Feb 26 2002
Dusty
Yesterday, I went to the allergist for the first time in my life. One thing I have noticed since I have started going to doctors this year is the similarity to travelling, i.e., you spend more time waiting than you do actual travelling or seeing the doctor. I never mind waiting at the dentist’s, because, well, waiting is better than their ministrations and because my dentist has all the best and most current magazines, like Architectural Digest. I have never been able to spend more than a few wishful moments mentally redecorating before being whisked away to the torture chamber.
At the allergist’s, who is also John’s allergist, I had to make do with Readers Digest and People, and most of it was spent semi-naked while the allergy tests did their thing. They tested me for 80 different things on my back and arms, and it turned out that my suspicions were correct.
Here’s the culprit! Turns out that yes, I do have allergies, and I am allergic to three things: two different kinds of house dust mites, d. farinae and d. ptero, to give them their Latin names, and, oddly, Valley oak trees. So I have been doing the right thing in living in the city and avoiding housework all these years. After all, whenever I have attempted it myself, it has been a nasal disaster.
Just noticed that my archives are on strike, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
The allergist himself looks much like a younger Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, complete with the glasses and mole-like way of peering at you. He is very earnest and hails from Montreal. He seems to be very homesick, so I gotta wonder why he lives here instead of there. Probably because he can make more money here, and it’s 70 degrees and sunny instead of 39 degrees.
That reminds me: happy birthday to my old friend Peter, who grew up in Montreal. Happy 40th, baby! I’m right behind you!