Finding common ground.

 

May calling.

It's been a rainy and very buggy May, but I'm still glad I'm not freezing out there anymore. I still have not put away my winter coat, which hangs on the rack by the door. I don't trust this weather. 

But as I say, buggy as hell, with many skeeter bites and gnat encounters already. I caught some yellow jackets up to no good. Every year they find some place on the house they've never nested before, and proceed to nest there. This year it was under the second-story gutter. Well, I and my hose took care of them hive turkeys. 

I am a Cat 5 hurricane on wasps' nests. 

Been a really great year for the creepy-crawlies too, like these ninjas, rappeling from the trees:

"I'm going to land in your hair!"

On that note, I had the world's smallest grasshopper land on me, playing "My Heart Bleeds for You" on his world's smallest Cricket-in-Times-Square violin: 

I guess it's been good for the birds, though. And on that note, the dog and I got a couple of visitors while sitting on the porch a few days ago. I have seen plenty of birds perch on the porch rail, but these two were flying all around the porch itself. I thought we were getting dive-bombed. 

Well, turns out they were house hunters, and now every evening we see this: 

This has been going on for the better part of the week. I've had to hose off the planks under their preferred bedroom, but otherwise they are ideal tenants -- for squatters. I'm thinking it's their house now; I may have to move. 

Finally, big ups to the highway department on this one: 

To be fair, it's on a dead-end street. On the other hand, I've seen one driver fly through it recently. And on the other other hand (may I borrow yours?), the taxes we pay around here should guarantee concierge service for our road signs. 

It's for the boids, I tell ya! 

Sprung.

As I noted, and you know if you're in this hemisphere along with most of the population, spring has arrived. And that means hope! Dreams! Young love! And WORK WORK WORK.

Yesterday I was in the giant houseware store, which I'll call Loam Depot because I was buying mulch and rocks. Rocks! When you're a kid you think rocks just happen. They're not something you buy. They're all over. Why spend money on rocks? Why torture the poor suspension (yours and the car's) with a load of rocks? And why buy mulch when you can mow over leaves and make it?

I know, I know. I don't care why. It just is. Spring comes and my un-mulched areas look like crap. As for the rocks, like most people in the 'burbs whose mailbox is on the devil's strip twixt sidewalk and road, I am not content to just let the mailbox post stand in dirt. But I am not so foolish as to think something planted in primo dog zone would survive. Once one dog hits the spot they all want to, and there's no plant alive that can withstand that kind of barrage. Some people cover the ground at the base of the post with bricks or mulch, and some use decorative pebbles, like moi. I use red ones. They match the mulch. 

My dad was a great one for landscaping, and he absolutely 100% did not pass that love down to me. I envy people like him, people who love gardening and tending the lawn and all the other things that make the property look dandy. They get exercise and fresh air and have more to show to the world for the effort than sweaty gym clothes. I like growing individual plants, but nothing more than I can grow in a pot, and that includes grape tomatoes and bell peppers. I cannot stand the idea of turning a large plot of earth, shoving in seeds, then fighting off deer and rabbits and bugs all summer. Unless I can develop a plant that produces Krugerrands, I think I'm just not going to maintain the motivation necessary. 

Today, though, is one of those days I have to buckle down and get some things done. Putting down some tick-murdering poison along the border of the property, for example -- one of the ways we keep the dog tickless. Killing weeds in walkways and other places plants don't belong. Washing the cars -- I feel confident that the big freeze is done, and there's no point in have a vehicle that looks like a pretzel. 

I guess that shows just how close to nature I am, that my spring endeavors are all about cars and poison. Oh, and I got the grill going yesterday, so that's propane for burning meat. I'm a one-man Anti-UN Environmental Programme. And for that, at least, I am proud. 

As I look back on today's blog entry, I realize I've covered this ground in years gone by. And that's what spring is -- covering the same old ground, year after year. With mulch.

Springshots.

Ah, spring! What joy! How well the great poet Chaucer put it: 

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, 

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, 

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur 

Of which vertú engendred is the flour; 

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne...

Yeah, dude. Righteous.

You gotta love spring, if only because winter sucks so much. Yeah, the bugs are back, and some of the birds make a lot of noise, and some of the neighbors make a lot of noise, but it's okay. Why, I saw a pileated woodpecker the other day, not twenty feet away! Almost fainted with excitement. 

