Paroxysms of Sneezing

Allergic instigators have descended upon my tiny little flat in north tel aviv. I can't stop sneezing. I had gone over to help a friend in an emergency dog episode... canine 911, when after carrying the 180 pound dog up 4 flights of stairs I realized that my lungs had closed up.

with my friend trying to convince me to stay and keep her company, I begged off barely able to speak and made it back to my apartment with barely any oxygen left in my lungs. Grabbing my ventolin inhaler, I breathed in relief and marveled at how in my old age I've developed allergies. I'm allergic to one breed of dog, and it's my friend's breed of dog. In my little apartment, the smoke in the walls and in the furniture closes my lungs and makes me sneeze.

Both of my neighbours in the divided apartment that I'm attached to are smokers and it flows unabated into my apartment. I'm a non-smoker, hate the smell of smoke and am disgusted by the predominance of smokers in this developed country. At the same time I worry about what the country would descend into if everybody was denied their nicotine fix. In that sense I'm a bit like the mother of a typical hyperactive child, wishing that ritalin would babysit her child and yet worrying about the long term effects of doing just that.

Mind you, Ritalin doesn't turn lungs black or cause errant cells to bypass apoptosis and go AWOL.