I don't know if you've heard about swine flu...

So, I don't know if you've heard about swine flu, but I fully hyperventilated last Monday when that was all NPR would cover. (Luckily, the frenzy has calmed down a bit since then). All the scenes from every apocalyptic movie or book played itself through my mind. I pictured me and my family huddled in gray blankets with dirt on our faces, eating wheat gruel with our hands. I have since tried to be more optimistic but I know I'm not the only one who freaked out.

Wednesday was Athena's choir dress rehearsal, and between being squished on the risers, the heat from her classmates, and not having eaten since lunch, Athena began to feel woozy. She went to sit down.

"I feel hot and dizzy," she said.

So of course, they called the principal down. She escorted Athena to the nurses station where she was told to lie down and then they called me to pick her up. They didn't want to put her on the bus "because, well, you know...". OK honestly, I thought it was because they didn't want her to faint on the bus, but when I got to the school, the secretary confessed that she hadn't taken Athena's temperature or anything, hadn't even felt her forehead. Then she repeated, "We didn't want to put her on the bus, because, well, you know...". Then she ripped the paper sheet Athena had been lying on and threw it in the trash.

And then it hit me, she thought Athena was sick. With swine flu.

O.K. I admit, I took her temperature as soon as she got home (97.5*). But still--don't tell me there hasn't been a girl that faints at EVERY choir rehearsal known to man.

Luckily, the actual performance went off without any fainting or drama.

Athena certainly performs without any self-consciousness. She belts out the numbers with exuberance, and when they are supposed to move to the music, she dances around without any of the inhibition or exhibition usually found in the age group--she is just having a good time.

When I complimented her on her performance she told me, "Well, I want to go to Broadway."

This Athena doing her speaking part.