Dear Kid,

In case you haven’t been paying attention, I have poison ivy. On my face.

Dear Mom,

My poison ivy is getting much better. No need to worry. Really.

Love, Me

It is not the Most Fun Thing I’ve Ever Done. Thank heavens for prednisone. To be fair, it’s not the worst, but it definitely ranks among Things I’d Prefer Not To Do Again.

In case you were contemplating something involving our three-leaf friend, I’ve put together a list of 10 reasons to change your mind. I’m just that kind of a mom.

10 Reasons Not to Play with Poison Ivy

1. It itches. A lot.
2. Poison ivy bumps and blisters are not attractive. To anyone.
3. Batman will come after you.
4. Urushiol, which is the oil in poison ivy that causes all those lovely bumps and blisters, is extremely stable and can stay active for years. Many years.
5. Airborne poison ivy is extremely dangerous (it doesn’t exactly fly, but can go through the air with the greatest of ease with a little help from a lawn mower, weed wacker, or just from falling vines).
6. 50% of the urushiol that hits your skin will be absorbed in 10 minutes.
7. Once urushiol is absorbed into your skin, you can wash all you like but it won’t help at all.
8. Some people don’t have a reaction to poison ivy; you’re probably not one of them.
9. People who know how to do it correctly can harvest the sap from poison ivy and turn it into a beautiful lacquer finishing agent. You’re not one of those people either.
10. It itches. A lot. A whole lot.

Love, Mom

Just in case you missed the beginning…

Poison Ivy (Part I) | More Than a Batman Character

Poison Ivy (Part II) Take Your Face to Work Day

Dear Kid,

I took my poison ivied face to work yesterday.

CoWorker 1: What the…
CoWorker 2: Shut up
CoWorker 1: But did you see her face?
CoWorker 2: She has poison ivy. You knew that. Shut. Up.
CoWorker 1: It looks like her face is falling off.
CoWorker 2: You’re on your own. I warned you.

CoWorker 3: We should take photos
Me: No
CoWorker 3: Seriously. We could probably sell them to National Geographic
Me: I can and will kill you
CoWorker 3: They’ve probably never seen anything like this before
Me: I can and will break your camera equipment
CoWorker 3: Just lift your chin a little. That is your chin, isn’t it?
Me: Grrrr
CoWorker 3: She gets nasty when she has poison ivy

CoWorker 4: You definitely look worse than yesterday
CoWorker 5: I feel bad for you
CoWorker 4: You really look worse than yesterday
CoWorker 6: I think she can turn people to stone with that stare
CoWorker 2: I’m telling you. It’s time for a new subject

CoWorker 1: We’re going to have to change the presentation
CoWorker 5: Really? I think it’s fine
CoWorker 1: The presentation itself is fine
CoWorker 5: So What’s the problem?
CoWorker 1: Well, we can’t let her present. She’ll scare people away!
CoWorker 5: That’s true. I feel bad, but it’s true.

CoWorker 1: Don’t mention the poison ivy
CoWorker 7: What poison ivy?
CoWorker 1: On her face. Don’t mention it. We’re not talking about it
CoWorker 7: You have poison ivy?
Me: Yes
CoWorker 7: I’ve been talking to you for an hour. I didn’t notice
CoWorker 3: You didn’t notice? How could you not notice?
Me: I’m not sure which is worse, the noticing or the not noticing

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I, your mother, have poison ivy.

On my face.

On. My. Face.

It is not the Worst Case of Poison Ivy Ever. I know this because My Friend the Internet kindly provided photos of some of the Worst Cases and they are Not attractive. At all.

So far, no one has run screaming from my face. At least, not more than usual.

Still, I am not going to include a photo of my face because A. I don’t like having my photo taken in the best of times and B. This is not the Best of Times.

Also, I am too busy to take a photo. I am busy trying Not To Scratch and there are lots of things in the world that are easier–like not thinking about pink buffalo (made you think about them).

Here’s what happened. I was weeding (as I told you). The puppy was napping in the sun.

Dad: Want gloves?
Me: Go away
Dad: Okey Dokey

Dad: You’re getting munched by mosquitoes
Me: Go away
Dad: Okey Dokey

Me: This vine I just pulled out kinda looks like poison ivy
Me: But it has 5 leaves over there
Me: The rest of it has 3 leaves. In an alternating pattern
Me: But there are 5 leaves over there so it CAN’T be poison ivy
Me: I’ll wash my hands really carefully anyway

So you can see that it is obviously Dad’s fault.

When you have P.I. on your face you put the goopy anti-itch stuff on your face. Which then dries and feels good. And then starts to crack and peel which doesn’t feel good and looks like your face is falling off. Again, not attractive.

