Here I am!

I went to California for the weekend to honor a boy named Hank Mason, an incandescent being composed of spun sugar and baby Jesus, who completed his first year of sharing our earthly realm. In honor of his birthday, he learned to hover inches above the ground while granting beatific smiles to his adoring followers.

He's a good kid, is what I'm saying. I also saw some other people. They were much larger, and more resistant to me holding them and kissing their necks. Nonetheless, I had fun.

So much fun that I couldn't sit up straight or talk for the first couple of days home. Also I couldn't do anything but curse the day I chose to live on the East Coast. Why don't we all live in California? It's stupid here. Yesterday it was snowing, then sleeting, then raining. Then the temperature dropped and elves emerged from the bushes to buff the ice until all the sidewalks of the Northeast were smooth and deadly. The elves are out to kill us all, so they can live in our houses, and then sell our houses and move to California. The elves know what they're doing. Yes, I'm writing about imaginary elves. You see what New Jersey does to a person?

I'm finally alive today and my son is home from school. He left for school in a cheerful enough mood (once we wrestled with the application of the BOOTS OF DEATH and the MITTENS OF AGONY) but about an hour after he left, the school called. Is there anything more nerve-wracking than seeing your child's school on one's caller ID? No. Nothing more nerve-wracking. I am not exaggerating at all. His legs felt "wobbly," according to his teacher, and because several kids in his class have come down with the flu and they've all exhibited this mysterious symptom of leg-wobbliness, they were "concerned." Basically they wanted him out of there. I couldn't blame them. I wanted to, but I couldn't.

And now he's home. Home, and bouncing around. His wobbliness has disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived! It's a Valentine's Day miracle!

Sigh.

Comments

[Dawn]

"BOOTS OF DEATH and MITTENS OF AGONY"

Ha! We used to have them at my house, too. Now we just have the YOUNG ADULTS WITH HYPOTHERMIA. Which is much easier.

[Tammy]

Ah, the wobbly legs. Kind of sounds like a Winnie-the-Pooh symptom.

[ozma]

I do not understand why people actually chose to settle in this horrid land. I don't understand what I'm doing here. How did I get to this frozen circle of hell?

I lived in California. I LIVED IN SAN FRANCISCO! I know and yet look at me. This makes it all the harder to forgive myself. I wept when I graduated college even though I was still living in paradise. It was like even then I somehow knew an evil university was going to tempt me with a free education and there I would meet a New Yorker and fall in love and be stuck in this godforsaken place forever after.

How did we get here? And why are all these other people here with us? What is wrong with all you people?

I take small comfort from the fact that I don't live in New Jersey. But it's very small, believe me. Please don't disabuse me of this or accuse me of prejudice because it's sort of comforting in some way. And I need something to cling to.

[Laundry & Children]

The other day my daughter's school sent home a letter telling us that several children had come down with Scarlet Fever. When I told my husband he said, "You mean like the Scarlet Fever that made Mary Ingels blind? I didn't even know people got that anymore." I am waiting for the note to be sent home warning that a few of the kids have caught a touch of The Plague.

[superblondgirl]

This is what always happens to me. I go pick him up, thinking "Yay! A day of lounging around in bed! We'll watch a movie and take a nap!" and then he gets home and starts (literally) jumping on my head. I hate children.

[Jenn @ Juggling Life]

Better to be bopping than barfing!

[Stewbie]

Ah yes...the 'ol "Call From The School" (incorrectly title-capped because it deserves to be so). This call often brings on the same feelings as, "Call From The Babysitter." They're pretty much the same. If I see either of those numbers on my caller id, i want to drink vodka. And lots of it.

[Katherine]

More nerve wracking - the ocassional babysitter's number on caller ID during your night out.

[Candy]

Ahh I too enjoyed the New Jersey elves freezing the roads and driveways. So much so, that Thursday morning, at 5AM, while on our way to driving my husband to the hospital for rotator cuff surgery, he hit the icy driveway, flew up in the air, and landed on the same shoulder. So that was fun. Damned elves.

[Tara]

You know, I'm dreading the time where they can fake it. Right now, whether my son is actually "sick" or not is up to the powers-that-be at daycare, and if he's not running a temperature, vomiting repeatedly, or having the runs? He stays. Period! (also, he is still young enough that he LOVES to go to daycare and "see friends," so he wouldn't want to leave even if he knew he could game his way out of there.)

Sigh. Am not looking forward to this stage. Wobbly legs, my a$$. What school nurse fell for that one, anyway?

[Jen]

The strangest thing just happened... I signed up for Vimeo and when I confirmed my email it automatically shot me to a video of you teaching Hank Mason to muddle a Mojito! I'm a fairly new fan of your blog so it took me a while to figure out why I recognized the names Alice Bradley and Hank Mason, but there you have it!