Tragic Sandwich

Tag: bronchitis

  • Sick Day: Live-Blogging “Julie & Julia”

    I’ve had this cold for almost two weeks. I’m pretty sure bronchitis is in the mix. Should I go to Urgent Care? Maybe. Instead, I took a sick day and slept for four hours.

    My usual sick day movie is “When Harry Met Sally,” and I was thisclose to watching it. But for some reason I have a DVD of “Julie & Julia,” so I’ve decided to watch that. And because I’ve read Cleaving and don’t like Julie, I’ve decided to live-blog it as well. Because I am nothing if not timely.

    I have read Julie Powell’s book about her blog, and I have read Julia Child’s My Life in France, so here we are.

    DVD cover of Julie & Julia

    We open the movie on a woman who is delighted to be just where she is (Julia Child) and then move to a woman who is miserable where she is. This is kind of the whole point.

    Julie’s friends are awful. Why are they friends? Did they go to college together? I don’t care. I never want to see them again.

    Oh, wow. She got “Single and Fabulous?“ed. By one of her alleged friends. Urgh.

    I like Julie more than I expected to, based on other reviews. And on Cleaving.

    How did they make Meryl Streep look so tall? I’m sure there’s an article that explains the technique.

    Oh, god. That was the best “I love my life, but oh, I so wish we could have a baby” moment. This is why Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep.

    Mary Lynne Rajskub needs bigger roles. She’s great.

    Well, who DOESN’T want Julia Child’s life at this point? I mean, it sounded incredible in her book, and seeing it recreated? Magical.

    Julie got 12 comments, and none of the readers were people she knows. I know just how that feels! It’s a good feeling.

    This lobster sequence is everything.

    Full disclosure: I have never killed . . . err . . . cooked a lobster, either.

    “I think you should do the PayPal thing. That way we can have more lobster.” I’m with Mary Lynne Rajskub. Says the woman who has intentionally not monetized her blog. I know.

    “Like if I didn’t write, they would really be upset.” Is this where you started to go wrong, Julie Powell?

    Aspics sound awful. My mother, who was a good cook, took to one aspic recipe for a while. It was underwhelming.

    Is there anything more delightfully happy than Julia Child and her sister Dorothy reuniting? I can’t imagine.

    Dorothy is pregnant. Oh, Julia. I know.

    I have never wanted to make beef bourguignon so much, and the one time I had it, I didn’t care for it. Possibly because I don’t like wine.

    Surprise: I don’t like Eric.

    After Julie’s New York Times article, there are 65 messages on her answering machine. It’s 2018, and my answering machine won’t hold 65 messages. Yes, it’s 2018 and I have an answering machine. I know.

    I think Julie got some new friends. Good. Only Mary Lynne Rajskub was worth keeping around.

    She made it! And so did she!

    I liked this movie more than I expected to. It’s a good sick day movie. But I’ll probably watch “When Harry Met Sally” next time.

  • So Long, 2016

    I wrote 14 posts this year. Sometimes I wonder if I’m still a blogger.

    What can I say? It’s been a hell of a year. A lot of this is known to people; we all heard about the election, and no matter how you feel about the results, it was a big damn deal. We all know about the celebrities who died; Carrie Fisher’s passing hit me particularly hard.

    For us, we’ve had a triathlon to train for (Mr. Sandwich) and support (Baguette and me), multiple IEP meetings, changes in leadership at Baguette’s school, lost teeth (the sixth came out this week), family drama that warrants assessment, and lice.

    Oh, the lice.

    We were supposed to travel to visit my dad and stepmom for Thanksgiving. But I had a bad cold, and based on much prior experience of making that trip sick, we decided not to. As it turned out, that was a wise decision. Because on the day we would have been driving, I discovered that Baguette and I had lice.

    We called a service to come over to the house that night and comb all three of us, and scheduled the follow-up for the Monday after the holiday. But as it turned out, we couldn’t wait that long, so we also went to a lice-combing salon on Friday for an additional come-through.

