a total panic moment this morning. visions of being quarantined, if not evicted from miami. earlier this week kiki and leila had a TB screening shot for school. if within 48 hours there was a welt on their arm I’d have to let the doctor know. after 48 there was no welt. just designer fiberglass burn – as far as i know not contagious – and i did not check again. until this morning i noticed a red welt on kiki’s arm. what’s that? its from the shot that nurse gave me. show me. it was worse on friday, she said. why did you not tell me? i thought it was supposed to do that. what about leila? hers was merely a slight discoloring. i went into denial. if i don’t tell anyone no one will ever know. its nothing. just look at them. they glow with health. lets go to the pool. but. the responsible mother voice said. what if.  i wished alastair were here. he would look at it and. and what. well at least we could look at it together. i called him. kiki tested positive to the TB test i blurted out. your kiddin’. well she’s got a welty rash. and on the internet it says she’s been exposed. it also says thats she’ll have at least six months of heavy antibiotics or possibly chemo. how did she even get it? we guessed at all the friends that could have given her the  bacteria (turns out we’re quite bigoted when faced with a dreadful disease). let me call AE alastair said. he’s the best radiologist in miami. i went on google. i looked at rashes and compared them by holding kiki’s arm against the screen. will i have to go to school tomorrow? have you been scratching this? no, well, only when we had the rash from the chair. AE called me. not to worry he said. false positives happen all the time. if the skin test is indeed positive then they’ll need a chest x ray and only 1% of those is ever positive. don’t panic he said. i love your blog he said. and welcome to miami and call the doctor. it’ll be fine he said. i called the pediatrics weekend number. how can we be sure the rash they have is from the TB shot? the nurse said before putting me on hold for five minutes, leaving me with her illogical logic. she came back on the phone, call us tomorrow to schedule a new test. phew. just another test to eliminate the side effects of our fiberglass chairs, while all along I’d feared instant action, beach-wide health warnings and being barred from school. the remote chance of the TB bacteria is clearly not anthrax. and. it turned out that the garden crepe at IHOP was surprisingly delicious but IKEA a predictable nightmare. over crowded. not a thing in stock that the website quoted as a green item at my nearest store. beefy but ignorant staff. couldn’t fit everything in the car. kiki ended up wedged between two mattresses, which, i told myself was safer than a seatbelt. and worst of all. very worst of all. there are now five chairs in the garage waiting to be assembled.