Achoo.

So it turns out I'm allergic to Nashville.

After dragging through work all week up until Thursday, feeling like I was carrying a 50-pound backpack full of sand (thanks, Biggest Loser, for that image), I finally gave in and went to the doctor. It's always a tough call when to stay home sick as a health-care worker. Granted, I'm a chaplain, so I'm not changing bandages or administering medication. Yet I do spend my days in close quarters with people who are very, very ill, and I'm supposed to stay home when I'm sick to avoid spreading germs to those with suppressed immune systems. But how sick is sick?

Health care workers are historically terrible at gauging this. When I worked at a hospital in New Jersey I actually overheard this conversation at the hospital library:

Nurse 1: Yeah, so I'm supposed to stay home today until the test results are back.
Nurse 2: Really? They're being that dumb?
Nurse 1: Yeah, they think I probably have a mild case of the swine flu.
Me: (quickly standing up and running out of library)

So my problem always is: what constitutes sick? The sniffles? I get these every few days. The flu? I get this probably once a year, but since I'm contagious the day before, should I stay home for sniffles, just in case?

Add to all of this the fact that at my place of work sick days = vacation days. That's right, for every day I'm out sick, I subtract one vacation day. This is the WORST plan ever for health care workers, who are bad at staying home even when they're SUPER sick. This policy definitely contributes to sick doctors/nurses/techs coming in declaring themselves "not that sick." And come on, if going into work with the sniffles means we can still take Christmas off to be with our families, most of us will probably do this, right? How sick is sick?

By Thursday evening, I decided I needed to get checked out. I wasn't dying. I didn't have the flu. But I certainly felt crummy. Sore throat, plugged sinuses, general malaise. My energy level was at about 24%. Walking from the office to my car felt like a mile and a half. Blech.

So I stayed home, went to bed at 8pm, and slept until 10am the next morning. Then I went in to get checked out.

The verdict, according to a very kind Nashville doctor?

I'm very allergic to Nashville.

Not uncommon, from what he said. It usually takes people a few weeks of living here before their bodies get really angry at all of the pollen/pollutants/tree offal/etc. I didn't think it was allergies because my eyes weren't itchy and my nose wasn't running. According to the doctor, my "ears were full of fluid that is draining down [my] throat." EW.

So now, doped up on antihistamines, with cough drops and nasal spray in tow, I'm doing a bit better. And the good news is that I was never in danger of getting anyone else sick, because for as miserable as an allergy attack is, at least I get to keep it to myself.

Ah, Nashville. Why so allergen-laden?

Spider Update

Well, it happened.

I was sitting on the living room floor, assembling a shoe rack, when it happened.

A giant, massive, disgusting, spider crawled across the floor.

I had bare feet. What to do?

I didn't panic. I just calmly picked up part of the shoe rack and whapped the spider with it. One whap. Dead spider.

Then, I called Daryl and had a little mini-meltdown in his arms while babbling things like, "I would be such a terrible missionary! I could only be a missionary to Siberia, or to the reindeer herders! I would be a really good missionary to the reindeer herders!"

Sigh.

I also made him examine the spider (I'd do it, but then I'd wake him up every night for a week with my weird spider-phobic nightmares) and then look online to see if it was, in fact, venomous.

Was it a brown recluse? Results are inconclusive. It did have the telltale brown violin shape on its abdomen, but we couldn't count its eyes (I squished them), and the violin shape is also found on "the cellar spider, and the pirate spider." YUCK. Thanks, wikipedia.

I'm pretty sure it crawled out of our fireplace, so our next step is to have a massive fire in there and stomp on everything that crawls out. Ewwwww...

In the meantime, I'm doing my best to be really brave. And I'm wearing shoes now, for better stomping. Ah, Tennessee... You will certainly take me awhile to settle in.

Ouch. My ____ Hurts!

I have been seriously out of shape for the past three years.

That's not a sentence I thought I'd ever write. Growing up I played ice hockey and soccer and ran track. I was always in shape.

In college I rock climbed four or five days a week. I had shoulder muscles on my shoulder muscles. I had triceps on my triceps. I could do (wait for it... wait for it...) NINE pull-ups in a row. It was rad.

