The case of the disappearing snake and other

I now know why cat doors are not a good idea.  Humphrey was so proud of himself.  He even brought his find in and laid it in my hall outside my door.  I quickly took a couple pictures and went on to my dental appointment figuring that I would have a disposal job when I got home.

If you looked at this title, you guessed it.  The snake is no where to be found.  I really don't think it was alive so the only thing that could have happened is that one of the cats decided to hide it for later.  Either way, I'm likely to have a dead or dying snake decomposing somewhere in my house.  I can't hope that Humphrey or Napoleon would be so kind as to take it outdoors after Humphrey went to all the effort to bring it in.

My next dental appointment is in August, after I get back from my cross-country motorcycle ride and Alaska RV trek, Roadtrek that is.

I guess I'm going down to Pasadena for a job interview in about 10 days.  It sounds like the kind of job that will fit into my lifestyle very well but I'll write more about it when (and if) it happens.

My Toastmaster speech contest is tomorrow.  I still need to complete its memorization, which may now need to be done tomorrow morning.

I'm now taking Benadryl for my poison oak outbreak.  The tablets appear to be working much better than topical Caladryl.  But then again, the Caladryl is at least eight years old.  I couldn't find an expiration date on the bottle.  There may have been one on the box it came in but that box is at least eight years gone.

I'm liking spring, so far.  It's nice to go out without so many layers that I feel like a penguin.

The Two Worse Things about Poison Oak...

The two worse things about Poison Oak beyond the fact that I'm allergic to its oils to begin with are:

The sympathetic itches I get in places that I should be able to relieve by scratching but don't because it may just be another outbreak of a Poison Oak allergic reaction.  I really don't know if these non-Poison Oak itches are normal and being normal only rise to my consciousness when I have Poison Oak, or are additional itches that are a mental side effect of having Poison Oak.  If normal, then I do a lot of scratching that I'm not "normally" aware of.

The second is where I get the Poison Oak outbreaks.  They are generally where I would normally have something rubbing, like my jeans on my thigh, or the cuff of my sleeve on the back of my hand.  Although, the more I think about that outbreak's placement, it makes me think that one of my cat guests, Napoleon, may have created the outbreak.  I don't know whether or not he got the Poison Oak oils on his claws from his own expeditions or from something I brought in but it is right where he was kneading my leg.

Then there are a number of inconveniences that come with Poison Oak that are not technically worse but are bad enough.  Caladryl is a messy medicine for Poison Oak and takes forever to dry.  This would not be bad in itself but I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow when I need to "dress up" a little better than my normal jeans.  Taking forever to dry in a house in the 60's is also an interesting experience, but I won't go into that.

I'm also more conscious of where I put my fingers, not that I can change very much of it.  I find I swap out my reading glasses for sunglasses far to often with the threat of Poison Oak oils around.  I've read stories that off road vehicles driven through patches of Poison Oak can infect people sensitive to it for as much as a year later.  With all the hiking I've been doing, just how much oil is on my hiking boots or tennis shoes.  Oh well, at least the hiking boots are due for a replacement.  But if they have oils on them, I've also worn them around the house.  Are there oil deposits in my house?

Arrgh!  Even in a positive frame of mind, I can't think of a single good thing about Poison Oak and that's really bad.

The Big Change (in me)

I woke up this morning and realized that somewhat unconsciously during the night I had scratched the small patch of poison oak on my left hand.  I immediately put some Cortaid on the patch and covered it with a band-aid.

In times past, this would have gotten me out of doing dishes and someone else would have stepped in to take my turn.  Even last year, I would have just postponed doing dishes.  But now, with my dishwasher unusable because I have yet to fix the drain and my attempts to keep the number of dishes done within what my larger draining rack will hold, I find that instead of easily figuring out how to avoid work, or at least postponing it, I am figuring out how to get it done anyway.

This is a big change.  The other way came almost automatically for many years.  Now, that there is only me to be disappointed in my progress, or more accurately, to make progress, I have to step up regardless of my readiness and find a way.  For the dishes, the way is really rather simple:  I have a lot of latex disposable gloves that certainly can keep the band-aid dry, as long as I don't bury my arm in water.

Since I had already decided that today was going to be a domestic day, the rain/fog drizzle outside just reinforces the wisdom of my plans.  Finding alternative ways to make my plans work, according to plan, is gravy.  Umm, maybe I can make some Punk Rock Chickpea gravy today.  That stuff is delicious.