A Silly Thursday

Last week while I was in New York City doing an archival errand Manuel and his bike took a little spill. I came home the next day to note that he had a rather swollen hand and some impressive bruises and scabs. My musicians’ pavlovian response to the hand thing involved panic but he pointed out that he’s not a viola player which apparently makes the hand less necessary. I was previously sworn to secrecy on the bike accident but let’s just say that for a guy whose bike is a collector’s item he forgot a crucial step of a repair process. He purchased this 1986 bike in 1992 and puts quite a lot of time into upkeep. But I digress……. Jump ahead a week to Rebecca’s exema, which prompted Manuel to take her to the pediatrician who found her rash unimpressive but to Manuel’s hand said “hmm you might want to get this x-rayed” The resident on call then assured Manuel that the quickest route to the x-ray was the ER It was already by this time Weds eve and neither Manuel nor I was anxious to have me skip yoga and working in a wine bar given that the injury was already a week old. So we woke up Thursday morning and headed to UVa. The ER did not run smoothly that day thanks to the 100 degree weather which led to dozens of people with heat stroke. After many hours of waiting and many discussions with many nurses and doctors we learned that he did indeed have a coupled of tiny fractures and probably a torn ligament. This would require a “little splint” we were told. By the time the resident had finished the little splint turned into a giant cast all the way up to his elbow that would preclude driving. Since we’re already a one driver family this seemed pretty dire. The resident did not care much about our mobility issues. So when we got home hungry and super cranky with Manuel driving one handed I decided to call the hand clinic and pull out all the stops. I explained in my sweetest I grew up in Virginia voice that we are a one driver family because I am legally blind and that we have three small children two of whom were preemies. (ok the preemies are 7 but whatever……) Remarkably the hand guy came into the office and Manuel came home with two little pieces of tape on the fingers. He can drive and type but supposedly should limit diaper changing and dishwashing. The doctor apparently told him he’d have to do his own calculus about hand damage v. marital unrest over the new prescription. This whole thing by the way, five hours in the ER, two hours with the head of the hand clinic, $365 of co-pay to the ER plus whatever else we are billed and another co-pay for the hand guy suggest a totally screwed up system. But we all know that.

This whole business finished up on time for the heavens to open for the second time in three weeks for what I was sure was a tornado and they now claim was a microburst—something I’d never heard of until recently..... Whatever it was it looked to Eli and I like some sort of apocalypse. At one point I said to Manuel “Honey I think they tree is going down,” to his logical question “which one” I responded, “the one that is on our deck…” Watching the giant tree fall goes down as one of the most surreal experiences ever. It seemed to happen in slow motion and for a second I had the idea that I could stop it. Meanwhile the big kids were driving home from swim team with Frankie, the babysitter, and I quickly went into a panic about them out in the downpour. (given the paper the next day I was correct to panic) Frankie luckily had the good sense not to answer the phone when I called because she was driving….Everyone made it home safely to no power. Eli was on auto repeat “the powa is out, the twee is on my woom, the powa is out, the twee is on my wooom, I hope fwakie’s house doesn’t knock down…..” Jonathan was worried about how they could do African Drumming at camp if the power didn’t come on. My explanation that African drumming as being an activity that often happened in places without electricity didn’t do much. Similarly Rebecca was sure she couldn’t practice piano without electricity—the argument that Mozart and Beethoven did their thing without power fell on deaf ears. Despite the power outage Manuel made pancakes and grilled cheese for dinner and we finished off the ice cream in the freezer. Eli slept with his siblings since there was a large sugar maple on the roof of his house. The tree guy said he’d come as soon as he could but that before he could handle trees “on” houses he had to handle trees “in” houses.

Friday was an even dumber day……