The bird was camera-shy, alas, but I offer these simple pictures of spring in her splendor. 

Okay, so this doesn't look like much. But when I see long, dead grass strands under my deck, I know what it means...

Construction time for the Robins again. 

The blooms look so wonderful that I hope we don't get snow in May again this year. Kills flowers dead.

The dogwood's already losing its petals. Lazy, that's what I call it. Well, let sleeping dogwoods lie. 

The maples are finally unfurling their leaves. Baby steps, maples. 

This tree always looks great. Except the year we got a late blizzard and it had so many leaves up already that the weight tore down several limbs. But it bounced back after a decade or so. Can't kill this guy.

And finally, daffodils. Maybe my favorite flower.
You forget the bulb is there and suddenly: Bing! I'm back!

The sunlight colors always look like hope. 

Earthworm jimmied.

Today's post is a bit of a rebuttal to my own post on warning labels from the other day, as you shall see.

🔬 🔬 🔬

You learn a lot of lessons in school, many of which are not the ones you're specifically taught. 

My wife was telling the story of Frog Dissection Day in her high-school biology class, where her lab partner actually fainted, leaving her to face the frog alone. The bio teacher filled in as her "partner," but of course he was not going to do any of the work. I think the frog had a better day than my wife did. 

The year I took biology in high school, the school system was too broke for the Fetal Pig. There was a well-known progression in bio lab over the course of the school year: Earthworm, Frog, Fetal Pig. It had been that way through history, right up through the year before mine. But New York City was in the midst of one of its financial crises, and so we were down to the worm and the frog. 

I actually missed frog day; I don't think I was too skeeved out to go, so I suspect I was actually sick that day, not playing hooky. But I do remember Earthworm Dissection Day. Vividly.

Unlike my wife's bio class, we got four lab partners to each worm. I must confess that this was no advanced science class; it was just the required class. It was not a smarty pants nerd class full of Future Physicians and Amateur Golfers of America. So the studentry was real mixed bag. 

Speaking for myself, I had no idea what was going on. What's inside an earthworm, anyway? Earth? Gray pudding? They can't really have organs, can they? I dreaded finding out. 

Nevertheless, the day came, and the four of us at my table were staring down at the largest earthworm I had ever seen, dead and stretched out on a board. 

The girls on our team didn't want to touch it. They were of the classic Brooklyn F--- that I ain't touchin no f——- worm variety. I certainly didn't want to do anything to make myself look stupid in front of these kids -- being a A/B student was the only thing I had over them. And the other boy was a tall galoot who could have been a jock but had instead chosen a career as a stoner, the kind of guy that could flunk a course in breathing. So things looked pretty grim.

Then, as the worm turns, so too came the most unexpected turn of events.

The dumb guy picked up the tools, looked at the diagram, and with no words, started in gently. With no help from the rest of the team, he did an absolutely gorgeous job on the worm. He sliced it to the right millimeter, then peeled and pinned back the skin as gently as a breath of spring, leaving the deceased annelid's organs on display like an exhibit in a museum. At other tables the students were descending into chaos, their worms looking like they'd been sat on. Our worm's innards were so clearly delineated you could have taken a photo of it for a textbook. Out of nowhere this teenage boy made us all look like we knew what we were doing.

Had this been a hobby of his? Or could this have been a life-changing moment, the moment this guy decided to smarten up and become a doctor, a pathologist, a coroner, or a serial killer? I have no idea who he was or what became of him, so I cannot hazard a guess. But as he pulled forth the worm organs, so too he pulled our fat out of the fire, and I have always been grateful. 

It's a reminder that you really can't judge someone's insides entirely by their outsides.

And I certainly never have looked at earthworms the same way again.

I salute you, worm dissection guy. I'm sorry I missed what was probably a virtuoso performance on the frog. I only hope that you went on to use your amazing surgical prowess productively, and for good, not for evil. 

Porch song.

John Madden famously said, "If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch."

Well, Izzy's on the larger side as breeds go, but he'd usually still rather stay on the porch. This summer has been relatively mild, and he's decided the porch is the primo spot. 

