The Flu

On Tuesday I started to feel my head thicken with snot and my throat get sore. Bollocks! I chugged juice, loaded up on Vit C and saw my accupuncturist who gave me herbs and a needle treatment supposed to help boost my immune system so I wouldn't get sick.

On Wednesday I was feeling worse, but I thought it was just a cold. On Thursday I was on the couch watching old movies and drinking gallons of tea, realizing that this was a FLU, and probably THE flu, because that's the only one going around right now. I had to cancel my trip to the California Orientation and Mobility Specialists Conference in Monterey this weekend and instead will be taking the "tea and movies cure" for the next several days.

So far, Queen Teen doesn't show any signs of catching the flu, but I'm really nervous that I've exposed her to something that could make her extremely sick. Curses to college! I probably got this bug on campus because universities are thick with exotic germs and people from all over the world sneezing on each other while sharing drinks and swapping spit. It was just a matter of time before some 20 year old girl with a sick boyfriend living in the dorms coughed in my general direction.

I went to the CDC website to see what the latest guidelines are for dealing with the H1N1 virus and found the page about caring for a sick person at home. Who the hell made up these rules? They are completely unrealistic for a family, especially a mom. Keep the person isolated. Have them use a separate bathroom from others. Wear gloves and a face mask when caring for the sick person. Right.

First of all, I'm the primary caregiver of a person with a disability. My daughter needs assistance with daily living tasks, like eating and dressing, so "avoiding close contact" is impossible. And secondly, a face mask is impossible because my daughter has a hearing problem and is a lip reader. If I could evacuate her somewhere away from me I would, but we don't have any family near by. All I can do is try not to breath on her and wash my hands a lot (which I'm doing so much my skin is cracking).

And if it was reversed, if Queen Teen was the sick person instead of me, the rules still wouldn't work for us. I must be in close contact, I still couldn't wear a mask, and we only have one bathroom. Like most guidelines created by agencies, the rules were created as a "best-practice" with zero thought into reality. Parents must care for their children, period, regardless of their own health or whether or not they wear a face mask. A sick child needs hugs as well as medicine. And sick moms need rest.

Thankfully today I feel better than yesterday, so I hope I'm on the mend. I'll make some more tea, watch a few more movies, and try to take a nap before Queen Teen gets home from school. I need to be strong for when Queen Teen comes down with the flu, because eventually she will. I'm guessing by Sunday, Monday at the latest.

I really, really hope I'm wrong.

Emily the Strange at 42

This Halloween I had class, so my husband Rick decided to join me in San Fran while Queen Teen's bio dad stayed with her at home. They went trick-or-treating and had a nice, long visit, which was good because she doesn't get to see him often. Rick rode the motorcycle down to The City which meant we could tool around on Halloween on the bike, rather than fighting for parking with the mini-van.

After class on Halloween (which I'll write more about next time), Rick and I went out to dinner then returned to our friend's apartment so I could put on my costume. I decided to be Emily the Strange, one of my favorite characters. When I was 12 I was just as dark and sullen, so I have a soft spot for that nihilistic child. With a long black wig, darkened eyebrows I shaped downwards to give me that angry-child look, and black lipstick, I embraced my inner goth-girl. Unfortunately all that black made me look as haggard and sleep-deprived as I feel. Whatever. I pulled on my Doc Martins and my "seeing is disbelieving" t-shirt and declared I'm Emily the Strange at middle age.

We sped across town on the motorcycle under a moon just on the edge of full. A mist poured in from the ocean and I shivered a little in my black leather jacket. The sidewalks were filled with people dressed up in silly and seductive costumes, and the closer we got to Market street, the drunker the people seemed. I felt a rush of euphoria, a tingle of freedom. I was on the back of a motorcycle holding on to the man I loved in the city I loved and for one night I was free. No child to tend, no phone calls to make, no dishes to wash. I am Emily the Strange and the night is my friend.

A friend of ours is in a Sisters of Mercy tribute band called The Reptile House and that night they were playing at a bar called Annie's on Folsom street. We parked the bike and went to the door to pay the cover. $7.00, or $5.00 in costume. Cool. I handed him my $5.00 just as he said, "Seven."