    There are, by the way, a lot of businesses providing this service in Los Angeles.

    That was our hair; we also commenced on an astonishing amount of laundry, washing and drying on hot things that we often don’t even put in the dryer. We vacuumed and lint-rollered and bagged and froze and did everything we could think of to halt this in its tracks.

    It was exhausting. It was not a vacation. It was not a break. But ultimately, we were successful–although we now are completely fixated on checking our heads on a regular (and probably unnecessarily frequent) basis.

    We delayed our trip, planning to visit the week after Christmas. And then I got bronchitis. So we didn’t go. But we did have Christmas dinner with Mr. Sandwich’s parents, as planned. That was nice for a bit, and then discretion is the better part of valor, and also of family harmony on Christmas.

    Now we are two weeks into Baguette’s three-week winter break from school. In case you were wondering, three weeks is too long. It’s not that I don’t love and value the time with her–it’s that we don’t have any other care for her, which means we have to take more days off from work, and it means that her routine is significantly disrupted in ways that are very difficult for her. And with my bronchitis that first week of the break, we didn’t do a great job of creating a different routine. We’re getting into one now, but that still doesn’t keep us from having rough days.

    Long story short? I am ready for a new year. So Happy New Year to all of you!

    And know that while I may not be able to stay up the whole time (among other things, Baguette got me up at around 4:00 this morning), I am definitely feeling this:

  • Sick Days

    Last Wednesday night, I felt bad. It felt like the beginnings of the flu, with muscle aches. I emailed work and told them I’d be taking a sick day. This is very unusual. I don’t usually decide until the morning. But I was pretty sure the night before.

    Thursday morning I had chills, and that afternoon I spiked a fever. I felt so bad that I didn’t take Tylenol until Mr. Sandwich came home, because I needed him to get the Tylenol from the bathroom cabinet. Getting it myself was too hard.

    Then I started throwing up. That was fun.

    I took another sick day on Friday. Saturday evening, we went to urgent care. They said it was probably bronchitis, gave me antibiotics, and told me to see my regular doctor on Monday and stay home from work until Wednesday.

    I felt too sick on Monday, but I made an appointment for Tuesday.

    On Tuesday, our street was being slurry-sealed. That meant we had to park around the corner. It’s not too far, but it’s not as close as our actual driveway. I headed out to the car, and as I walked down the street, could not help but notice the four police officers and maybe a sheriff, plus the guy sitting in the back seat of one of the police cars. Possibly this explained the helicopters I’d heard earlier. I also realized that my wallet was not in my bag. Since the situation on the corner appeared to be coming to a close, I decided to check the car. My wallet wasn’t in the car. I went back to the house, just as the guy in the police car was allowed to get out of the police car. My wallet wasn’t in the house, either. That meant it was probably in the car Mr. Sandwich had taken to work (long story short, it was). But I didn’t want to drive to the doctor’s office without my wallet, and I didn’t want to walk back to the car. So I punted.

    On Wednesday, my doctor gave me a new antibiotic and an inhaler. You know it’s going well when you get an inhaler. She also said that if I wasn’t feeling better on Friday, to call back and she’d send me for a chest x-ray.

    I wasn’t feeling better. Weirdly, I kind of had to argue to get the chest x-ray. But I got it, and you know what?

    I’ve got pneumonia.

    I’ve also got yet another antibiotic (don’t worry, every time I get a new one, I stop taking the old one, AND I’m taking probiotics). And two days in, I’m still freaking exhausted and coughing. My left lung still feels like it’s stuck to itself when I breathe.

    Now, mind you, through all of this, Baguette still needs to go to school. And while I may want to spend all day sitting on the couch, she really can’t. So there are still outings and whatnot.

    But after stocking up on Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and then making minestrone, I have easy food for the next few days. So that’s good.

    bowl of homemade vegetable soup