Sunday, June 1, 2008

Complaining about allergies

One of my sons has a peanut and tree nut allergy. It freaks me out on a regular basis...just the idea that something that most other kids enjoy on a regular basis could potentially kill him, well, it's a bit unsettling. Having said that, though, I don't get too down about it. I mean, it's only a nut allergy. Nut allergies are so common nowadays that it's reasonably easy to avoid. We know plenty of other kids with nut allergies. In the grand scheme, a nut allergy is a pretty minor blip.

But once in a while, it just hits me. Recently an ice cream truck has been coming through our neighborhood. B-man will never be able to get ice cream from an ice cream truck. It's just not worth the risk. Yes, maybe he could get a prepackaged ice pop, but he's never going to be able to run up with a couple dollars and just get something without worrying. Or perhaps I mean without ME worrying.

I know, not a big deal. It just hits me whenever I hear that tinkly music coming down the road.

Random unrelated thought: I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao a few days ago, and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure why...it has footnotes, which I LOATHE with a passion**. It has far more Spanish than I understand. And it out-geeked even me. I wonder how all the totally non-geeky members of my book group are fairing. Unless you have a PhD in Lord of the Rings, you're certainly missing some of the references. I'm really looking forward to discussing it, but I'll refrain for now since I know a large portion of my readership is members of my book group :)

**See, it's annoying, isn't it? Okay, fine, I do it myself in blog posts, and it's acceptable when I'm reading nonfiction, but it just pulls me right out of the story when an author chooses to use them in a novel. I mean, work it into the story, can't ya??

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was reflecting on this last night. I totally agree that it's disappointing that your boys won't be able to run & get themselves a treat from the ice cream truck.

Something I think about a lot is how everyone likes to say that "everything's relative." E.G. "Relatively speaking, in the scheme of things, not being able to buy someothing from the ice cream truck isn't a tragedy." But the problem with the "everything's relative" philosophy is that it robs you of the opportunity to say, "This thing, regardless of how relatively minor or major, is sucky!"

So GOOD FOR YOU for blogging about it. I think it's nice when we get to feel whatever we do about our actual reality, regardless of how much worse things could be.

Remember in the olden days (ha ha) how parents used to chastise their kids to finish their suppers, because there are kids starving in Africa? That's like the ultimate "everything's relative" argument. Does someone else's misfortune make you like Brussels' Sprouts more? I don't think so.