"I thought it was five in costume."

"Yeah."

"I'm in costume."

He looked me over closely, then recognized I was wearing a wig. "Okay, five."

When I walked into the bar I realized dressing up like an iconic goth chick wasn't exactly a great costume to wear to a punk bar on goth night. As I looked around I saw many people dressed in black with long black hair and black lipstick, only they weren't in costume. This was what they wear out, what I used to wear out before I was old enough to get into bars legally (but I managed to). I laughed. Rick said, "I told you."

Whatever. He bought me a saki (I LOVE Annie's because they serve saki) and we found our friend who was about to play drums in the first band, a tribute to Souxie and the Banshees. The lead singer had a bad cold so sounded terrible but had good energy, and the musicians were great. Dancing in the front row, I sipped my little bottle of saki and fell into the music. I have never outgrown my love for goth music and I felt that euphoric rush of freedom again.

That feeling was quickly followed by the stupefying realization that I'm getting old. This was the first time I'd been to a tribute show for a band I listened to when I was young and the understanding that I was that goth girl 20 years ago was stunning. It's all going too fast; I'm not ready to be middle aged. I just figured out who I am and what is important to me and it's too late to go back and start again. Can I please have a little more time?

More friends arrived, both parents who'd also managed to take the night off from kid duty. We drank and chatted and listened to the music and slowly my blues faded (I'd been channeling Emily the Strange a bit too much, I think). When The Reptile House started, I stood in the front row and danced every vestige of sadness away. The euphoria returned as I sang along to the songs I knew and felt my inner goth girl stir in remembrance. I may be older now, but that girl I used to be is still a part of me. She just needs to come out and play now and then.

My husband and I managed to stay almost to last call, then we hopped back on the bike and sped away through the nighttime streets of San Francisco. I held on tight and let him drive, not worrying about where we were or what we should be doing. Rarely do I have a moment where I'm not in control of something, so those moments on the back of his motorcycle were liberating. He's a good driver and I trusted him to get us home. I relaxed and watched the city zip by.

Trouble with hearing aids

For the last few weeks we've been having a lot of trouble with Queen Teen's hearing aids. Her new ear molds were tight and very hard to insert into her ears. I thought it was because they were new, but when Queen Teen complained of pain, and those complaints didn't go away after a couple of days (she always whines about how her hearing aids "bug" her) I noticed her left ear was looking irritated. Is this an allergic reaction? She continued to use her hearing aids with frequent breaks, but her left ear became even more raw. Plus, I noticed a lot of feedback.

I contacted the audiologist who said the molds might be too big. How can ear molds be made too big if their cast from an exact mold of the inside of her ears? I pulled off her new ear molds and replaced them with her old, too small ear molds, which solved the pain problem, but not the feedback. The audiologist told me to check her ears for wax, which I did, but her ears looked clear. So I checked her ear molds (the old ones) and found a little wax in the tube. The problem was it was deep inside the tube, too far for the cleaning tool to reach.

Here's a trick I discovered. After digging around in my sewing basket for something longer, but not pointed, I found my threader, which is long enough, but thin and flexible so it won't puncture the tubing. With careful swipes, I was able to dislodge and pull out the ear wax.

Unfortunately that didn't fix the feedback problem, so between improperly fitting ear molds and high pitched whining feedback, we have to go back to Stanford.

Did I mention Stanford it three hours away? And that it eats up an entire day and a half of our extremely busy lives?

Oh well. What can you do? Queen Teen is back to hating her hearing aids and is depressed she has to use them. They are uncomfortable and not working properly. Even with them on, she is having trouble hearing me, which makes me wish we both knew more sign language.

I'd better make that appointment.

Not a Princess this year

Queen Teen is having a Halloween crisis. For the last three years she has been a princess, complete with gown and tiara. But this year, when I pulled out her Cinderella gown, she sighed heavily and sat on her bed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She shrugged.

"Do you want to be a princess this year?"

"I don't know."

(Great! Here we go again.) "You have this beautiful dress you've only worn once at Disneyland. Would you like to wear it for Halloween?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want to be something else?"

At this, she looked at me and said, "Maybe."

(Progress!) "What would you like to dress up as?"

