A few minutes after I published the previous post, I thought better of it and withdrew it -- but I guess that was too late for anyone catching this on an RSS feed. So, as long as it was already out there, I figured it may as well go live again.
It looks like it won't be as hot as yesterday. We have a bit of "June Gloom" going on -- cloud cover and moisture, which will eventually burn off. And today, I'm feeling somewhat better.
Yesterday's depression eventually morphed into a bad case of bitchiness. And I thought that, too, would melt away once we got to the gym for Megan's meet, but that was not to be. I knew I was in trouble when I had to fight the urge to turn around and slap the woman sitting behind me. Her only crime was to diss me and my family and my friends make the observation that our gym is small. Only she said it about a dozen times.
I soon realized that I had selected a seat that was smack in the middle of a large group of parents from Orange County, and they all had what I considered to be a superior attitude, with the woman behind me the worst of all. Besides criticizing the size of our gym (which, IMHO, based upon the many meets we have attended now, is more old than small), she opined that we'd allowed too many kids into the competition (there were 10 girls in each squad, which is average), the competency of the parents (my colleagues) who were working the meet, and the mere fact that they were stuck in the San Fernando Valley. (OK. Maybe I am still feeling a little bit pissy.)
I finally glanced at her and realized she was some kid's grandmother, and I relaxed a little. After all, my mom -- who rarely gets down to see Megan compete and who really knows nothing about the sport -- would probably make the same stupid (insensitive) comments without thnking about who might be in earshot.
I made a mental note to be more sensitive the next time we are stuck at a meet in say, Bakersfield. (I like the gym we visit in Bakersfield, and the parents. It's staying overnight in Bakersfield that I object to.) And then I moved to another part of the gym so I wouldn't have to listen to all of them.
It wasn't Megan's best meet. A few days ago, she developed another chesty cough and so is using her inhalers again.
No, she does not have asthma, her doctor assures me. But a pattern is emerging with her respiratory ailment, which she is dealing with more and more often, usually after a meet or when she's very tired -- like when we last flew to London. Another parent, who is an LVN, thinks it's "stress related asthma." Whatever it is, we need to learn to deal with it. As bad as she sounds in the morning and the evening, once the meds kick in, she seems fine. Actually, the albuterol makes her kind of hyper. So I thought nothing of allowing her to compete in this, her last meet of the spring.
I instructed her to use her inhaler before she started her warmup, hoping to avert a wheezing attack during the meet. Unfortunately, in addition to making her hyper, the albuterol also make her a little bit shaky. And I don't think that helped her, especially after finding out her first event would be the balance beam. (On top of that, she did end up coughing in the middle of her handstand dismount. She did not fall, but it interrupted her handstand, and so it was judged the same as a fall.)
It still didn't seem a bad idea when we finished a lot earlier than I expected -- 7:30 instead of 9:00. Because we'd figured the meet would end so late, we had always planned to go out to dinner. That's when Megan had a meltdown. She was thirsty and hungry and tired and disappointed that we had not arranged to go out to dinner with her teammates, as we do when we are all in a strange town facing long drive home. She whined about it from the moment we walked out of the gym until we pulled up to our favorite British pub, with my husband yelling at her to shut up and yelling at me to stop trying to reason with her.
This is what usually happens when all three of us are hungry and tired and stuck in a car together. My husband and daughter have very similar personalities, and I always feel like I'm stuck in the middle while they both vie for my attention. Last night, because of my own bad mood, it was even more hellish than usual.
I had warned my husband that the pub might be crowded, it being St. Patrick's Day and all. He didn't believe me. I'm afraid that even after 20 years in this country, my husband doesn't get St. Patrick's Day, which he says is less of a big deal where he comes from (in Wales, the big saint day belongs to St. David, and the partying happens on March 1).
He reasoned that the crowds would all be at the Irish bar across the street. I tried to tell him that Americans don't really differentiate between British and Irish, and that the English ex-pats who own our pub would most likely take advantage of that by throwing a St. Paddy's Day party of their own.
There was a line out the pub door, and there was actually a security guard checking ID's. I managed to make my way to the hostess, who told me there would be a 30 minute wait for a table in the dining room. With my crankypants daughter and husband ready to explode, we left. But we were still hungry, it was still late and there was still the problem of finding a restaurant that wasn't full of people drinking green beer.
"I think our best bet is Japanese. No one is going to go out for St. Patrick's Day sushi."
No. The husband's craving for steak and mushroom pie was not going to be satisfied by hamachi sashimi. But seafood pasta might be a good substitute. We decided to try Louise's Trattoria, which was as empty as the pub was full.
By the time Megan's spaghetti was served, she was resting her tired head in my lap.
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