But then I went to graduate school and spent all my time hunched over my laptop writing papers. The time I had where I wasn't hunched over my laptop writing papers I was either working dozens of hours at an internship, teaching classes at a local university, working as a teaching assistant at the seminary, or (most often) all three. After days like those I would be lucky if I could cook dinner before I collapse onto the couch to do the next day's reading.

I learned a heckuvalot, but I sure didn't exercise.

By this point in the post, if you don't know me personally, you're probably picturing a giant, flabby person. That's the thing, though - I haven't really gained any weight. This is good and bad. Good because I still fit in my clothes, but bad because I had no real incentive to get back in shape. Why bother?

Well, now is the time. This summer I've spent time with family in northern Wisconsin and I have decided - nay, vowed - to get back in shape. No matter what. At any cost. My rationale is this: if I can't exercise now, with no real time commitments, I will never exercise again.

Fifteen days ago, I began ninety days of insanity.

I began P90X.

P90X is basically a 90-day boot camp to get in great shape. It's a big infomercial seller, but my parents had the good fortune to find it at a local thrift store for $20.00, so I'm doing it for free right now. You exercise for between an hour and an hour and a half six days a week at intense levels. You work out your arms, legs, abs, and cardio. You push yourself to the point of wanting to throw up. It's insanity, I tell you!

After two weeks, my everything hurts. On the upside, I am beginning to see a bit of toning in my arms, legs, and abs. And I'm sleeping better than I have in years. I mean, like the dead, sleeping. It's glorious.

Daryl's doing it with me. It's hard. It's glorious. It's necessary. It's time.

We'll keep you posted.

Share Your Airport Rant

At first, I was mad at Delta. Delta stranded me in Cincinnati for two days, made me pay for my own ($$$!) hotel room, lost my baggage, then sent my baggage to Cincinnati after I was already back in Princeton. To add insult to injury, I got stranded on my way to see my best friend in all the world before she left to deploy for IRAQ. Instead of two days to catch up and relax and see each other, we had eleven hours. Stellar.

Then, I was upset at American. Long story that one. Rude flight attendants, no gate agents, Allentown, PA... Never again. Nuh-uh.

Today, I am angry at United. Long story, I don't want to go into all the gory details now or I will just get angrier. The short version is that my sweet week-long visit with Daryl ended with a slightly delayed red-eye flight that resulted in a flat-out airport sprint in Chicago with ten other passengers (nothing like a flat-out airport spring to bond you with New Jersey strangers). This said flat-out sprint ended with us all breathlessly reaching the gate for a flight that supposedly "left early" (we all would have been just on time) but was clearly still sitting on the tarmac, connected to the jet bridge for another twenty minutes after we got there. Oh, also? No flights to Newark until tomorrow. And it's currently 6am. So now I'm at the Chicago airport buying expensive Internet, biding my time until they fly me to Philadelphia in vie hours where I can then attempt to locate my luggage which supposedly has been sent to Newark. Rock on, United.

To add to the fun, I only got about an hour of sleep on the red-eye (some college kid in the seat in front of us was watching "Father of the Bride" and chuckling hysterically with each scene... I'm glad she was enjoying such a wholesome movie, but honestly, put a lid on it at 3am!), I had a super-fun gluten-attack, and I haven't showered since yesterday. I feel tummy-achey, zombie-fied, and greasy like an oil rig.

I have lots of wonderful updates to post about our Los Angeles visit, which I will do shortly. It was a really sweet time of fellowship, family, and sunshine, and I was (as always) sad to leave. But today's post is dedicated to the airport rant.

Daryl has his own rant. As soon as the folks behind the counter at the gate announce the boarding of first class, he begins grumbling about how the "special people" get to walk on the "magic carpet."

My rant is usually about the inhumanity of it all. Barth writes about "Lordless powers," bastions of evil that are faceless, nameless, and incredibly oppressive. In some small way, this is what dealing with an airport/airline feels like. Whenever something goes wrong, and it inevitably does, there are two options: 1) crabby gate agent who has been dealing with irate customers all day because of problems that almost always aren't his/her fault, or 2) customer service hotline, where you will be on hold until you grow a beard (even if you're a woman), and will finally talk to someone in another country.

After getting the runaround for over an hour during one lost-luggage airport debacle awhile back (mind you, we had only brought carry-on bags, but they had taken them away from us on the plane and checked them through to our final destination which was, as it turns out, the moon), Daryl finally asked the woman at the other end of the line where she was. "The Philippines," was her answer. He cracked up. "So you're in the Philippines trying to help me find my luggage that is supposed to be in Cincinnati, Ohio, but has accidentally been sent to New York?" To her credit, she cracked up a little, too. It is comical, really, when it isn't all infuriating.

Hopefully I'll make it home today. Hopefully I won't be giggling like the Mad Hatter when I do. So help me out, friends. What's your worst airport story? Or what's your best one - the one where they stuck you in first class for no reason and gave you free strawberries and bon-bons? How do you feel about airport travel, and how can we all make it through without losing our minds? Share!

It's Not Really February Unless You're Sniffling

February is always marketed as this wonderful, romantic kind of month. Snow is softly falling, Valentine's Day is approaching, everyone is snug and cozy in their winter hats and jackets.

This is a lie. February is the month of ice storms and depressed single people and weather that teases you with a burst of tantalizing sunshine only to drop to -20 the very next day. February is the month of lingering colds and sinus infections and influenza of many types. February is the worst month. George Herbert once said: "Every mile is two in winter." That goes double for February.

So, in honor of it being February, I'm sick. I remember bragging to my mom four-ish months ago that I hadn't gotten sick since July (not counting my occasional migraines, which obviously aren't germ-related). "I think working at a hospital has exposed me to so many germs, I'm immune!" I chirped, happily.

I guess I didn't count on what being on a plane next to a human petri dish of coughing/sneezing/used tissues could do to a person. And then, using the lovely Delta plane's bathroom only to discover THERE WAS NO WATER in the tap at the sink. There was soap, mind you, but no water. And it wasn't hand-sanitizer. It was soap. So I soaped my hands, wiped them off with a paper towel, and went back to my seat to dig through my backpack for my own hand sanitizer which, of course, was in the bag I checked plane-side. I spent next hour and a half of the flight trying desperately not to touch anywhere near my face.

Clearly, I failed, because now I am sick. Go figure.

It's fitting somehow though, I guess. It's February 1, and if you go through an entire January and February without ever once sitting next to a pile of your own used tissues and watching bad afternoon television, you must be a stronger person than I am. So, I feel lousy and achey and snotty and just generally awful. Welcome to spring semester, eh? First day of class, and here I am in my pajamas. Sigh. Granted, I am going to get dressed to teach later this afternoon. As long as I don't have the swine flu (I got my shot!), I'll drag myself over there. Plus, the walking ball of germs on the Delta flight infected me on Thursday, which means I'm sure I'm not contagious anymore. Just miserable instead.

This is not intended to be a rant about sickness. I already feel crummy enough. Instead, I plan to share with you what is GOOD about getting sick. Not deathly-ill, hospital sick of course (there's not much good about that), but the moderately-ill, I-should-take-a-day-or-two-off-unless-things-are-urgent, stuffed up, sniffly, achy, exhausted kind of sick. The kind of sick where you'll get better if you go to bed at 6pm and nap all day, but you'll drag it out for weeks if you try to fight through it. And then maybe all of you can share with me what you've found to be good about being sick. And then maybe I can find a way to dope myself up enough on cold meds and echinacea to get to class tomorrow...

Things that are Good about Getting Sick

1. Buying sick foods. This used to be chicken soup for me, but since I've been going gluten-free, it's now changed to other foods. GF chicken broth with rice. Sorbet. Fresh-cut watermelon in winter. Simply Orange orange juice. Things that ordinarily wouldn't show up in my home (pricey! unnecessary! indulgent!) suddenly show up in abundance.

2. Shopping at Whole Foods. Daryl and I kind of have a tacit agreement that we don't shop at Whole Foods unless 1) there's a blizzard and we can't drive elsewhere, 2) there's some random ingredient that we really need that only WF stocks, or 3) we're sick and Wegmans and Shop Rite suddenly feel huge and overwhelming. So even when I'm feeling really crummy, going to Whole Foods gives me a little spark of joy.

3. Watching TV/movies without shame. Sure, I can watch a show or two and not feel bad. But when I'm sick I can watch all day, while napping intermittently. Law and Order Marathon? Yes, please.

4. Using the good Kleenex. Puffs Plus is ridiculously overpriced. But wow, does it feel good on my tender little nose. I am that shiny red-nosed claymation girl from the Puffs commercials. A nose in need DOES deserve Puffs Plus, indeed!

5. Umm... that's all I can think of. When I was little, getting taken care of by my mom, dad, and grandma would definitely make this list. My grandma is incredibly adept at making a person feel better. I can still remember her leaning over me when I had the fly and cooing things like, "Ohhh... you don't feel good, do you? What can I get for you? Is there anything that you would like to eat? Poor baby..." When Daryl's around he's pretty good at this, but for now, I get to be sick on my own.

Boo, that.

Yay, February.

The Dentist

So... This is kind of a whiny rant.

I'm going to the dentist today. Again. This is time is the sixth for this summer. Between the end of May and today, July 10, I have been six times. Six. This is too many.

I've had some rotten dental experiences in my life. Sure, nobody enjoys going to the dentist. I'm not special in that regard. However, due to the nature of my teeth (they're incredibly soft, get cavities in an instant, and the baby ones wouldn't fall out when I was younger), I've had a few more than most.

My dental woes began when I was only six or seven years old. My baby teeth wouldn't fall out on their own, so I had to start going to a dentist to get them pulled out. For such a young kid, this is quite traumatic. It involves a large shot of novocaine (seemingly much larger when you only weigh sixty pounds or so..., and when it is referred to by that particular dentist as "the Magic Icicle," which sounds fun and pleasant, until you open your six-year old eyes and figure out that it really, really isn't...), huge pliers, and quite a bit of blood. My two predominant memories from all of these pulled teeth (a total of eight baby teeth) are 1) the complete hysterics I would launch into as soon as Mom or Dad told me that we were headed to the dentist for something other than a cleaning, and 2) biting on those little cigar-shaped pieces of gauze which, when soaked through with blood, would have to be replaced with new cigar-shaped pieces of gauze for a number of hours. Ick.

Following all of my pulled teeth, we found out that I had too many permanent teeth for my mouth size. Don't ask me what the deal is with that. So I got to have four permanent teeth pulled when I was about twelve, which involved (God bless my parents) me being knocked out. Apparently when they gave me the pre-going-under gas I became totally violent and had to be strapped to the chair. What can I say? As soon as I'm uninhibited by medication, my true self starts to come out, and that true self DOES NOT want to be in a dentist chair.

I'll spare you the rest of the tale of woe, but it involves braces, retainers, over a dozen cavities, an emergency root canal in Davenport, Iowa, a dentist who tried to open my small mouth wider by force, a dentist who told me I had "absolutely no cavities" (leading to a cavity-ridden molar that cracked into a whole bunch of pieces in Nebraska), over a dozen MORE cavities, a crown (which, by the way, costs nearly as much as a decent used car), twelve more cavities to be filled this summer, and near-OCD brushing and flossing that still seems to make no difference. Oh, and no dental insurance. Oh, and I'm only twenty-five years old. Good thing I like applesauce, because in ten years or so, I'm probably going to be wearing dentures and sipping my dinner through a straw.

What this has led to is a type of near-phobia that is usually only reserved for death and spiders. In the waiting room I find myself hyperventilating, no matter how hard I try to concentrate on the Living Simple magazine. When I sit in the dentist's chair I have to keep singing hymns in my head so I don't start to cry. I'm an adjunct professor, a preaching pastoral intern, and a marathon runner, and the dentist practically makes me cry. I hate the sound of the drill, I hate the shots of the painkillers, I hate the drooling I do out of whichever side of my mouth has been numbed. I hate the pressure and the smells and the instruments and the mysterious noises the dentist and hygienists make when they're examining my mouth. There are few things in this world I hate more than going to the dentist.

The only upside on this whole thing is that Daryl and I have managed to find an incredibly kind, gentle dentist. I don't know how he does it, but even the shot of novocaine hardly hurts. And after he sticks me in the mouth, he apologizes. This is helping. A little.

Also helping is Daryl, who is incredibly sympathetic and buys me lots of milkshakes.

So today, back to the dentist again. Three more cavities filled. Again. Two hours in the dentist chair. Again.

And to add fun to this whole thing, here is Daryl's complete dental history:

A yearly cleaning.

That's it. No braces, no cavities, no root canals. And he hardly even flosses. Grrrrrr. We've started praying regularly that our future children will inherit Daryl's teeth and not mine. At least until we have dental insurance.