I itch. Which is making me grumpy. Clearly Dad’s fault.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Dad has grown a bumper crop of zucchini this year. And by “bumper crop” I mean the zucchinis are big enough to be used as bumpers for Jeeps.

Faced with a giant number of giant-sized zucchini, I decided to make zucchini bread.

The good news is that the kitchen is still intact and even (mostly) cleaned up.

Also, the zucchini bread tastes good (even if it doesn’t taste overly zucchini-ed).

Being the kind of mom I am, I decided to share my methodology.

First look up a zucchini bread recipe. My Friend the Internet was happy to provide several options, and after considering the options for .000012 of a second I chose the first one that popped up.

I am so predictable.

I then proceeded and continued (extra points if you get the reference) to collect the ingredients. I decided to make two loaves (did I mention the jumbo sized zucchinis?) so I doubled everything.

Six cups of flour is a fair amount of flour, and it seems like even more when you sift it and occasionally miss the bowl. Once again, the Puppy (who was hovering hopefully) turned slightly whiter than usual. The baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon all made it into the bowl.

Then I mixed six eggs with 2 cups of oil (holy cow that’s a lot of oil) and some sugar while we held a group discussion about whether or not to include walnuts (no nuts, final answer).

As I added the dry ingredients, I glanced at the recipe.

And realized the original recipe was for two loaves, so I was making enough for four.

Oh.

I only own two loaf pans.

Ignore reality and continue.

The batter, however, didn’t ignore reality and it became pretty obvious that we were about to run out of space in the mixer.

Which meant we had partly mixed batter in one bowl, flour in another bowl, shredded zucchini pretty much everywhere, and I needed a plan to somehow convince everything to come together without exploding the mixer.

I tried talking to the batter. “Stay down. Stay. Down!” The batter ignored me and continued to climb the beaters.

I tried teeny bursts of power. The batter climbed in teeny bursts.

I gave up and stirred all ingredients in by hand.

I looked at the loaf pans, then at the batter. “You will fit. You WILL fit.”

Turns out I had larger than usual loaf pans. The loaves baked up and over but didn’t cause an oven disaster. An hour or so later, we had two HUGE zucchini breads. Another super yummy kitchen mess.

And with all that, we still had half a zucchini left over.

Did I mention the size of the zuchs?

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The English Language. It may not be perfect (ever think about the way the word “cough” is spelled?), it may be a little confusing (your, you’re, ur), but it’s ours.

Oh, English, English, English.

In a new comic,  Maria Scrivan shows four words that have taken on new meaning. The first is green which at one time referred to the color and now means environmentally friendly. I’ll leave it to you to click through to see the rest (my prediction is you’ll like the fourth one the best—let me know).

In other news, today is unofficially Take Your Gun to Starbucks Day. I kid you not. Go elsewhere for caffeine.

We didn’t watch the Persied Meteor Shower this weekend (at least this part of the ‘we’ didn’t—can’t swear that no one got up to view it). As expected, the inconvenient time (when will Mother Nature learn to check our schedules before planning a big event?) and the jam packed weekend meant we were more interested in the inside of our eyelids than the outside of the heavens. I have it on great authority that if you were somewhere without cloud cover (and you were looking in the right place), it was quite a glorious site. If you are so inclined, there are several more crazy early morning watchings available.

We also didn’t build a retaining wall this weekend. Turns out that Dad and I had a misunderstanding of what the wall was supposed to do. When he understood what I thought he meant (follow that?), he clarified. When I understood what he meant, I vetoed. No wall right now. But he and Pi did an excellent job pouring cement around the sewer drain to try to put a stop to the erosion problem. Even without a Blue Ox, Paul Bunyan did a Most Excellent Job of starting the planting bed for the Great Iris Expansion.

We did a fair amount of weeding yesterday. Booker spent most of the time basking in the sun. Note to self: Teach puppy to identify weeds and dig them up. Response to note to self: Ha!

There is an upside-down glass on the floor in our kitchen. This—as you well know—is the international signal for There Is A Bug Trapped Here That We Intend To Release Into The Wild But Has A 50/50 Chance of Dying Before We Get Around To It. Remember the saying in Animal Farm: Four legs good, two legs better? My version is: Four legs good, more legs outside. As in, Wildlife Belongs In the Wild Not In My Kitchen. Booker was no help at all. When the spider went scurrying across the floor he stared at me hopefully. I’m guessing the hopeful was for food and not permission to play with the spider since I was shrieking “Where is the spider??? Booker, get the spider!!!!” at the time.

Hope your (not you’re or ur) day is filled with the appropriate number of legs.

Love, Mom