Fruit and Fauna

Fruit

First, the fruit: check it out - I HAVE PLUMS!!!!


There are a bunch more getting close on the tree and evidence on the ground under the tree that a bunch more got ripe recently (the squirrels beat us to 'em ... damn squirrels). Hopefully, the ones I picked will ripen a bit more by themselves, otherwise we might be having a pucker-fest instead of a snack...

Fauna

Second, the fauna: The South has no shortage of Bugs of Gigantic Proportion.


Found this lovely early one morning - thankfully dead - on my doorstep. My ancient camera is not capable of the sort of close-up that would really give you nightmares, but you could see every last one of the thing's eyes.

He/She had one HECK of an abdomen (or thorax or whatever that bulbous, brownish bit is...).


I think it died because it came too close to the house -- an unintended consequence of having to spay the foundation for ants. This is why I don't like using pesticides. You never know what you're going to kill, and I'm normally fairly tolerant of excessively-legged creatures (especially ones that eat other excessively-legged creatures for breakfast) so long as they stay in their natural habitat (i.e., not the inside of my house).

Although I have to admit, I did very intentionally kill the black widow I found in the backyard a couple weeks ago. I don't know -- something in the hindbrain Did Not Like that particular collection of glossy black legs and I had squashed the motherfucker before I even knew what happened.

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Double Vision. Comin' Up.

So my sister-in-law, Ms. Beautiful (no, really, she is), has a three-year-old and finally convinced her husband that if they were going to have another kid, they might as well do it now.

So they've been trying. A few weeks ago, Ms. Beautiful was in town on a visit from the Land of Palm Trees and Long, Sandy (Non-Rocky) Beaches otherwise known as L.A., where she lives. She talked lots about babies and then made the Big Announcement: they're pregnant!

And then she flew back to the Land of Palms and Beaches and emailed a couple of photos from her trip and everything was peachy.

Today, my mother-in-law called me and said, "Are you sitting down? If not, find a spot and sit."

"What? Why?" I croaked (I lost my voice over the weekend). The first thing that popped into my mind was that something awful had happened.

"Ms. Beautiful had her ultrasound today," she said.

I could hear some weird undertone in her voice that I couldn't quite identify. Amusement? Excitement? Fear? I couldn't quite tell. My heart started pounding.

"What!??" I demanded as best I could.

"She's having twins!" my mother-in-law crowed.

And then, I screeched myself even more hoarse than I already was. Shock, amazement, excitement, disbelief - you name it, I felt it.

I mean, twins run in that side of The Husband's family - mother-in-law's brothers are twins - so we all had it in the back of our minds that such a thing was possible, but... oh man, none of us were prepared for this. Yikes.

Should be quite the adventure.

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The Cherry Tree That Wasn't

Or: Bethanie Gets an F- in Woody Plant Identification

There are a lot of flowing shrubberies and trees south of the M-DL - I mean, a LOT. Many, many more than in Yankee-land, where I grew up. Consequently, I cannot identify many, many of the flowering lovelies.

And that is my excuse for what follows.

You see, we have this lovely cherry tree in our side yard that bloomed beautifully last year:



Aren't those blossoms gorgeous?!??


Simply stunning! Then we got a late frost, and the budding cherries ended up looking like itty-bitty burnt up marshmallows. They're the little black things in the photo on the left, which are hard to see, so on the right, is a photo of my pears, which suffered the same fate.

It was very sad. Heart-breaking, in fact. But this is not that story.

No, this is the story of this year, the year we did not get a late frost that killed everything. The year that everything bloomed beautifully. The year that Ms. Almost-Six came up to me and said, "Mama! Mama! Come look at the cherries!"

I rushed over to the cherry tree to find these - the biggest, damn cherries I've ever seen:



Then Ms. Almost-Six brought me two of them. Two. They filled her entire hand.

For scale, here she is climbing the um-maybe-this-isn't-a-cherry tree:



Indeed. I think them there are what some folks call 'plums'...

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Scariness

I have to say, one of things I don't like so much about Itty-Bitty City is that fact that it's right, smack-dab in the middle of Tornado Alley and seems to walk around with a frikkin' bulls-eye on its back.

