Recent Developments: Part I

I better post now before anything else happens, because events have been eventing up faster than I can get to the computer.

First, I was going to post about how sick I've been. You might have guessed from the last post. Long story short: I had to drop out of the clinical study before I qualified, because I was too sick to go the whole two weeks. I know when most people think "psoriasis" they think "unsightly and possibly itchy rash," not "too sick to get out of bed or go to work or do housework or pick up your kid from school," but that is how sick I was. I was scarily sick. I almost made it, even so. But then I had to start the two-week waiting period over again due to complications too irritating to go into, and on the third day of that round I had to go home early from a shift at my brand-new on-call job because I was shivering uncontrollably. The next day I started back on my old meds.

That was almost two weeks ago, and only in the last few days have I felt healthy enough to function fully. I worked eight-hour shifts on Friday and Saturday, and got through them okay. Yesterday I did four loads of laundry. Today, for the first time in a long, long time, I walked the Mermaid Girl to school. It doesn't hurt to wear jeans now, and I can take a shower instead of a colloidal oatmeal bath. All these are things I appreciate in a mind-blowing way that goes beyond being or not being embarrassed about how my skin looks.

In the meantime, I missed most of April. I couldn't take on-call shifts; I missed the big conference at my other job; I missed the community Seder at our synagogue; I even missed the Can I Sit With You reading in Seattle where I'd been planning to perform and also to see friends I hadn't seen for months or in some cases years.

So, that sucked.

The one event I didn't have to miss, out of all the big important things I had planned in the last month, was the Seder for the first night of Passover. It's not our first Passover in Vancouver (that would've been last year) but it's our first Passover living in Vancouver, and I was excited about hosting it at our apartment. My dad and stepmother came into town, and our friends Mexicowithkids and her husband and kids (otherwise known as Camille, the littlest existentialist, and her sister and parents) drove up from Seattle and slept over.

We used the Cut-to-the-Chase Haggadah that I put together two years ago, with a few additions spliced in from the Reconstructionist haggadah. The centerpiece was an improvised play of the Exodus story. Camille's little sister wanted to be baby Moses and Camille wanted to be Pharaoh's daughter. Their dad played Pharaoh, and Camille did some great Method acting--throughout the duration of the play, she'd periodically drape herself across her dad and whine, "Daddy, why don't you LET THEM GO?!"

So MG got to play Miriam, her favorite part. It's her third year in the role, and she's especially proficient at popping up behind whatever piece of furniture has been designated as the Tall Grass and chirpily volunteering, "Would you like me to find a nurse for that baby?" Also, dancing around with tambourines and singing in celebratory manner when we all crossed the Red Sea.

I hid the Afikomen inside MG's pink cowboy boot, in the front entryway, and it took them a long time to find it.

We did the whole thing in 3 hours, and then sat around talking and eating macaroons and chasing the kids into their pajamas and setting up beds and sheets and things. I didn't do any of the active stuff, but I got to sit and talk and feel semi-normal for the first time in a long time.

Even the food came off well. I wasn't up to actually cooking, but I planned the meal and RW and my dad shopped and my stepmom followed my directions about putting the food together, and Mexicowithkids made the salad, and everything was done at the right time so we could eat when it was time to eat, and it tasted good, and the kids all managed to eat something.

It was a bright spot in a gloomy month. I'm sad about everything I didn't get to do-- especially the Seattle reading--but I'm happy to remember the Seder.

And now this is so long that I'll have to tell about the other Recent Developments in another post.

Happy May, all.