School is finally over. However, before my summer could finally begin, I had a Memorial Day weekend jaunt planned to visit my grandmother in
Prescott, Arizona. (Pronounced Preskit, not Prescott, like it looks… those weird Arizonians…) If funky names are any indication, I should have known from the start that this was not going to be the weekend I had expected.
It was supposed to be a big family to-do… My grandmother lives with my uncles (my biological uncle and his life partner), so obviously they were there for the big event. My parents also flew out for the weekend, as did my sister-in-law. My brother and sister-in-law live in San Diego, but my brother is currently in the final stages of Super-Duper International Submarine School somewhere off the coast of The Netherlands right now (I think)… Anyway, his wife joined us for the weekend, and brought their three children, Cat, age 6, Xander, age 3 and Drew, a little over a year.
Imagine the endeavor of trying to fly with 3 small children. Now imagine that endeavor when the two little ones have the stomach flu. My sister-in-law is a saint.
We all arrived at about the same time on Saturday morning. Two cars were rented, and my parents took Cat in one car, and my sister-in-law and I went in the other with the two boys. Poor little Xander looked miserable, and wandered around the airport and car rental facility still clutching his airplane barf bag like a security blanket. Just in case, my SiL used the huge plastic bags the airline had used to package the kids’ car seats to line the backseat of the car, since it was a two-hour drive from the airport in Phoenix to the resort town of Prescott, and we didn’t know how those tummies would hold up. Turned out to be a pretty smart idea…
The rest of Saturday was somewhat bearable. Xander managed to keep most of his vomit in the barf bag, but little Drew was another story. I won’t go into details, but the poor kid went through no less than four outfits that day, with offensive waste coming out one end or the other. Of course, I was thinking, “Okay, I’m a teacher, I deal with illness pretty regularly, I should have a pretty strong immune system,” and didn’t put much thought into helping my SiL with the dirty work. Mostly, we wanted to make sure that my father stayed away from the little “germ carriers,” as my SiL called them. My father, a kidney transplant recipient, takes immunosuppressive medication, and therefore is more susceptible to illness.
Saturday evening, after checking into the “show-and-tell” (as Xander called it), we finally arrived at my uncles’ gorgeous home in the desert hills, and enjoyed a pleasant dinner with the entire family.
Sunday proved to be even better, as the boys were starting to feel less vomit-y, and we all met up at the Arizona Art Festival in downtown Prescott, a very quaint area where they proudly boast the site of the very first rodeo ever. They are also
very pleased to be the hometown of Barry Goldwater. (I guess every place has to proud of SOMEthing...) Sunday evening was another fine meal at my uncles’ home, watching the sun set over the granite dells, a magnificent area of huge red rocks and lakes.
Our plans for the next day were to head to Sedona, another resort town in northern Arizona, but we didn’t quite make it. About 3 am, I was awoken with the most heinous feeling in my abdomen, followed by no less than 18 hours of the most horrendous infliction I’ve ever endured in my digestive tract. Germ carriers, indeed! By 8 am on Monday, my grandmother’s actual birthday, my mother and I each lay in the hotel room, unable to move, with trash cans stationed by each bed. At one point, my mom was in the bathroom puking, so I had to run out to the patio and puke in the grass. It was hell. Of course my father was fine. The one we worried about the most stayed illness-free, thank god. I guess my mom and I should have been more careful ourselves, but it never occurred to me or my mother, also a teacher, and who NEVER gets sick, that we’d be affected this way. Were we ever wrong! I stopped counting after I threw up a dozen times.
The rest of the brood went to my uncles’ to celebrate, and my mom and I slept and/or vomited all day long.
What a fabulous way to start my summer vacation. If nothing else, at least I’ve jump-started my summer weight loss plan!
So happy birthday Grandma; sorry I couldn’t make it for your actual birthday, but the stomach flu had other plans for me Monday. We’ll have to try again next year.
