Apr
29
First, can I just say how useful Twitter was for me today? After crabbing about my broken blog and the difficulty I was having getting help from my hosting provider, GoDaddy.com, @MommyMelee suggested I try @GoDaddyGuy, who not only wrote me back right away but also CALLED ME. And then, unlike the tech support person I’d talked to beforehand, he totally, like, figured out the solution for fixing my problem, even though it wasn’t technically a GoDaddy issue since it involved a mysteriously deleted WordPress file (which I swear I did not do but I am also very nearly as tech-savvy as a potato, so who knows), and seriously, this dude saved me days of tearing out my hair and probably accidentally hosing all my millions of blog posts which despite their lack of historical value and shameful prevalence of the term “Dirty Sanchez” would totally break my heart, and anyway: GoDaddyGuy, whoever you are, you ROCK.
Second, I would like to talk about swine flu for a moment, not because I think you need to hear more about the subject from some random dumbass who is an expert in exactly nothing, unless you count the “Sinking Pirates” episode of Curious George because let me tell you I can quote that sumbitch forward and back, but here’s the thing: I don’t understand all the backlash against the topic lately. The predominate opinion seems to be that we should just all calm the fuck down and that the media should quit scaring us into hysteria with the heavy coverage.
Okay, fine. But hey, how about not telling me how to react? Because I don’t think I’m panicking, but I’m thinking about it. I could be pooh-poohing the whole thing and mocking people for talking about it, but I guess I’d rather spend some time considering how our family can prepare a little bit. If this is all overblown and nothing happens and we all look back on the Swine Flu Scare of Aught-Nine and laugh hearty tears of told-you-sos, man, I don’t really care if I’m the douchebag who actually wasted some brain energy wondering about worst-case scenarios.
I’m not even necessarily super-concerned about any of us getting sick—although, hi, guess who re-read The Stand like two months ago, and if you haven’t enjoyed that particular Stephen King tale, let me break it down for you: EVERYONE ON EARTH DIES OF THE FUCKING FLU—but have you considered the implications of schools and daycares shutting down in your area? Or services being hard to access, like maybe even groceries? And supplies getting low on things you might need if someone did get sick? We randomly decided to pick up some N-95 particulate respirator masks tonight and where there would normally be an entire shelf, there was one lone box.
As for the media (the liberal media, of course) hype, well color me crazy but when the WHO phase goes to five, I personally don’t mind having a little news coverage on the topic.
Lastly, I heard a disgusted New Yorker being interviewed on NPR earlier tonight. “It’s the flu,” she said. “I mean, god. It’s just the flu.” All right, assuming this doesn’t mutate into some sort of horrific superbug that wipes out the entire planet and the few remaining survivors are drawn to the forces of good and evil and an epic battle must commence, but have you HAD the flu? Dude, it fucking sucks. I mean, the plain old regular does-not-kill-you flu sucks big hairy balls, and I don’t want it, and I don’t want my kids to get it. So yeah, I still kind of care about the possibility of a rampaging virus, even if it isn’t deadly.
This is the strangest public topic I’ve seen lately, where to profess that you actually give a shit about it is met with condescension. I figure, let me do a little quiet fretting and hopefully a little useful planning, and hopefully later you can tell me what an idiot I was for doing so. Not a losing proposition, in my mind.
PS: Right after I hit publish, I saw on a news feed that Seattle officially has it. The article links to a useful Pandemic Flu Planning Guide.
Apr
27
Here is a sampling of the things I was fretting about before our trip to DC:
• Airport security would freak Riley out and he would refuse to take off his shoes
• The plane taking off would scare the shit out of him
• The pressure would hurt his ears and he would scream
• The great lie of his “Amazing Airplanes: Amazing Machines” would be revealed when he discovered the stewardesses do not in fact serve massive platters of food but rather will grudgingly sell you a box of crackers for $5
• He would get airsick
• He would refuse to use a strange toilet
• We would run out of distractions 45 minutes into the flight and I’d have to spend the remainder of the time hissing dire threats in his ear while he howled and whined and nearby passengers plotted a group takedown, terrorist-style (“Okay people, he’s not looking, let’s roll . . . who’s got a sharpened plastic knife from the cracker tray? What? No one had five dollars?”)
So for me to say he exceeded my wildest expectations doesn’t tell you much, because as you can see the bar had been set quite low. Instead, I’ll tell you what an utterly goddamned fantastic kid he was, so well-behaved and quietly entertained that once we’d landed on the flight there, a woman sitting across the aisle elbowed her husband, who was seated directly to my right, and said, “Did you tell her?” He turned to me, a little embarrassed, and said, “Ma’am, your child has been a real pleasure.” His wife then told me what a great mom I was, and what a nice boy Riley was, and I tried to think of something just this side of human sacrifice to show my gratitude.
(Aside: I know how awful it is to sit next to screaming kids on a flight, and I hope I’ve always done my best to be patient and understanding, even when some little shit is kicking the back of my seat for five straight hours. But I’ve never gone out of my way to say something complimentary to a parent before, and now that I know how unbelievably wonderful just a few little words of encouragement can feel, I promise to do so in the future.)
