I’ve needed to go grocery shopping all week, but owing to the non-stop sneezing, the wheezing, the utter lack of energy, and the persistent skin itching caused by excessive cedar pollen levels, I have not felt much like leaving the house for any reason whosoever. I’d already determined this morning I was going to put it off today again, since it’s pizza day and I don’t really need any foodstuffs, but alas … we are now officially out of toilet paper and kitty litter. I guess as soon as my cell phone has charged up and the sun is fully over the horizon so it’s warm enough to put my seedlings outside, I’ll be dragging my itchy-sneezy-wheezy self to the store.

Someone asked me the other day about getting itchy skin from Cedar Fever, because they’d never heard of that before. Well, some people do, and I am one of those unfortunate few. Not all the time, but when the pollen count get as high as it has been recently (ridiculously high, let me tell you), and my body gets overloaded, this eventually leads to itchy skin. I’m pretty good about not scratching, but sometimes I do just lose my mind and scratch away. If you have never itched all over for no visible reason, such as bug bites or a rash, I’m going to tell you, you cannot imagine how horrible it is. There isn’t any one spot that itches. There’s no rash or anything to point at and say “that, right there, itches.” It’s just an all over itch that will not stop. I’ll be picking up some Benadryl today. I hate taking the stuff, because it totally puts my mind into a spaced-out zone, but I’m at the point now with the itching that being mindless and not itching sounds like an OK thing to me.

Well, better go get dressed, make a shopping list, call Mom for a few minutes, and then get the stupid shopping done. Then I can come home, take a pill, plop on the couch, and do some knitting or some other mindless activity like pray for rain. If it would just rain — a nice long and slow rain — the air would be cleared of this pollen scourge, and I might start feeling better. Besides, we really need the rain. It’s been way too dry around here, another thing that is not helping with the ITCHING!

Did I mention I itch … all over? ARGH! I freaking hate cedar trees.