He isn't there to spy on the neighbors or bark at people going past on the sidewalk. He just likes hanging out outside. Humans need shelter, but not animals. If they're in their natural temperature zone, they can just hang out. They may not be comfortable all the time, but they're in far less danger of dying from exposure than we are.

What's annoying is that Izzy will pretend he has to go out to pee, sound real panicky, and collapse on the boards the moment he goes outside. Sometimes even if he has to do his duty (har!), he will stay on the porch first to make sure he gets his porchwork in.

Never neglect porch day.

Often he'll fall asleep out there. 

I don't mind too much. The porch furniture is not very comfortable, but it's okay. The bugs usually don't attack. It's mainly a problem if I'm on deadline. Almost all my work is done on the laptop, and I don't want that outside if the weather is bad -- or if he really does want to go walkies and I'd be obliged to leave it out there. Even if it's just sunny, it's hard to see the screen. 

He doesn't want to be alone outside, so he'll start making noises if tethered on the porch by himself. If I'm working against the clock, I have to play the bad guy and drag his furry behind back in. 

Occasionally the weather will be too hot or cold, and Izzy will want to go in before too long. This never happens in spring or fall -- rain, sun, fog, thunderstorm, snow, he doesn't care. 

But I think I benefit from the fresh air as well, even during allergy season. Also, because we were out there so much, I caught a bunch of wasps building a nest. The little bastards were building it at the very apex of the gable in the center of the roofline, a place inaccessible with wasp spray from the second-story windows or from the ladder I have. I could go out the window onto the porch roof, but considering that I have injured myself going downstairs recently and crossing the driveway before that, I am not going out on any roofs if I can avoid it. 

So, from the top of my ladder leaning up against the porch, I sprayed the nest with the hose. 

That has a couple of advantages. One, it ruins the nest. Two, they don't seem to consider water damage as an attack, just weather; they go into flee mode, not fight mode, so I got away without being stung. Unfortunately, the nest is still attached up there, hanging like a withered old testicle. If it doesn't detach on its own soon, I'm going to have to dig out the power washer and hope that has better range. 

To sum up: Dog, cute, loves porch; wasps, evil, build branch offices of hell in inaccessible places. And I'm just glad I can sit outside and not freeze to death because it's summer.  

Talking with the bugs.

I've had some discussions with the bugs lately, and I must say they have not been very satisfying. We have been unable to reach an accommodation. Steps have now been taken. 

The gnats, for one thing, have been much more poorly behaved this year than in the last couple of years. I suspect that it is because the spring started very wet and turned very dry, and for some reason this created an opportunity for them to get going in earnest. The backyard has been almost a no-fly-zone because of their insistence on getting in my face. 

Me: Get out of my face, gnats.

Gnats: Make us.

Me: Why are you hanging around me? You're not drinking my blood like those other flying pests. What do you want?

Gnats: To drive you insane by going in various orifices in your deliciously moist and salty face. 

Me: Doing a good job at it. 

I would have been willing to concede the yard to them for the time being, but Izzy the hairball dog wants to go back there. Worse, he gets into the tall grass edging the property, and you know what that means. I pulled three ticks off him the other day, one of which I'm pretty sure was a deer tick. If it bit him it would die (we use Simparica Trio) but there's a good chance it would wander off him and onto me or my wife, and abracadabra! Lyme disease. 

I squished one tick in a facial tissue, but it kept squirming.

Tick: You can't kill me! I am mighty!

Me: Say hello to Davy Jones. [FLUSH]

The ticks freaked my wife out, and I was dispatched to the backyard to spray Triazicide all over the place. In years past it has worked to make tick attacks less common and seems to keep the gnats down too. Sorry, bugs; you brought it on yourselves.

Izzy likes to just hang out on the porch when the weather is nice, and it has been quite nice. Unfortunately the wasps are busy looking for places to open up their Branch Office of Hell, and they keep hanging around. I mean, I know I'm a sweetheart, but do they have to hover around me like I'm a rose? You can't swat them like flies; it just makes them mad. I have plenty of Raid to knock out any nests, but what if I'm minding my business with the puppy? An errant shot would be bad for the dog. Are they going to ruin whatever's left of my spring?

But then, my sainted bug-hating wife gave me this.