"I'm not sure."

(Dang!) "Your grandpa sent you some kitty-cat ears. Would you like to be a cat?"

She shrugged. I got the ears and she tried them on, but they wouldn't stay upright on her head, which made her mad. Then we tried the bunny ears her dad had worn with his stilts, but they were too big. I asked if she'd like to be a movie star but she said she didn't know. We were both getting frustrated.

"You only have four days to decide, and if you want my help getting a costume, you need to decide soon."

She shrugged.

"You know, you don't have to dress up this year if you don't want to."

She looked at me with surprise.

I sat on the bed beside her. "Really. Lots of kids your age decide they don't want to dress up anymore." But as I said this, I realized how bummed I would be if she decided not to dress up and trick-or-treat this year. Halloween is my favorite holiday and part of why I love it so much is because Queen Teen has been celebrating it with me. There is nothing like spending this crazy holiday with kids. Queen Teen is no longer a kid, she's a teenager, and she's reached the age where most kids think dressing up on Halloween is for babies.

Is Queen Teen about to give up Halloween, just like she gave up Hug Bear this year?

The next day I asked about costumes again. She just shrugged. I said, "You could be a gypsy."

"What's that?" she asked.

"A person who sings songs and dances in beautiful, colorful clothes, and travels around performing, and tells fortunes."

Her eyes brightened. "That sounds like fun."

"You can borrow my skirt and some scarves and wear your colorful necklaces, even bells if you'd like."

She grinned. "Okay."

Yes! We will be trick-or-treating at least one more year.

You can't have ice cream for lunch!

so sayeth Queen Teen. Nor can you have chocolate, fruit loops, caramel corn or sweet tarts. In fact, you shouldn't have these things ever, but now and then is okay, but just for a snack, and not very much.

My daughter really absorbed the "eat healthy" message her schools and I have taught her. I blame Blues Clues and that "Healthy snacks" song. I know I'm lucky. My daughter has never whined for candy while waiting in line at the supermarket, and even when I offer her a sweet, she'll only eat half. When given a plate full of cookies and then told, "help yourself," Queen Teen will eat one, maybe two, then set the plate down and walk away. "You can have the rest."

She eats her vegetables

Since she is under weight by about twenty pounds, she is allowed to eat anything she wants. Of course it helps that her favorite snacks are fish crackers, cheese and bananas. I beg her to have a milkshake, but she'll rarely take it. She just isn't that interested in sweets.

One night while she and I were coloring together, Queen Teen set down her crayon and said, "Can I tell you something?

"Of course." I set down my own crayon and gave her my full attention.

She sighed then leaned forward, staring at me so intensely I wondered if she was going to tell me she had a boyfriend. "When you're not here, Rick gives me too much chocolate."

"I see." I looked down to hide the smile that was sabotaging my serious expression.

"It's a big problem." She sighed again very dramatically, then picked up her crayon and started to color again.

In Queen Teen's world, everything is broken down into compartments. There is good and bad, black and white, yes and no, healthy food and not-healthy food. There are foods you eat for breakfast, foods you eat for lunch, and foods you eat for dinner. This is how she makes sense of the world. Because of her poor hearing and eyesight, it's hard enough for her to figure out the tangible world, let alone all those exceptions to everything. There is no gray area and ice cream is not lunch. This is her own adaptation and I try to respect it. For a while I tried to teach her about life's exceptions and prepare her for the variables and gray areas that are invariably a part of life, but it created too much confusion for her, so I stopped. Instead I go along with her rules about the way things are. Eventually she'll figure out that life doesn't fit into perfect little categories and sometimes it's perfectly fine to eat ice cream for lunch. And dinner. And even breakfast.

Running

Today I ran. Literally. I went for my power walk as usual, soaking in the beautiful warmth of another California Indian summer, listening to the birds chatter loudly in the trees as they make their plans to head south. Do you think all that chatter is the birds debating who should be the leader as they fly South?

I vote for Fred.

Fred? He can't find his own nest. I think Linda should be our leader today.

Linda... Linda... oh yeah the bird with the gray spot on her wing.

Yeah that's her.

Linda, good choice.

No, sorry, Linda smacked into a window yesterday and broke her neck.

