My hands itch, figuratively speaking: there’s a kimono waiting to be sewn, a blog to be written, a video to be recorded, Christmas presents to be wrapped; the new mosaic wants to be finished; the grass could be mowed with this nice weather … but you need your hands for all those activities!

And my hands burn like hell

Hey, don’t laugh! I mean this literally. On Monday, I woke up in the middle of the night with a fire burning in my hands. With the feeling: I can keep scratching to the bone. What’s happening?

This is clearly a different feeling than when my stigmata are itchy.

I always joke about that.

When it starts raining, the spot right in the middle of especially my left palm will itch

Not a terrible feeling, you just notice. “My stigmata are itching, it’s going to rain!” I would declare, and usually get a skeptical hum back. (but it’ll rain, always!)

I also often declare that we’re poorly endowed with only 2 hands, because while doing a job you could often use a few extra. “Just manipulate two more arms in your genescheme, how hard can it be,” I sigh with a few screws between my teeth, struggling to hold something in place, and trying to get the heavy-duty drill with one hand above your head on the right place.

Just to name something. Holding three pieces of fabric together and getting them neatly under the machine without the pins coming under the foot is not so heavy, but just as challenging.

This was different. As if they were on fire, inside

Nothing was visible on the outside. Very strange. There I was, in the middle of the night, with my hands in Termas water, because our water is healing with skin problems.

It seemed appropriate, and moreover it brought relief.

I would have preferred to cut them off and put them in the freezer, but that is an irreversible process, so not a good idea.

Digging through the ointment file didn’t yield much either, because we’re simply incurably healthy, so we don’t need a lot of medicine. I found a not too old ointment against bacteria. “These are probably bacteria,” I muttered to myself, “but where do they come from?”

Anyway, long story short: everything remained as it was. No mowing, no wrapping, no sewing, no glueing, no nothing

Even though you work with your head, your hands are still very useful body parts! May be it sounds good: I’m all fired up – when you’re typing with burning hands, you won’t last very long. And itching makes you go crazy!

Moreover, I didn’t know where it came from.

Think deeply. It could be the detergent. I recently bought a different brand, with ylang-ylang, a scent that I really like (but unfortunately is overly artificial in a detergent. Too bad. Bad purchase). Furthermore, I hadn’t been in contact with dangerous substances, had done anything exceptional with sharp things, had never suffered from eczema-like ailments … what on earth is this?

If you spend half a day with your hands in a bowl of water, you do have time to think

Suddenly it came to my mind. The new chickens! I had bought 3 chickens on Sunday morning on the market in Louriçal, as company for my little favorite Carolina. Chickens may have nasty bacteria with them, I vaguely remembered. Of course I touched them when I got them out of the box into the chicken cot.

At the time of writing, my hands are happy as a clam again. Or … fit as a fiddle …

Anyway, you know what I mean. Don’t you?