Zevo makes a line of anti-bug stuff that's safe around children and dogs. I'm not the kind of guy who buys organic or worries that a moment's exposure to pesticide is what will kill my dog ten years later. I am however the kind of guy who knows my dog will go right after the most dangerous thing present. because he's a dog. In fact, he found the scent of this can so appealing before I'd even used it, he wanted to chew on it. The products may be safe, but I'm pretty sure chewing on a pressurized can is not. 

Anyway, I got to test the spray just minutes after it arrived in the mail. A fat ol' yellow jacket came buzzing me on the porch. I whipped out the Zevo and fired. One smooth shot, a thin but concentrated line, knocked the flying schmuck out of the sky. It lay on the porch like it suddenly remembered it had a splitting hangover.

YJ: What... what was that? 

Me: There's a new sheriff in town. 

YJ: You're the guy who tries to stop us with hairspray. 

Me: That was then. 

Sadly, Zevo is not an instant kill product. The wasp got up, determined to hector me again, and I nailed it a second time. Then it flew off, never to return, and hopefully to go die somewhere else. Zevo's wasp spray ingredients are cornmint and rosemary essential oils, and unnamed soap ingredients, so although it claims to be deadly, I have my doubts. But it got the aerial-hole gone, and left the porch smelling like a pricey bodywash.  

So feel free to talk to the local bugs, and make sure to tell them who's boss. They may be venomous, and may have numbers, but we have all kinds of toxic crap and we're not afraid to use it. Well, I'm not.

The memeing of life.

It's Monday! Of course I'm relying on memes to see me through the blog this morning. They're part of a complete breakfast! 

Not one of mine, but sadly, true

Thanks for the pic, Stiiv!

Bunch o' critters.

We often hear that animals have curious names when they get together. One raven is okay, but you get a bunch in the same place and you have a conspiracy. Owls, on the other hand, prefer to be a parliament. And a bunch of otters is a family. Which is nice. 

A "mischief" of rats

Some animals seem to have chosen the cool names themselves, like a pride of lions or a sounder of pigs. Others got stuck with the leftover names, like a sloth of bears or a smack of jellyfish. Some seem to have taken more deserving names from others -- while the pandemonium of parrots comes across as pretty appropriate, did anyone ask the pandas what they thought?

Along these lines, I have twenty animals that I thought could use new and better collective nouns. Let's see what you think. 

A dress parade of chinstrap penguins

A beer run of  Clydesdales

A coatrack of ibexes

A cuteness of red pandas

A hellspawn of mosquitoes

A dropbox of koalas

A cuddle of anacondas

A film noir of pandas

A classroom of hamsters 

A catastrophe of turkey vultures

A chorus line of blue-footed boobies

A bloodbath of honey badgers

A bluh-blah-bluh of vampire bats

A laugh track of hyenas

A Targetful of ladybugs 

An outbreak of spotted salamanders 

A fart of blowfish

A Jonathan of jackrabbits

A shelling of snails

A lotl axolotls

I was going to come up with one for egrets, but I have no egrets.

🐠🐙🐘🐗🐖🐌🐍🐎🐏🐅🐂🐃🐄🐈🐉🐊🐋🐟🐞🐝🐜🐥🐭🐮🐨🐩🐫🐪🐭

That's all I have today. As always, your further suggestions are welcome in the comments.

Food pill.

Yesterday I suggested that we might eventually wind up with food pills rather than food, especially if our overlords of the Great Reset have their way. I guess it would be one way for them to realize their dream of getting the peasants to eat bugs. Bugs can be ground up and made into pills, but the ingredients list would not have to say CONTAINS: COCKROACHES -- just the list of proteins and whatnot that go into making cockroaches. 

There was a time when food pills seemed to be the goal of nutritionists, a cure for starvation. If all we needed were X nutrients to survive, why not make a capsule full of X and just swallow that? The Jetsons had a machine that could produce food pills, presumably for when the family was on the go. The Kelvans who took over the Enterprise subsisted on food pills. So it's going to happen one day, right?

NOT SO FAST! says Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D., in his book Where's My Jetpack?, which I profiled on this site a couple of years ago. He notes that there are useful applications for a minuscule, super-portable source of nutrition, but we're not close to an actual food pill. 

