How long and how short a year can be

It has been a whole year since Christopher's last episode of meningitis, and we were all beginning to believe it was over. Tonight it doesn't look that way.

Yesterday afternoon he was tired, but since he didn't get a lot of sleep during the semester break, we figured that starting back to school again wouldn't be too easy for him. When he complained about not feeling well, I thought it was probably another case of "allergic to schoolwork", but in the evening he had a slight temperature, so he didn't go with us to the Bobby McFerrin concert that a kind friend had helped us get tickets for. When I turned on my phone in the break and found a message that he was going to bed and I shouldn't wake him in the morning, I started getting worried. Peter and I listed all the people we know who are or have been sick lately – as is common in an unusually mild winter – and tried to reassure ourselves that it is probably just an ordinary flu like everyone else has.

Christopher slept straight through very deeply for fourteen hours, barely even stirring when I kept going in to put my hand on his head. When he finally woke up, he was weak and complained that his head felt heavy, but he was also impatient and irritated with me for making such a fuss and vehemently rejected the idea of asking our family doctor to come by. His temperature didn't go up much during the day, and he just laid on the couch watching films, occasionally complaining about me hovering over him, insisting that the headache wasn't a meningitis headache and that he would be fine to go to school tomorrow.

Then his temperature started rising in the evening and he was visibly getting worse. At one point he complained that it felt as though his eyes were being pushed out of his head, but when I was alarmed and said that was how he has described meningitis headaches before, he denied it. It's not meningitis, it's not meningitis, it's not meningitis, it's not ...

About half an hour after we took his temperature and it had gone up again, he suddenly said he was scared. Then I felt guilty, thinking I had finally managed to talk him into thinking it might be meningitis again after all. He said I hadn't talked him into it, so I asked if he had been lying to me all day about it being different. He said he hadn't been lying to me, he had been lying to himself. Which one of us should either of us believe now?

Temperature rising, intermittent moaning, groggy ... But he still didn't want to take any pain pills before he climbed back into bed. It may still be the case that one or both of us is being overly dramatic here. Maybe. Or it may be a long night.

After all, it has been a whole year ...

Pictures!

Patrick as Mozart



Comic Christopher Venticelli



More pictures:
School gallery

Mr. Mozart

Yesterday was the last day of school before semester break, but Paddy slept late and missed most of it. When he did get up, he looked well rested and cheerfully announced, "Mozart is dead and I'm free." I think that probably also applies to my entire permanent and extended household in general.

Looking with some dismay at my inbox, I find it somewhat difficult to comprehend that the rest of the world has simply gone on about its business without us, as we were all thoroughly engrossed in the life and death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – over and over and over again in recent weeks, but especially Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening last week, when Paddy performed the role of Mozart in a very elaborate and ambitious school production of "Amadeus". Most of the teachers and other parents who know Paddy as someone who is usually very quiet and reserved, were quite startled by his lively performance. He really was very convincing in his role, but I don't think it was entirely a matter of accident or good direction: in fact, he actually does have an almost uncanny ability to instantly memorize and reproduce any melody that captures his attention and to spontaneously invent variations on it. Watching the first performance from the audience, Christopher also recognized his brother's personality traits that can be both delightfully funny and also excruciatingly irritating – like his sharp wit and his occasional impatience with people who just don't get it – and said he would have been happy to have played Salieri and had an opportunity to murder his brother on stage, as he recognized how Salieri felt.

However, I was also impressed with Paddy's acting skills, especially in dealing with unexpected occurrences, such as when "Constanze" started humming the "March of the Toreadors" from "Carmen" instead of the theme from a Mozart opera that was supposed to be his cue, or when "Salieri" mixed up the names of the women. When Paddy made his first appearance on stage the first night with his hands in his pockets, I was horrified to realize that if he took both hands out of his pockets at once, his pants would simply fall off. He did an excellent job of playing that he was just too cool to take both hands out of pockets even when meeting the emperor, though. And as thin and frail as he looks, his portrayal of Mozart's decline and death was quite convincing and heart-wrenching (I'm obviously a thoroughly impartial and neutral critic!). At the end of the play every night, though, when a large dark figure appeared to carry the "corpse" away, it was all I could do to keep from shouting, "Be careful, Raoul, don't drop my little guy!" Poor Paddy ended up battered and bruised enough from being tossed around all over the stage as it was.

For the last two performances Christopher played a minor role as one of the "Venticelli", the gossip-mongers and extras in various scenes, and he was much happier being on stage than in the audience. As small as his role was, he certainly made a striking impression with his comic delivery, apparently reminding a surprising number of people of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with his make-up, which he was in no hurry to remove later.

I didn't expect this play to consume our entire life as it has, especially over the past two weeks, but it has been an exhilarating experience. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I am also relieved now that Mozart is dead and we are all free again. Tomorrow night we are going to another play to celebrate Paddy's 15th birthday on Monday, which seems a good way to start the well deserved and needed semester break.

In the meantime, I need to start catching up again on work and other commitments.

Cinderella sons

Today at lunch Patrick announced that he had managed to get a ticket to the school ball on Friday after all. I have to admit, I had not realized before that this was actually an issue, but I was pleased that he is pleased about it. The ticket he got, however, is for a couple, so it appears that he will need to persuade his on-stage adversary and real-life friend to go with him and be prepared to convince the person checking tickets at the door that two boys can be a couple. Even in Austria.

The next complication is the question of shoes. Both boys got nice suits from Opa last weekend, which they are very happy with, but the suits are not enhanced at all by tennis shoes, and only Christopher has a pair of nice black dress shoes. Even if these shoes actually fit on Patrick’s enormous feet, since Christopher will be performing at the ball, wearing his own suit, he needs to wear the shoes himself (assuming they still fit him).

So now both of my sons are going to a ball on Friday, but they only have one pair of ball shoes between them. This could be interesting.