Ah, ah, allergies!

Ah, ah, allergies!
Most people don’t notice anything but the visible yellow-green pine pollen that makes white cars and black cats turn slightly yellow for a few weeks every spring.
The sticky, aggravating stuff is the male contribution to the continuing propagation of life on the planet.
One cool fact learned on a recent National Geographic special is that the male and female parts of each and every flower mature at different times – ensuring that the pollen goes to a female plant part elsewhere to do the reproductive deed.
That’s all very well and good and it is fun to photograph flowers at all levels: normal, macro and micro.
However, for the last two days I have fought the inevitable and finally surrendered to taking my double-bladed friend, prednisone.
The enemies of my system are not the lovely flowers or the aggravating pines. My allergies that throw me into a shut down mode are the blossoming hardwoods – from the Canadian Rockies and the nearby Appalachians.
How these make me feel is much like a non-allergic person taking about 100 mg of benadryl.
That is the sleep aid in a lot of OTC medications. Add to that difficulty breathing and, this time, eyelashes matted together.
Hot fun in the early summertime!
I get to be several of the 7 dwarves at once: Sneezie, Sleepy, Dopey and, unfortunately, a little Grumpy.
Knowing that it is coming allows me to prepare my arsenal.
Knowing what is going on allows my loved ones to tolerate my fellow sufferers and me.
There will be an end to this and I will make the most of my time with my heaven-sent and Minnesota-built Alpine air purifier. The pollination orgy will finally come to an end and tree life will continue.
So will I. ã tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com