The idea was first seriously proposed in 1893 by suffragette Mary Elizabeth Leese (according to Paleofuture and other sources). No one would have to do the drudgery of cooking in Leese's imagined future of 1993! Pills and potions will handle the lot with fake foods! Huzzah for the freedom of the woman! 

Sounds pretty boring to me. But also, as it turns out, the human body is made to eat actual food. It wants fiber and cells and a balance of solids and liquids to keep running happily. The ideal food pill would still likely leave people as clogged up as toilet full of top soil. I imagine it would have to turn into a bolus of shredded wheat or something in the stomach, like one of those Magic Grow sponge capsules, to give us our daily fiber. 

As usual, this science fiction idea might work fine for some imagined species, but not the human ones. 

So actual food pills look like a pipette dream, so to speak. On the other end of the scale is eating too much, and there we find myself. I have the physique of an athlete. Unfortunately, that athlete is Haystacks Calhoun. 

Maybe some of us could use some food pills instead of eating at Olive Garden, is all I'm saying. But they contain cockroaches, the deal is off. 

Come back Saturday for another take on food intake! 

Razzle-dazzle.

This dude's got him some razzle-dazzle. 

By that I don't mean the first definition of razzle-dazzle from Merriam-Webster, that being "a state of confusion or hilarity," which dates back to 1885. I'm thinking of the second definition, "a complex maneuver (as in sports) designed to confuse an opponent," or the third, "a confusing or colorful often gaudy action or display." That's because this crickety fellow shares a tactic that was developed by the United Kingdom and the United States during World War I, which was called razzle-dazzle, or the dazzle system.

The April 1919 issue of Popular Science Monthly noted:

When the German U-boats began their depredations, it became desperately necessary to provide some protective coloration for transport, food-ships, and the hundreds of vessels that were carrying munitions to Europe. 

Battleship gray had been devised to help ships blend into the sky and sea, but as the article notes, it had "proved utterly useless". What the artists came up with instead was the dazzle system, a means of painting ships not to render them invisible, but to use odd patterns of stripes to make it difficult for a U-boat to tell which way a ship was facing and at what speed it was traveling. The class of the ship (battleship, cargo, etc.) would be more difficult for the enemy to pinpoint as well. 

More than 2,000 ships got the dazzle treatment, but I don't know if it's possible to say how effective it was. Since U-boats would not act and betray their position unless they were positive of a hit, there's no telling how many shots they didn't take because of the dazzle system. 

The illustrations from the Popular Science article certainly make it seem impressive:

However, there's at least one sailor's story that questions its effectiveness:  

It was quiet sometimes and sometimes you were… once or twice we lost a couple of merchant ships. I can remember I was on watch one afternoon and we were coming up the east coast and I said to the signalman, ‘Hey, I said, look at that ship over yonder.’ And I says, it was the first ship we saw with the dazzle paint on. And lo and behold, not a couple minutes after, we heard a bang and a flash and we look across and it was this ship that was dazzled – sunk.

I guess by the time the Big One, WWII, broke out, they decided just to go back to battleship gray because you couldn't dazzle the enemy with just visual tricks anymore. Airplanes would not be fooled by stripes, and unlike in the First Big One, airplanes were used heavily in sea combat. 

Anyway, that's a thought for today, brought up by the bug. I'll have more to write on battleship gray tomorrow. 

Hard sell.

Yesterday morning tiny little 82-pound baby dog Izzy had to go to the vet for his first annual checkup. In future, his shots will be staggered, but on this one he got them all at once: Lyme, bordetella, rabies, and so on. He passed his physical and was very well behaved (why can't my doctor give ME cheese during an exam?). But he was completely wiped out afterward. So, in fact, was I. 

We were conked out in the living room when Izzy suddenly got an interior call on the Bladder Hot Line, and I woke to him whining. With no thought to my own bladder, I whisked him outside, where, like any dog with a strong urge to micturate, he started wandering around by the sidewalk, looking for the perfect spot. And that's when two things happened that led to my Irritation of the Day. 

First, a young guy pulled up to me riding a hoverboard. He had a lanyard and a clipboard, so I knew this wasn't going to be good. 

