Bornfamous

It was the Christmas tree. After four days of pounding headaches and vomiting, and longer still of just feeling sick, I finally remembered what Barb Rubin said when I told her we got one:

“Are you crazy? Christmas trees are loaded with pesticides! It’ll kill you!”

I didn’t listen, of course, because it was my roomate’s tree and it means so much to her to do Christmas right. Not that we haven’t had trees before, but the last few years we’ve had an artificial tree. I got rid of it last year when I noticed that the flame retardant chemicals bothered me as I packed it up. I wound up sick for days, actually.

I did insist that this year’s real tree be put up on the balcony. It looked pretty pathetic out there, especially after it rained the first night and matted all the tinsel, but roomie’s 7yo daughter Mesha was happy and that seemed to be the important thing.

So, today as I lay in agony for the fourth day, wondering if life would ever be worth living again, I remembered what Barb said. I got up and asked roomie to take down the decorations. Mesha had a minor snit fit, of course, to which I explained that Christmas trees are “supposed” to come down on New Year’s Day and this was New Year’s Day. No room for argument given. She stopped fussing.

I asked my son to throw the tree off the balcony and put it in the farthest corner of the parking lot. We are required to haul our own trees away, but without a car I don’t know how we’ll do that. Maybe Mesha’s dad, who brought it here in the first place, will take it away when he comes to get her [yay!] on Saturday. I hope our building manager doesn’t get in a huff about it before then.

Anyway, within an hour I was feeling better, and as of this writing, my headache is completely gone! I managed to eat a ham sandwich just now and I think I’ll be able to keep it down. What a relief!