A couple of hours later the rash had already spread all over the rest of her body. Jake was freaking out. "What if she can't go to school tomorrow? I'll have to miss work!" I thought about canceling my trip, but I didn't think her rash was a virus. Nora wasn't sick in any other way. I spent the morning with the kids and mostly spent that time holding Nora and reading to her and cuddling with her, and responding to her sorrowful little remarks about how she is going to be sad when I leave. I talked about how I would be sad too but then I would be so happy when I came back in just 2 days and got to see her again. And how happy the Twin Whisperer was going to be tomorrow evening when she picked the kids up from school. It kind of worked, but it was a stressed out morning for Nora.
We put the kids in the car to go to the doctor's and after I belted Nora in, she grabbed hold of my collar and said, "You can't leave, Mommy, I'm holding onto you. You can't leave me."
Yeah. Ouch.
I thought it was mothers who were supposed to lay guilt trips on daughters. How does she already have this down like a science, and she's not even 3?
So I pried those tiny fingers off of me and sadly kissed my crying, rashy child goodbye. Blech.
From the airport I called Jake to find out that the doctor thinks the rash is a reaction to an antibiotic Nora has been on for 7 days (Amoxicillin). Apparently you can get a delayed reaction like that. So the only treatment is to discontinue the antibiotic. And give her Benadryl if she's uncomfortable. She can go to school tomorrow. I feel slightly less guilty.
So yeah, I feel crappy, but on the other hand I am doing a service task that I really like doing. Reviewing grants is a huge time sink (and in fact I only just finished my last one on the plane), but I like having a say in determining what types of research our government is funding. I think that is an important thing to be willing to do. Also, I have to say, I always love being in D.C. I come here a few times a year now and really like the city. It feels so good to be in a real, honest-to-goodness city. I love the Metro. I love being able to get around so easily. I just like it here.
Unlike my stupid b.s. state that just elected a state house, senate, and governor who are all going to, undoubtedly, totally decimate our university budget (more than it already has been, that is) and go after our pensions. Seriously I am getting sick and tired of our stupid, fucked up, backwards state. Jake and I have been having serious talks about leaving, and where we would go. We keep trying to figure out which city would fit the bill for us:
-- Blue city in a (preferably) blue state
-- A climate I like, which means it doesn't rain all the time, it does snow in the winter at least a little, and it gets HOT in the summer. And no, 72 degrees is not hot. Oh, and there are more than just pine trees around. And it is not the desert.
-- Decent sized city, i.e., not some teeny podunk town in the middle of a bunch of cornfields (i.e. a place like Champaign-Urbana does NOT count). Doesn't have to be huge like Chicago, but big enough to support, say, an Apple store would be nice.
-- In an area affordable enough that we could actually buy a house without bankrupting ourselves, or having to live in the super outlying suburbs and commute an hour each way. So this eliminates places like the bay area, Seattle, much of the northeast, etc.
-- Has a climate and culture such that our kids aren't going to turn into little fundamentalist Christians just by going to school (or aren't going to get convinced that they're going to hell if they don't go to church). So no bible belt areas.
-- Has a university where I could work.
So...hmmm. Does a place like this even EXIST in the U.S.? Seriously I'm not sure. I think that the town we live in is generally one of the best combinations of place needs and job needs that I can think of. I can definitely think of cities I'd rather live in, and I can think of a couple of jobs that might be better, but the city/job combo is a hard one to get right. But frankly the job has been getting worse and worse and worse at an institutional level due to increasing cuts and increasing rules from the legislators. 30 years ago, our university used to be 60% funded by the state. Now it is 17% funded by the state. And in that intervening time, the legislators' attempts to tell us how to do our jobs and make rules for us has increased and increased as their funding of us has gone down.
So...yeah. Who knows what is going to happen. But I'm pissed off and disenchanted.
2 comments:
oh no about Nora's rash... poor little one. She's allergic to that antibiotic?
I love D.C.
It's my guess that you're leaving out some criteria for your ideal place, as it very much describes where I live now (most of the time), and you chose not to live there at one point. Although I believe that my region and location does have much of what you describe, here's what it does not have -- cute little shopping areas and neighborhoods. It's very weirdly and poorly planned. I guess it's fairer to say that there wasn't a strong vision for city and community planning. It doesn't really have a sense of place and community in that way. (Although there is an Apple store at the mall that is about 5 minutes from my house -- with no sales tax.) I think you would really miss the great community stuff and cute architecture in the houses and parks and such that your town has. Otherwise, move and come out to work with me, please. :) We genuinely do have all of the rest of that!
Well, at the time that I chose not to live there, I had personal reasons to do so given that I was trying to live in close proximity to somebody who was in this general region of the country! I loved your dept. though. (Never saw much of the town).
You're right that I do like cute shopping areas and neighborhoods...that mysterious sense of "community". I am starting to look, though. I seriously think increased course loads and massive cuts (bigger than before) are coming down the pike. I live in a state in which only 25% of the population has a college degree. They seriously distrust and dislike professors and think we work 8 hours a week for 80K/year. Never mind that we are so underpaid and overworked, the winds have shifted and we will be seeing some massively drastic changes. It's not good.
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