Trees having sex

How can it be that the local pollen count is low, when my lungs feel like they're trying to turn themselves inside out and escape through my nostrils?

Fiona is really suffering, too.

Edited to add: I unpacked my Albuterol inhaler for the first time since last year and tried a couple of hits. Now my allergies are still there, but I feel as jangly as if I had a million cups a coffee. NOT AN IMPROVEMENT.

God, I wish I could just go home since I feel so awful, but it's not an option today. And if I remember from last year, I can expect to feel like my lungs are coated on the inside with a thin coat of rubber cement for, oh, the next month or two. Gah.

Happy May Day

I forgot entirely about May Day baskets for neighbors, or telling the girls to wash their face with dew before first light or anything like that. Guess the last two days of rain drove any such thoughts from my mind. But it's May, and it's spring, and even though the trees are making me miserable, it's a good time of the year.

A blessed Beltane, to all you pagans out there. Have fun, all you Morris dancers. Shake them bells and snap them handkerchiefs.

Stephen Colbert tells it like it is

If you haven't seen Stephen Colbert's speech at the dinner for White House Correspondents, you need to see it. Watch it here.

Pho, dammit

Rob has been sick since Friday night. All day long I did my best to hack out my lungs, and by 3:30 I was sick to death of coughing, and I could barely see. I drove home. I decided I was too sick to drive Fiona to karate, and she didn't mind, since she was wheezing so much. She has a doctor's appointment for tomorrow morning.

Rob is no better. Fiona is babysitting tonight.

I asked Delia to drive to a Vietnamese restaurant, forge my name on one of my checks, and bring back pho. I must have pho. She gave me A Look and backed out the bathroom warily, where I was trying to drown my sorrows in the bathtub. It didn't work. I am still alive, my lungs are still trying to drown me, and I must have pho.

*Sigh* There is no help for it. If I want pho, I have to get into the damn car and drive there myself.

I wish my children would just be a little more cooperative.