Stung!

Bayou Road on a Spring Morning
©2008 Karen Mathison Schmidt
5 x 7 • acrylic on Gessobord
gloss varnish for protection and ease of cleaning
sold • private collection, Lafayette, Colorado

Work in progress photos:


This afternoon when my husband arrived home from running a few errands, I put my arms around him to give him a welcome home kiss and, eeeyow!!, a wasp that had stowed away on his shirt stung me on the inside of my left arm about halfway between my elbow and wrist. We only know it was a wasp because as I was dancing around the kitchen crying, "I’ve been stung, I’ve been stung,” Paul saw the wasp crawling away under the sink cabinet. It got away before we could smush it. Fortunately I’m not allergic to bees or wasps, so we didn’t have to go to the emergency room or anything, but boyhowdy did it HURT! Like the DICKENS! I ran lukewarm water on it and that helped a little. The stung spot started welling up a little, kind of like a mosquito bite, and Paul suggested ice to make it stop hurting, but that was a big mistake. As soon as the dishtowel-wrapped ice touched the sting, intense pain started radiating all the way up to my elbow and down to my wrist. It hurt so much I was crying real tears. I was definitely not a brave little soldier. So we ditched that idea. After a while the swelling went back down and now the only evidence of the sting is a little bitty red spot on my arm. It’s still really sore and achy, kind of like a pulled muscle, but nowhere near as bad as those first ten minutes.

Anyway, in spite of this traumatic experience, it was a great afternoon for painting ... I finished this one and started another one of the pups sleeping, which I think I’ll be able to finish tomorrow. If my arm doesn’t fall off during the night, that is. Oh well, as Pollyanna would say, at least it’s my left arm!

Here’s a detail of today’s painting: