She's alive!

This happens with blogs. The long hiatus, often followed by a lengthy (or mercifully brief) explanatory confession to the blog gods, complete with reasons for absence and oaths/promises/best laid plans to never, never, never let things go for so long again.

Basically, we got back from India and ended up hospitalized for food poisoning. Thanks very much, Continental Airlines. Five months in India without so much as a single funky day in the bathroom, and then some suspect overcooked eggs at 35,000 feet and eight hours later, after the drama of trying to find our prearranged car at the airport and a totally illegal and terrifying ride on the Jersey Turnpike with db on my lap, we got home and had about an hour before the uncontrollable barfing began. And then uncontrollable diarrhea. It was kind of like labor after the castor oil kicked in. But maybe worse because in this case there was an actual baby requiring care and after a few hours of this insanity, we were both unable to stand upright.

We called Todd's parents, who had actually come over to see us but left because I was so sick. I got sick about two hours before Todd, so I didn't know that they had left because I was retching in the bathroom. I don't really understand why their thought process was more along the lines of "daughter in law is desperately ill after 18 hour nonstop flight with one and a half year old. Must leave" rather than "daughter in law is desperately ill after 18 hour nonstop flight with one and a half year old and therefore likely could use some help." Actually, I do understand. It has a lot to do with the Chiropractic Lifestyle (tm) worldview, or as I like to call it, the church of the holy spine. Illness is in your head. Ignore it. It will go away. And if it doesn't and you die, you won't be around to call attention to the fundamental insanity and lack of humanity inherent in such a worldview.

So we called them for help, twice, and they basically said stop whining, have some tea and get a better attitude about the dry heaving. In fact, you are not really dry heaving. So we called my mom, who while crazy in her own way, definitely understands that both parents being unable to stand up is a Situation, and she immediately got in the car and drove down to the city to take care of db.

While waiting for the upstate cavalry to arrive, we were lucky enough to get some help from Laura, our pre-India babysitter. It was Laura who took me to the ER and later, after Todd passed out on the way to the bathroom, it was Laura who called the ambulance that brought him to the ER. Why hadn't Todd sought help sooner? Well, it would seem that while you can check out of the Church of the Holy Spine, you can never leave. Practically speaking, this means that you will keep saying you are fine (in between dry heaves or crawls to the bathroom) until you wake up strapped to a stretcher.

Todd and I got to share the same room in the ER, side by side on his and hers drips. It was lovely. Depending on the kind of person you are, the ER room in an NYC hospital will either destroy or restore your faith in humanity.

Anyway, we were eventually discharged and we spent the next two weeks trying to get over jetlag (so much harder with jetlagged toddler), unpack, and get ready for what turned out to be the worst semester I've ever had not counting my first year of teaching, which is in a class by itself, or perhaps a class shared only by acute food poisoning after an 18-hour flight with a toddler.

Basically, 120 students is too many. Prior to this semester, I never had more than 60. So a smart professor would have maybe done away with some of the writing assignments. But that would not be me. As a result, I have been hopelesly behind since January, and until the spring semester ends this Wednesday, I do not anticipate catching up.

Plus - post for another time - the new owner of our building has been systematically not renewing leases in order to convert livable nice two bedroom apartments into illegal four bedroom apartment shares (8 x 10 bedrooms, anyone?), so in March we got our not unexpected letter saying get out at the end of May. I negotiated a slightly later move out date, but the stress of teaching plus page proofs plus having to move AGAIN caused hives and insomnia and general shittiness beyond my ability to convey in a single humble blog post.

On the bright side, db is now night weaned and sleeping in her own room.

So there hasn't been much spare time here, and much of my non-work time has been spent watching 30 Rock, The Wire, The Amazing Race, and (oh, the shame) Outsourced. Joss Whedon, save me! I did actually knit a Tiny Tea Leaves for db out of some brown Blue Sky Alpaca that I bought a long time ago and perhaps I will post pictures another day, now that I am apparently blogging again.

And yes, about the blog. It occurred to me recently that because I am busy, I have no record of my days other than iphone videos and photos and that most of the reason I haven't posted in so long was that this was supposed to be a knitting blog. Well, f*ck that. I could, I suppose, set up a "personal" blog and use it as a venue for long, photoless, humorless posts about My Life, but why have two blogs when one is more than I can handle?

Plus, there are about six friends' babies due this summer, so chances are pretty good there will be some knitting.