Virus vector, redux
This past Shabbat held great promise. My family and I were invited to spend the weekend with one of my Skokie girls. She had a whole Mexican-themed meal planned for Friday night, and I had prepared a big pan of vegetable enchiladas with a tomatillo salsa to bring along. Saturday night we were planning a couple's game night with the other Skokie girls and their husbands. Pictionary, Scrabble, Bunco, it didn't matter, we were just thrilled at the prospect of a fun weekend with other real, live, honest-to-goodness grown-ups.
This was an especially anticipated weekend for my husband. After three all-nighters in a row, his big legal writing project was completed and ready to be turned in. It was also his chance to spend time with the Skokie Girls, my friends who had begun to take on mythical proportions. Day after day, I have come home with stories, anecdotes, and funny tales of Jewish Moms Gone Wild. My husband just shakes his head in wonder and disbelief at the thought of women in long skirts and head coverings singing "Love Shack". "I'm not sure I want to meet them, I'm a little scared!" He said, half-joking.
It will be good for you, hanging out with adults for once. I retorted.
Friday morning I received a call from my friend as I sat in my dentist's waiting room. "You're not going to believe this. My daughter has strep. She's on antibiotics, so she's probably going to be okay. You're still welcome to come." So said the epidemiologist. We left it up in the air, and I went in to get my teeth cleaned.
I had a bad feeling, both literally and figuratively. The literal bad feeling was an aching in my body, a tickling in my throat, and sinus pressure. I was certain it was allergies, so I took my Allegra, and some Advil, and pressed ahead. The figurative malaise was over the fate of my weekend plans.
I had as lovely a visit with my dentist as one can. Like me, he is a second generation Cuban Jew, a Juban. We shared stories of our mother's childhoods, and departures from their Havana homes. Actually, he shared. I drooled in my examination seat, grunting as expressively, and spitting as ladylike, as possible.
At nursery school pick-up, as I chatted with my Skokie Sistah confiding that I wasn't feeling so great, our kids emerged from the schoolhouse. "Your daughter isn't looking so well." My friend noted. "Our girls are always hugging and kissing on each other. You two should get tested for strep."
And like that, our Shabbat plans went down the drain.
Testing for strep in the Chicago Jewish community is a unique experience. Apparently, it is a big enough a problem that "strep testing" centers exist throughout the community in people's homes. Strep testers are lay people trained with swabs and testing kits to keep the infection in check. My daughter and I rushed into the main office of the organization hours before the Shabbat candle lighting, and got our throats swabbed. We waited patiently while the woman in a dark suit and vinyl gloves mixed drops of solution into a vial with our saliva samples.
"Mazal tov." She said dryly, "You're positive." She wrote up our test results, and faxed them into our doctor's offices. She had the phone and fax numbers to the doctors and the pharmacy memorized. In fifteen minutes we had our diagnoses, our doctors were informed, and our prescriptions were called in. "Refuah shlema, feel better soon." She said as she rushed out the door to prepare her Shabbat dinner. If only all of our doctor's visits were so quick and efficient.
I got home and informed my husband who ran out to pick up our prescriptions. I called my dentist to guiltily confess that I inadvertently exposed him to a nasty infection, and I settled in with a cup of tea. It was going to be yet another Shabbat at home. Luckily, we had a nice pan full of enchiladas, and I whipped up a pot of pinto beans, rice, and tortillas for the kids. The giant frosted cookies with sprinkles I picked up for them didn't completely assuage the letdown, but they didn't hurt, either.
So there we were again on Saturday, in completely familiar territory: laying about sick and miserable for another Shabbat, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. Isn't there a country western song about that somewhere?
Seconds after Shabbat ended, I got a call from Skokie.
"How are you?!!"
Hack, hack, cough, cough. Better, I think, sniffle, sniffle.
"You're not going to believe it, but I got it, too!"
As they say: we plan, God laughs.
But not all of our plans were quashed. My husband and I put the kids to bed, and took out the scrabble board and had our own couple's game night. We haven't played in years, which is too bad. My husband and I used to love playing scrabble together. On one of our first dates we played in a tea house in Boulder, Colorado. I suspect that he was so charmed with my creative wordplay that he decided to marry me right then and there.
It was quite reasonable to think that if cows were bovine, that BOVA could, in all likelihood, be a perfectly legitimate word. And maybe I spent too much time in a graduate school computer lab, but I could have sworn ANOVA was a word, and not merely an acronym. And VINT? Well what else would a vintner do?
We did pretty well for being as rusty as we were. I am not too humble to admit that I smoked my smarty-pants law school student 374 to 289. And as always, I learned something new. Did you know that "CROUP" was spelled with a U? Did you know that UBEND isn't a word? (HA! Tell that to a plumber!). QI is not found in the scrabble dictionary (tsk, tsk), but LI is. An AI is a three-toed sloth, and GAR is to cause or compel. We thought it was a fish.
Today is more or less back to normal. My husband took our son to cub scouts for his pinewood car derby. My son painted his race car fire-engine red with bright yellow lightening bolts while his father was on the internet trying to figure out ways to legally rig the car. I'm home practicing my daughter's tap and ballet routines with her, reading to the mini-marauder, and coughing up a lung. It's the most exercise I've gotten in weeks. Don't discount the caloric expenditure of a good, deep, bone-wracking cough! If I don't dislodge connective tissue, I'm sure I'm building up some muscle somewhere.
