Scorpion PTSD

The towels I was using were starting to become ragged, so I went to my linen closet and pulled out ones that looked nicer. They'd been washed and put away as soon as I bought them, just waiting their turn to be used.

As I'm drying off, something dark flies to my right side. I glance over and screamed. I didn't have my glasses on, but it sure looked like a scorpion.

Mostly.

You see, the house I lived in before this one had scorpions. I never knew when or where they'd turn up.

One time, I pulled down the ladder to the attic and had one nearly land in my hair. I had them in my kitchen, in my bedroom, in my family room, and my pest control company was out spraying for them regularly because their usual pesticide doesn't kill scorpions.

This is why when I see something dark and scorpion shaped, I assume it's a scorpion.

As I screamed, I moved away from it, and thought, you know, this looks a little odd.

I put on my glasses and took a closer look. Hmm. I edged closer. It was black thread. A lot of black thread. I don't know where it came from because the towel was gray, and like I said, I washed it before it went into the linen closet.

I lived in the scorpion house for a little over three years. I've been in my current home for more than seven years and there are no scorpions here. I thought I was over those things. I even leave my shoes on the floor sometimes where I would never have done that at the scorpion house. Apparently, I'm nowhere near over those little buggers.

Scorpion PTSD is a thing. I'm living proof of it.

No Bugs Allowed

I hate bugs. When I lived in Minnesota, I just had to deal with mostly small ones. A few spiders, some ants, maybe a box elder bug or a beetle of some sort.

It's a totally different story in Georgia where you have pest control on a retainer.

When I stayed in the ground floor condo, I would wake up to palmetto bugs in the house. I would chase them around at 4am with the vacuum cleaner because they were too huge for me to deal with.

The bug vac I had ready in Minneapolis? Useless against the bugs down here.

But the condo was old and not well-sealed. Things would be better when I bought a house down here and moved in.

And things were better. Mostly.

There was just this one little problem in my new home. The scorpions. I can still remember the first time I saw one. It was in my bedroom, it's tail curved up and I'm like, GAH! What do I do? My usual tactic of spraying bugs wasn't going to work because of its shell. I finally stepped on it. EWWWW! But I was wearing my Birkenstock sandals, so I knew my foot would be safe and it's not like I wanted that thing hanging around, and maybe making more scorpions.

So every time pest control came out, I had them spray the attic for scorpions. That's how they were getting in the house. Or at least that's what we suspected.

My second house down here has no scorpions. The bug situation has been blessedly calm. Until last Wednesday. My dad reported to me that there were ants in his bathroom. But he wasn't positive they were ants and wanted me to look at them. No! I don't want to see bugs.

He was going to put down sticky traps and I told him to call pest control. This is what I'm paying them for--quarterly spraying and to show up whenever there's a bug issue.

The pest guy came out last Friday and said they were spider ants. WTF are spider ants? I'm not Googling that! He also sprayed outside and around the doorways and the kitchen although we hadn't seen anything there. Fingers crossed that this takes care of the problem.

If bugs want to live, they need to stay out of the perimeter of death around my house and they for dang sure need to stay out of my home. No bugs allowed.

Sand Vampires

One thing that happened at the conference, and continued to haunt me for a while afterward, happened on the beach.

I arrived at the conference early, and on the first day, I headed toward the beach. I was wearing tennis shoes, but I decided to walk on the sand anyway only to discover that my shoes had tiny holes and sand filled them. Especially the left shoe.

That had me turning around and heading back to the concrete. I took off the shoes, shook them out, and put them back on. I spent the rest of the day sitting at a table on the patio, looking at the ocean while I made notes on one of my story ideas. It was windy as heck. Actually, it was terribly windy the entire week of the conference, which made it miserable to spend time outside.

I didn't think anything more about the sand in my shoes until a few days later when right above my socks, I had a strip of red on my skin. It didn't feel like bites, so I thought sunburn, but I couldn't figure out how I'd gotten sunburned when I'd been inside at the conference for two days by then.

Every day I had that red strip over my sock on the left side and I began to suspect something was biting me. I hadn't felt anything, but that's what it had to be. I just didn't know--yet--where the bites were originating.

I began to suspect my shoes around the same time I left Florida. I switched to a different pair of shoes while I was moving and all my other shoes were packed--except for the tennis shoes I'd worn on the beach in Florida. The red strip began to fade and I was certain my shoes were to blame. Before my dryer was unhooked at my old house, I threw my shoes inside and set it hot. I let it run for an hour.

The new tennis shoes I was wearing, though, rubbed my foot wrong and after a couple of days, my feet hurt. Sure that the heat had killed all the sand vampires in the first pair of shoes, I switched back the night we moved into the new house. We ran and picked up dinner late, then fell into bed.

The next morning, the strip of red was bigger and brighter than it had been and now I had a few bites on my right leg too, right above my ankle socks. Grrr.

