Mal du Monde

Margie called me this afternoon about plans for my birthday. I croaked weakly at her. "You sound sick. Are you sick?" she asked me, rather huffily I thought. "You're never sick."

"Well, I'm sick now," I said.

"That's no excuse," Margie remarked unsympathetically. "What do you have, swine flu? You swine."

Could I get some chicken soup with that?

Here are the top ten things you should not do whilst recuperating from swine flu:

10. Pick at the scabs on your slowly-healing heart - this is always highly contraindicated, but especially when you're suffering your own personal pandemic. (Doesn't that sound like a menu offering at Pizza Hut? Granted, a fairly gross one - but we are talking Pizza Hut here.)

9. Go to work. You have to anyway, because if you're out more than three days in a row you have to bring a doctor's note, and I'm not paying $20 to sit around in a waiting room full of people with much worse infections than mine, only to be told to stay home and drink plenty of fluids (NOT vodka) and get some sleep, which I already knew. So if you come to my office, be sure and wear a gas mask. Otherwise, you're going DOWN, pal.

8. Take your kids to visit your ex-mother-in-law in the hospital. She's fine, except she has a cracked vertebra from being hit by a VW bus while trying to retrieve a cardboard garage sale sign from the median near a major intersection. However, 30 minutes into our visit, she got a phone call from her daughter-in-law, who brusquely informed her that she has a staph infection and visitors aren't allowed into her room without gowning up. Now, the nurses hadn't mentioned this, and she does have a (gownless) roommate, who also had a (gownless) visitor while we were there.

Frankly, it was too much for my feeble brain and I just decided our visit had been about long enough anyway; but I'm still scratching my head over that one, or would be, except I'm frightened of getting my hands that close to my face.

7. Be the parent of an equally sick child. I'm sorry, but frankly this is just irresponsible. When you're sick, you really can't afford to be up all night bringing water and comfort to a coughing, feverish infant. So cut it out.

6. Read the weekly wildflower report for the state's recorded information line. Your voice sounds all husky from the sore throat, and you'll only give the traveling public the wrong idea.

5. Permit a cool front to bring a line of thunderstorms across the region where you live, dropping temperatures by 15 degrees and reawakening all the mold, cedar and pollen which thought spring was over and were all ready for a long summer's nap, therefore bringing about the worst allergy attack you've suffered in years. That was a dumb-ass thing to do.

4. Entertain Bill Gates with your karaoke stylings.

3. Go to the roller rink with your best friend. This isn't so bad in and of itself, but you need to go when the place isn't full of preteens, because preteens do not fear death, and therefore aren't nearly as frightened of 75-mph collisions as you are. Feel that funny thing your heart is doing? That's probably not good.

2. Plan the mother of all happy hours for your 40th birthday this coming Friday, itself merely a precursor to a full night of debauchery in Austin and a Memorial Day weekend of alcohol-fueled madness in Corpus. I have friends coming in from at least four different cities for the event. I don't think it'll be a proper party unless at least someone gets arrested, as long as that someone is not me, because the number one thing you should never, ever, ever do whilst H1N1ing your sick little ass into next week?

1. Go to jail!

On the other hand, I have been pretty badly in need of blog fodder lately.

Shake It All About

Boy, does this bring back memories.

Katie and I headed up to Playland Skate Center today. It's been 22 years (I counted) since the last time I roller-skated; but once we got going, it came back pretty quickly. I think I might like to try it on a Friday or Saturday night, when there aren't quite so many small children peppered about the rink: weaving erratically, suddenly zooming across your path to the exit, skating in the wrong direction, or just flinging themselves prone directly in front of you, in the most annoying and inconsiderate fashion. Do you mind?! I'm trying to remain upright, here!

Sitting down for a breather, Katie and I marveled at one of the older skaters - probably not all that much older than me, actually; except that while I eventually abandoned the roller rink to go to school and start a career and raise a family, he seems to have stayed there. He was an amazing skater, flying, dancing and spinning, bounding through the air. "Oh my God," said Katie, her eyes following him as he zoomed past, "that is so cool. In kind of a sad way."

But why, really? I've been thinking of all the things I loved to do as a kid that grown-ups don't do; yet those things aren't really any less fun. When's the last time you climbed around one of those big elaborate wooden playscapes at the park? Or swung on the swings, or jumped on a trampoline? And I haven't played putt-putt since I was like 12. But it's fun!!! Why do we hardly ever do this stuff?

The roller rink, meanwhile, has clearly seen better days; the cement floor is chipped and rough in spots, and has at least four different shades of ice-white paint in different areas. The carpeting is ancient and grimy, some of the letters are falling off the outdoor sign, and there's a Ms. Pac-Man machine in the corner. And don't even get me started on the music: they didn't play "Bette Davis Eyes" even once. (I counted.)

Still, we had fun; my shins hurt from using unaccustomed muscles, but I think we'll be back, and hopefully bring reinforcements. I really need somebody to sweep the little kids out of my way before somebody gets hurt, because that somebody will probably be me.

Party on Wheels

Katie will be sixteen years old on October 10, and for months now, she's been full of plans for the occasion. She wants to rent out the roller rink and have them play her iPod loaded with Seventies music over the sound system. Everyone is to dress in Seventies best: Magnums for the boys and Daisy Dukes, lip gloss, and glittery eye shadow for the girls; and plenty of feathered hair, terrycloth headbands and wristbands, tight T-shirts, and tall striped socks for everyone.

I wish I had been that cool when I was sixteen.

She was planning it for Sunday, October 12, but my cousin is getting married that day and I hope to be in Maryland for the occasion. I hate to miss Katie's party. I may never have been the stylish creature she is - especially during the Seventies - but I wasn't a bad skater.

"We'll have it the weekend before, then!" says Katie easily. Yay! I'm popular!

Flashback to my sixteenth birthday: it was not all that dissimilar to Molly Ringwald's in Sixteen Candles, with three notable exceptions: (1) nobody in my family was getting married, (2) I didn't have lovelorn geeks dropping at my feet, and (3) I didn't end up with a hunk at the end of the movie. However, I did wear a hat to school that day.

MTV used to play music videos. They didn't have My Super Sweet Sixteen back then.

I'm excited about it, though. She's making all the plans and arrangements, and (assuming she manages to get a job she doesn't get fired from after the first shift) paying for everything herself. And I have to say it's a tremendously cool and fun idea. If I'd had her sense of retro coolness at her age, my super sweet sixteen party would have been a sock hop at the VFW hall; and none of my friends would have come anyway because they were all much too busy playing Dungeons & Dragons.

I wonder if my roller skates are still in storage at my dad's house?