Here’s to your health

For the past several years, I have been reading my way through the Bible from cover to cover. In December, I finally reached Revelation. Do you know which word is generally associated with Revelation?

Apocalypse. 

And that brings me to our most recent voyage. If you’ve read any of my posts over the past decade, you will know that travel and I have a very intense love/hate relationship, i.e. I love visiting new places, but I hate getting there. Disaster seems to strike every time I venture beyond my front door, yet I keep on travelling. Why? Because as soon as it’s over, I forget the bad part and retain the good ... until the next voyage-related calamity, when it’s too late to back out.

Anyway, 2021 being what it was, I probably could have guessed it would come to an unpleasant climax. Mad optimism, however, drove us to buy tickets to visit my parents in the US for Christmas, seeing as how the last time we were able to do that was in blithely ignorant 2019. 

So we bought tickets. Or, more accurately, my husband bought tickets; my travel anxiety is such that the mere thought of visiting kayak.com triples my heart rate. Anyway. We acquired tickets. And a rental car. And a taxi. And I printed out my famous, excruciatingly-detailed packing list in 9-point font. And that was that.

The day before our departure, everyone took the requisite Covid test at our least-favorite neighborhood pharmacy, where every visit means standing in line to register indoors, then standing in line again to take the test outdoors, while certain children—who shall remain nameless—run, screaming, up and down the sidewalk and/or blow raspberries against the storefront windows and/or activate (and re-activate. And re-activate. And re-activate) the pharmacy’s automatic doors. 

At least we all tested negative.

The next day, we arrived at the airport FOUR HOURS EARLY, which is what one must do now in the Pangolin Era. It went as well as could be hoped for us; we managed to actually board our plane, which was a definite improvement over our last voyage, and 12 hours or so later we landed in Los Angeles, where we promptly headed to our usual mediocre-yet-reliable airport hotel. For dinner, we had the option of either Taco Bell, where I had not set foot since age 17, or Subway, which we have in France. So we chose Taco Bell for its “exoticism.” But this was no ordinary Taco Bell; this was Pandemic Taco Bell, where the order counter is behind a wall of cellophane and the seating area is roped off with crime scene tape. Come to think of it, that might actually have been a crime scene; LA is dangerous.

The next day, we picked up our rental car in a singularly bizarre location (inside the lobby of a nearby Marriott? Why?). And off we went, despite the fact that my husband felt a bit weird. “Jet lag,” I assured him (*queue ominous music*). We didn’t want to go directly to San Diego, as that would have been too easy, so we stopped at Venice Beach. It was sunny. We took photos. We strolled up and down the sidewalk, trying to sufficiently appreciate the tackiness of the excessively-colorful commerces selling everything from healing crystals to 12-flavor corndogs to underwear with saucy quips splashed across the derrière. We saw, among other novelties, a bare-breasted woman on roller skates; we bought lunch from a dude with what looked like a golf ball in his left eye socket; our son attacked some seagulls with a giant Snoopy glow stick that he found outside the public toilets; and everyone (but me) got covered in sand and seawater. Then we climbed into the car and drove straight into LA Friday afternoon traffic, thus taking five hours to reach my parents’ house instead of three. 

Maybe next time we’ll skip Venice Beach.

Oh, but then we’d miss out on this.

The actual visit was great. We celebrated Christmas as only the Holts can; we hiked all over the place, went shopping, visited friends, went to church, sang carols, lit a whole lot of candles, drank many gin & tonics, ate a ton of Mexican food (which is always my #2 reason to visit home anyway) and agreed once again that there’s no one quite like Paul Simon. Check it out:

Oh yeah, and we all caught Covid-19. 

Turns out my husband felt under the weather because he quite simply had been infected with Omicron. Oops. “But wait!” I can hear you saying. “You said everyone tested negative!” Indeed, we did test negative. But that was only because my husband had caught the virus mere hours before getting tested. He caught it at his company’s Christmas luncheon, and we know this because we later found out that EVERYONE who attended it also caught the virus. They actually had to close and disinfect the entire office. 

But hey, on the upside, our symptoms were mild. In fact, I didn’t even know I had it until I took a home test the day before our scheduled return date “just to be sure” and it came up positive: Two bright blue lines appeared with the same speed and certitude as a pregnancy test taken when you’re already three months along. 

The folks at Air France, to their credit, were very understanding. We changed our dates, extended our car rental, emailed a few folks and added four days to our vacation. After that, I took another test. STILL POSITIVE. My husband couldn’t take any more time off from work, and since HE was negative, he and our son headed back to France while I remained with our daughter at my parents’ home for another three days (which was fun, don’t get me wrong). Ultimately, my immune system dispensed of the accursed virus and we too were able to board a flight back to Paris. Whew!

So that was the 2021 season finale. Shall we call it “challenging” for lack of a non-four-letter synonym? It was challenging. But what is it we’re supposed to always say about challenges? That they conceal opportunities! And sometimes, they conceal said opportunities so well that they are completely undetectable! Actually, one opportunity made itself abundantly clear throughout this particular challenge: wine. More, more wine.

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.

And that, as they say, is all she wrote. Until next time!