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Have you ever had hives?  Those red blotches that look like a rash, and itch like crazy, but if you scratch them they turn into welts, and itch more.  If you’ve never had them, count yourself very lucky.  I haven’t had them in a few years, because I was on allergy shots.  But our allergist suggested we could try to go without and see how our resistance had built up.  My resistance officially sucks.  I have been taking extra allergy meds all day, and still I’m getting hives.  Okay, not full blown ones, but if I gave in to the urge, they would be.  The trick with allergy induced hives on the skin is that you simply don’t touch them.  Don’t touch them and they don’t get worse.  They don’t go away either, but they just stay a very irritating red splotch.  I used to get them semi-regularly if I came in contact with one of my more severe allergies.  I’d forgotten how unpleasant the sensation is, blocked it from my mind. 

I was in my office typing away on a police scene, using the nifty recent research notes from the trip, when I started to have a reaction to something. I took extra med, it got better, then as soon as the meds wore off, it started again. I began to notice that it was much worse in my office, but I hadn’t added anything new to the room.  I certainly hadn’t put anything in my work space that was an allergen for me.  Late in the day I noticed there were little fluffy white things floating around outside my office window.  I thought at first one of the hawks that frequent our yard was plucking a bird on the roof, but it wasn’t feathers.  I thought, snow, but it’s too warm.  Then I realized that the "snow" was coming from the ground to the sky.  What the heck?  On closer investigation, it was the cattails in the pond below my window.  They’ve gone to seed and are spreading little spores all over the place.  Apparently, I am quite allergic to them.  So, I will be starting the shots back up, because if the cattails are kicking my butt, then other allergens will begin to do the same. 

The refrain in my head is, don’t scratch, don’t scratch, don’t scratch.  My eyebrows itch.  It itches for my own hair to brush my skin.  Ahh!