S.O.S. from Austin!

     When I moved to Austin in 2003, everyone told me I had a five-year grace period before the cedar pollen would come lookin' for me.  Oh not me, I thought.  I've never had allergies.  Allergies are for the weak and whining!  I watched my fellow Austinites suffer each January, wondered at the bumper stickers that read "The Only Good Cedar is a Stump" and felt superior.  My blunt-force determination helped me last eight years.  Now I, too, am weak and whining, living in a fog of I.Q.-destroying pollen.  This blog is on the verge of devolving into stick figures and monosyllables.
     Ivy and Revel are mystified by this development and, worse, are on a constant quest to get hold of my used tissues.  Please!  I continue to walk them, throw the ball for them, work on Revel's "stay" and take them places, but it hurts to talk, I sneeze all the time, and the joy is gone.  And they know it.

     Meanwhile, I am more amazed than ever by the perfection of their health.  They are either deeply asleep or awake and bursting with joyous life.  They are never partly asleep with things aching, or awake but functioning only via will power and caffeine.  They run, make sudden stops and turns that would rip a poor human knee to shreds, they jump and roll and bark and sleep deeply and do it all over again.  Yesterday I dragged myself out to the big field to throw the purple ball for them, and they were so happy and so good.  I think they knew I couldn't call them loudly, or perhaps that I needed them, and they never went out of my sight.  It was as if they knew I was doing my best for them, and they gave it right back.
     Not one shred of the common advice for dealing with cedar works with my lifestyle.  Check it out: avoid going outside (very funny), don't have pets because they bring in the pollen (ha ha), if you do have pets bathe them frequently (Ivy and Revel are calling their lawyers), and if you must go outside, strip off your clothes before you enter the house and go straight to the shower (Don't worry—my servant will bring in the groceries, put them away and start cooking while I luxuriate in the shower).
     January will pass.  I think.  There's a sixty percent chance of rain this Monday, rain that would knock the killer pollen down some, maybe even wash it off my house and pets!  And when I'm feeling better, my perfect young dogs will be ready to play with me, I know it.