Getting Into Stuff

I tend to get into stuff!

For example, I'm the only person I know who has had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.  How did that happen?  I was about 30 years old, had a friend visiting from Louisiana and we went hiking in West Virginia.  At some point, I looked down and saw I had quite a few ticks on me.  This was long before Lyme Disease had been discovered and we didn't know ticks should be feared.  But ten day later I had a fever of 104 that couldn't be broken and the doctors pronounced that I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Before that it was chiggers.  It was 76 or 77, and I was on a bus to downtown Baltimore when I started itching.  When I got to work, they sent me right to Personnel who sent me right to the doctor.  Turns out I wasn't contagious, but I sure was miserable.  At the time, they thought chiggers would burrow into the skin and the doctor prescribed painting nail polish on each bite.  It didn't help!

About 20 years ago, my husband and I purchased a small home in the Finger Lakes of New York.  I was between jobs --- no actually I was between careers -- and had time on my hands to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I think best when I'm working hard and so I started clearing a part of the property that was overgrown with weeds and vines.  Much to my surprise, many of those vines were poison ivy vines and I had gone as far as to craft wreaths from them.  In the past, poison ivy had not even caused a rash on me, but in this case my entire face swelled up.  That evening, as I greeted my husband as he got home from work, his endearing words were, "You look like an alien."

This time it is mosquitoes.   I got the bright idea the other night to run over to Assateague Island to experiment with a new tripod and shoot the sunset.  As soon as I got out of the car, my legs were covered with little bugs.  I continued on even though I discovered I didn't have any repellent with me.   And so as I sit here and type this I have 47 little red bumps, just around one of my knees and they itch like hell.  But I also have a few sunset photos to share with you.  And the memory of a great evening out in nature.