We're approaching Christmas, and of course, there's plenty going on. Not least of which, we've been visited with the holiday illnesses while carrying on with everything else. Annoying, slightly-more-than-mild cold, holiday doldrums, and for me, just like last year, an episode of what Kate and I have come to refer to as "the crap".
"The crap" is basically ceullitis in my lower legs--a microbial infection causing painful swelling of my skin layers, leading to pink, tender raised patches. When in the ankle area, it feels exactly like a minor sprain, so when I'm not alert for it, I'm easily tricked into thinking that I have some minor orthopedic issue until I see the telltale red and pink splotches, and then I know the truth. I don't want to go into a full history of this somewhat loathsome condition, except to say that I first came down with it working on the foullest scow I've ever set foot on, a decrepit old 90-foot catamaran called the Atlantic Twin, that I worked on during the summer of 2007 doing offshore sediment coring. That sixties-era bathtub should've been left on the bottom of the harbor when it sank several years ago, but the owners are too cheap to replace it (they don't believe in reinvestment in their own business, apparently). One gross detail before I move on, even though a doctor said this probably wasn't the cause (wrong type of microorganism involved, E. coli versus Staph aureus): you don't put toilet paper in the toilets aboard the Twin. The septic system can't handle paper, so you put the toilet paper in...the waste baskets.
That's how business is done there. That's a big part of why I quit that job, and I don't mind posting it publicly.
Anyway, since that summer I've been blessed with the crap. Every so often it flares up, I get blotches and soreness in one ankle or another, I glob some antimicrobial cream on it, and it goes away. That's how it normally goes. Sometimes an outbreak is the result of an impact or some kind of trauma, like knocking my shin hard against an object or even wearing a very tightly laced pair of shoes (gave myself a case once by lacing my basketball shoes too hard). And my cowboy boots have led to an outbreak or two.
My cowboy boots. I love those boots. I have about five pairs: three dark brown, one light brown, one white. They're sharp, they make me look 6'2", when they have leather soles they make great dancing shoes and, the reason I got my first pair at all, they're fantastically comfortable. When I first moved out of my parents' house in 1993, I was living in South Boston with my cousin Drew. A good college friend of mine, Blaine Connor, came to visit one weekend. We went on the obligatory big bad bender, but he also showed me his cowboy boots. I was kind of incredulous at first that he even owned any. Blaine, my introverted, slightly awkward, intellectual college buddy, wearing one of the most visible symbols of Texas-style outsized ignorant ego.
"They're the most comfortable shoes you'll ever wear," he told me. "We have the same size feet. Try them on."
I did, and was immediately convinced I wanted a pair. I had little money, so I had to wait a few years, but I got 'em, at a little western apparel store on swanky Charles Street in Boston (same place where I got my first Snowy River hat--and I like Australian hats (Akubra brand in particular), because the cylinder on the Australian hats is lower, not as tall and ostentatious as the Stetsons or Resistols. But anyway). I learned quickly that flat leather-soled boots are a bad idea in a New England winter, especially when you're trying to walk up Beacon Hill. So soon I had to add a pair of lug-soled hiking boots to my wardrobe as well.
Anyhow, I've loved cowboy boots for almost twenty years now, and found them excellent footwear for walking, work and dance--all work, that is, except in a smooth-floored fluid dynamics laboratory with tanks of water around and occasional spills--worse than Beacon Hill in winter, you might say. So I reverted to sneakers as my default, and so it is to this day. The cowboy boots have been largely retired. They sit, piled up, neglected and increasingly dusty, in a few odd closet corners.
Except for when I roust a pair out now & then to wear for something somewhat dressy, like Friday's Christmas concert in Boston, at the Old South Church.
Another tangent here. In the mid-90's--actually, around the time I finally bought my first pair of cowboy boots--I worked as an administrative assistant--basically, a secretary--at Harvard University. Decent pay, okay benefits (but the real benefits to me were four things: unlimited access to Harvard's gyms, libraries, music practice rooms, and free tuition to one extension class per semester. It was a bastardized way of being enrolled, as far as I was concerned). One of my friends there was a woman named Manya, a librarian, and fellow lover of the arts. One of those years she introduced me to a holiday concert by the group Chorus Pro Musica, in which a friend of hers sang (and still sings). The show featured a mix of holiday music new and old and, my favorite part, a sing-along caroling part in the second half. I've loved singing for as long as I can remember, so this concert has remained a favorite of mine. I've been to almost every one since.
