Our Summer: Ticks and Poison Ivy and Unicorns

Okay, that last one was just to throw you off the scent. I could've also titled this "The First Time in Our Marriage I Ever Saw Adam Really Freak Out."

At Casa Murphy, as I was sleeping all day all day all day to throw off the MYSTERIOUS AILMENT, Adam decided to go on a mission to befriend Blake's slightly neurotic dog, Balkie. Balkie is a dog who is all bark and no bite, and when barking won't work for him, will resort to peeing in self-defense when you get too close to his kennel. Adam, dear gentle soul that he is, spent the good part of 45 minutes in Balkie's cage just sitting there and speaking calming words to him before the incontinence let up enough that Adam was satisfied that it was time to take Balkie on a rousing little outing.

They took a stroll down the road for probably a half mile or more, Balkie sniffing around at his surroundings and nosing under sticks and what-all, but never stopping the strain on the leash or throwing the occasional wild-eyed glance in Adam's direction. So much for earning the dog's trust, but Bethany assures us that Balkie only stops barking/peeing wildly for Blake and Blake alone.

Adam came back from the walkie with Balkie and came upstairs to check on me and tell this invalid how the world looked outside. He sat on the side of the bed and we chatted for a while, then he swung one leg up to rest his ankle on the top of his other knee. His pant leg slid up a bit to expose a tick on his leg, a ridiculous filthy bloodsucking tick who was too busy burying his head in my husband's flesh to bother to give us a proper hello.

Adam went downstairs in a hurry to ask Blake how to get rid of it. They tried everything in the Anecdotal Tick Slaying Manual: suffocation (oil), burning (matches and then a lighter, which I think are both gutsy for a man with leg hair), and then Adam finally just got a pair of tweezers and popped out the evil little creature.

He came back upstairs 20 minutes later--I'd fallen back asleep, of course--to tell of his conquest and when he called my name, I turned my sleepy face to him, exposing THE TICK CRAWLING ACROSS MY FACE.

To say Adam freaked out is not strictly true. It was more like he went straight up and scattered into pieces of fear and revulsion. I kept asking him what was wrong in the first few seconds and he flat-out couldn't tell me, he was so busy saying, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh," and swiping at my face with four fingers until he had the beast by the throat, so to speak.

"THIS," he said, squeezing the tick between two fingers and putting it before my eyes. "THIS was on your FACE."

I looked at it, still sweating under the power of the last fever I had had, and thanked him profusely for saving my life (and face).

Being saved from the tick didn't save me from poison ivy, which I'm pretty sure I also contracted at Casa Murphy. The poison ivy (or oak or whatever) is a dreadful sneaky plant because it doesn't just infect your skin. It infects your skin and then just sits there, biding its time for many days before actually breaking into a rash. If you get the poison oil off your skin within the first 24 hours of exposure, you may not actually get a rash. If you don't, you have to just invest in your own bottle of calamine lotion and commit to not touching or even covering that part of your body until the rash goes away.

I spent the last half of our reunion in Florida growing a rash on my left leg that spread to my right before I figured out what it was (thank you, Tess!). I spent our entire visit to Boise with a bottle of CalaJel stashed in my purse, which I would slather on my leg when the itch threatened my sanity. I did really well for several days while the rash deepened and spread, thanks to a trick I read online about turning a blow dryer onto your rash to trick your skin to go from "mad crazy itch" to "burning! burning!" mode.

Ironically, it wasn't until we got back to Arizona that I lost my mind over the itch and spent about two days picking off every scab and itching my leg like a dog with a whole colony of fleas. It was immensely satisfying, and yes, my skin scarred like crazy.

Stay tuned for MYSTERIOUS AILMENT and more reunion stories. I promise they're a-comin'.