Hi everyone! Just a reminder that I have two workshops coming up:
Saturday, December 9th: in-person workshop at Flower Scout studios. More info & sign up at the link!
Tuesday, December 12th**** 6-9pm: a Zoom workshop on the same topic. If you want to sign up, reply to this email and Venmo @okdunn $35 for the class fee! I hope to see some of you next month! (****if you got an email from me about this class, I changed the date from Mon to Tues. I need a secretary!)
Last weekend a great thing happened. Let’s focus on that for now. My friend Amy flew out from Texas to stay with me, at my house. It was thrilling to be visited! For weeks before she arrived, I imagined us together: us in the car, driving north and admiring the flaming orange foliage. Us at the sub shop, ordering Italian Mixes the size of a thigh. Us having chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, prepared by the in-house line cook Jimmy.
I hoped that our offerings would impress her, even though I knew they didn’t need to. After all, this was the friend who’d once waited for me while I got my IUD; a friend who I’d accidentally locked in the foyer of our Hungarian Airbnb, nearly causing us to miss our bus; a friend with whom it was possible to have fun while boiling vinegar to make pickles. I knew I didn’t need to worry, but I planned a great weekend for us anyway—time at home, to lounge about, PLUS a one-night trip to Montreal for something to really get jazzed about.
Amy has a hearty Midwestern immune system but also lives in close proximity to children, so it was really a gamble that no one in our extended troupe would be ill. All that would come later. But Thursday rolled around and her flights were on time and every member of the party was breathing easily, with cool cheeks and relaxed digestive systems. I picked Rosalind up early from school and we flew up the Northway to retrieve Amy from the airport.
According to some seemingly trustworthy sources, rapidly Googled, the incubation period for Strep A is anywhere from one to four days. So the investigation can begin now. Did I get it at the airport? Airports certainly have a bad reputation. And because of my toddler, we could not simply idle near the baggage claim until Amy came out to find us. If we were going to the Airport, that was an Adventure, which meant we had to park, brave the ice cold wind, scream a little bit, get picked up, get set down, head inside, ride the up escalator, and then ride the down escalator. Was it the escalator railing? Perhaps it was the parking ticket button? I pressed two!
We scooped up Amy and headed to get our subs. My Italian deli would never do me dirty, never. But could it have been the door handle leading inside? Perhaps it could have been the beer store we stopped into after to get our local sour cider? Was it the credit card machine?
We come next to the two most obvious culprits. One: my daughter, giggling and gleeful and full of good health. Two: my job. Friday, after chocolate chip pancakes, I brought Amy with me to work, where she enjoyed the tomb-like solitude of our campus library’s fourth floor. I taught my classes and she pursued her creative endeavors. We met for lunch, eating the second half of our thigh-sized subs in my office. Was it the shared computer in one of my two classrooms? Was it an errant fleck of spittle from a bleary-eyed student? Leftover sneeze on the surface of my desk?
That evening we had a truly decadent meal at one of Albany’s best restaurants, Umana Yana. Even if this restaurant gave me strep throat, I don’t care. I would continue to eat there. We had spicy fried fish tacos and sweet plantains in a clove-honey dipping sauce and dry cajun rubbed chicken wings and chocolate cake and the cosy restaurant played the original cast recording of Dreamgirls. Dreamgirls! I took a sip of Amy’s sorel margarita and a gulp from Rosalind’s mango-pineapple juice.
Was it the gym? Not to brag, but Saturday morning we went for a little workout. Somehow, I don’t think so—every person there is an absolute maniac with the sanitizing spray. There’s only two people in the whole gym and yet there’s a line for the disinfectant every time.
Was it the children’s party we went to that afternoon? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it was outside! I don’t think I had a chance to eat or drink anything there, but I’m sure I rubbed my eyes.
Was it the nail salon? That evening we went to get pedicures, breathing in the reek of poison and letting the massage chairs rattle us around like Yahtzee dice in a cup. When I was the sickest, shivering in bed, afraid to swallow for the feeling of knives, one thing that I clung to was: at least my toenails look great.
When we got home that evening we started a new show: Hijack on Apple TV, staring the only actor who matters, Idris Elba. The show made me so nervous I could barely watch it. In hindsight, I think this agita was a sign of the disease already infiltrating my body. The next day we packed up the car and headed north to Montreal. I found myself chattering away relentlessly. This not out of character, for sure, but it was intense enough that I really began to notice it. “It’s fine,” my rapid brain said to itself. “My friend is here, and I am just so happy.” The fact that I had to think about why I was talking so much should have been a red flag. It truly felt like I couldn’t stop, like a form of mania. I didn’t think about it more: we were at border control, then on a highway where the signs were in French, we were lost and looking for our crepes place. Later, as my fever crept up, I would recall that moment of clarity in the car and remember my own mother, telling me she always could tell when I was getting sick, because I couldn’t stop talking. Oh yeah.
Maybe it was the bakery, or the bookstore, or the shoe store, or the fantastic five course dinner we ate, or the (number redacted) glasses of wine, or the cocktail, or the Airbnb, but I don’t think so. I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat. We bought Poulet flavored Lays and waited at Border control for an hour and forty five minutes and by the time we were back in the United States of America, Amy had to drive. I told myself it was just a hangover and tried to hope for the best, but when my teeth started to chatter I knew it could not be just the skin contact Chardonnay.
Maybe it was the State Trooper who pulled Texas Amy over for doing (redacted) mph? I wish it was him, but I know it wasn’t. “Should I tell him you’re sick? offered Amy, as we waited for him to run her driver’s license.
It was Jimmy who drove Amy to the airport the next morning and the weekend of fun was officially over. I winced every time I swallowed. I shivered and I sweated. I shook. I washed my hands relentlessly and stopped kissing my family, except Piper. (Later, I would panic, having googled “can dogs get strep” and finding out the answer is yes. She seems fine.) I blasted our air purifier and left windows open and leaned my head away from Rosalind again and again and again, feeling both virtuous and devastated at the same time.
When my fever finally went down, I looked in the mirror. After examining my face for a few minutes, I realized it wasn’t just that I looked hideous from being sick: my glands were swollen up like a bullfrog. I went to the doctor.
No one else in my family, or Amy, got sick. Amazing! I’m glad it was only me. But bigger picture, I am not alone: strep cases are on the rise nationally, at rates higher than normal for even pre-pandemic times. Apparently the children’s antibiotic formula of amoxicillin is experiencing a shortage. Part of the reason is that the drug is too cheap, so companies aren’t making enough money by producing it. Don’t you just love it here? Doesn’t it make you want to move to Canada? All in all, I am of course grateful that the only mystery to solve was whodunnit, not “do I have access to life-saving healthcare.”
So who was it? Jimmy says “oh God definitely” to the beer store. Amy blames the costume party. I blame the endless fog of college student germs. For once, I cannot blame my child.
Thanks for reading. Please like this if you liked it—the dopamine burst from your red heart will help my antibiotics finish working, lol. Comment below who you think did it.
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