Itchy, scratchy but working through it

Somewhere in the usually fabulous state of Maine, I encountered something that irritated 97 percent of my skin. Not in a mildly annoyed way. In a full-on I-am-going-to-make-you-beg-for-death kind of way.

Dermatitis was the diagnosis. It's not contagious, but it's dug in deep. Prednisone is supposed to help it, and lucky for me, CVS delivered on that pretty fast.

Four days in, I'm better, but Ali woke up the day after Christmas with a sore throat and snotted up the friendly skies while I scratched my way home. It was a good thing we had an all-Reed set of seats.

Ali's sneezing was a come-and-go thing while my itching was fairly constant. Despite her illness, she and the Captain also feel compelled to instruct me on how to behave in public. Mostly it started with two words whispered loudly, followed by a command and then them falling against each other laughing. 

“Stop scratching!”

• You look like you’re in need of more crack.
• You look like you’re masturbating.
• You look like you’re a girl just released from a convent trying to talk to the first man she sees.
• You look like a 5-year-old who has to pee.

Later, as we waited at a restaurant for our connecting flight, Ali ran out of Kleenex but not snot.

"We can buy you NyQuil and Kleenex," I said.

"I don’t want NyQuil and I have napkins," she said.

I pick up my napkin, from which I had torn a sliver for myself and given the rest to her because she’d used up all the napkins within reach.

"I have napkin," she said.

We both cracked up in delirium.

Jeff wanted to walk to another terminal to get ice cream. Sweet Jesus Ice Cream. A favorite that Ali and I have had for breakfast on prior flights.  We both declined. That’s how you know how bad we were feeling.

Jeff peeled off searching for ice cream and, let's face it, a deserved break from us. Ali and I leaned against each other and struggled to the appropriate gate.

"Mom, I want to die."

"I want to die with you."

We discuss how to get killed in an airport. I said I wanted it to be a quick death and was concerned that nothing we did would result in a quick shot to the head. She said I was too demanding. Before the prednisone took effect, I could feel myself swelling up - especially my eyes. There for a while, I thought I might swell up like Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and float home. 

We got home about midnight and Jeff sent us to showers and bed, agreeing to drag in all our suitcases and stuff.  For the first time since I can remember, I didn't unpack right away. Ali and I spent yesterday on separate couches. I don't think I did one productive thing except apply calamine lotion and take the drugs. 

Today, the swelling is down, the itching is better and Ali is better, too. I'm halfway to getting the tree taken down. Jeff is off shopping so we'll have fun stuff for New Year's Eve. I should be back to near normal by then.

Prednisone is supposed to make you really energetic. I'm looking forward to that.

Christmas wasn't all itchy and scratchy. Gary crushed Jeff at cribbage. Ali had her fill of crab legs at our annual trip to the China Buffet.

We took a great walk up Jen's mountain-like hill and ended up with a postcard-like photo of Team Chase and Ali. We also met Mary's new love, the puppy Rory, who is super cute and about the size of a dust mop.

Rory is also suspect No. 1 for the source of my dermatitis. (Sorry, Mary.) Jeff and Ali have cat allergies, but I haven't had such issues before. 

We had lobster rolls at Allagash Brewing and drowned each other in gifts and food.

  It was a great trip and will be -- overall -- a great holiday break.

Happy New Year!

 

.

All I want for Christmas is some willpower

Not as in Will Power the race car driver. (He couldn't handle me.) But as in will power.

My pants already don't fit. A couple weeks ago, I grabbed the wrong pair of jeans, struggled into them and hoped they'd stretch. They didn't, and I'm pretty sure I sported a camel toe the rest of the day. This wasn't a muffin top situation. It was more like an overstuffed bratwurst that's been on the grill so long it's split open and oozing its stuffing.

My pants held that day, but barely. Had my waist button not managed to stay attached, it would have put someone's eye out, or embedded itself like one of those ninja stars had it sprung free like it was trying to.

Anyway, Ali is home from Purdue, which makes me happy regardless of my size.

She's baking coconut macaroons today and will soon dip them in dark chocolate. For my Book Club on Friday, she dipped strawberries in chocolate. And this is just the beginning.

She's been separated from the Kitchen Aid for weeks now. She has visions of cupcakes and cookies for her friends and the neighbors. I'm going to have to go work in an office to escape sampling and stealing licks from the bowls.

This morning after she cleared the cobwebs from mixer and it was humming happily in tune with her iPhone music, she said, "Oh I've missed that sound." Later, she signed and said: "It's good to be in a kitchen again."

