Vile Weed

No, I'm not talking about marijuana; I'm talking about poison ivy. The reason I'm talking about poison ivy is that I'm suffering from it for the third time THIS SUMMER. The first time it moderately covered my arms and legs and was terrible. The second time it was hellish, literally covering the entire front of my body, head to toe. And my caboose. My face swelled up--it drove me to the ER, where I received Prednisone and lots of stares.
This time, it's not nearly as severe, thankfully. Several spots on my arms and a couple on my leg. One would think that I'd wise up and stay out of my yard, or learn to identify it and avoid it like the plague. Which reminds me, if God ever decides to rain plagues on Egypt again, poison ivy is a great new idea.
But poison ivy sports several looks. Mostly it's green and droopy--almost pretty, really. Sometimes it's red, with scraggly, pointed leaves. If it looked this way all the time, there wouldn't be a problem, but it's red only in the spring time. Plus, there are many "imposter" plants that look like poison ivy but are completely harmless. All of this has resulted in a fair amount of paranoia for me, tiptoeing around my yard as if I'm looking for land mines.
At any rate, I have vowed to wear pants and long sleeves whenever I work in my yard, at least til the poison plant has been eradicated. That, I'm told, can be a very long and tedious task, because poison ivy is very difficult to get rid of.
One good thing--I'm trying to find the silver lining, here--is that I consider myself somewhat of a junior expert on the stuff. I've got a link to a website, if you're curious. Trust me--it's better to do your homework BEFORE you get into the vile weed, than to sit there at your computer sratching every square inch of your itchy, blistery body.