Sunday, November 19, 2006

What Happens When You Get A Flu Shot

Everything started out great this weekend. I got out of work at a decent time for a change and when I got home Christian and La Luz were still at Whole Foods shopping for whatever they decided to make for dinner. We had a nice, quiet night at home together and La Luz spent the majority of the evening doing what she normally does these days, changing imaginary diapers.



On Saturday morning when La Luz woke up it was clear that she was a completely different baby than the one I tucked in the night before. She was coughing and congested and a bit lethargic. I figured it was just daycare sniffles and decided to do everything that we normally do on Saturday mornings - run with Loki followed by breakfast and an hour or so at the playground. By the time we got home from the playground La Luz had fever and felt misreable. She has improved thanks to Tylenol but she has had fever off and on all weekend. I hope it is related to the flu shot she got on Friday and not some virus that we will all get just in time for Thanksgiving. I think I remember the doctor or nurse or someone saying that the flu shot is, essentially, the flu so it often makes people who get it come down with flu like symptoms - counterintuitive but so be it.

Despite not feeling so great La Luz still enjoyed her time at the playground. Here she is in the shirt that was a most unexpected, sentimental, and adorable gift. The mother of one of Christian's students gave it to us last year after La Luz played the baby jesus in the ASH Christmas celebration. The shirt was worn by all of her girls and she wanted La Luz to have it. Needless to say, it is very special.



On Saturday night we went out despite La Luz's illness. We had been planning on going out for about a week, had hired a babysitter, and even made reservations. Consequently, we didn't want to cancel plans for a bit of fever. We went to dinner at Vincents and to the Prytania to see Marie Antoinette. Dinner was great but it was incredibly crowded and we sat in the bar area so I had to compete with the football games for Christian's attention.

I thought the movie was great, stunning really. Christian, not so much. Jason Schwartzman was poorly cast in the movie. Sometimes I actually winced when he delivered his lines and I don't think it was the script. I think he just has a hard time playing anything other than that one specific, quirky, loveable-oddball character. Kirsten Dunst was excellent as Marie Antoinette, however. I loved how the movie was limited almost entirely in scope to what happened at Versailles. I guess it was as I always imagined it would have been but Sofia Coppola did such a nice job of showing the excess through the eyes of youth and naivety. It really was like one giant party, but a party hosted by and attended in large part by cluless children. I love the scenes in the predawn light and most everything shot outside because she made it fuzzy and golden and clean. It was the best stuff in the movie and such a contrast to the bold colors and lavish, almost claustrophobic, indoor scenes. My only complaint is that there weren't enough of those scenes. I wish she had been a bit braver in that respect.

I am thrilled it is a short week. I have been waiting for months for Thanksgiving vacation and it is almost here. Christian is off the entire week so he is going to spend the day with the bug Monday and Tuesday and then on Wednesday we are off to sugar cane country for Thanksgiving weekend.

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