Worse, he had barely started into his pitch (Today only! Deep discount! Trucks in the neighborhood!) for lawn pest control when a pal from around the corner stopped his car on the way and said hi to both of us, him having used pest-control service. Now the salesman knew I live in this house, not just walking the dog past it, and he has a customer he can point to as a success story. 

The pitch continues, and continues, and continues. I keep saying no as nicely as I can. 

Why? After all, readers of this blog know I hate every critter this guy shows on his kill list, from wasps to spiders to ticks to mice. But I will not be driven into a snap decision when one is not necessary, and I despise the hard sell. 

Can't stand it, always have. Once when I was a kid, my parents made the mistake of going for a tour of a time-share outfit in Florida. For our willingness to look around and listen to the pitch, the salesman promised a gift certificate and some novelty prize. Well, my parents had a bad feeling about the whole deal (the same one many time-share customers would come to have) and their answer was no. That salesman went from funny young man to blank-eyed casino owner the moment we got in his office. You could not tell him no in any form or language that would lead the conversation to end. We would still be there to this day, us kids grown-up and the remains our dead parents, with the guy waiting for us to agree -- but finally my parents just got up and we left. If I had been younger I would have screamed "I pooped my pants!" to help them get out sooner. 

As much as I admire energy, get-up-and-go, and hard-charging ambition, I will not be told that I have to make a decision now, not unless someone is literally going to die. And when a salesperson asks "What is there to think about?" I shut down entirely. 

I swore I would call him if he'd give me his number, and I would have, but he wouldn't let go. I used my wife as my excuse for not agreeing to anything, and said she wasn't home, and no I could not call her right now, and finally got away. 

During this whole exchange, poor exhausted Izzy had flopped on the sidewalk, and neither of us had peed, and we were both losing our joie de vivre quickly.  

I should have yelled "I pooped my pants!" and run.

You know I've had it when I would rather have the four- and six- and eight-legged pests than that two-legged pest. 

UPDATE: The town has sent out this notice: 

We have received several reports from residents regarding recent door-to-door solicitation from a pest control company.  Please be aware that the Town has not issued any Peddler's Permits for this solicitation, as required by Town code.  Those who have been issued a Peddler's Permit by the Town should always be able to present this permit when asked.  Please exercise caution and do not invite strangers into your home.

I want my DDT.

Just before bedtime the other evening, I noticed something flittering around the kitchen light. At first I thought it was a moth, because that's what moths do. Then I realized it had those skinny legs, like a marionette flying about with its strings cut. 

GAH! Mosquito! 

Just what you want as you're about to go to sleep -- the knowledge that a bloodsucking freak is lurking.

First I tried to slap it silly by smashing my hands together, but it kept getting away and probably thought I was applauding. Fortunately it was staying near the light over the table, so I took a moment to bring in the big guns -- the flyswatter. 

I stalked my prey, my nerves as taut as a divorcee's underwire, as I neared it and -- zing! Slapped it out of the sky. 

"Where did it go?" I said. 

"I think you injured it," my wife said. "It's done for."

"Don't be silly! They're at their most dangerous when they're wounded."

It would be very satisfying if, when you wing one, a mosquito went down in a spiral of smoke and gave off a little explosion when it hit the ground, but that's not the way they work. Instead I had to deal with the uncertainty. Did it survive? Would I get stung in the night? 

The answers appear to be no. Maybe one of the dogs ate it. They'll go after anything on the floor.

All of this leaves one question in my mind: Those who hate DDT and similar bug-killers and buy completely the Rachel Carson schtick always say that in countries where malaria is a deadly menace, mosquito netting is the answer. Do African mosquitos only bite at night? They certainly bite in the daytime here. 

Devil in the DEETails.

 

The test.

I've been feeling like crap. Worse than crap. Since Saturday, like day-old crap. My throat hurt. My upper palette felt like I'd been playing the Bonham drum solo from "Moby Dick" on it, and my uvula like Charles Laughton had been kicking it like the bells of Notre Dame. My breath was short. I was itchy all over. Actually, really itchy on my lower abdomen. Some kind of new creeping crud? Roving jock itch? Sounds like the worst Scotsman you could meet. "I be Jock McItch from Clan McItch, and I be roving across this abdomen."

Maybe this stream of thought will demonstrate that I was not sleeping very well, either. 

