I is for Incredibly Itchy. Ohh, I am so itchy and I just can’t stop myself from digging my nails into the itchyness. I’m trying not to take Benedryl today because it makes me so sleepy/dopey.

The big hubbub of the day is Google Talk. Lots of people here at work have tried it out and no one seems that impressed. It’s about as flashy as any other IM client circa 1999. C’mon, Google, you can do better than this.

My arm isn’t itching too badly but my stomach feels like it’s burning under my tshirt. Better than a flesh eating disease, though! I was glad to cancel the appointment I had today with an Infectious Disease specialist. Too bad I was too stupid to go to a dermatologist last week. I have to go pick up a prescription topical after work; for now I’m relying on Benedryl to get me through. Between that and the fact I haven’t slept much in a week, productivity is not high today.

Last week was most interesting. I truly hope that this week does not follow the same course. I am so itchy and my arm looks positively disgusting but I feel much better, as we finally have an idea of what might be causing it. Thanks to the internet, our latest theory is poison ivy/oak/sumac. This makes more sense than my previous guess: bug bite gone awry, but is disconcerting since that means it’s out there in my yard. I’m going to storm my dermatologist’s office tomorrow morning and hopefully he can get to the bottom of this. So far, I think I’ve done everything wrong. What a painful, itchy mess.

Today was one of those days in which I wish I’d had some formal management training.
However, I’m not going to talk about work when I can talk about much more interesting things. Like …
I’m terribly sunburned and the pain is starting to dissuade into pure itchiness. I’m having trouble deciding which I prefer. We’re doing yearly reviews at work now and there’s one section of the form that asks something like “freely admits mistakes”. Yeah. I freely admit that I’m a crazy idiot for not wearing sunscreen at the beach on Saturday. I was wearing a halter bikini top so I’m uncomfortable pretty much everywhere. Brilliant.

Garden status: prolific. We picked 5 jumbo cukes yesterday and sent them home with Jeremie’s cousins. Today I started dreaming of fatoosh salad around 2p but was convinced that I wouldn’t have any cucumbers for it. When I went out to the garden to check, I found 5 more cucumbers. This little plot of land is crazy. I picked 5 good sized tomatoes and a bunch of plum tomatoes as well. Fatoosh was had by all. I followed the recipe in Joan Nathan’s Foods of Israel, except I left out the pita bread. So I suppose it wasn’t very fatooshy fatoosh, but it was great nonetheless.

I am tired but not particularly in the mood for sleep. It’s opposite day.