Halloween Parade, Ring worm, and still hunting for that apartment

Halloween Parade, Ring worm, and still hunting for that apartment

Teri, Nancy, and I went to the Nyack Halloween parade. It was mostly the usual things. All three of us bought folding chairs with us. Everytime I think about the folding chairs, I smile how everyone looked at me as if I’d grown a third eye when I first bought one to the parade. I was so uncomfortable about it, I offered the chair to an older woman who looked like she could use it. For the last several years chairs have gone from a luxury to a necessity/ luxury. I could stand for the entire parade, but I don’t want to, and I’d pay for it later. It was cold, and the jacket I bought with me turned out to not be an unnecessary excess. Nastia, and Sean went somewhere. Either to a casino upstate or to a friend of Sean’s, who is also upstate. So they didn’t go. Elena, she might have just said, “I don’t want to go.” She worked, it was a Saturday, at 6, and she’d just gotten home at maybe the time we were leaving. I think the highlight of her evening was having Ramin delivered to the house from a noodle shop in Nanuet. Some time in August or maybe September Nastia had a spot on her arm that looked like a bug bite. She scratched it and it scabbed over. No moe thought was put into it until one Saturday afternoon her, and I are having lunch at Panera, and I see this circle on her arm where the scab was. I the distant reaches of my mind, I remember reading the book ‘Old Yeller’, and in it Travis got a case of ring worm on his stomach, I think. It’s been more than forty years since I might have read it. I remark to Nastia, in that off hand way I do, “What’s going on with your arm?” Before I know what I have said, I say, “It looks like ring worm.” She gets all freaked out, and wants to go to Immediate Medical care. I was raised like Travis in ‘Old Yeller’. Spit on it, rub some dirt on it, and go back to playing. I’ve tried to evolve since then, but if it don’t hurt, leave it alone. Well she was all freaked out about it, most likely because I called it ring worm. So after lunch we head over to Immediate Medical care. I am such a loving, and caring person, I leave her there to go get gas. When I return she is just finishing up the form on her phone. Most of the people before us have been seen, so our wait is not long. We are escorted to a room. I ask Nastia if she wants me to come along. She gives a most definite yes, and I follow. The medical tech comes in, asks questions to Nastia. I try to stay out of the conversation to give her freedom to answer, and to give her a chance to act like an adult, and handle something on her own that will come up again.

The Doctor arrives, and she asks some more questions. She says it looks like ring worm, and takes some blood to be sure. Who knew Travis all these years later. The Doctor asks if she has had skin to skin contact with anyone since the bit mark. Ring worm is highly contagious. Nastia stumbles a little in her answer, so I can’t resist stepping in to say “Yes, Nastia, you’ve had skin to skin with your boyfriend, you live with him. Oh boy what an enlightened parent I am (say that with sarcasm, because I needed to show how enlightened I am) The Doctor says she will put in a prescription for the spot as soon as the blood work comes back. Now how does a 21st century person get ring worm? Beats me, but with all of these anti-vaxing people willing to risk their children's health on disproven voodoo science, I guess ring worm is the least of their worries.