Disney World. Day 1. War is hell.
Tzvi: Today was a day. Today is November 11th - Veteran’s Day. And after today, I feel like I’ve been through a war.
Steph: Hallie woke up at 7. We cuddled in the bed for a while and finally Tzvi got up closer to 8. We got out of bed, did some last minute packing, and I was off to work.
This morning was the JNF Five Towns Campaign Kickoff Event with Alan Dershowitz in conversation with Ben Brafman. While I didn’t have an actual role, I thought it was important that I be there, so a few months ago I changed my flight. Hallie, Tzvi and my parents were flying at 11, and I was flying at 2. The event went very well. Well, aside from the fact that two minutes before Dershowitz was set to go on, he found out that his mother-in-law passed away. They announced it, it was awkward, but then he went on about how she was 99 and lived a full life. He didn’t seem too disturbed. The program ended at about 10:40, and then there was breakfast in the ballroom. I think I stayed talking to people until 11:30ish.
Tzvi: At five minutes to 9:00 I called an Uber and he came almost instantly. Hallie and I efficiently loaded up the car and we were on our way to the airport. Lisa and Sheldon were supposed to be leaving at 9:00 also, but they ended up leaving ten minutes after us. There was no traffic and we made it there really quickly, except the driver took a wrong turn and went down to arriving flights instead of departing flights, which meant that he had to go all the way around the airport and back to the JetBlue terminal. By the time we made our way back, the Feits were already checked in. Hallie and I checked in curbside (no line) and went right inside. There was no line for security and within a few minutes we were seated having coffee and waiting for our flight.
We waited for 10:40 and then got on the plane. Before Steph changed her flight, we were supposed to be seated five across. I’m pretty sure that when Steph changed her flight I spoke to Lisa about changing her seat so that we would be seated four across, but I guess that didn’t work out, because somehow Hallie and I were in the middle-window seats and Lisa and Sheldon were across the aisle in a middle-aisle with a stranger in between us. Awesome.
We taxied for too long and by the time we took off Hallie was whining. She continued to whine and cry throughout takeoff. She wanted to go to grandma. The flight was too long. It was under 3 hours but it was just too long. Hallie whined and squirmed for a lot of it. She didn’t want to just sit and watch a movie, and at one point while she was on my lap I started to feel something warm on my jeans and realized that it had been so long since we changed her diaper that she was now peeing out the top and her shirt and pants were soaked. Yes, it was a wonderful flight. She actually did manage to fall asleep about 10 minutes before landing while watching a documentary about Stalin, but then she woke up pretty much right after we touched down.
We got off the plane and headed for baggage claim. Hallie was still whining and wanted to be carried, and it was about this time that we started to discuss the prospect that she felt kind of warm. We picked up our rental car - we rented an Infiniti QX60 (which we’re actually considering once our lease is up next year, so it’s a nice week long test drive). I was hoping Hallie would fall asleep on the way to the hotel, but she didn’t, so I decided to take temperature, but that didn’t work out too well so grandma had to do it. Well, what do you know. 101.7. Hooray! We immediately gave her Tylenol. She was also complaining that her throat hurt her, which got everyone concerned that it was strep, so what else was I to do but start googling pediatric urgent cares.
I took Hallie to a center about 15 minutes away. Actually, first I took her to a shopping center 15 minutes away where an urgent care used to be, only to find out that they moved last week to another shopping center five minutes down the road. Anyway, we finally made it, and the place looked pretty promising - there was only one family with two kids in the waiting room. I spent 10 minutes filling out forms, during which time Hallie was getting progressively better (i.e., the Tylenol was kicking in). I asked how long the wait was, and they told me there were two people ahead of us and two people in the back, so she didn’t know but it could be a couple of hours. That was great news. When I finished with the forms, Hallie was dancing around the waiting room and telling me she wanted snack, and then proceeded to eat a bag of grapes, a bag of veggie straws and a bag of Trader Joe’s rocket ship cheese crackers.
