POLLEN

I put the title of this post in all caps because I feel like the pollen is yelling at us right now.   It’s everywhere.   We have this yellow pollen period that coats everything in the south.   It has been called yellow snowfall, because at times it covers cars to the point you can’t clearly see the color.   There will be swirling eddies on the roads as the wind blows.   And it gets all over you.

The pollen by nature is inditvidually quite small.   It comes indoors with you on your clothes, even though you think you’re untouched.   It sticks to the dog’s fur (don’t get me started) and only abates with a serious rainfall.

Fortunately, we’re having one of those serious rainfalls, replete with thunder, lightning and weather station warnings.  This is good in that the overall population of pollen will be dramatically less on the surface and more down the sewers tomorrow.   But it doesn’t wash away what’s been brought inside to date.

Today I went on a walk with the dog while I was on a phone call.   When I got back my black shoes were yellow all over the toes, so much so that banging them together wouldn’t get it off.   The dog’s beard was yellow and turned her water bowl into dirty yellow water when she drank from it.   My pants were all yellow at the legs and that’s what I could see.

I carefully took off my clothes and deposited them in the laundry basket.   But I know some has gotten on the bed somehow—enough so that I’ll be itching and have a scratchy throat for the next week.   Washing won’t help because it will just return.   Fortunately, the yellow pollen season is a short one.   It’s a right of passage into spring in the south, suffering through until it all washes away.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was so happy about the thunderstorm today he wanted to go on the porch to watch the lightning.   This is a tradition we have, only right now the porch is pollen covered.   He went out anyway, not bothered by the pollen one bit.   I came out later and said he would have to take his clothes off when he came in the door, because they were going to be yellow with pollen.   It was all right, he told me, he turned the cushions over, he said.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter spent the day with Nana and Papa who have just returned from several months at their home in Florida.   She came home with two new pairs of Crocs and a Build-A-Bear Easter Bunny.   She fell asleep shortly after six o’clock.   It must have been a good day.