Poisoned! — and Annoyed

OK, so no one slipped me any arsenic or cyanide or anthrax — a word which, every time I hear it, makes me want to yell, “ANTHRAX!” in the same voice as that duck that hollers, “AFLAC!”

However, somehow, for the first time in my life, I have managed to get poison ivy. Or poison oak. Or perhaps even poison sumac. Almost every source I look up on the Internet has the three plants/afflictions listed together, and everyone I have talked to says I have poison ivy. Which, to me, seems to be the least exotic of the three, yet I am sure it is every bit as irritating and annoying.

(And at least 100 times more annoying than having a post almost finished before reading the “Internet Explorer is not responding, blah blah blah” message on my screen and realizing that I have no choice but to start all over again.)

: (

Yes, I have poison ivy. No idea exactly when or where I got it. I do know I have a patch of what I believe to be poison ivy growing in my back yard, but it’s not as if I go wading through it on a regular basis ... or ever, for that matter. And who knows what’s growing on the various trees around here? Yet, again, I don’t exactly go around touching any of those plants or anything. Except maybe when I’m taking a picture of something, which probably accounts for why those not-so-mysterious little bumps appeared on my left arm earlier this week.

I had hives, once, when I was in fifth or sixth grade. The big, raised, splotchy kind (unlike the smaller, patchy, rashy kind) that just appeared, outta nowhere, on my thighs and stomach. And they itched like CRAZY! Because we didn’t know what caused them, though, and since I could NOT stop scratching, my mom told me to go lie down and take a nap. Which I did (hey, who am I to refuse a nap?!), and when I awoke an hour or so later, they were gone. Never to reappear.

I thought I had poison ivy, once, on top of a couple of my toes. This, however, was back in the days when I occasionally paraded around semi-nude along with the rest of my high school P.E. class members, so it just as easily and most probably was a very minor case of athlete’s foot. Again, thankfully, never to reappear.

Here’s what the Easter Bunny left me (she’s so smart!) :

BTW: I took that picture with my camera phone, and I am SO pleased with how it turned out!

And now the Benadryl is kicking in, so ...