erika, yikes! I'm glad you're ok.

Because I have a rash that covers my entire body.

Oh, no. That sounds miserable, as does the lingering French souvenir.

the lingering French souvenir.

OK, did anyone else go to a social disease euphemism place?

amyth, speaking from itchy experience, take 2 benadryl at bedtime (you can take 1-2 benadryl every 4-6 hours, really), claritin or zyrtec twice a day, and 10-mg pepcid twice a day.

(I, too, am allergic to sulfa drugs, although my itch advice comes from my current situation, which I am now 99% certain is an overdose-type reaction to vitamin D, although the amount I took [2,000 IU/day] is within the recommended range. All bodies are different, mine more than most, apparently.)

Not just you, Connie.

Oh, man, the itch when I went allergic to sulfa was horrible. It was just one spot on my shoulder, and I noticed it right away and stopped the drug ASAP (Mother's allergic to it, and when she stopped being able to handle it, she'd mentioned about a third of people will become allergic to it, so I was on the lookout that time around), but wow, it hurt, and wow, it took forever to heal.

Can't find your post about your fall, erika, but I hope you're feeling better (and that you got checked for concussion etc). Falls are nasty.

So The Girl has flown back to Israel to be with her family (her dad doesn't have much time left) and I'm very selfishly feeling lonely about being alone for the next few weeks and not having her around for the holidays. Ah well. Catching up with Castle. Need some new shows too. I hear Community is good.

Thanks all! Ah, yes, my lingering French souvenir! Luckily, it was a wonderful trip all around.

Tep, my doctor told me to take Zyrtec and Pepcid, so I'm on it, but thanks! I hope, hope, hope, that this doesn't last a really long time. I'm glad it's winter and I can cover most of it with clothes.

Seska! Much ~ma for The Girl and her whole family.

Okay, I just need to make a small grumble: Tim went over to his dad's the morning with the explicit plan to help him decorate for Christmas. I told him I would join them after lunch to help. They're both annoyingly meticulous and picky and sloooooooooooow as hell, and I prepared myself for that (I am gradually getting used to it, even as my preference is to aim a tinsel cannon at the tree and be done with it).

So I call Tim just now to tell him I'm leaving, and ask if they needed anything. He says, "Make sure you dress warmly, so you can use the leaf-blower."

Alas, it's not a tinsel cannon; Tim's dad decided that even though it's 25 degrees out (for real; I'm not being hyperbolic because I'm a lazy bitch), he wants to get all the rest of the (FROZEN) leaves off the ground.

I didn't sign up for leaf-blowing in 25-degree weather, and I am a little bit pissed. But I am going anyway.

And I am going to invoke the quid pro quo rule (which I try not to do, because relationships are not meant to be bank-balance transactions where there is always equal and commensurate give-and-take), because he is going to godamn OWE ME for this.

Seriously, yo. It is TWENTY-FIVE goddamn degrees out there. I thought I would be hanging ornaments on a tree inside, where there is central heat.

t edit Perhaps this is steroid rage kicking in. I own that. But it's FUCKING COLD.