It's not how I planned to get a workout, but these things are rarely entirely in our control.
This was an especially anticipated weekend for my husband. After three all-nighters in a row, his big legal writing project was completed and ready to be turned in. It was also his chance to spend time with the Skokie Girls, my friends who had begun to take on mythical proportions. Day after day, I have come home with stories, anecdotes, and funny tales of Jewish Moms Gone Wild. My husband just shakes his head in wonder and disbelief at the thought of women in long skirts and head coverings singing "Love Shack". "I'm not sure I want to meet them, I'm a little scared!" He said, half-joking.
It will be good for you, hanging out with adults for once. I retorted.
Friday morning I received a call from my friend as I sat in my dentist's waiting room. "You're not going to believe this. My daughter has strep. She's on antibiotics, so she's probably going to be okay. You're still welcome to come." So said the epidemiologist. We left it up in the air, and I went in to get my teeth cleaned.
I had a bad feeling, both literally and figuratively. The literal bad feeling was an aching in my body, a tickling in my throat, and sinus pressure. I was certain it was allergies, so I took my Allegra, and some Advil, and pressed ahead. The figurative malaise was over the fate of my weekend plans.
I had as lovely a visit with my dentist as one can. Like me, he is a second generation Cuban Jew, a Juban. We shared stories of our mother's childhoods, and departures from their Havana homes. Actually, he shared. I drooled in my examination seat, grunting as expressively, and spitting as ladylike, as possible.
At nursery school pick-up, as I chatted with my Skokie Sistah confiding that I wasn't feeling so great, our kids emerged from the schoolhouse. "Your daughter isn't looking so well." My friend noted. "Our girls are always hugging and kissing on each other. You two should get tested for strep."
And like that, our Shabbat plans went down the drain.
Testing for strep in the Chicago Jewish community is a unique experience. Apparently, it is a big enough a problem that "strep testing" centers exist throughout the community in people's homes. Strep testers are lay people trained with swabs and testing kits to keep the infection in check. My daughter and I rushed into the main office of the organization hours before the Shabbat candle lighting, and got our throats swabbed. We waited patiently while the woman in a dark suit and vinyl gloves mixed drops of solution into a vial with our saliva samples.
"Mazal tov." She said dryly, "You're positive." She wrote up our test results, and faxed them into our doctor's offices. She had the phone and fax numbers to the doctors and the pharmacy memorized. In fifteen minutes we had our diagnoses, our doctors were informed, and our prescriptions were called in. "Refuah shlema, feel better soon." She said as she rushed out the door to prepare her Shabbat dinner. If only all of our doctor's visits were so quick and efficient.
I got home and informed my husband who ran out to pick up our prescriptions. I called my dentist to guiltily confess that I inadvertently exposed him to a nasty infection, and I settled in with a cup of tea. It was going to be yet another Shabbat at home. Luckily, we had a nice pan full of enchiladas, and I whipped up a pot of pinto beans, rice, and tortillas for the kids. The giant frosted cookies with sprinkles I picked up for them didn't completely assuage the letdown, but they didn't hurt, either.
So there we were again on Saturday, in completely familiar territory: laying about sick and miserable for another Shabbat, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. Isn't there a country western song about that somewhere?
Seconds after Shabbat ended, I got a call from Skokie.
"How are you?!!"
Hack, hack, cough, cough. Better, I think, sniffle, sniffle.
"You're not going to believe it, but I got it, too!"
As they say: we plan, God laughs.
But not all of our plans were quashed. My husband and I put the kids to bed, and took out the scrabble board and had our own couple's game night. We haven't played in years, which is too bad. My husband and I used to love playing scrabble together. On one of our first dates we played in a tea house in Boulder, Colorado. I suspect that he was so charmed with my creative wordplay that he decided to marry me right then and there.
It was quite reasonable to think that if cows were bovine, that BOVA could, in all likelihood, be a perfectly legitimate word. And maybe I spent too much time in a graduate school computer lab, but I could have sworn ANOVA was a word, and not merely an acronym. And VINT? Well what else would a vintner do?
We did pretty well for being as rusty as we were. I am not too humble to admit that I smoked my smarty-pants law school student 374 to 289. And as always, I learned something new. Did you know that "CROUP" was spelled with a U? Did you know that UBEND isn't a word? (HA! Tell that to a plumber!). QI is not found in the scrabble dictionary (tsk, tsk), but LI is. An AI is a three-toed sloth, and GAR is to cause or compel. We thought it was a fish.
Today is more or less back to normal. My husband took our son to cub scouts for his pinewood car derby. My son painted his race car fire-engine red with bright yellow lightening bolts while his father was on the internet trying to figure out ways to legally rig the car. I'm home practicing my daughter's tap and ballet routines with her, reading to the mini-marauder, and coughing up a lung. It's the most exercise I've gotten in weeks. Don't discount the caloric expenditure of a good, deep, bone-wracking cough! If I don't dislodge connective tissue, I'm sure I'm building up some muscle somewhere.
It's not how I planned to get a workout, but these things are rarely entirely in our control.
posted by law school widow at 12:27 PM
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