According to the Mayo Clinic, this is a picture of poison ivy. This pictorial knowledge would have been helpful a couple of weeks ago when I was weeding the yard. Apparently we have this in our yard and I brushed up against it/pulled it thinking it was a weed/rolled around in it. I know this because now I have the resulting rash that says, "Yeah - you were in it!"I had always heard the phrase, "Leaves of three - let it be." I knew poison ivy had three leaves. However, apparently I did not know exactly what those three leaves looked like. To me, these leaves look like oak tree leaves. Okay, I was absent in Mrs. Lusk's ninth-grade biology class when leaves were taught. And I don't know why I think these look like oak leaves. The point is that I now know exactly what poison ivy looks like. Maybe.
Today's lesson is this: a little information can be a dangerous thing. Leaves of three mean nothing if (a) you don't bother counting the leaves you encounter, and (b) you don't know what the three leaves you should be avoiding look like.
Of course, any information is useless if you don't take it to heart. This isn't the first time I've had an encounter with poison ivy in my yard. One would think after the first encounter, I would pay closer attention to the plants. But I didn't, thus resulting in itchy rashness.
Now I am paying attention. In fact, I think that I will just avoid all yard work in my yard in order to avoid the itchiness that I am now enduring. Rash situations mean taking drastic measures - that's my other lesson of the day.
Oh, and don't be absent on leaf day.
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Things that make today great: hanging with Lynnette and Lindley during Lindley's ear infection dilemma; straightening the living room a little; looking for Rambo in Molly's neighborhood and eventually going to pick him up from the lady who found him; cleaning Molly's fireplace and looking at old house pictures; passing out from cookie coma after dinner
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