Tick Tack

It turns out I left with an additional birthday gift from New Jersey which went unnoticed until I nearly caused a heart attack for my Favorite Panamanian. I’m guessing some explanation is due. I woke up Monday morning and as I was getting dressed, I noticed an abnormality near the back of my waist. I looked in the mirror (without glasses) and I thought it was a scab from a cut. I have a tendency to pick up cuts and bruises and not remember where I acquired them. I figured this was some collateral damage from my granddaughter scrum on Saturday and went about my business. This included a return to the pool where I had to work off some of the cake and other sweets I gorged on in New Jersey. It was semi-painful but I put in the full mile. I returned home and, after the bike workout (there were a lot of sweets involved), took a shower where I once again noticed the “cut”. I mentioned this to my Favorite Panamanian when I came downstairs and she, as she is wont to do, demanded a look at it. I was prepared for a lecture on how I failed to take care of myself. Instead, and here’s where we come to the spousal cardiac event, she gave me a look of pure horror along with a fairly cute scream. I put two and two together and figured out 1 - it was really infected and worse than I thought or 2 - a tick. From the utter horror on her face, I surmised it as the latter since an infection would have precipitated the aforementioned lecture.

I’ve had a lot of experience with ticks, especially during my time crawling around the woods in the infantry. I think my record was five ticks attached at one time. I thought it was fairly routine and always removed them as soon as I discovered them. No big deal. This is not an attitude shared by my significant other, or, it turns out, my daughter. I had to coax my wife into removing the tick which was dead after its mile long swim with me in the morning. This was harder than I expected as she seemed to think it was going to jump off the tweezers towards her (zombie tick!!). I thought this would be the end of it but she was still highly emotional and insisted on calling my daughter. They tag teamed me and said I had to get it looked at in case of Lyme. I was confident in my self-diagnosis of “no problem” but I wilted in the faces of the combined pressure of these two formidable ladies.

The Deceased New Jersey Hitchhiker

We secured an appointment at the local urgent care clinic and drove through the first significant snow squall of the season. I swear the nurse doing the initial tests was trying to flirt with me, even with the Favorite Panamanian in the same room, but I’ve been told I have a vivid imagination. The doctor said he was looking for three signs with a tick bite to suspect Lyme; a ring like target around the wound, tick attached for 36 hours, and coming from the endemic New England area. Since I had none of these signs, he said I didn’t need to undergo the week long anti-biotic treatment. I felt redeemed but my wife said the visit to the doctor was more for her (so she could sleep without worrying about me) than it was for me. It’s a spousal thing.

Driving to the Doc's

The "Massive" Snow Storm

Probably Won't have to Get the Snowblower Out

Since I acquired the tick in the FBR’s backyard, we called them as soon as we got home to report the results. I felt it was timely to start joking about the whole situation. I may have miscalculated. I told the FBR that I had the tick attached when she gave me my goodbye hug on Sunday. She was horrified. I told her that was nothing since I slept next to her abuela Sunday night with the tick attached. This didn’t help and had my Favorite Panamanian gagging. I may have gone too far. I promised to do what we called in the Army a “tick check” before all future hugs. She didn’t seem too mollified. Finally the snow had me thinking about Christmas (a default setting in my brain) and I’d seen this video earlier in the day which only reinforced. It’s a German commercial but it pulls so effectively on the heart strings that I have to show it to you:

One movie fell in my A-Z watch, a keeper: appropriate given all the Harry Potter mania at the FBR’s house this past weekend, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, interesting to see them all starting out.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                     

ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete - my daughter in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor of the big river; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during him her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter; First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew – son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate– high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; Soxfather - my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course