By fortune, I had been in the drugstore last week and, on a whim, picked up a box of COVID-19 tests. My wife was a little concerned that I might have the Chinese Death Virus, and suggested I take the test. Well, why not? Let's see if the Wuhan Wonders scored another goal against the Americans, shall we?

This was in the drugstore in the seasonal aisle, near the towels and swimsuits and pool toys and whatnot for travel. I doubt you're supposed to show the TSA your negative COVID test to get to your gate, so I suppose we're on the honor system. Still, it's good to know that you're not sick before you leave home. It's bad enough when you get sick at your destination and have to get home that way.

By the way, it's weird how pharmacies used to double as malt shops, but is it any weirder that now they double as baby shopping malls? You can get your meds, makeup, shampoo, milk, chocolate bars, seasonal clothing, greeting cards, toilet paper, and potato chips all in one go. 

Anyway. 

I liked taking the test, because it was like a junior chemist set. 

Better than a pregnancy test, because I didn't have to pee on anything. There was nothing in the instructions against peeing, but I didn't think it would help. On that topic, swishing the swab around my nostrils was rather like cleaning out two tiny little toilet bowls. Satisfying, but disgusting. 

Next the swab goes in the little vial, swishes around there, then the vial drips out into the test strip--exactly three drops. ("Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.") Then wait 15 minutes. If you look before 15 minutes, you could get a false report; if you wait more than 30, ditto. So this is all very scientific. 

And at last, the results:

No Chinese Death Virus! 

So why have I been feeling so sick? Well, as it turned out, the itch on my abdomen resolved more clearly into three large welts, so I think I was bitten or stung by something poisonous -- one of nature's little bastards, like sweat bees or something -- while I was out with the dogs. I have a sensitivity, if not an outright allergy, to yellowjacket venom, and I wonder if it caused an allergic reaction that has given me allergy-like symptoms (not a closing of the throat as with anaphylaxis, but a mild version, with a sore throat). Or it could just be a damn cold. Those are going around, I hear.

So, I'm slathering up with steroid cream and calamine lotion, taking pseudoephedrine and cough drops and diphenhydramine and lots and lots of coffee, and soldiering on. What more can a man do?

Bug off.

Man, there are so many bugs out there, I've been getting eaten up like a missionary at a cannibal convention. 

Even more annoying at the moment than the evil mosquitoes are the gnats, who like to fly into my eyes and nose and sometimes ears, making me feel like Father Delaney trying to bless the house in The Amityville Horror. 

At least these aren't biting gnats. They appear to be fungus gnats. And what are fungus gnats? 

Fungus gnats (Orfelia and Bradysia species), also called darkwinged fungus gnats (Sciaridae), are dark, delicate-looking flies similar in appearance to mosquitoes.... They eat organic mulch, leaf mold, grass clippings, compost, root hairs, and fungi.

 

So now I feel extra proud about putting down all that mulch last week.

Gnathole

Truth to tell, the gnats were extra bad this year even before the mulch event, probably because it's been so rainy. We live close to a stormwater pond, which is nice because it is built to prevent flooding, but lousy because it means there's nothing we can do to stop the bugs from multiplyin' like John Travolta's chills. I take care of any standing water around the property, of course, and use other mitigation techniques, but the bugs are too much for me in the end. 

It amazes me how much non-biting bugs can be annoying. To humans, at least. The dogs don't seem to care about the gnats. You see a cow in a field with flies all over the place, all they do is swish the tail once in a while; they don't run away, or get up on their hind legs and MOOOOO with fury. 

I remember being at a relative's cabin in the woods as a boy, and while the adults were having drinks and talking about boring adult things, I went in the yard to practice fungo hitting. It was a cool day, overcast but not rainy. As I was tossing the Wiffle ball and swinging the bat, and missing, the bugs took notice; the more I sweated, the more they closed in. The more frustrated I got and annoyed I got, the more I sweated, and the more covered in bugs. I had to give up. 

To this day, I suck at baseball. Do I blame the bugs? That would be silly. Yes, yes I do.

Butterfly.

Butterflies are free! Bumblebees, three for $1.

I saw this majestic butterfly the other morning. It was so large I was sure it would fly into my face if I disturbed it, but I'd hoped it would stay still long enough for the photo. 

