Monday

May 7, 2001

shop window (part of the collection from last weekend's walks)--mouse over for a closer look

Work is just a little work and a lot of hoping it will make a difference. People see the possible failures in action, but can easily ignore the pitfall of inaction and delay. People see the flaws in a plan without a plausible one to replace it. The day flew.

SuRu and I had a salad lunch at Whole Foods. Good thing. Because himself fixed me a BLT (I put mayo on it) and when asked I said 'Sure, I could eat a second one.' And a Negro Modelo, too. Not the diet of the weight loss, cholesterol-lowering champions. But very tasty.

Read a bit of the paper while Boston Public and Ally MacBeal played. The papers are winning.

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After work, I stopped by my parents to see what drug the doctor had prescribed for my dad's cough and difficulty breathing. Easier to stop and look than get it over the phone. Augmentin. Hmmm...possible side effects are diarrhea followed by skin rash. That would be a repeat of symptoms he recently overcame! Hopefully, no side effects.

On the home front, steroids have made FFP pretty comfortable, all things considered, with the poison ivy. Heck, he's still cooking for me. I'd be milking it for some TLC if I were him. He asked me to make him a green tea during his TV shows and that was it. He must learn to take advantage of any little illness!!

Our little joke now is that he says Chalow gave it to him by walking through it on walkies and I say...but, but I am the one who takes her, then holds her in my lap on the way home!

ME:
Why are you trying to blame Chalow?

HE:
It says in this stuff I read that dogs can bring the oil in on their fur.

ME:
But since you pulled weeds and trees on Thursday and I refused to do much in the yard, don't you think you probably got it in the yard?

HE:
Chalow...why did you want to give your dad poison ivy?

[All laugh. Chalow, too, but she's always laughing.]

Whenever I get it poison ivy, I think it is everywhere, lurking waiting to reinfect me. Some say you can't spread it on yourself...that wherever the oil touched and spread initially is your fate, thatt you can't get it from other people, that the oil only stays effective on other things for a short time. Others say the oil hangs around on clothes and shoes for weeks. My experience, though, is you contact the plant, 48-72 hours later the episode becomes defined over a period of a day or so (skin involved mostly identified with rash and blisters although light patches of rash may show up later elsewhere) and two or three weeks later you are done with it all together. Except that the affected skin is sort of sensitive forever to heat and stuff.

Last year I think I proved that a cold shower is a good way to limit the effects if you notice the plant soon enough and can rinse away the oil before many minutes have passed. (My neck was either the first or only place I got it or I didn't wash my neck well enough!) In any case, poison ivy seems to be a blame sport. We seem to be more accepting of just randomly catching the flu or a cold. Or getting cancer. We all seem to think that we should be able to avoid poison ivy. Rash as a sign of weakness. I've seen this skin as a blame sport before in cases of acne and psoraisis. If you can see it, you should be able to fix it, is, I guess, that's reasoning that we have. Stupid.

Excuse me while I go look for some pine tar cream for this little psoraisis buddy in the middle of my forehead! How unprofessional.

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