church, I didn’t feel like standing (though I could). I didn’t feel good — and it made me very happy! Because it was very much how I felt the first time I went to the ER after my stroke, in October. Just gradually feeling like I did after the stroke — dizzy and bad. And this time I wasn’t afraid it meant I was having another stroke and needed to go to the ER!

I had also been discouraged that the treatment is to find a new preventative — and I know how long that can take. But I was encouraged by this one, because although it’s bothersome, it’s not nearly as bad as a regular migraine. I’ll take dizziness over head pain any day of the week. And while it can come with head pain, I read that it often is accompanied by lower level headaches than regular migraine. More power to it!

Even better, after a nap this afternoon, it’s been much better. So maybe it won’t last for days and days.

Now, I still don’t think this fits the one I felt in February — a brief spell of vertigo that came on very suddenly. What I read tells me that strokes and TIAs do tend to happen suddenly. Migraines, not so much. It also doesn’t explain why, since December, I have had double vision when I look in certain directions. But that’s only two times, not four or five. And now I know that some of the time, at least, I don’t need to be alarmed by my strange symptoms. Also, I see a neuro-opthalmologist on Tuesday, who may have some insight about the double vision.

And I’m left being super thankful for feeling so bad today.

I have been told that Elfriede is retiring from the library after many years of working with the Americans.

I was so tremendously blessed to get to work with Elfriede for 8 years! Elfriede is one of a kind! There is no one else on earth like her!

When I began working at Sembach Air Base, we didn’t have a computer or even a card catalog. If a customer wanted to find a book, what would I do? Ask Elfriede!

Elfriede has all the joy and exuberance of someone who has never grown up. Even though it’s been years now, just thinking of her makes me smile. Always. I will always be her devoted fan.

I had two days off this week, taken to give myself a little more time with my son while he’s on Spring Break. Both days had glorious weather, and both days I got to go take pictures of flowers. Monday, was the wild bluebells I talked about in my last post. Tuesday, I went to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens and saw some beautifully planted gardens in beautiful splendor.

I love taking pictures of flowers. And, call me crazy, but I love looking at them over and over afterward. In the picture above, I love the way the tulips in the background look like bright red lights. (The sun on the flowers was dazzling in many of my photos.) I love the way the narcissus is so delicately colored. I love the sheer brilliant, exuberant color of tulips. Such a blessing to get to do this!

Every year lately, I try to catch the bluebells blooming at Bull Run Regional Park on the Bluebell Trail. This year, it was very early for them, but I didn’t even check. I knew they come into full bloom about when the cherry blossoms are finishing up. Sure enough! Today was a glorious day for bluebells! Anywhere the ground didn’t have bursts of bluebells, it had little white starflowers. The weather was absolutely perfect — a blue, blue sky with cool breezes. The trees were just putting out delicate light green leaves. Wow! Getting to walk among the bluebells today was a wonderful gift.