I'm enjoying spring, or at least I keep telling myself how much more I like it than winter. But the gnats are getting quite rude, and I've already donated a pint to the Mosquito Annual Blood Drive. Now it turns out we have poison ivy among the bordering weeds, for the first time in all the years I've been here. 

In my mind I'm renaming the seasons; instead of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter I will say Itch, Burn, Mold, and Shatter.

So yesterday morning I stopped at Home Depot and got a big ol' jug of weed killer, one that specifically lists poison ivy and poison oak on the front. The cashier asks, "Does this kill poison ivy?" I said if not I'd be back for something stronger. Agent Orange, perhaps, or napalm. 

I couldn't use it yet, though. Saturday turned into a day-long rainout, but not without advantages. It appeared that my wicked neighbor, the one that will be arrested by the feds, was going to have his annual cookout and pool-opening party. How do I know? Because his wife's sister was over the day before to help clean the house. I don't think they let her stay for the party. Well, every family is weird in its own way, and some are weirder than others. 

Anyway, it looks like the party was a bust (one car showed up). 

On the whole, though, the weather has been pleasant enough this May, and helpful to my new tree. A friend asked if I've been watering it once a week, as the nurseries suggest, and I pointed out that I haven't had to bother since we've had lakes of rain this month. 

One last thing: About that huge butterfly?

So I lied a little. Cute, though, ain't he?

Busy bee.

This week has been the craziest week of work since I went freelance. Which is good, because I need the dough. Don't you want to make more money? Sure, we all do!

So I've been a busy little bee this week, barely able to compose this blog. Why, this week alone, I:

• Proofread War and Peace -- not the Tolstoy one; this was written by Herb J. Zietlinker and is much longer.
• Fact-checked Funk & Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia -- "Gk through Gz" was particularly troublesome.
• Felt a little muscular so cut down a couple of sequoias and built a community outhouse in the park.
• Copyedited the new Molly Yeh cookbook, 1,750 Recipes that Prove I Am Not Just a Web Influencer But Really Can Cook (Honest!).

I think I may actually be busier than many bees. Here are some for comparison purposes. 

Notice that these honeybees just sit there motionless on your screen. Also, they're so lazy that they're in black-and-white. I'm starting to think bees' industry is overrated. 

Anyway, all of the things I was doing interfered with the things I wanted to be doing, such as writing novels, commenting on the Great Lileks's site, promoting Fredcoin (the only cryptocurrency with Yippee! Yappee! and Yahooey!), or taking a shower. You know, it's those little things that make life more enjoyable. Next week should be less onerous.

Bug off.

 

I take it back.

All right, all right, I take it back. I'm not going to go out and kill everything this spring. It seems Nature has been reading this blog and decided to teach me a lesson yesterday. 

If nothing else, the rhododendrons have been spectacular this year. Further, though, I've hardly seen a single wasp on them -- but I have seen plenty of bumblebees. We're fond of those guys; they actually rated a hard B on my grading of backyard bugs some years ago. 

They've been called flying pandas, and it's hard to disagree. 

Next, I was with Izzy in the backyard when we saw a little ball of gray fuzz. Was it some weird and likely poisonous fungus? No, it was a tiny mouse that skittered away from us, but not very far. He didn't seem to be very good at being a mouse yet. I mean, the dog isn't so likely to see him when he's still, but I could, and Izzy could surely sniff him out. But I let the mouse go because he was cute. That's how they get you, you know -- one tiny one is cute, 500 tiny ones or one huge one are a nightmare. But let it be for now.

The last event of the day also happened in Izzy's company, as we emerged from the front door and saw traffic stopped in both directions and a couple of guys milling about. It seems there was a huge turtle in the middle of the road. He likely was heading for the pond across the street, and ran out of gas on the meridian. Fortunately I had not put my snow shovel in the garage yet (yes, we've had snow in May) and I managed to get the chap off the road and into the grass on the other side. Only flipped him over twice. Not that he looked particularly grateful. 

So there's my wildlife story --  Mutual of Omaha's Suburban Kingdom -- but rest assured that while I no longer wish to kill everything out there, there are many things that will perish if they cross my path. Yellowjackets, you've been warned.