Recent Events at 'the Playground'

So here at the Playground life has continued to move forward, even though the blog process has been somewhat stagnant (my apologies).

Wife.Imp's youngest sister is stopping by for a brief visit and today I took her out for a road trip (ok, I gave her the keys to my car and told her that she gets to drive me around). Because the one thing I have learned when visiting wife.imp's family is that if you have no means of going out and about, then things can get boring.

SIL brought gifts from the family, of which a baseball hat with an Iron Man logo on it was given to boy.imp. Since getting the hat boy.imp wears it around the house fighting the 'bad guys'. The fights are terrible, with lots of shouting, jumping and falling down. However b.imp always gains the upper hand with a knock-out blow. Which he has to describe to me.

'I hit him in the eye!' 'I hit three of them in the teeth!' 'I hit him in the chest and two of them in the eye!' 'I hit five in a row here!' (this is where boy.imp points to the lower abdominal/higher thigh area of his body and will continue to point there until you have viewed the area of damage and acknowledged his fighting prowess...)

Concerning aging...
I went to my s0mewhat-annual (ok, 1st time in 3 years) checkup today because I felt I had enough info to make the doctor's effort in the examination more than just routine. I have a very nice back rash (the result of a hair-removal waxing--Oddly enough when I found out a year or so ago that I did have hair on my back, I have never been able to put that thought out of my mind. It actually bothered me. I finally pulled the trigger and it barely tingled. It felt like someone had spread masking tape on my back and pulled it off. But the rash kind of puts a damper on repeat procedures), a pain in one of my knees and a phantom ache in one of my arms.

I also had (the first of what is now an annual event (yea me!)) the prostate exam! I am not certain, but I am fairly postive that procedures conducted in the family-care doctor's office should include the patient's continued ability to, oh say, breathe during said procedures!

'You Asked'...

Tony at 'Creative Type Dads' and Diana from 'Stuck in Elmo's World' have inquired as to how I managed such a drastic rash from Poison Ivy.

First let me say that my reaction to contact with the Ivy is nothing new. In high school, on two separate occassions, I had to rub ice on my eyelids just so I could open them to go to school in the morning. I, who burn faster than paper soaked with lighter fluid, would spend weeks at the public pool because the chlorine content in the water was the second fastest non-medical remedy to an Ivy rash I found. The first was using the juice from the stem of a Jewelweed plant. That stuff is a factual miracle in nature!

So knowing my history, one might guess my reaction to being invited to help my sister clear some of her land would be a resounding 'No.'

Instead, I promised to help. So I showed up in shirt-sleeves and dragged vines from trees to be burned with brush pulled out of the ground. It was a lot of fun and, yes, I was aware that the vines, some almost as thick as my wrist, were Poison Ivy vines. Yet, I still wrapped them around my wrist and dragged them to the ground or wrapped chains around them and pulled them out of the trees and lugged them to the bonfire to be burned.

Yes, I am aware that burning Ivy is also not the ideal way of disposal.

Yes, I spent the last 2 weeks with my arms and abdomen covered in salves and lotions. Until I had enough and visited the local family practioner. There I obtained the 3rd most effective cure for this rash.

Now I am merely days and not week(s) away from overcoming this abysmal rash.

Over the weekend...

Girl.Imp had her First Communion.
While standing in line, waiting file into the Church:
me: Settle down!
g.imp: blahblahblah (it was as if she had drunk 7-8 cups of sugar in her coffee that a.m.)
me: stand still...settle down
g.imp: blahblahblahblabblabblab, daddy, you have skin hanging out of your nose..!
(mind you we are standing in line with over 80 imps and their parents)
me:uhh, how's that?
g.imp: fine...blabblabblabbberdyblabblab, no, it's still there! You have a booger hanging out of your nose!

Yep, right before heading into Church for G.imp's big day, daddy is standing in line picking boogers out of his nose!


Daddy also spent the last week sleeping alone. Not one member of the family was interested in sleeping in the same bed, sharing a hug or even sitting on my lap.

Of course the rampant spread of Poison Ivy on my arms, neck and abdomen might be a small part of the isolationism...