Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/145855
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 – Daily News 3B FEATURES Homewrecker saddens woman Recognize poison ivy to avoid it children. Then Dear Annie: ask your husband I'm a very sad to go with you woman. I work for counseling to and take care of see whether you my home and can reconcile. kids. My husband But if he is deterand I had trouble mined to get out getting pregnant of the marriage, with the second child and after Annie's the counseling will help you months of trying develop coping went to a fertility strategies for the clinic. It was a difficult time, and by Kathy Mitchell future. Your chiland Marcy Sugar dren need you to I was not giving be strong and my husband all of capable. the attention he needed. Dear Annie: As a One day, he was at my mom, my friend's house, and a working female acquaintance of schedule is tight. For hers was there. This several years, I have woman was in the mid- enjoyed a periodic lunch dle of her own divorce, with a non-working and she and my husband friend where we catch up began a conversation. on our kids' activities She told him if he wasn't and discuss books or happy, he should divorce movies. Twice during recent me and be happy for himself, instead of wor- lunches, her cellphone rying about his wife and has rung, and in midkids. My husband filed sentence, she has picked divorce papers while I it up and commenced was pregnant. Now the chatting with the caller. I two of them are together, could understand if it and he thinks I don't were an emergency call from her son's school, know. What kind of woman but I end up sitting there thinks this is OK to do? I staring in silence at my have two small kids and lunch while she cheerfullove my husband with all ly talks about a trip to my heart. I know I have the beach. My husband thinks I things to work on. Where is the respect for women should tell her that I find out there? — Broken this disrespectful and rude, as well as insensiHeart Dear Broken: While tive to my time conwe agree that women straints. Instead, when shouldn't go after mar- she calls to set up a lunch ried men (and vice date, I simply say that versa), you are blaming I'm too busy. I no longer the woman when it is think this ''friendship'' your husband who is worth my time. Am I strayed. He wanted an wrong to cut her out of excuse to get out of his my life over this? — Disresponsibilities, and she respected Dear Disrespected: It was simply the match depends on whether she that lit the flame. Please see a lawyer offers anything other immediately so you can than an absentee lunprotect yourself and your cheon date. You are Mailbox angry and looking to punish her. Decide whether you want the friendship to end or whether you simply want her to put down the cellphone. There is nothing wrong with asking her to make your lunch a ''phone free'' zone so you can concentrate on each other. If she refuses to turn off her cellphone and answers a call in mid-conversation, feel free to get up and leave, saying, ''Obviously, you are busy. Perhaps I'll see you another time.'' Dear Annie: I am responding to ''Outcast Sister,'' who cares for her mom. It is terrible of her sisters to complain because she is getting paid for this. No one realizes how time consuming it is to watch a loved one. She should tell them to take a turn watching Mom, driving her to the doctor's, and doing the laundry, housekeeping and bathing, and see how much time and effort it takes. I am one of 10 kids who took care of Mom on weekends when the caregiver needed time off. Her sisters should be grateful that she is willing to take this on instead of hiring a paid stranger. God bless her. — Enraged Reader Annie's Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Please email your questions to anniesmailboxcomcast. net, or write to: Annie's Mailbox, c/o Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254. prescribe a more potent steroid DEAR DOCTOR K: A cocream. You'll have to apply the worker came to work with a poicream a few times a day until the son ivy rash. She assured me rash clears up. she's not contagious. Is that true? Of course, it's better to avoid DEAR READER: Your cothe rash in the first place. That worker is right: You can't "catch" means protecting yourself when poison ivy from coming into conyou're outside. Wear long tact with her rash. But it's sumsleeves and pants, as well as mer, so let me give you a refreshthick work gloves, when gardener course about the many plants Dr. K ing. Be careful about those that can cause a rash and how to by Anthony L. take precautions against them. Komaroff, M.D. clothes and gloves. They may have kept plant oils off your skin That way you'll be as safe while gardening in your backyard, biking in a while you were outdoors, brushing park or hiking in the mountains as you against poison ivy, but those oils remain are sitting beside your co-worker in your on clothes and gloves for several days. So if after you come indoors you touch office. Many plants have defenses to protect the outside of the unwashed clothes or themselves. Some secrete oils or saps that gloves, you could transfer the oils to cause animals and humans to develop your skin and get poison ivy. If you think any part of your body allergic reactions. If you touch the plant, the contact triggers an allergic reaction may have come in contact with poisothat appears in two to 10 days as a red, nous plants, wash the area with soap and swollen, itchy, blistering rash. Poison ivy, water as soon as you can. The faster you poison oak and poison sumac are best wash, the more effective it will be. If you known for causing the problem. (I've put wash immediately, most of the plant oil an illustration of these plants on my web- will come off. If you wait more than two site, AskDoctorK.com, so you'll know hours, it's too late. Don't forget to always wash your what to avoid when you're outdoors.) If you do encounter one of these hands, even if you don't think they plants, the allergic reaction will go away touched a plant. Your hands may not on its own in about 10 days. But you'll have touched the plant, but they could likely be desperate for relief from the well have touched the part of you that burning, itching sensation long before touched the plant. And when you wash your hands, scrub under your fingernails, then. My colleague at Harvard Medical as that's a place that oils like to hide. School, dermatologist Dr. Kenneth Dr. Komaroff is a physician and Arndt, shared some tips for relieving symptoms. First, apply cool compresses, professor at Harvard Medical School. To then pat your skin dry. Try an over-the- send questions, go to AskDoctorK.com, counter hydrocortisone cream. If that's or write: Ask Doctor K, 10 Shattuck St., not strong enough, ask your doctor to Second Floor, Boston, MA 02115. Rare corpse flower to bloom at UC Santa Barbara SANTA BARBARA (AP) — An Indonesian flower famous for its foul odor is expected to unfurl its putrid blossom within the next week at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The school says its greenhouse will be open to the public during the one-day blooming of the so-called corpse flower. Unlike other flowers that rely on bees for pollination, this one counts on flies. It attracts them with the smell of rotting flesh, and they in turn spread its sticky pollen. Its nauseating scent comes from two sulfurproducing chemicals within its leaves. The UCSB plant is 4 feet tall and growing rapidly. A live webcam of the plant can be found on the school's website.