The Emergency Alert sound on the TV, the tornado sirens and that freight-train sound you read about are Just Fucking Frightening in real life.

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urgh .... drugs .... urgh ....

Thanks to the Evil Pollen Pixies, I woke up this morning with my eyes stuck shut and otherwise looking like 2-day old roadkill.

So I hiked over to FPU's Medical Center and got in to see one of the nice residents, who told me to take cetirizine (a.k.a. Zyrtec) and "hit the Flonase hard" (yes, those were his exact words).

I already had the Flonase, but had never tried cetirizine. I got some and noticed that, compared to the 825 milligram antibiotics I was taking last summer, they're tiny: only 10 milligrams.

Doubtful, I wondered if they'd do anything, popped one and went about my business. For about 20 minutes.

And then I got knocked flat on my fat ass for the next 2 hours.

The Husband claimed he called during this time and that I sounded "high as a kite". And perhaps I did. I don't remember much except having extreme difficulty concentrating on more than one thing at a time. By the time he got home with dinner, it was all I could do to stay awake, and once he was in the house, I gave up on that and took a nap.

10 milligrams. Tiny.

Moral of story: Do not judge a pill by its size.

[Oh, and besides knocking me out, it actually works - my eyes no longer look like marshmellows and the itchiness has descended into the realm of the bearable.]

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Allergy Eyes

You see the eye on your right?



That is actually the eye on my left.

And yes, it is swollen and bloodshot and it itches so badly I am about to rip it out of my frikkin' head to end my misery.

The Evil Pollen Pixies, as you can see, have finally found me.

In June, it will be 5 years since we moved to Itty-Bitty City from Way Out West - 5 years that were blissfully sniffle and itchy-eye free. I thought perhaps the Evil Pollen Pixies had given up their search for me, that I was to be permanently spared their hexes and curses, that I would be forced (albeit willingly) to give up my long-held title, The Snot Queen.

Clearly, that is not the case.

Clearly, the Evil Pollen Pixies are far more persistent than I ever gave them credit for.

Clearly, I will soon be (re-)embarking on my quest for the mythical Elixir of Relief, available only from the wise, wise Wizards of Scritch, Scratch and Suffer.

Let's hope they have better drugs these days.

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It's a Boy!!

8 lbs, 13 oz!!

Yup, cousin-girl had her baby, finally. Wheee-whoooo!!! No news on a name yet and have not heard the tale of the labor, but I know it was long and she ended up opting for the epidural. She was wanting to go all natural, so I hope she's not disappointed in herself - there's only so much you can take, especially when you know there's relief available.

Can't wait to see pics!

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Expecting... Aaaaaany Minute Now.....

My cousin in London sent an email at 3am this morning (my time) that she was heading in to the hospital for an induction -- and now I'm So Excited I can't see straight: somebody in my family is having a baby and it's NOT ME!!!!!!!!

I'm about to become an Auntie!!!!

(Well, a cousin with some sort of 'removal', whatever that is. My cousin is my kids' Auntie, even though she's not, because who the hell wants to try and explain that? Or figure it out.)

Can't wait for the news (er, obviously...).

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On The Rag Again... (doo-bee-doo-waaaah)

Yes, that rag.

Why the public service announcement about it?

Well, only because it's been almost exactly TWO YEARS since the last time.

Yeah. Breastfeeding rocks.

This is REALLY weird

So here I am -- out of town at a professional training conference and I HAVE THE HOTEL ROOM TO MYSELF.

No requests for snacks every 5 minutes from Ms. Five. No constant demands for attention from Ms. Baby. No grousing from The Husband about how much everything costs here in the middle of the Big City.

In other words, it's QUIET.

Like I said: REALLY weird.

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away

It's raining. Actually raining. As in, wet stuff falling from the sky. It's the craziest thing.

I mean, not counting a couple of 5-minute cloudbursts, it hasn't rained here in Hell in months (er, not that you'd expect it to, I suppose). It's been so hot and so dry for so long, it was starting to feel like it was never going to rain again.

Now that it has, everyone is quite confused and nobody really knows what to do with it.

