10.26.2003

We're stuck in San Diego

With black smoky skies, a cancelled flight, and fires that are edging closer and making my mom completely freak out. So, no playgroup, ABA therapy, or school tomorrow as our rescheduled flight doesn't get in until late Monday evening.

We arrived in San Diego Friday night. Leelo has some pre-dawn barfing that A.M., but he's a life-long barfer so we don't usually interrupt our schedule for these incidents; we just clean him up and go. He seemed fine all day long, through speech therapy and his ABA session with Therapist L. No reason to delay our trip.

We headed off to the airport (the two kids and I), and arrived just as Leelo began a six hour tantrum. I am not kidding. He screamed and thrashed from the time we got through security, through the entire flight, through the entire car ride home from the airport (until the last 10 minutes, when he crashed out), upon waking up and finding himself in his grandparents' home 30 minutes later, for another particularly intense hour, all the way to the urgent care clinic, and for an additional hour in the waiting room there. Then, 10 minutes before we were admitted, he calmed down, for no reason I could perceive. I had completely lost it by this time, since Leelo never tantrum for more than 30 seconds, and was micrometers from tears and howling myself. What if his ear tubes had fallen out, and the air pressure changes during the flight ruptured his inner ear workings? What about meningitis? Severe sinus infections? Brain tumors? The good people at the ER poked, prodded, and shrugged. No idea, he looks fine to us, go home, lady.

In the meantime Seymour and Floyd had arrived, and they plus my parents and Iz had wandered over to a local Italian joint for dinner. I met them there, proclaimed eminent domain over all alcohol due to my stress level, and polished off everyone's wine plus a new glass of my own. Afterwards we all went home, put the kids to bed, and crashed. Seymour and I crashed a bit later than the kids.

(There is something slightly naughty about doing the deed in your parents' house. Even after marriage and kids, it still feels like you're getting away with something. Or so I thought, until halfway through our very social morning when I looked down and noticed that my pajama pants were on inside out.)

Leelo and I slept in very late. I awoke, stretched, yawned, sat up, and almost passed out. What the hell? Turns out that Iz and I (and Leelo the day before, giving that day's hysterics an explanation) had contracted the dreaded stomach bug that had laid Seymour low on Monday. Iz spent the entirety of yesterday barfing, and was eventually given her very own pink plastic bucket so that my mom didn't have to shampoo the carpet every hour. I had the opposite-ended problem, jack-rabbiting into the nearest powder room every 20 minutes, and couldn't eat or drink anything. Thankfully Leelo seemed to be over his dealie, and was a happy boy for all the various friends and relatives getting in his face. While all this was going on, the poor Little Flower was the victim of interminable flight delays in Phoenix, and didn't get in until 8 hours later than she'd intended. None of these horrors prevented Seymour and Floyd from jetting off on their mountain biking expedition, though. Twits.

This morning we all feel better, but San Diego is decidedly worse. We woke to ash drifting down from the sky. If you'd had to judge the weather conditions at a glance, you'd say it was snowing--a weird, dirty snow. The sun is huge and red, and you can look directly at if you want to see the solar flares. My brother called this morning as he was driving from San Diego to Phoenix, to let us know that he could see houses burning from the freeway. My mom is about to gather up all her photo albums. We're not supposed to leave the house unless we have to (and I have to, Leelo is out of his funky rice bread and eats nothing else), aren't even supposed to run major appliances or use extra water or more than one TV. So I guess I'll sign off now.

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