(Another aside: about those kicking feet—I know some kids do like to deliberately kick, probably just to pass the time. I did notice, however, that if Riley was slumped downward in his seat rather than sitting straight upright, his little legs extended out and didn’t really bend downward at the knee, so his soles brushed the back of the seat in front of him. I worried this brushing might be giving the impression of kicking, or at least be annoying to the person in front of us, so I removed everything in the seat pocket in order to create a little more room, which helped.)
The only time Riley expressed any audible impatience was after we had landed and we were waiting for everyone to debark. When I explained to him that we couldn’t get off the plane quite yet he unleashed a Homer-esque “Ohhhhhhhh” of frustration which made everyone around us laugh. Who can’t identify with the maddening sensation of having spent X hours trapped in an uncomfortable tin can, only to have to wait even longer while people rustle around seemingly taking their sweet-ass time getting down the damn aisle?
The silver bullet for both plane rides was my laptop, loaded with Curious George and Blue’s Clues episodes. For the majority of the flights, Riley watched the “tiny TV” using these headphones and I was able to just sit back and read my book. We also made good use of crayons, kid-friendly scissors (which happily, or depending on how you view it, disturbingly made it through security both ways), and a box of Band-Aids I’d bought at Old Navy, which oddly enough became the one item he wouldn’t let out of his sight all weekend long. He even napped for a while, curled half on my lap.
Our hotel was an absolute dream, and the room—which was beautiful and immaculate— had a little living area that they’d set up with a single bed for Riley. He basically had his own little suite adjacent to my luxurious king bed, and it was so cozy we could have happily stayed there the whole time.
I’d tell you about the shower but I’m still experiencing involuntary Kegels every time I think about it.
The Smithsonian tour itself was a lot of fun, although I think Riley was more geeked on the ability to run all over an empty museum rather than taking in the specific sights and displays. He was a little hard to manage, especially since a lot of the displays were only surrounded by a sort of railing that he could easily duck under—I’d blink and suddenly, wait, is that my kid getting ready to scale the priceless Amelia Earhart plane replica? Or climbing the tippy-looking movie standup?—but it went pretty well and I think he had a lot of fun.
I met a lot of really nice people (Mom-101 did a better job than me at getting everyone’s name and website figured out) (also: in person, both Melissa and Liz are as crisply pulled together as a freshly ironed sheets and have fantastic, infectious smiles, and I really wish they’d tried to be more slovenly-looking or at least tone it down with the fucking dimples and rapier wit because come ON, ladies, I’d just been on a 5-hour flight and was about as sparkly as the inside of a badger’s asshole), and the folks at Hershey who pulled this whole thing together could not have been more friendly or accommodating. They even gave us a rather large amount of chocolate to take home, including a stash of my very favorite candies of all time, Whoppers, which I am going to eat until my tongue gets shredded to a pulp and my ass cannot fit in my jeans without a shoe-horn.
On Sunday I took Riley around Georgetown a little (this stroller worked out awesomely) and we even stopped for brunch at a cafe where I had the best french toast I’ve ever had in my LIFE, almost worth the Orange Juice Spillage Disaster and subsequent meltdown and lightening-fast exodus, and the weather was hot and sunny and flawless.
Overall the trip was a giant success and I am particularly glad for the timing because after over a week of Riley being sick and getting on my every last nerve, it was an amazing experience to get to spend that kind of time together. I’m so very glad we went, and so grateful for the opportunity.
Hershey’s is running a sweepstakes right now where you can win your own trip to DC, I don’t know all the details but you can read up on it here. I believe there are 5 grand prizes, and each winner gets a free trip for 3 to spend the night in the museum and do assorted fun things, and if you read the fine print on the Hershey’s website it actually says you can take a cash alternative of $10,000 if you’d rather have that than the trip. Whoah. Cool.
Finally, I do have one story to share of a less-than-stellar moment in our travel adventures. We had arrived back in Seattle, rode the little train over towards baggage claim, and were just approaching the escalator when Riley dashed in front of me and hopped on. I think he must have thought it was going to be like the flat people-mover he had so enjoyed in the DC airport, and as he ascended and the steps pulled apart he completely lost his shit. He was clinging to the steps and howling and I pulled him to his feet, begged him to stay put, and in the meantime I managed to leave the stroller back at the bottom of the escalator, so I told him to stand still and I began sprinting back down the up steps, which I thought was going to be easy but ha ha ha HAAAA, NO, I was running like an idiot with my heavy-ass backpack pounding against me and my flip-flops making comical splatting noises against my feet but I was making no progress, like some sort of giant stupid hamster on a wheel, and Riley was screaming “MOMMMMMY!” and stretching a pathetic little arm out to me and people at the top of the escalator turned to see what horrible parent had abandoned their child who was probably going to get sucked under the sucker-inner part at the end and I was like “Just a sec! Just a sec!” and finally a security guard came and grabbed the stroller and got on the escalator and gave it to me, THE END.
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