Ah the "Pink" Eye

Last night I met up with my wife and daughter at the Subway shop where my daughter’s team was getting sandwiches after their softball game. My daughter’s team has three events planned after games this season and this was event number one. The next event I think is getting smoothies from a local “juice” store and the final event is getting pizza as a team. These are good ideas to build camaraderie on the team and last night we were standing there with 11 other girls from my daughter’s softball game. My wife had another commitment she needed to get to so I had both children and placed their orders. It is apparent these are my children especially with their “peculiar” eating habits.

My daughter ordered a cheese sandwich, yes, that’s right just cheese nothing else! My son was a little more daring ordering a pepperoni, salami and bacon sandwich. Yes, none of those things I would ever eat but I am all from them to decide their eating habits over time. It is also apparent that unlike their mother who likes her sandwiches “wet” my children prefer the dryness on their sandwiches since nothing other than the meats and cheese touched the sandwich bread!!

We took our sandwiches home because there was still some unfinished homework than needed to be tended to. I didn’t quite understand this because they did have a half day from school but since my wife doesn’t get home from work until mid afternoon the children were taken care of by our dear friends so not much homework was accomplished. In any event we needed to get home so the homework could be finished and this is what happened when we got home. The children were up much longer than usual since dinner needed to be eaten and the homework needed to get done. This was okay because with today being Friday this wouldn’t mess up the rest of the week.

I have taken it upon myself to institute casual Fridays as I wear jeans to work. Technically it really wouldn’t matter if I wore jeans to work every day but I think my corporate upbringing doesn’t allow me to go to the office in jeans every day. There really isn’t a dress code and there are some people who do wear jeans every day. I have a closet full of business casual clothes and I do like wearing them. I don’t really like the suit and tie look probably for the simple fact I had to do this for over 15 years. I do prefer the business causal look and since I didn’t really wear any decent clothes for nearly two years I don’t mind wearing something other than jeans!! However; it is nice to just wear the jeans on Fridays and this is what I have done since I have been a fixture in the office.

The morning went by so quickly and I was looking forward to lunch. Over the week I don’t usual take a lunch grabbing a protein bar at my desk but today I was meeting my wife for lunch. My wife works from Monday to Thursday and has Fridays off. I thought today would be a perfect day to have lunch with my wife. We met at a place that actually had options for me and was more on the health conscious side. My wife was having difficulty finding something she could order because since it was Friday and this is the Lenten season meat is prohibited by the Catholic Church. Of course I may not be the best Catholic but I don’t meat on Fridays or any other day for that matter!! My wife finally found something and we placed our orders.

We were enjoying our appetizers when my wife’s cell phone rang and she noticed that is was our children’s school calling. This could never be good because the call doesn’t normally call to tell us that our children are doing great. Yes, it was a “sick” call and it was our daughter who was diagnosed by the school’s nurse with “pink eye”. My wife noticed that my daughter’s eyes weren’t right this morning but she just put some Visine in them and sent my daughter to school. Apparently it was “pink eye” and our lunch date had ended abruptly. My wife was in route to my daughter’s school to pick her up and to take her to the pediatrician. We got the food to go and went our separate ways so even the best laid plans do go awry with those things well outside of my scope of control. We did shake it off and the concern was solely on our daughter.

I got a full report on our daughter later on this afternoon. Yes, she did have “pink eye” and she was quarantined for the next 24 hours. This was good and bad news to my daughter. The bad news was the fact that she couldn’t go to the birthday party she was invited to this evening. The good news was the fact that she could go to her softball game tomorrow afternoon. My daughter was very bummed she couldn’t attend the birthday party because she had been looking forward to it for awhile. This party had been canceled once before because of the school’s talent show but my daughter couldn’t attend this evening. She was sad but seemed to take it all in stride in between her tears. There is no doubt my daughter is very sensitive especially in these circumstances but is very resilient. She did bounce back later on this evening and had her sights on the upcoming softball game.