Spring Flowers

Dana is on Spring Break this week so we went for a quick trip to King's Nursery to check out the flamboyantly spring flowers. It is a spectacularly blooming place this time of year.There were too many choose just one so I made a bouquet....

Florrie, my neighbor down the road came for lunch today. She is probably in her 80's and her husband had a stroke just before we moved here.He is in a wheelchair, and a a lot of the household management, not to mention all the driving.  I worry about them, but I enjoyed hearing her stories of life on Wildwood Trail.

Back then,  every family on the street had young children and almost all of them were boys who played in the creek, met  by the tree I have referred to in this journal as the 'gnarly' oak tree for the school bus, roamed the hills and climbed the rocky outcropping above us which has a name, but she couldn't remember it. 

OilMan had a similar upbringing...Florrie referred to it as 'benign neglect'.  He says he can remember leaving the house in the morning and roaming around the hills of rural San Rafael with his buddies. Nobody worried about where they were and they always got home by dark...until they were teenagers anyway...all bets were off then.

I finally broke down and called the dermatologist this morning, when I decided I couldn't watch this rash take over my face, ankles ,wrists and hands with any degree of calmness. They allowed as how they could fit me in on April 9th! I don't think I can repeat here what I had to say to that. Suffice it to say I  told them it was unacceptable. She apologized and suggested I call my primary care doctor who was able to fit me in this afternoon. She isn't convinced it is poison oak but agrees that it is certainly an allergic reaction to something and that it is treated the same way as poison oak, with prednisone. I have already washed my clothing, the bedding and the dog (OilMan did that) and will probably never know what caused this, but I'm still inclined to think that it is poison oak.