I was here on the porch at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse thinking about getting some motivation to do something, anything that would improve the general state of things. We have had threatening clouds, sun, clouds, sun, clouds and so painting the little deck and fence was not an option. Cameron suggested, “Clean a toilet,” and I decided I’d trim weeds – just a few.

Now, my father could roll in poison ivy and not get it and my mother wasn’t allergic to it – her problem was only with poison oak until she got older and got a wee bit sensitive to poison ivy. Me? I don’t think I was allergic to any of those things all through the younger part of my life. Then, in my 40″s when we were living in the rolling suburbs of Cincinnati and had a ravine and creek on our property, I would go hiking in the new subdivision”s woods. That’s when I got a little rash.

My older immune system was giving out, just like my mother’s; I had poison ivy.  The red itchy skin was mostly on my legs and I complained a lot. Then my good friend Joan got poison ivy and had running blisters all over her body and I thought, “Oh,” I guess I’m not too allergic to it. I felt sort of sheepish, but being a hypochondriac, took it in stride. What’s one more sheepish episode in a life of death scenes?

That was then, but I thought of it today . . . when I went out to pull weeds. I was pretty blase about it. I mean I figured I would shower afterwards. So, anyway, I’m out there pulling and clipping and Cameron comes out and asks if he can help and I say okay, let’s get this little tree that has come up by the foundation out.

See, it just looked like a little growth to him, but I had been trimming it back for years and knew beneath the bit of foliage was a short, fat TRUNK. We started in, clipping the little branchlets and the trunk was revealed. He went to get a saw and I worked to make certain the cable cord that ran behind it was out of the way. Well, guess what? The cable was encased in tree trunk. The little tree had taken revenge for my constant pruning – it took the cable hostage.

So went at it at ground level – Cameron powered the saw and I helped “guide” it. We grew sweaty and I found myself lying in right on the ground with green non-grass things dusting my skin. We got it loose.

That’s when I got my panic attack about poison anything and that’s when Cameron saw the toad. He kept pointing and I kept being unable to see it. People came out and became toad-watchers and I concentrated on showering the potential rash away.

I decided to shower in the basement for reasons you don’t want to know and ran down clad in my terrycloth robe. As I stepped into the water, I suddenly realized the poison oil, if it were there on me, would have come off on the terrycloth and be waiting for me when I finished washing. Ack, ack. What to do? What to do? What to do?

I turned the robe inside out. Now keep in mind all the time I was fretting and showering, I heard screams from above. They had corralled the toad and had brought him in and he possibly at one point was almost an escapee in the house.

That’s where we are now . . .  Stay tuned. Maybe the next post will be about the crazy toad girl of Kendallville.