It started this morning. It was only sprinkling when I left for work at 6AM, but I stood there, looking up at the sky, amazed and reveling in the feel of it on my face. All of a sudden, from directly behind me, came this massive rustling sound and this huge flock of birds - silent, except for their frantic wingbeats - went rushing past me about 30 feet overhead. I couldn't help thinking they were young birds fleeing from something totally unknown to them.

I opened the door just now so I could listen to it falling and it sounds weird. It took me a minute, but I figured out why: it's the rain hissing on the dead grass and all the dead leaves that have dried up and fallen off the trees. I wonder if this rain is too little, too late for the trees. Have to wait and see, I guess.

A Tree in Hand is Worth...

Holly Lisle has a really interesting post about trees (well, the 'really interesting' part is in the comments, actually) that got me thinking about trees and forests and how important they've always been to me.

First, there was the Norway maple in the yard of the house I grew up in. Huge thing, taller than the house by 20 feet or more. I loved the thing. The whole neighborhood climbed it. It was home base for countless games of hide-and-seek. My best friend and I once vowed to spend a whole day in it (and we would have, had we not been stimied by the logistics of emptying our bladders - sucks, being a girl sometimes).

Then there were the colossal oak trees in the park down the street. I think there were probably 20 or 30 of them. You could feel something in them just walking by. When I left New England to move Way Out West, I made a special trip to say good bye to those trees. I picked up an acorn from one of them, hoping to take some of their strength with me. I still have it somewhere.

Finally, the exact opposite of the massive oaks, were the krummholz forests in the mountains. I'm not even sure you could call them forests. They look more like a twisted, tortured mat of tiny, pine trees. They're ancient, 100 years old or more, though they're no taller than me (and I ain't tall). They survive somehow at 5,000 feet above sea level on the piles of granite they call mountains, because they're tough enough to deal with snow and ice every month of the year. I always wanted to be that tough.

Wonder if ever I will be.

Deja Eew and Alternative Medicine

So it turns out Sickness #2 was ANOTHER strep infection. Couldn't fucking believe it. But I've just finished my SECOND round of antibiotics in less than a month (slightly different drug, fewer side effects, hallelujah).

Here's hoping it doesn't come back.

Now that antibiotics are over and done with, Boss Lady is pushing the ginseng ("White ginseng, not red. Red too strong for you."). It's supposed to boost your immune system and thus keep the nasty-wasty strep bugs at bay. I'm supposed to take it only for a few weeks, just until my energy levels get back to normal. She even gave me a couple of tea bags to get started and promised me a website where I can buy it online ("Little more expensive, but high quality.").

So I'm all excited - real Chinese medicine! From a real Chinese doctor!

I tried a cup today. It tastes like crap.

Well, not crap, exactly. I'm exaggerating. But it's really... woody. Yanno, like you just went out in your yard, grabbed a random stick and poured hot water over it. Not terribly appetizing.

And, I discovered, if it sits too long, it gets really bitter. Mmmm, bitter sticks....

Oddly though, it also has this weird sweetness that sticks to your lips when you sip it. You don't notice it until the bitter stick flavor starts to fade, then you start thinking about how you're going to have to choke down another swig. You lick your lips in preparation - and there it is! This weird and unexpected reward for sipping sticks in the form of an elusive and quite uncanny sugariness that you can't quite put your finger on.

And then it's gone and it's back to the sticks.

I have to admit, however, that it might actually be doing something. I mean, I'm HERE. And I haven't been here in ages, really.

Wish us luck, y'all. Something's got to work, right?

BRANDED!

OK, honest to god, I am not trying to be sexy (I'm way past that, and I know it), but I can't even believe I did this.

You see the red spot on my leg? The perfectly round one with the strangely familiar lines in the middle?




Yeah, that one. Believe it or not, that was caused by a penny left on the seat of my car. My car that was sitting in the sun on a very hot-ass day almost a week ago.

I actually saw the penny on the car seat just before I sat down, but the pain was so sudden and so acute that I thought I had been stung by a bee. It just didn't register what was causing the pain because, seriously -- who expects pain from a penny?

Un. Real. I mean, if you look closely enough, you can actually make out the fucking Lincoln memorial and the words "ONE CENT" below it.

