The State of Sue

Maya after her first bath


The State of Sue is surrounded by construction . Our quiet street has turned into I-94 as cars avoid the 2 of 3 main gateways to the city snarled by projects. The Art Fairs start next week so it will be impossible to drive anywhere then. Even my 'scenic beauty' road that I run on and rarely see a car has been discovered. Busses and double hauling gravel trucks drive down our street at break neck speed. The school has put a sign up Please don't speed on our street!
This is ignored.

My trunk is covered with angry red-purple lesions. I can ignore the itching during the day and take Benedryl and Zyrtec at night. I awake at 3 or 4 wanting to itch. In general, they are going away. At our cancer cooking class, someone said that chemo has made her much more sensitive to poison ivy although repeat exposures make things worse. Also global warming somehow has increased the amount of poison in poison ivy.

About 9 years ago I did the Dances with Dirt, a 60 mile relay race. We had a 5 person team; I was the youngest and the only woman. Our times were corrected for age and sex so I was an 'asset' plus I was still in good shape then. We were each responsible for 3 legs of about 4 miles each. The legs were graded 1-5 in difficulty. I took 2 of the easiest legs but my third leg was the most difficult. The easiest legs weren't all that easy-on the very hilly Potawami Trail, which is steep and narrow but at least there is a path. But the hard leg was cross country following ribbons. There was a deep gulch that I had to slide down. I noted the poison ivy . I had covered myself with ivy block but some of it managed to get me. I needed a prednisone shot for that. To get out of the gulch, I had to lift myself up grabbing tree roots. Suffice it to say, this impacted my pace. I tripped on hidden barbed wire on the rare part I could actually run on. One of my teammates lost a shoe wading through knee deep mud. I was supposed to run through a pond but I opted to run (crawl?) along its edge instead. It was actually quite fun planning our strategy. I was in charge of figuring out where to be. But my lasting effect was that I am now really sensitive to poison ivy.

I have dealt with my roots and have shorter hair so my chemo curls are back. I have been running alot but I am waiting on my Y scholarship to return there. I haven't been good about doing arm exercises outside of the gym.Yesterday, the heat index was around 100. No exercise that day. I did go to Happy Hour though.

Maya is officially smiling. See next post as Naomi managed to get it on her phone.

I've been spending alot of time gardening buying some cheapo perennials for my rock garden. What I really need to do is buy some rocks from the Rock Shop. My patio is now a habitrail of runners for my morning glories. Soon it will be full of blossoms.

I will have lunch with Josh while Naomi (and Maya) eats with Steve.

We just got a beautiful package from Texas.