When Bradford Pears Attack

Spring in the South is a fragrant and lovely explosion of scents accompanied by a riot of colorful blooms drawing in bees, hummingbirds and allergies. Most of the time, the South holds all records for allergy production and sales of over the counter and prescription remedies. I would dare say that the manufacturers of allergy relievers and remedies make their fortune off of the misery and suffering of those with magnolia drenched and honeysuckled accents.

Somehow, it all feels like a conspiracy the Damnyankees would be proud of creating.

Bradford pears are a popular tree in this area for making a landscape look wonderful in a short amount of time. They pop in the ground and grow quickly with pretty blossoms that are secret agents of sinus destruction.

When Bradford pears attack...

They stealthily weave their evil tendrils of scent up into the unsuspecting nostrils of the soon to be suffering Southerner who has better things to do than eat Claritin like candy and walk around with a hanky swearing to everyone "It's allergies!! I swear I'm not contagious!"

Running, biking, boating and just day to day breathing become Herculean feats of skill when the Bradford pears attack. They have nothing better to do than to crush out your oxygen supply and replace it with wads of pollen jamming our nasal passages shut and creating balloon-like heads that we can feel, but no one else can see. There is something oddly unfair about that.

Dang it, if I'm going to be compelled to suffer, I should have something more tangible than squashed snotty Kleenex as proof of my malady!! My balloon-like head should be visible to others, perhaps with a peep hole to see the level of goo present.

Then, people would be appropriately concerned instead of dragging small children away from one who is 'shunned' from polite society due to that nagging post nasal drip and hacking cough that sounds very much like a muck-filled slime encrusted lung is about to hit the floor with the next paroxysm of suffering.

Bradford pears cannot be trusted!! They are evil, EVIL I tell you! They have a vaguely friendly appearance, but beneath their bark is a bite that is worse than the hydrophobia inflicted by a rabid bat. They render you gooey, itchy and ill - but not ill enough to be "put down" due to the illness.

Of course, Bradford pears are not alone in their violent onslaught. They have partners in crime which act insidiously to bring more harm onto the tender membranes already inflamed. The pollen of trees, shrubs, flowers and, in short, all things bright and beautiful, renders us into creatures great and small in no time at all.

"Don't look, children!! It's hideous!!"

But soon, allergy season will be over. Yeah, I know, I'm laughing too. Allergy season never is over. NEVER.

This area is the punchbowl of the allergy party. If one flavored dipper of pollen won't get you, another one will. There are a host of flora to which you can be allergic and not all of them are even nearby.

When the poets wrote of an 'evil wind', I have to believe they, too, were suffering allergic reactions of the worst kind brought on by foreign pollen wafted on "friendly winds" that weren't so friendly at all.

I'm seriously considering artificial plants for my yard.

But I feel reasonably sure I'd just develop an allergy to the plastic.

Time to take another dose of Mucinex. It's gonna be a long day without oxygen...

Planning Post-Op Activities

My trip to the orthopedic surgeon was not exciting at all. Not one lick.

Surgery is a matter of 'when' not 'if' at this point.

Did you know it is never convenient for me to be down?

I never realized I was irreplaceable. Now I just need to know who to contact to make my statue and obelisk.

But seriously, the issues surrounding all of this fun will require that I be totally off of my left leg for at least 8 weeks post op.

So that leaves me with a lot of 'free time' where I can't do anything much. With that in mind, I have been doing some brainstorming.

Here's what I've come up with thus far:


* Transcendental Pilates. All the benefits without any pressure on the post op healing. Just drift into that plane of being where the work is done in my mind and the results are seen on my body.

* I plan on using all of my spare time at home to prank call everyone in the phone book. Everyone. No one should consider themselves immune. I have an endless supply of stupid things to say when they pick up. And I promise to call at the most inconvenient times, too.

* Further, I plan to start calling all of the local businesses one by one and asking them to tell me what it is they actually do in my behalf and why I should spend my money with them for that thing they do.


* When that is all said and done, I plan to start mailing individual slices of Spam to random post office boxes. I'm not sure if it will be a bid to fight hunger or simply to irk someone who pulls a slimy envelope out of the mailbox.

* After I run out of Spam, I have to decide how to best deploy boiled okra pods to my advantage. I will have help on this one from my high school partner in crime. Elizabeth has an evil mind when it comes to this kind of high crimes and misdemeanors.  (Does anyone know: precisely how long do they send you to jail for putting okra in the mail?)

* From previous experience being bedridden and crippled up, I know that you can only read so many magazines and watch so much TV before you are totally toast. I plan to write "articles" for the local paper and news magazines about naval gazing. I may send pictures.
They may even be of my navel.

Of course, I am open to other ideas and possibilities.

This is just basic pre-op brainstorming and I may have several days ahead of concrete planning sessions before I go under the knife, the Sawzall and the rasp.

I wonder, while they have me under, would they mind shaving off a little fat in a few select areas? We could call it "pre-formation non-aligned lipoidal bone spurs near the central axis of the body"...?

Uh, I guess not.

Liposuction and bone spur removal probably aren't connected, despite what the song says about the leg bone being connected to the fat bone or something like that.

Oh well, back to calendar items and trying to figure out how to conveniently be a nuisance to everyone I know and love.