Spring has sprung in Atlanta and you'd know it from the greenery creeping back, the people outside and the thick yellow film of pine pollen that coats everything. Every car has some message scripted into it. Park your car on the street and you're sure to wind up with a "wash me" or a "Go $*@&! yourself." In Ben's neighborhood the good little kids of Decatur draw butterflies in the pollen, but other places they draw more obscene images. Anyway, yesterday was the first rain we'd received in a week or so and every puddle had swirls of yellow gracing their surfaces. One thing everyone seems to know everything about is the pollen count. The story comes out the same no matter who is telling it. "Above 100 is supposed to be very high and we've been up around 5,000" It sounds like the type of thing that can get blown out of proportion really fast. But if you heard it on WABE during the pledge drive last week, it must be true.
I decided to do some investigating. I went straight to the source: Google, and typed in 'Atlanta pollen count'. The brought me to the
Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic who perform the
daily pollen count for the Atlanta Area. Below is a sample of their findings.
My allergies have not been horrific as of yet. A bit plugged up (in the nose) but that's about it. I also heard on the radio that the pollen you can't see (oak, sycamore, etc.) is what is gets people. C'est la vie, at least spring is here.
2 comments:
The "100 is extremely high, but we're at 5,000" is one of my favorite Atlanta factoids to share with folks back home. Hyperbole is so awesome when it is true! Not like that time when someone said there were 1,000 firefighters fighting a fire down the block, which clearly could not be true. Or the story about waiting for ONE WHOLE HOUR in the gas station car wash line because I (and everyone else) had pollen all over the car. Wait, that one WAS true, it happened yesterday!!!
For years I have come to realize that the nasty yellow pollen stuff makes way for whatever it is that I have such a hard time with. For me personally, Spring is something that looks good through the window, but once outside, it just makes me hate living. It alters my travel patterns, especially walking to work, or bicycling, or anything. I just hate it. It's the one time of the year that I actually try to avoid being outside, which is just sad, isn't it?
Post a Comment