A day or two before the deluge occurred, we decided to venture over to the beach. It's only 8 miles away (20 minutes on a good day) although we'd mostly avoided it because of the Snowbirds and residual Spring Breakers who were still trickling in until recently. The beach is not exactly empty now although it's possible to set up your own personal space and not be jostling elbows with the lubed-up sunbather next to you. In fact, if you go during the week, you can be reasonably certain that your nearest neighbor will be positioned a good 20 feet away. Anyhow, we went to the beach last week and the following occurred: I immediately got a migraine as I was alighting from the car, we ran to the nearby Walgreens for Tylenol, returned to the beach, I got in the water and emerged with the HIVES! Luckily, the hives went away after I got out of the water and baked in the sun for a couple of hours. (The migraine pain, on the other hand, wracked my head for 3 days but the distorting, disorienting aura was, mercifully, brief.) Thinking that the hives were caused by an allergic reaction to the Tylenol, I handled the bottle as if it contained a dose of Ebola until I got home and secured it in a plastic bag before placing it in the infamous kitchen cabinet of new, disused and unloved medications. Don't ask me why I went all Defcon 4 on the Tylenol. It was the migraine, I tell you! Later, I retrieved capsules from a different container of Tylenol, one that had been setting in the cabinet for several months. No hives. No reaction at all. Maybe someone in the factory had slipped something into the capsules I'd just purchased, some kind of toxic shit that gave me hives! Thankfully, my thought processes became slightly less paranoid with each passing day.
However, we decided to go back to the beach this morning, some 6 days after the last fiasco. So, we got there, I got out of the car and voila NO MIGRAINE! Off to a good start! We set up our umbrella and beach chairs and I threw myself into the water. Diving beneath the rough surf, I savored the familiar freedom of leaving the world behind as I disappeared beneath the lukewarm waves near the Pompano Beach Pier. With no one swimming in the immediate vicinity, I peed happily, propelling myself backwards from the frothy stew as I did so.
And then came the encroaching itch.
With a shaky hand, I reached behind and felt the bumps on my lower back, the same bumps I'd had the week before during our excursion to the beach. Oh shit, I thought. Here we go again. Sure enough, I got out of the water and had C examine my back carefully. By that time the thumbnail-sized itchy welts covered my back.
"Yep," he diagnosed. "Hives."
What the absolute fuck?
Hiking over to the outdoor shower, I rinsed off with fresh water and then returned to my beach chair. C was eating one of the sandwiches he'd packed for the trip but I wasn't having it. Goddammit, I whined, it isn't fair that I am now getting hives every time I get in the ocean! Really, what is going on? Eventually, I gave in and ate my sandwich while the clouds rolled in from the south and west, the wind picked up and we were pelted with droplets of rain.
Well, isn't this nice? I thought, as C announced that he was ready to go.
By the time we got home, the glaring Florida sun had chased away the dank blanket of clouds that had managed to clear the beach of bothersome humans without wasting any precious moisture in the process. Whipping off my tee shirt I instructed C to take another peak at the latest hives infestation but when he put on his glasses and maneuvered me into the light, they were gone, my back as smooth as a whistle. Am I just not meant to swim in the ocean anymore? Have I developed an allergy to seawater? I tried checking online but the only answers forthcoming were: sea lice, which is just a nasty name for the tiny larvae of jellyfish, or seaweed allergy, allergy to sunlight, and several other equally unhelpful proposals.
Shit, Siri, I thought you knew everything! If you live in Florida, you'll no doubt know someone who's had sea lice, that is if you haven't had them yourself. They are microscopic things that get in the creases of your skin where your swimsuit is tight. In other words, your crotch and, if you're wearing a top, under your arms and breasts. Thank God I've never had them (and still haven't) because these itchy bumps were on my totally uncovered back, and not, I am happy to report, in my crotch area. Whew! Well that's something, at least.
Then, Kevin, who is never more than a text away, said that Diego had climbed up on his roof and wouldn't come down. BTW, Diego is not a cat. What? You may think this sounds unusual but it's really just another day in the life of Kevin and his circle of hangers-on freaks friends. So Kevin and Diego have remained pals long--loooong--after their big breakup some 15 years ago. As he does with several others, Kevin serves as Diego's occasional (frequent?) ATM and dispenser of free legal assistance. In return, Diego takes care of Kevin's dogs as required, and also does odd jobs for Kevin. To his credit, Diego does have a fulltime job (unlike others in Kevin's orbit) although really, I'm not sure this makes Diego a stand-up kind of guy because Kevin winds up paying him even more cash for this alleged quid pro quo.
On this particular day, Diego's assignment was to paint the flat roof over the rental apartment attached to Kevin's house. It is 12 feet off the ground. If that. Even so, once the job was completed, Diego found himself unable to budge, no matter that the ladder was tantalizingly within reach.
What to do, what to do? Kevin texted while C and I chuckled. Even with my fear of heights--and it is rather extreme--I'm fairly certain I could have found the fortitude to scuttle down that ladder to terra firma. 12 feet, that's all. 12 feet. Max! And then there's the fact that Diego has always--always--presented himself to be this swaggering, uber-macho semental caliente. All hairy chest and muscles, gold chains and gauzy shirts open to the waist, Diego cuts a fairly dashing figure to those who like that sort of thing--for those who don't know that he's a mucho vain, former pretty boy, much closer to 65 than 45, no matter what his wardrobe might suggest (it does not suggest good taste, that's for sure). Oh, and he invented the phrase don't say gay. He may often--read: always--sleep with men, sometimes even marry them, but don't dare suggest that he's h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l. No, no, no. Don't. Say. Gay.
So, there Diego sat. On Kevin's roof for hours on end. Meanwhile, Kevin kept up a running commentary to C via text messaging. After another of Diego's more recent exes stopped over to try and talk him off the roof, Kevin finally did what C had suggested some 4 hours earlier: he called 911. On the plus side, a squad of hot paramedics showed up and managed to bring Diego down. On the other hand, the fact that these guys were hot paramedics made Diego's mortification all the more complete.
I cannot say with any honesty that I didn't experience a bit of schadenfreude from Diego's discombobular distress. Not that I don't like Diego, because I do. Well, sort of. Okay, not really but I don't actually dislike him, either. True, he's a complete narcissist who voted for Donald Trump--twice--but, after all, it was Kevin's pretentious silliness that helped transform him into a shiny, shallow gold-digger, a gig that didn't pan out the way they hoped after Diego's divorce from the doctor. Now, it seems, Diego has finally found true love with a younger--and considerably less monied--citizen of another country, someone Diego visits with some frequency and on his own dime! Who'd've thought? I hope they're eventually able to live on the same continent if not under the same roof.
I also hope I'm done with the hives although I'm not diving into the water again until after I see the dreaded dermatologist who will, no doubt, spy something totally unrelated to the matter at hand, something suspicious that requires closer inspection. A small biopsy, perhaps? Starting tomorrow, I'll be keeping an eye on the Jan. 6 Committee Hearings brought to you live from Capitol Hill. I am hoping to see justice in action but the end result of all the investigations and these hearings is far from certain. Stay tuned.
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