Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

Ever since I got off of the plane in Okinawa I have had allergies like crazy. Zyrtec has become my best friend lately, sorry Sandy and Christopher, but you guys seriously cannot clear my sinuses no matter how hard you try. As it is, Zyrtec is having its issues clearing this up. The allergies when I got to Japan took a wickedly weird turn for me....they made me look like a wino. Peachy. I first noticed that my nose was being attacked when it felt as if my nose was going to explode right off of my face, literally. I could physically feel my nose getting bigger. I could finally say that I knew how Pinocchio felt when he told a lie, except all I was doing was feeding my granddaughter powdered donuts. I took a look in the mirror and behold, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer stared back at me....well, at least his nose did. Praise God there was Zyrtec in my purse. Thirty minutes later, again I could physically feel my nose changing and low and behold! my nose was its normal shade and shape aga...

Blah! I hate allergies! You know, I never had any until I moved to Tucson, then all heck broke loose! And to think, Arizona is supposed  to be a place where allergy sufferers go to get relief. Yeah, right! I found out that I'm allergic to all kinds of wonderful stuff now and its all due to the dust and dry air of Arizona. When I first got here, I was OK with it. I mean, I grew up in the desert of Nevada...north of Reno to be exact. There's more dirt and sagebrush out there than I can even fathom. So, I figured that when my first marriage broke up and I went home to mommy and daddy in Arizona that it was a pretty good place to make a fresh start. I was miserable. Not only was I broken hearted and broken, but I had a two year old Downs child to deal with. It took me a bit to decide to quit mourning what used to be and to look forward to what will be. With the grace of God and a lot of help from my folks, I got back on my feet, got a job and started doing sneezing here and there...

You ever have one of those nights when you look at the clock every half hour? How about turning your pillow twenty times just to find a cool spot and then it disappears after five minutes. Or perhaps, you get in one position just to find that your leg/arm/shoulder/hip/foot fall asleep so you turn over even though you now have pins and needles, to a more comfortable position just to have the other side do the same thing? If you have animals that sleep with you, maybe they sleep behind your knees or at the small of your back....when you move, they move. Its too warm...its too cold...the fan is blowing on my head...the crickets are too loud, someone in the other room is snoring. The cats are scratching in the litter box....the wind is blowing something against your window or there's a gecko that is crawling on the window and with the light behind it makes it look like t-rex. Well, yeah, I had one of those nights. It pretty much started when I came to Arizona. As soon as I stepped of...