Poison Oak 2008

I have poison oak, AGAIN. This seems to happen to me at least once a year, and the majority of the time I have no clue how I got it. I first noticed the little itchy bumps last week when I got into the shower. There's a telltale itchiness that confirms the diagnosis the moment the hot water hits my skin. I have a couple of theories about how I got it this time. I was out doing some field work in east San Jose in an area that had a little bit of poison oak. Perhaps I encountered it there. We also visited Steve's parents where the hill behind the house has poison oak, but I never walked up there. Could one of the kids have gotten a little on their clothes that transferred to me? The blisters always show up in two places, my wrists and my waist line. This time I have one small blister on the left side of my waist and, as of this writing two more on my left wrist. I'm pretty sure this won't be anything like the outbreak of poison oak I had last year that involved my entire right forearm, massive doses of Prednisone, and months of scarred purple skin that had me wearing long sleeves long after the weather had warmed up. Nevertheless, if I'm going to have itchy blisters showing up in strange places, I'd like to at least have a good story to tell about it.