After a few minutes of waiting, a woman came in with a kid that was probably 5 or 6 years old and was crying inconsolably. Actually, I don’t know if she was consolable, because the mother didn’t seem to be trying very hard to console her. Eventually she cried so much that they had to bring her a bucket to, well, use your imagination, all over the floor. Hallie was fascinated and kept asking me why the girl was crying. I told her it wasn’t nice to stare, so she put her head on my shoulder so I couldn’t see where she was looking and then told me she wasn’t watching, “I’m just lookin’ out the window.”
After at least an hour they finally called us in. Fever was still 100 (on Tylenol). They checked her and then did a strep test and a flu test. After waiting a while longer they came back to say it was strep! Yay! This was actually great news, because it meant we could have a real diagnosis and medication that could (hopefully) wipe it out quickly.
We left with our prescription and a sheet that had a summary of her visit and quickly ran to the nearby CVS. It was a very nice CVS and already decked out for Christmas. Just like the Cedarhurst CVS, there was a life-sized Santa Clause statue greeting you at the entrance to each aisle. There was also one short wall of Hanukah stuff. Hallie asked, “who’s that man?” and then, “Can I touch him?”
While we were waiting for the prescription to be ready, I decided to look at the other paper they gave me. That’s when I noticed that it said “RAPID STREP TEST: NEGATIVE.” What??? I called up the urgent care and asked them, ‘what the hell?’ (but in slightly nicer words, although not a nicer tone) and was informed that don’t worry, the test is definitely positive, we just gave you a wrong sheet. Oy.
Finally we were done. We went back to the hotel and met Steph. Hallie was in great spirits, singing along to Taylor Swift the whole way back.
Steph: I don’t really have much to say. My flight was uneventful, aside from the fact that I kept getting texts from Tzvi. I think he was about one incident away from divorcing me. We landed at about 5. I got my luggage and got an Uber, and then my Uber driver started talking to me, which is always lovely. He asked if I was here for the Burger King convention (I’m not) and then told me that EPCOT is going to be really crowded tomorrow because it’s the last day of the Food and Wine Festival, and there are a lot of conventions. He also told me that he’s 45, has a son at Harvard Medical School, the wife is a nurse, and has a 3 year old grandson who was an accident. We finally made it to Vistana, where I had to go to the lobby because the woman wouldn’t let me into the area where my room is without a key, and my parents went shopping (and Tzvi was at Urgent Care). I had to then take a shuttle from the lobby to my room. I then had 5 minutes of quiet to unpack. Then everyone arrived. I told the three of them to go eat and I would deal with Hallie.
Tzvi: We left and went about five minutes down the road to the Macaroni Grill. It was pretty empty, I guess because most people, you know, come here to go to Disney World. Somehow it still took a little while for someone to come over and serve us. It was a wait, but it wasn’t really that long (at least no worse than standard kosher restaurant service). When the waitress finally came over she said, “Has no one helped you yet? I’ve been watching you guys for a little bit and I saw that you were waiting.” Huh??? She said she’d be right back, and then the manager came over to sincerely apologize and offer us a free appetizer. Yes please. We chose the crispy brussells sprouts. He ran off and came back two minutes later with a plate of crispy brussells sprouts, which was great, although we still hadn’t had our order taken. I ordered the ratatouille with polenta (yes, an odd choice, but we have reservations at three more Italian restaurants this week (and they’re all probably better) so I’m saving up my pasta and eggplant parm for those). My meal also came with unlimited side salads, so I ordered two Caesar salads. I also had lots of bread, which was pretty good.
Lisa had cheese stuffed tortellini and Sheldon had a cheese pizza. For a good ten minutes all I heard was, “the tortellini is only 500 calories, how many points is that?”
“Hold on, let me check my app. Oh that’s only 11 points. The pizza is 1000 calories, that’s 30 points! How is that possible?”
“How can the tortellini only be 500 calories? How is that possible?”
“How can the pizza be 30 points! That’s crazy!”
“I’m going to get the tortellini. It’s only 11 points.”
Meanwhile, I ate a lot of bread.
Finally we were done and went back to the hotel.
Above: the food we brought home for Steph.
Below: Finally, some peace and quiet.
