Dec
3
I wasn’t going to get a flu shot this year, mostly because I am a giant pussy and the memory of last year’s post-shot achy upper arm (what? IT HURT LIKE HELL DAMMIT) still lingers, but at my last OB appointment the friendly nurse drawing blood for a test asked if I wanted to go ahead and get the (mercury-free) injection at the same time and I couldn’t think of a good non-wimpy reason to say no, thanks anyway, I’d rather do something less painful to my arm, like whack it fifty-seven thousand times with a meat tenderizer.
For whatever reason this shot didn’t hurt at all afterwards, and I instantly felt both virtuous and impervious to disease. Foolishly, I assumed that one injection would have the power to keep me snot-free throughout the long winter months, while all around me people were felled in droves, hacking and sneezing and futilely gnawing at zinc lozenges.
This is why I am totally pissed off that I’ve had the same damn cold for DAYS AND DAYS ON END over here, thanks to Typhoid Riley. I got the shot! I’m supposed to be the picture of health, not a consumptive shadow-eyed mucus machine trailing disgusting little piles of kleenex wherever I go. I CALL BULLSHIT.
I will also note that my son and husband, neither of whom received a flu shot, have merrily bounced back from this shared virus and I—the only one fortified by anti-flu fairy dust—am the one that still sounds like a phlegmatic elephant seal.
(BULLSHIT.)
Adding to my general feeling of goopiness and malaise is the weather, which has turned from snow (pretty!) to a nonstop aggressive downpouring of rain (sucky!). I mean, it’s not like rain is exactly an anomaly here in the Northwest, but this is a deluge of the build-the-arks variety—on each of my (eight thousand) lumbering trips to the bathroom last night I could hear water cascading from the skies and smashing into our house. Our rain chain that hangs outside the bedroom window has been jangling frantically, totally overloaded and tinkling a desperate little oh dear oh dear chime.
So while I ponder my cold-symptom-relief choices (Mucinex, steamy shower, lustful piglike rooting in leftover Halloween candy stash) and the rain transforms Seattle into a traffic-snarled swampland, distract me from the dreariness, will you? What’s the one thing you would like most this holiday season, and I’m talking selfish materialism here so no “world peace” type answers allowed. If you could have any boxed-and-wrapped present this year, what would it be?
Dec
2
Hey, thanks for your supportive comments re: Pervy Flickr Freak. A few hours after I posted the entry and also reported the account to Flickr, the guy’s account was listed as no longer active. I’m not sure why, if it’s because Flickr took action or what, but hooray.
I’ve been thinking about this little incident, not that it was some big nasty traumatic event but just thinking about the bigger picture of my family’s information and photos being available to anyone, regardless of their interest. The entire subject of privacy on the internet is a slippery continuum of choices, and I don’t think there are really any hard and fast rules that apply to everyone. Some people use a complicated pseudonym system that requires its own Cast of Characters explanation page on their blogs and never post personal photos, some people use their full names and their kids are more recognizable than Suri Cruise.
Where common sense and paranoia overlap is different for everyone, I think. I tend to take the approach of accepted risk, in that I accept there’s a chance something ooky will happen as a result of my blog in the same sense I accept there’s a chance that I will get in an accident while driving Riley to the playground. Which is to say I believe it’s unlikely that it will happen, and the reward outweighs the choice of refusing to leave the house.
We live in a world that offers an infinite selection of things to freak out about when it comes to the safety and well-being of our kids, and it’s hard not to spend all your time as a parent dwelling on the various horrible possibilities. My goal there is to find an area of reasonable precaution and awareness, and stop myself from spiraling into pointless anxiety—because otherwise it’s never a cough, it’s always meningitis. You know? It’s not a bruise, it’s leukemia; it’s not a tantrum, it’s a major emotional disorder; it’s not a creepo on Flickr, it’s someone parked outside my house furiously jerking his meat while waiting to snatch my kids, because he saw them on the internet and the temptation was just too great.
Moderation in all things, I guess. Although maybe a No Naked Heinies Policy isn’t such a bad idea.
In other news, it snowed this weekend and transformed everything into a magical wonderland of beauty and peppermint white mochas.
Sadly, it all turned to rain this morning—I am currently ignoring Dog’s piteous whines at the back door, because she appears to have found a puddle of muddy slush and is now cleverly disguised as a Brown Dog—but not before we went out and got our Christmas tree in the snow:
Note how the safety-conscious parents have completely forgotten to outfit the child with gloves. SCORE.
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