This year was no different, particularly since Kate and I weren't going to be blowing the dough on high-priced Nutcracker tix or anything. So we teamed up with Gordon, a family friend who lives in the area, had dinner (at his place, and he's an effortlessly graceful host), met Manya at the church, and settled in for the concert. (And my music-snob comment on the show: very good as usual, but I was disappointed in this year's sing-along portion. The new music director of the Chorus Pro Musica plainly doesn't believe in sing-alongs, as this year it was reduced to an "echo-the-refrain" bit for one tune, and only one other sing-along carol. We didn't even get to join in on Silent Night.
I mean, come on!
Even so, the musicianship was sound and even though Kate found the Old South Church to be somewhat plainly and tastelessly painted inside, I adore high-thrown church spaces, even when they're a bit cavelike. The whole imitation-of-heaven concept definitely works a little magic on my brain.
The best thing about the evening, aside from meeting up with our friends: bringing Eva along. Both Kate and I want to expose her to a lot of music, and raise a music lover in her. We've learned of a school for babies and young children run by the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, and one way or another, we want to save up for Eva to take classes there. Aside from raising a child who's confident, honest and alert, I have a few goals for Eva's education (aside from things she'll do in school, which will be mostly up to her): she's going to learn how to dance. By the time she's twelve, she'll be able to waltz, swing and salsa, at the very least. (And that means, salsa with hip motion. My mother once caught me as a kid, and being a kid I had no idea what I was doing, waggling my hips while I was doing a little dance at home, and she practically spat at me to stop immediately. "Don't move your hips like that," she hissed, "it's immoral.")
Not in my book it ain't. If you got it, use it. Learn how to handle it. Don't live in willful ignorance of it.
Anyhow, Eva will know how to dance. She'll know how to throw. None of this girly, throw-half-your-body-while-awkwardly-shotputting-the-ball-five-feet nonsense. She'll learn to step, snap the hips and let the arm follow through, keeping her eye on the target all the while. My mother was an athlete. She struck out half the Moultonboro fire department in the softball game at one of their annual picnics. From that year on, they never let her pitch again. So Eva will learn some athletic skills.
And she'll know some things about music. Maybe Kate and I will have her learn an instrument. Maybe we'll institute family music hour (or two or three hours) on Sundays. In addition to whatever other little devices we find...but this girl will grow up with an appreciation for rhythm, melody and harmony.
She already seems to be receptive. My fail-safe method to settle her down, unless she's just starving, is to hold her in my arms, and sing or hum (usually hum, since I've forgotten many of the words) old Christmas carols to her (I love the old English carols...especially the Coventry carol). Eva's eyes widen, her mouth drops a little open, she falls into silence and she just stares at me while I make a tune for her. (Sometimes she starts to cry again after I switch songs, and I start to wonder if she's developing favorites, but it's probably more that I stop for a few seconds before making up my mind what to start up with next.)
Besides, there's the whole we-named-her-for-an-impeccably-beautiful-singer thing, and all. We'd kind of like her to be into music.
Beyond that, Eva does seem to quiet down when I put something soothing on the stereo (my old carols do the trick), and she genuinely seems to enjoy this cute little Baby Mozart DVD Kate picked up a week or two ago, mixing some of Mozart's lighter and shorter pieces with simple, colorful images. Though Eva only likes it once a day. I'd go as far as to guess she either loses the ability to concentrate after a while, or else she even gets bored. But when limited to every few days, she's absorbed.
So we brought her to the concert. Eva's shown the ability to focus for up to an hour at a time without getting squidgy, so we guessed we could get two separate stretches out of her that Friday night: first half, then a quick feeding and change, and then (hopefully) second half.
We were half right.