And you thought this kind of body art was just for 20-somethings. Actually, so did I. I mean, sure, I could claim to have done it on purpose, but really, can you think of a single cool reason to brand yourself with the backside of a penny?

And now I'm wondering if it's going to be a permanent thing...

Library Thang

No time to explain how I got here, but this is just.... well, totally, wicked cool.

My Library

I Love My Subaru

30 January 2007, 9:01 AM:



30 January 2007, 9:04 AM:



And she still runs like a top!

Spider Chronicles: Episode IV

So I am happy to report that we have not one but two resident arachnids at the new house. I am also happy to report that neither one has taken up residence in any of our windows. Both have located their webs in rather more conventional spots. Well, at least one has.

At right and below are front and side-view shots of the larger one, which I'm betting, based on her size, is a female. She has affectionately been dubbed by Ms. Four as "the new Jack" and has a very nice web set up between our garage and the path into the backyard. The location, as far as people are concerned, may not be ideal, since one must walk past it in order to visit the backyard. If one is not overly fond of spiders, the proximity could be distressing. In addition, I suppose there is also the possibility that the new Jack could relocate her web across the path into the backyard. However, based on last year's observations of the old Jack, I think we're safe - the old Jack had her web in exactly the same spot for several months.


At right is a shot of the other Jack. Because it's smaller than the new Jack, my money is on this one being a male. (We'll just have to wait and see who makes an egg sac.) As you can see, this one has chosen a decidedly less conventional spot for its web - in the wheel well of The Husband's 1972 Toyota Landcruiser. In fact, this dude hitched a ride in this exact spot over to the new house from the old one, which is pretty impressive and reinforces my impression that it's male (Would a female in her right mind be into joyriding? I think not).


So I have a male and a female practically within spitting distance of each other. What are the chances of getting a shot of spider sex? I actually witnessed spider sex at the old house. I think. Hard to be sure, but here's the story: Some other non-Jack species of spider had set up a web in the bathroom window and one day I watched as a very small spider approached the web. It (He?) delicately wiggled some of the web threads to get the attention, I assume, of the web's owner. She sort of ignored it at first, then all of a sudden, sped up to where the first spider was and sort of pounced on him. Then they ... well, sat very close to each other for a couple of minutes and then she went back to the center of her web as if nothing had happened and the first spider took off. I suppose they might just have been visiting. Who knows. Anyways, if I am lucky enough to digitally capture some spider porn, I'll be sure to post it.

Big Bugs

So they've got a lot of bugs here south of the M-DL* and they grow 'em BIG. If you're a regular reader (um, yeah, like all two o' ya), you'll recall last fall's Spider Chronicles (Episodes I, II & III), which featured Jack, the great, big, yellow-and-black arachnid who had taken up residence in our living room window and who I was, bravely and against every natural instinct that I have, using as a science lesson for Ms. Four. Now Jack was large as spiders go – she definitely warranted classification as a Big Bug. But Jack had nothing on some of the too-many-leggeds we've come across since moving to our new abode. Most of them have warranted classification as Downright Monstrous.

Example # 1: Cave Crickets. Don’t they sound cute? They’re not. Nothing that gigantic is cute. I'm sure they have a scientific name (I don't know it), but I’m not sure why anyone would think to call them crickets, because from my perspective, there’s nothing even remotely cricket-ish about them. If they chirp appealingly like regular crickets, I’ve never heard them, and in all honesty they look a whole lot more like giant cockroaches than anything. I know this, because I caught one not too long ago. No, good grief, of course I didn't deliberately go looking for one. I just found A Gigantic Thing lurking by the back door early one morning and quickly (and bravely and against every natural instinct that I have) clapped a glass over it so it could be exterminated by The Husband, since I was sure it was a cockroach.

Example # 2: Wasps. I don’t like wasps. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that the wasp is the only insect ever to have stung me (apparently, the rest can’t fly fast enough to keep up with me running away from them). That was long ago and far, far North of the M-DL where there is only one variety of wasp to the untrained and terrified eye. They are plenty big enough, thank you. Down here in The South there are at least two varieties of wasp to the untrained and terrified eye – red and black – and both are Downright Monstrous. (Think flying golf ball with legs. And stinger.). The Husband keeps an old tennis racket (we call it the Wasp Whacker) handy to keep them at bay when they trespass on our patio (hey, I paid a lot of money for that patio…and there’s plenty of space in the yard, or better yet other people’s yards, for them).

