A Long Week

It's beginning to be that time of year when I really start to miss fall in the Midwest. I love cozy sweaters and cool, crisp fall weather and watching the leaves on the trees slowly turn to a rainbow of earthy colors. The many colors of fall don't really make an appearance here in southern California, and if they do the sight is always ruined by a stray palm tree here and there. The cool weather, on the other hand, is just now beginning to turn mornings into definite sweater weather. Working at the Villa, I'm outside a lot of the time--especially in the mornings when we organize for school groups--so I've been happy to pull out my sweaters to keep me warm on those cool mornings. It was a very long, quiet week.

As cooler weather arrived this week and more kids pour into the museum, I was reminded I'm doomed to fight a losing battle this season. I work in a public place, and a lot of my audience members are kids. Or, as I like to think of them, repositories of vicious rhinoviruses that are just waiting to take on my immune system as their next challenge. This weekend I had a particularly cute group of four and five-year-olds and their parents for my Art Odyssey family tour. The lesson I was doing with them was mainly based in storytelling about heroes and monsters, so I asked everyone to sit around on the floor in front of the object we were talking about. One of the littlest ones seemed to think I was the greatest thing since sliced bread and curled up in my lap to settle in. Most teachers would have taken this as a positive sign that at least some of her audience was engaged. Instead, my first thought was that I should double my dose of Airborne for the day. These little half-pint museum goers are my cutest and most entertaining audience, but there is danger lurking behind those toothless grins. I fortify my defenses with hand sanitizer, incredibly high doses of vitamin C, and super immunity boosting multi-vitamins, but who knows for sure how much it helps my chances of dodging a bullet? The long winter siege has begun.

Time to plop an Airborne.