Oh, bummer...

This is the kind of thing I think about while walking purposefully down the street, arms swinging to the rhythm of my legs.

After half a mile I turned the corner heading back to home and a little voice popped through my imaginings and said, You should run. Run? I don't run. I have a bad knee, a souvenir from when I went backpacking and fell down the side of a ridge with my heavy pack on, only stopping myself from going over a cliff by jamming my leg against a boulder, which strained the knee so bad I hobbled for two months. When I run I can feel my ligaments pulling against the scar tissue. Not pleasant.

How do you know it still does that? When was the last time you ran?

Hmmm... three...no four...five years ago. I think.

You should try and see how your knee feels. If it hurts, stop.

Pondering this idea, I reached a three block section of my route just before the final turn toward home. What the hell? I started to run. Not fast, but a decent pace just a little faster than my walking pace. My legs propelled me forward and my arms fell into the rhythm naturally and I suddenly remembered running like this when I was 12 years old.

I loved to run back then. I loved the freedom and the speed, that sense that you could outrun any trouble that might come at you. I ran all over town, just because I could, not caring what I was wearing or where I was going. Feeling my heart pound and my legs hit the pavement was all I needed to feel strong.

Half way down the street, I suddenly realized it had been 30 years since I ran like that. Oh my God, this hurts! I can't breath! Why am I getting nauseous? Who's bright idea was this anyway? My breath rasped through my nose and mouth and my heart pounded against my ribs as if demanding to know what the hell I was doing. But my legs kept the pace and I refused to stop until I reached the end of the street.

Against my body's protests, I made it and then slowed my pace back to a brisk walk toward home. I was almost to my house before I could catch my breath again.

How's your knee? that little voice in my head asked.

I tuned into my right knee as I walked, waiting to feel that pulling on scar tissue pain. Nothing. My knee was fine. No pain, no ache, not even a twinge. Weird. I figured there should be something to remind me I injured it.

You hurt it 22 years ago. Maybe you're healed.

Maybe I am. But if I am, I don't have any excuse not to run again, other than the fact that running feels awful and only psycho masochists love it. I really doubt I'll ever do it again.

Or will I?

Terena vs. the Steak

(gee, I wish my steak looked that good).


Last week I decided to cook a steak, so I went to the grocery store and discovered there are a lot of different packages of dead cow, all arranged from the cheapest, to the most expensive (who the hell can pay $21.00 bucks a pound for meat now-days?). I hadn't decided what kind of beef to cook, only that it had been a while since we'd had a steak and I was hankering for some red meat. After examining the different types, I chose the one that had a good price, not the cheapest, but definitely not $21.00! Then I went home to research how to cook it.

Should be easy, right? Get a pan hot, toss in the meat, season with salt and pepper, turn it over, wait a while, cut it to look inside and see how pink it still is, then remove before all the pink is gone. Then I found this site and discovered there are RULES for cooking a steak. Just like everything in the kitchen, you can't just toss it in a pan and hope it comes out all right.

Then my husband asked, "What kind of steak did you buy?"

"Kind?"

He just shook his head, probably thinking about those frozen dinners again. "How you cook it depends on what kind of steak it is."

"Oh." I don't know what I bought. It was the one that I could afford that didn't look like stew meat. Pulling it out of the fridge, I read the label. "New York," I shouted.

"Great. So how do you cook it?"

Obviously the guy who knows how to cook meat wasn't going to help.

Since the BBQ was out of propane, I decided to pan fry it. On the internet, I found a step by step recipe for how to cook a steak on the stove. I followed as best I could, but when it came time to figure out if it was done or not, I ran into trouble. I like my steak medium-well; just enough pink to be tender, but not bleeding. Achieving this equilibrium of steakiness is not easy, and so, despite the fact the "rules" said to remove it before it was completely done because it would continue to cook for another 10 minutes just sitting on the plat, I let it stay in the pan too long. No one will get botulism from my cooking, that's for sure.

My family sat at the table and I served the steak, which smelled delicious, but required extra bbq sauce to make edible. It wasn't a bad steak, just a little past tender. All right, a lot past tender.

But it made a great stir fry the following day.