It's not just my child who's contributing to my growth. There's a pile of cookies and popcorn and chocolate everywhere I go these days. I thought I'd save some calories by not drinking until Christmas.

But today, the Captain came back from Kroger with 10 bottles of great wine that he found in a bargain bin to add to the Advent calendar of wine Tracy and Eric Wiseman dropped off just after Thanksgiving. And of course you can't have Book Club without some champagne. And Bree's Book Club lasagna was so good I almost ate more of it than the damn strawberries.

Have I mentioned that I'm a weak, weak person?

I should just give up now and amend my Christmas list to elastic-waist pants and oversized shirts. I'm definitely staying away from the colors red and green this year for fear of being mistaken for Santa's largest elf.

Oh well, that's what resolutions are for, right? And everyone knows you can't start working on a resolution until the new year. We're starting a new decade come January 1 -- so it's probably good to have a meaty challenge for it.

Looks like it's leggings for me for the rest of the year.

The picture of Jeff isn't of him with his Kroger treasure, but him yesterday preparing to deliver craft beer to his friends before we set out for the Kahn's champagne tasting where we found Kate, Niki and Shelly there to sample as well.

Today, if I can wrest her away from the kitchen, maybe Ali and I will drop by the gym. That'll work off a bite or two...

Team Reed is lit

Ali brought a friend home from college, and the Captain claims I abused the poor kid.

I'm fairly certain I didn't, though I did doubt myself there for a while. I put that nonsense away when Ali told me that Jason confided in her that he was glad put in so many hours of labor. "I ate a lot," he said.

Didn't we all, Jason?

Decorating for Christmas has always been a tradition for Ali and me. We put the tree together the morning after Thanksgiving. I do the lights, but she pretty much sets the theme and decides what goes where while I set about with other areas of the house. Most of the decor is concentrated in the living/dining room, the kitchen and the porch. So, we put in a bunch of CDs from the House of Merle Christmas collection and blast the holiday spirit into being into every room of the house.

Ali usually turns off Toby Keith's "Santa I'm Still Here," but this year, she just cried through it like she did the first time she heard it and realized it was a story about a little homeless boy. Most of the other songs aren't as sad, and Jason jumped right in to hum and sing along.

As the weather was good and I had labor, we started outside. Ali and Jason took on the lights while I got rid of leaves that were clogging prime decorating space. I really didn't mean to bag leaves -- I've been mulching to minimize the need for that duty and was planning to chop them into bits with the mower.

But it turned out to be a bigger pile than Id envisioned and I didn't want to spoil the ambiance. At about bag three, Jeff came out and decided we needed to do even more leaves, so it turned into a big leaf production alongside the light display.

With Jason supporting from the ground, Ali went high and was on the roof when Jeff came out, so of course he set her to work on the gutters as well.

At a loss for hands-on work, Jason asked if I wanted him to switch to leaf duty. But I the Captain on that job, which was the worst job in the yard. So Jason went back to finishing up the lights.

Jason's usual holiday job in California involves putting lights on his family's two-story house, so he was in his element albeit 40 degrees colder than his norm. But he was a super trouper and their work turned out great.

After a Thanksgiving leftovers lunch, we turned to inside work, which involved a bit of structural integrity assessment. We nearly worked too close to time to meet the Jacksons for our annual Friendsgiving dinner.

That was its usual amazing time. We love the Jacksons and our tradition, which I think started when Ali was two-years-old. Jason slid right in. It helped that he's a Boilermaker.

If you think Jeff is proud of Ali, double that emotion for Patrick when he found out she'd gotten into his alma mater. I suspect Ali will be seeing the Jacksons on campus in the coming months.

I had to return my workforce Saturday morning as Ali was meeting another friend for the Old Oaken Bucket game, which had a 12 noon kick-off. I'd have kept them longer if I could. Start to finish, it was a great, great holiday weekend.

I'd heard a bit about Jason, but hadn't met him until Tuesday when I picked him and Ali up. Before we hit the interstate, I asked them if we needed a snack before leaving campus, and Ali told Jason that, on road trips, if I ever ask if anyone's hungry, it really means that I'm hungry and am looking for support to stop for food. (That is only occasionally true.)

On the return trip, Jason had gotten up later than Ali and me. I made them take a bunch of leftovers and various snacks I had around the house, but only Ali and I had breakfast before we got in the car.

Because I'm polite and also I was fretting a little bit about whether I'd worked him too hard,  I advised Jason that we'd have plenty of time to stop for a drive-thru breakfast if he was hungry.

From his spot in the backseat comes, "I'm fine, but are YOU hungry?"

He's going to have to learn to take her statements at face value...