Frances claimed she has never flown a kite, which I'm not sure is true. But at any rate, yesterday morning was beautiful and windy, so it was a perfect time to go out to the playing field across from us with a kite. Unfortunately, it was late afternoon by the time I found string, so the day wasn't quite so beautiful, and it was starting to sprinkle and I was getting a weather pressure change migraine at that point. But Frances and Rutledge had a super time.


Then there was today:

I'm Nancy, and I'm an emetophobe. I recently found an absolutely fabulous resource on the web about emetophobia, and I am so thrilled to hear that I am not alone. Check out http://emetophobia.bravepages.com/emetophobia.html. It was like reading a biography of myself!

* At the grocery store, the emetophobic may verge on obsessive-compulsive, carefully examining each of a dozen oranges going into the bag (they might actually wash those oranges before eating them too); reaching back in the cooler to get "colder" items; hounding the deli personnel for certain items to be selected or cut; and our favorite, hand-washing following a visit to the meat department.

*Dietary restrictions are universal among emetophobics. Most emetophobics have a list of foods they won't eat because they suspect them of being likely carriers of food poisoning; many avoid other foods because they associate them with a childhood episode of vomiting. Since most food poisoning is caused by unsanitary preparation rather than tainted food, phobics are roundly meticulously hygenic cooks. (Easiest way to lose an emetophobic? Lick the spoon while cooking.)
(Yeah! It gave me particular pleasure today to throw out salad dressings that were out of date and to know that at least for a while, all food in my fridge is going to be new and in tip-top condition. Let's not get into my list of requirements for seafood or my fear of deviled eggs or my terror of spaghetti or how I don't like to eat things in red sauces in winter...)

* Nearly all emetophobics report being unable to care for their children and other family members when those people fall ill. Some will sleep in another room when a family member is ill. (Well, duh. Kerry is sleeping downstairs right now with the sick child, while I'm sitting on my sheet-less bed because I'm washing my sheets for the fourth time this week. Only once was my bed actually thrown up on. I'm washing now because people who were going to become sick later or who were sick a day ago touched my bed.)

* It is not unusual for emetophobics to have a particularly stringent set of criteria for eating out. Some avoid restaurants altogether. Some will order an entree but will never eat from a buffet or salad bar. Some claim to have a 6th sense that tells them not to eat in a particular restaurant. (Would Nancy go to a Mongolian barbecue place? Do I tend to prefer chain restaurants, especially when I'm traveling and don't know about the reputation of a local place?)

* Nearly all emetophobics avoid water travel; some refuse to fly as well, and a few even stay out of land vehicles. (Ask me if I want to go on a cruise...)

* Although more common in children, emetophobics frequently have superstitions about their trigger event or subsequent times they vomited. being anxious even about the day of the week they vomited, or the month, even blocking out pleasant memories of a year in which they vomited. (But look, it's not a superstition if I really do have a house full of vomiting people in the week between Christmas and New Years! I also mark the date of October 19th, February 18th, and February 26th.)

* Emetophobia affects career choice as well, with many otherwise-qualified (and perhaps even interested), intelligent sufferers eschewing fields that they see as high-risk for vomiting, such as health care, the military, teaching, laboratory research, aviation, and space. (Since I was very young, I've always wanted to go to medical school. I still regret it! But as my mother always said, "You can't get to be a doctor if you are afraid of people throwing up." I wonder if that's true...)

With all this said, this has been a very trying week for me. My fear is that I'm going to vomit, so while I don't really appreciate seeing/hearing other people vomit, I am increasingly able to deal with it without rushing out the door and hopping a plane to another country (okay, the plane part is a little extreme because people sometimes vomit on planes, and that wouldn't be good...). There was last Monday, when Frances threw up five times. And last Sunday, when Rutledge coughed until he threw up on himself in the car in Hampton (I did insist--in the form of driving the car away from the restaurant we were pulling into--that we go directly home, but I was able to be in the vehicle without undue fear). And yesterday, when one of my greatest fears happened. I was in the shower with a head full of shampoo when I heard Kerry say, from the bedroom adjoining, "Are you going to throw up" and then a hulaballoo of running around. I screeched out, "Don't come in here!" And thankfully he didn't. It terrifies me to no end to think that I could be in a bathroom showering or brushing my teeth and someone could come rushing in and throw up. Thankfully, there were no other episodes yesterday, though he was feverish and lethargic all day. And then today, I could see the telltale signs in Ollie. We were out at Chick-Fil-A when Ollie decided that he couldn't really eat more than two fries and didn't want the Coke he had begged for. I rushed him home, and so far, so good. He's not eating, and he says he's really cold, but it's been many hours, and nothing worse yet. This was the pattern for the two others, though. The night before, they mentioned a vague stomach ache and then didn't eat, or they didn't eat, but then later said they were hungry, I fixed them something, and they only took two bites. Then 15 hours later they threw up. I'm trying not to freak out, but I'm just really ready for this to be over.

But this isn't our only drama. Oh no! I forgot to mention that on the day after Christmas, I received a call from the police saying that our totaled van had been broken into. The aftermarket stereo was stolen, and perhaps a Home Depot credit card (now cancelled). That's kicking you when you're down!

But the real drama had to do with the fridge. Kerry has had a cold, so he can't smell or taste anything, but I thought that the water from the fridge tasted terrible yesterday, and so did Ollie. I finally decided that I was, indeed, losing it and that it was just me. Then this morning, when I got up at, get this, 10:30 and went downstairs, I found that the water was not only still tasting awful, but was warm. I started to make myself some toast and when I opened the fridge to get some jelly, I discovered that the bag of yeast that I touched was warm...very warm. And that it smelled very, very bad in there. And that all kinds of substances were dripping. You have to understand that the fridge was crazy full, so there was a lot of stuff to drip, including pounds and pounds of butter. There were things whose lids had been knocked off kilter that ended up oozing and spilling around (gravy...ewww). I started filling garbage bag after bag, and then realized that I needed to dump out all of the condiments and other things that were weighing so much and I should recycle them. More than an hour later, I had about 30 bottles and jars on the counter, my garbage disposal was working overtime (gotta love 78 degree mayonnaise, pickle cubes, maraschino cherries, a one pound jar of minced garlic, and oily blueberry vinaigrette salad dressing all floating in a 6 inch high soup of water in the sink and not going down). Then I had to bleach out the entire fridge, which had such lovely problems as 78 degree gravy dripped on a light bulb. All of the crisper drawers had to come out, everything had to be bleached and cleaned. For whatever reason, the fridge saw fit to adjust its temperature to 78 degrees, even though it was set to 37. Who knows what happened, but it was $130 to get it diagnosed and will be over $300 for the part. The repair guy looked at our FUBAR dishwasher as well, and that just needs to be replaced. It no longer lets us change any settings--the control panel is completely non-responsive. What's sad is that it is only about 3.5 years old. He said that this model has had incredible troubles and we aren't alone. And Maytag is now out of business. I know why. (This is actually a Jenn-Air, but is owned by Maytag). Not a happy day for appliances in our house.

The very clean, but offending appliance in our family after the icky bailout. And the darn thing has gotten back down to 38 degrees mysteriously tonight while we await the $300 part. Sigh....