The poison ivy which was tickling my forearm the other day has grown to huge proportions; it’s sprouted on my neck, on my other forearm, and now there’s a little patch behind my right knee. After consulting the Internet yesterday, I hit the drugstore in search of this stuff called Zanfel, which promises to wash the urishiol off the skin and reduce the swelling. I was all ready to buy that little tube until I looked at the price: $40. I wound up going with a competing product, and followed the instructions, and nothing has changed. So I’m out $25 and still itching.

We are still a sickhouse, as well—this flu is not letting up yet. I feel a smidgen better today, but I’m not going to kid myself into thinking that I’m better. I still produced plenty of lung butter this morning, and my head is still draining. Jen is still slightly better than walking dead, so we make quite an attractive zombie couple when we’re out in public.

There were two good bits of sunshine this morning, however; I opened our tax return info and found that we’re not paying the gub’mint $400 like we thought, but actually getting a little over $1,700 back due to our mortgage interest. So I think we’re going to put that in the kitty for the kitchen and sit on it a while.

The second good omen appeared when I went back into the kitchen to refill my coffee. Happily pecking at the thistle feeder ouside our window were a pair of finches, one yellow and one a bright reddish pink. I called for Jen to come in and peek over my shoulder, and we watched them eat and chirp at each other quietly for a few minutes. These are the first we’ve seen, and it made us very happy to have them. Eventually the yellow one flew off and was replaced by the female mate of the red male. I hope they bring back some friends.