She was almost perfect during the first half, and was even looking forward and up when Kate held her (she likes to sit up, even though she needs help right now). The clapping alarmed the little baby just a bit--and I was careful to show her my hands clapping, but also to keep them very quiet--but she seemed to be hearing the music.
The second half was a bit different. The brass quintet starting off the set seemed to scare her quite a bit, and she never quite recovered. Kate and I took turns walking her back and forth in the lobby to keep her quiet, but she never quite settled down.
And that was just the baby. See, I'd made the mistake of wearing my cowboy boots. I'd forgotten about the crap.
Not long after we'd arrived at Gordon's for dinner, my right Achilles started feeling sore, so that I couldn't walk quite normally. I began limping a bit, and assumed I'd gone too hard at the calf raises at the Y the night before. (Just like, the first time I ever got it, while working on Chincoteague Island off the Virginia coast in 2007, I assumed I'd wracked my ankle up jogging for the first time in two months.) The tendon grew progressively more sore through dinner, so that I was having trouble walking when we set out for the church (fortunately only five blocks away). I was stumping along like a brave old invalid by the time we reached Old South Church, and it was a relief to sit down. Once we did I began stretching the tendon, thinking that, being an orthopedic thing, I could relax it and reduce the pain. So I stretched that damn ankle for the whole first half of the concert, and nothing. It hurt more than ever after intermission.
Then Eva got squidgy, and I took her out for a few lobby laps, and then Kate came out to take over. By then I was in even more pain and I thought that she might have been right at dinner, when she suggested right away that the crap was back. I pulled off (with some difficulty) my right boot, pulled down the sock, and whaddayaknow. This bright pink swollen patch covering my entire Achilles tendon area, both sides.
I was kind of up the creek now. No med cream, wearing the worst possible shoes, and probably three hours from being able to put my feet up and medicate them. So one thing to do: bear with it and enjoy the concert as well as I could, and hope that Eva would settle down enough that we could bring her back into the sanctuary (which Kate did once the "sing-along" portion began.
The sing-along came and went, we wished Gordon and Manya goodbye and merry Christmas, and I hobbled off in pursuit of Kate and Eva as they headed back to the car. I drove home, since Kate doesn't like driving in cities, and I found that it didn't really hurt to drive--only to get in and out of the car, and walk.
So we made it home, I staggered inside (while Kate hauled the baby), and after a horrible ten-minute struggle to pull off my boots (since my ankle really didn't want to bend at all at this point), saw the full extent of the damage. Both feet and lower legs, covered in splotches. By far the worst outbreak I'd ever had.
Not trying to gross everyone out with too much information here, but it went from annoying to somewhat alarming to see that. Of course I used my drugs, and went straight to bed, but just rolling over, to say nothing of walking (more crawling) to the bathroom was excruciating. Suffice it to say, it was a lousy night.
The next day we had to prepare for the Bash--a small turnout this year, on account of the blizzard and all (and probably not nearly enough effort on my part to rally friends). We had about 8 people, which was good for Eva, since she wasn't overwhelmed by noise and faces, and we had about four hours with neighbors and a few singing friends. But we had about five times as much food as we needed (still working on it, and we will all week).
But getting ready wasn't easy. I slathered more anti-crap cream on my legs, and given that I think I might be allergic to Advil (not a tangent worth going on), I asked for one of the Aleve pills Kate swears by. And about an hour later, hey, I could almost walk!
So we got our chores done, got the condo ready, and had our party--though by the end, around 11, I was hobbling again. And I limped to bed in, not quite as bad shape as the night before, but not tons better.
Sunday I moped all day. Nearly dragged Kate down to my level too, until she rather forcefully (though in a nice way) suggested we get out. She was hoping to score some free Dave's coffee (another mommy run), but both nearby Dave's were closed due to the storm. So we decided to--gasp--pay for our coffee, and go to Starbucks. And so we did.
It was an impromptu date, and we sat in the cafe, with little Eva quiet in her carseat looking at us as we chatted. For three bucks and three cents (not counting gasoline) Kate and I restored the better part of our peace of mind that evening.
And today I woke up, with the crap receding quickly. I can walk more or less normally again. Tomorrow we may even go to the gym!...
It being Christmas, the next illness can't be far away, though.
