Blessed are the Friends

This is a post about Susan Wiggs. (Photo on the right)

But first, let's talk about me. *g* Despite the fact I'm the perpetual optimist, I've been feeling a little down lately. The medical things are getting to me: pending hysterectomy, extreme pain (cause unknown) in my right thigh, constant coughing from allergies . . . and an I-don't-care-you're-just-a-number medical system. Yesterday, I made yet another phone call to the clinic trying to find out if my referral to a specialist had gone through. They had initially said it would take 2 weeks. It's been over 2 weeks. I found out they hadn't even started on it. As I told them 2 weeks ago, this needs to be done ASAP, since I'll be losing my medical insurance in the near future, and I want to be sure my hysterectomy is covered.

So how does Susan Wiggs figure into the picture? Well, she may not be able to build a fire under the medical system, but she sure can do things to make you feel better. Susan is a person who always manages to lift my spirits. She did that today when I opened my mailbox and saw a long, skinny package. What the . . .? And then I saw it was from Susan. Now, Susan has this quirky mind that always seems to come up with the perfect gift at the perfect time. The Screaming Monkey Christmas gift had my family in stitches. My Doberman Nova's favorite chew toy is a big green rubber thing, courtesy of Susan. The Rubber Thing has since been commandeered by Asterisk, my Boxer pup. That's Asterisk above, with the Rubber Thing. (And yes, she is sitting on Nova) BTW, a suggestion from Susan was the trigger to my naming the pup Asterisk.

So when I saw the package was from Susan, I started to laugh, knowing it would be something quirky and fun. By time I got back to the house, I'd torn off the brown paper and discovered . . . a BugZooka! (Where does she find these things???)

What's a BugZooka? Well, it's basically a bug disposal unit--a long vacuum tube that sucks up insects. Better than a flyswatter, because it doesn't leave splats on your walls or ceilings. You can either set the bugs free outdoors, or dispose of them some other way. I get these humongous hairy spiders in my bathroom that hang out over my sink or shower, keeping me from my ablutions for fear of them landing on my head. I don't know what kind of uber-spider they are, but Raid has no effect, even when sprayed directly on them. I find that exceedingly scary. And using a flyswatter is out of the question. I tried that once and it left an extremely gross mess on the ceiling. Now I have an effective means of dealing with uninvited critters in my house. I can't wait for the yellowjackets that invade my house every fall and terrorize me and my pets. Zap! Gotcha!!!

Have You Eaten a Cockroach Today?

I did. Well, it wasn't a cockroach, but an ant. Every spring I get this hugely annoying invasion of ants. I hate waking up to find one crawling on me. I sit at my desk and they race across my keyboard or up my arm. I lean down to pick up a shoe and one falls out of my hair. I go to dry my face with a towel and find an ant staring insolently at me.

Well, I've been working at my desk all day, nursing my daily cup of coffee. Just one cup. No more. I can sip on a cup all day. So I reached over and took a couple swallows from the dregs of the mug, and something bumped my lip. I looked down. There's a drowned ant on the rim. A very disgusting drowned ant that looks like he's been there a long time.

I am NOT amused. I have little ant bait stations all over the house and they ignore them. They're supposed to eat from them, then go back to their nest and tell their buddies, who also eat from the bait station. Each time they return to the nest, they infect the nest with the bait. The theory is that eventually the whole nest gets poisoned from the bait and dies.

So far, the ants are winning. I even Googled ants, to find other methods of eradicating them. One popular and totally useless piece of advice on all the sites is to follow the ant to its nest. HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO FOLLOW AN ANT??? I spent 20 minutes hovering discreetly in the background, following an ant that rambled all over my kitchen counter, then the floor, then here and there, but never to its nest. So I picked another ant and followed it. After 15 minutes, I got tired of going nowhere.

We won't even talk about the rats that are eating me out of provisions in the barn. They go through rat poison like it was candy, and when I replace the little empty trays of poison with new stuff, they can't wait to get into it. I tell you, it's downright scary. I think they must be a strain of uber rat. I fully expect them to be waiting at the barn door one day, hands on hips, tapping their feet impatiently, chastising me for letting the bait stations go empty.

What about you? Have you ever inadvertently eaten a bug? What did it taste like? I accidentally ate a ladybug once. It tasted like green grass.