It actually seems that it is a little cooler lately, but the humidity is still very high. My gauge on the cheap clock in the kitchen seems to be stuck at 98%. The weather thingy (which reports from the airport) shows it much lower but I believe my kitchen clock. It is harder to breathe, sometimes it feels like I am sucking water and should clear my mask. The floors and the walls are sweating. At night it feels almost cold, we’ve had to turn off the floor fan in the bedroom. If the temp drops and the humidity doesn’t, you feel cold and clammy.
Sometimes you just can't get off the ground
I’m sneezing all the time and my nose runs like a faucet when I get up. It sure didn’t take me long to develop allergies to whatever is blooming here. I thought perhaps I’d left that affliction in the north, but no. I forget that another symptom of allergy is being tired, being stupid, being a klutz. I thought my eyes were getting worse since they itch all the time and I seem to drop or knock over whatever I touch. Also, the headaches are not increasing the charming side of my personality.
So, I’ve been staying home a lot. When we were building this house our friends Diane and Betsy came down. We were climbing around and explaining where things would be when Diane looked at me and said “you’ll never leave the house”. This statement has haunted me since. Diane knows me very well, she knows I have latent hermit tendencies and she knows how much time I can spend putzing around my house and garden. She was there when the only thing that got me out off the property in San Anselmo was a trip to the nursery or the need to go to work. I keep that statement as a whip to get me out of the house, off on adventures, socializing… it just isn’t working very well lately.
I do have some Claritan that a friend brought down, my new resolution is to take one every morning and see if life doesn’t change for the better.
the pond at dusk
You could be allergic to cats! Hope you feel better with the Claritan.
Chin up old girl, as we say back home ( wherever the Hell that may be?)..always look on the bright side of life, der dum der dum der dum de dum de dum!.
Failing that…….rum!
Commiserations on the allergies — me too, but not so bad.
Query: Oh oh — is there something wrong with not leaving your house/garden? I hope not! The inner hermit needs nurturing…
See you sometime when it’s cooler and drier!
I had a headache all day and all night until it occurred to me to take an allergy pill! Then I ate and fell asleep for 3 hours!LOL…
You are social, you just aren’t being social at the moment, though you need to come over and get some tomato seedlings and basil.
regards,
Theresa
OK another allergy complainer here – August is my month to pay penance for what is otherwise a great life. Like you I tend to lay low. I guess it helps put the good life in perspective – but I have it now and could be happy without August.
Jonna
Here’s a link to a fascinating program titled PLACEBO: Could the Best Medicine be No Medicine at All?
It is a classic, which aired on a program produced by public radio for a show from NYC called Radio Lab. Highly entertaining, and it just might cure what ails you. ~eric.
ps: my airport weather report from Merida says humidity there is presently 62% while it is 69% here in Buffalo.
GO TO THE SIDEBAR AT RIGHT, AND SCROLL DOWN THROUGH THE PROGRAMS PASSING ABOUT TWO DOZEN SHOWS UNTIL YOU SEE THE TITLE:
PLACEBO
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/
WEATHER GADGET DISCREPANCY
I see that your AccuWeather device says Merida Airport humidty is presently 49%, while my Weather Underground app says it is 62%. Go figure!
I got my device here (but I won’t pretend that it is correct): http://www.wunderground.com/
I just sneezed twice reading your blog. Maybe you guys need to fire up the Lazy Daze and take a trip to a better climate for a week or two!
Hi J&M,
I’m finally catching up with all the back blogs I’ve missed. Sorry about your doldrums. Hope they pass soon.
Your pond looks beautiful….as does your bamboo wall topper – love it!
Did you get your mint and gardenias growing again?
As a fellow allergy sufferer, I share your misery.
I take a 10 mg. Loratidine (generic Claritin) every AM,and have done so for over 10 years. It helps. I buy them at Sam’s Club (NOB) (2-150 tablet bottles per/package) for $12.48 + tax. Neither the Xalapa Sam’s nor Xalapa area farmacias come close to that price, probably because they don’t have enough volume sales to warrant those quantity sales. Before I head back to MX in the fall, I’ll return to Sam’s to stock up on more generic Claritin, as well as generic benadryl to carry south.
The Loratidina (Mx. name) tablets are also sold (very inexpensively) in bottles of 100 in pharmacies in Progreso, Tamaulipas, the border town with all of the pharmacies, dentists, gift shops, etc. catering to the large Winter Texan retiree population, and others.
The Sam’s price is much better than the Nuevo Progreso prices. However, that was not always the case. Prior to the expiration of the “patent” on Claritin, NOB, the generic version was sold in N. Progreso farmacias since MX isn’t bound by US patent laws.
Hope you’re feeling better.
Don’t know about Merida, but Walmart sells generic claritin too. My allergies act up when the humidity is high. That has been the case here all week. Yesterday one of the cats sneezed, so I hope she isn’t allergic to cats! Our chubby horse stopped eating (unheard of) to go rub his face on a tree. Do they make Claratin horse pills I wonder?
Dear Jonna, the humidity here in southern Ontario right now is massive too. We’re trying out the first year here on the lake… with no a/c… and have put modern versions of those old window fans in each room, two fans, suck in & out, doing a fairly decent job….. keep reminding myself – lower carbon imprint, unhuh, waves schlupping you to sleep, unhuh, lower utility bill, check… For those 6 – 9 hot, wet days each summer, I think we’ll make it. But ta girl, didn’t know that my historical seasonal clumsiness, dizziness and doanwannagoanywhereishness was humidity-related. As I’ve suspected, wrong planet.
Ah you guys! I love all the comments. I have tried the generic Claritin and thought it didn’t work as well but perhaps that was similar to the placebo effect, I’ll try it again when I run out of my US stash. It is odd that there are some things that are only sold at tourist pharmacies, impossible to find in regular ones. For those, I go down on 5th Ave in Playa del Carmen when I’m over there. I’ll look for the Claritin when I go to get some Robaxin. I can’t find plain Robaxin in the pharmacies here, only combined with a pain killer. I want just the metocarbonal without the ibuprofin and can only find it where the cruise ship passengers shop.
I’m definitely not allergic to cats, I’d have the sneezes all year if that were true. I think it could be a mold that I’m allergic to, certainly with all this rain that’s possible.
Theresa, you said the magic word “cuttings”
Chris, I actually love the climate here. The heat is wonderful and usually the humidity doesn’t bother me much. When it does, floating in the pool is the answer. I can’t handle really dry weather or high altitude so going to the highlands is not that great an option for me. I do love to go to places like San Cristobal and I may be going to Antigua again soon but that’s for the shopping not the high, cold and dry.
Eric, I’ll check out the other weather widget. There’s no way the humidity was only in the 60% the other day, none of them are really correct. Today is much drier and my kitchen clock says it is 82%.