The red ones also appear to be rather aggressive, swooping and diving towards one’s head to defend their territory (or right to exist … or something). I’m embarrassed to admit I got cornered by the other day. Imagine this: a 140 (give or take a few) pound woman with broom (I was sweeping off the front steps), immobilized by an irate insect (I had inadvertently swiped it with the broom) one ten-thousandth her weight crawling piteously across the concrete (having been injured by said broom swipe). It had me pinned, sweating and adrenalized, for five full minutes before I could work up the courage to spear it with the business end of the broom (No, I did NOT have the balls to step on it with my teva’d foot – what if I missed? what if it moved as I went to deliver the crushing stomp?).

Example # 3: Cicadas. I know, I know. Cicadas are perfectly harmless. They don’t bite. They don’t sting. They’re positively miraculous because they only crawl out the ground every 17 years. Yada-yada-yada. They also look like a mega-huge house fly, make an alarming buzzing noise when they fly and are prone to crashing into people who get in their way, which while not hazardous can be quite distressing when unexpected (I speak from experience on this one).

And check out these pictures of actual cicada … er, parts … direct from my very own yard. The first picture – the one of the mud covered … thing… clinging to the post – is a cicada that has recently extracted itself from the ground. (I thought it was just a huge-ass beetle. Thank goodness for The Husband, else I would walk around totally ignorant of so many things.) The second one is a cicada. A live cicada. Which I happen to know, because I prodded it with a stick to find out and it buzzed, rather petulantly, that it was.

Example # 4: Cicada Killers. This bug tops all lists of Downright Monstrosity. In fact, I personally have to file these guys under Fucking Knarly. They're straight out of a horror movie, take a look (that thing is sitting on a business card). They are actually a form of wasp, but they look more like mini hovercraft - fully three inches long and bigger around than a cigarette. And they're territorial in the extreme – they make wasps look like they're homeless. If you get too close to their underground burrow when they're home, they fly this figure eight pattern around the entrance that is the most menacing aerial display by at insect that I've ever seen. In fact, it’s so menacing, I’ve considered having The Husband take the Wasp Whacker to the one in our yard, which is against my general let’s-get-along-with-nature-when-we’re-outside take on life, but I can only scream like a ninny and grab my children so many times a week, ya know.

Incidentally, their name is a definite misnomer. They don't actually kill cicadas, they hunt cicadas. Then they paralyze them, drag them back to their burrows and lay their eggs in the cicada’s helpless and still living bodies so that their young have fresh meat when they emerge. Nice.

When does it get cold around here, anyway? Yeesh.

Another Show

Thunder, lightening and rain started up around 4AM - no getting back to sleep for this mama (I did try). Why do storms like this come at such odd hours around here? It wasn't even hot outside or anything... weird...

We did end up getting nailed yesterday - no tornados, but lots of rain, wind and some quarter-sized hail at the house. Got to the parking lot at work around 10AM and just as I was getting out of the car the sky cracked open practically over my head. The resulting noise was deafening, reverberating through my body like some kind of mega subwoofer.

Decided to take the shuttle bus.

I don't normally do that - I usually walk the mile or so to the cube, that being my only real opportunity for exercise during a workday - but something told me I'd better not try it. Good choice, as it turned out.

Sky started spitting rain as soon as I reached the shuttle stop. More cracks in the clouds right overhead, more booming super subwoofer pounding through me. I could see the shuttle waiting at its previous stop. And waiting. And waiting.

Rain was getting more and more petulant by the time it finally started moving. It seemed to take forever to drive the 50 yards or so between stops. Got in. Sat down. Sky opened up.

Rain and hail - torrential doesn't even begin to describe it. It was a tidal wave. Drenching, blinding - the wipers on the bus couldn't keep up. I got soaked crossing the five feet of sidewalk between the shuttle stop and my building.

Glad I didn't walk.

Fade Away

The sun came up, a fireball, then disappeared behind a blanket of clouds. Now everything is a flat grey-green. The rain patters inconsistently, and thunder rumbles on and on and on.