i found a website about poison ivy that’s worth reading.  You can link to it here:  EVERYTHING POISON IVY!, and it’s chock full of everything poison ivy.  let me say this – CHOCK FULL.

there are different categories like “from the medicine chest,” “from the cleaning supply cabinet,” and “natural remedies.”  fascinating reading, and it quickly made me realize that my grandmother’s regime of dousing the PI with clorox and scrubbing it with a brush wasn’t so radical after all.

it made me realize there are many people out there who will do ANYTHING AT ALL to get rid of it.  the “cleaning supply cabinet” section had the most varied stuff, including this long and involved process of taking a hot bath with TWO CUPS of bleach added, and scrubbing all the blisters so they’d ooze and it went on and on and on.  other things people swear by include all kinds of dishwashing soap, ammonia, laquer thinner, pine sol, Goo Gone, dial soap and windex.  the windex was, of course, written by somebody who saw the movie “my big fat greek wedding,” and because, if you remember, the woman’s father used windex to cure virtually everything, so the person figured it would also cure the poison ivy.

i showed jim some spots that appeared on my stomach just a couple days ago and he said that’s also poison ivy.  i was wearing a two-piece bathing suit and the top part was like an apron-kind of thing and the PI must have gotten underneath it.  i also got a couple spots on one leg, and jim said if i get any more, i should go get a shot.  but the other spots aren’t super duper itchy like the stuff on my arm that i STILL FEEL THE NEED TO GNAW OFF in the middle of the night.

but this, too, shall pass.  hopefully i’ll still have both arms intact when it’s done.  ok, NO MORE WHINING ABOUT THE POISON IVY. but if you go to that website, i promise you’ll read some weirdly entertaining stuff.

the other night the clouds were incredible, and i took some pictures of them.  first, though, here’s that picture of the CUTE BABY WREN.

cloud close-up.

and after a short while, the sun had set enough so that this is all that was left.  still beautiful, but in a more subtle way.

ok then.

friday morning grace.