Now there was no doubt the shoes were to blame. It had to have been something in the sand at the beach. I did online searches, but nothing I turned up sounded exactly right for my situation. I talked to people I worked with who were from Florida and they didn't know what it could be either.

I was tempted to just throw those tennis shoes out, but I couldn't. You see, these were my favorite shoes in the whole world  (Skechers GoMeb Strada 2) and they don't make them anymore. This pair filled with sand vampires was literally the last one in my size I could find anywhere on the internet. There was nothing wrong with them except for the bloodsucking fiends inside them.

But, I thought, they're Florida sand vampires. What kills bugs faster than anything else? Cold! Minnesota doesn't have the wealth and size of bugs that Florida or Georgia have because the frigid cold for months on end kills them off. Taking my shoes to Minnesota wasn't an option, but I have an extra upright freezer--that's Minnesota cold. I put my tennis shoes inside. I'm not sure when I'll take them out.

Yes, they're still inside from mid-October. I just don't want to get bitten again and I don't know of those things are dead yet or not. I'm thinking about taking them out and spraying the shoes with rubbing alcohol. I'll post an update if something interesting happens on the shoe front.

Patti and the Giant Roach

Let me preface this account by saying that I was born and spent most of my life in Minnesota where the cold winters kill bugs like crazy and I never had to deal with anything the size of what I've seen down in Georgia. Let me also add that I was bug-phobic living in Minneapolis and that's only gotten worse in Atlanta.

At my day job, we have a gym we can join. I usually go over my lunch time so that I can continue to ride my van pool to and from work. So I do my 30 minutes on the elliptical, wipe down the equipment, and head for the locker room to shower and change clothes. I've done it many times. No big deal.

Until Wednesday.

I push open the door to the locker room and what's crawling toward the door? The biggest roach I've ever seen! I might be new to Georgia, but the condo I lived in the first year I was down here didn't have good seals on the doors and I had more than one morning chasing roaches through the living room with the vacuum cleaner. I've seen large roaches before. This surpassed them all. This thing was so big, it needed a license plate.

I didn't scream. I let the door close and backed away. I wasn't sure what to do. I loathe bugs, but roaches are among the worst ever. Did I try to get in the locker room? Did I wait until someone else came and let her smoosh the bug?

Waiting for someone else wasn't the best option I had because Tech Ops is heavily male, so is the membership at the gym, and because I go later to avoid the crowds, the place was pretty empty. I couldn't afford to wait for another woman to decide to head for the locker room. That left option one: try to race past Bugzilla.

Slowly, I pushed the door open. I didn't see him and I rushed past the entry to the lockers. Not long after that, another woman came in and said, "Did you see that giant roach by the door?"

Gah! Yeah, I saw him all right.

I showered with some trepidation, hoping that thing wouldn't head deeper into the locker room.

The other woman left first, and I was certain she must have told an employee, but on my way out, I stopped by the front desk anyone and mentioned the roach from hell. No, no one else had told them about Gargantua. So I ended up being stuck for about five minutes longer to talk to the assistant manager and the man who took care of the gym facilities.

I'm so hoping they sprayed so I don't have another chance encounter with big, dark, and icky.

Creepy Crawly Adventures

On Friday morning, after a bout of insomnia that left me without about 3 hours of sleep, I got up for work, turned on the lights in my bedroom, and went to grab my iPad when I saw it. On the floor. Next to my bed. A ginormous centipede. It had to be close to three inches long. ::shudder::

I think I might have whimpered. When it comes to the creepy crawly things, I'm not sure which freaks me out more: centipedes or scorpions.

This is only the second centipede I've seen in my house in the two years I've lived here, but both of them have been huge! I'm not sure where they hide out. When I lived in the condo there was a constant parade of centipedes and I never had a doubt about their constant presence, but not here. If I knew where they hung out, I'd bug bomb that area. Maybe I'll mention it to my pest guy the next time he comes out. Anyway, I'm more used to scorpions. I lost count somewhere around 17, which is way too many.

So I spot this huge centipede on my floor, but it doesn't seem to be moving. Maybe it's dead, I think hopefully. Maybe I can go have coffee before I deal with the carcass. Then I remembered the scorpion I thought was dead only to discover it had vanished when I returned to the room to get its body. Nope, I'm not going through the weeks of wondering and worrying where it's at the way I did with the scorpion. Just in case it's still alive.

Now I try to decide how to kill it. I decided on the broom. I went to the kitchen, grabbed it, and returned only to discover the centipede had changed position. Oh, yes, it was alive. Maybe not healthy, but alive. I whacked with the broom.

And missed him. I did bend up my metal broom handle again. I bent it the first time whacking a spider. I whacked again. Another miss.

Third time's the charm.

I went back to the kitchen to get the broom with the dustpan to sweep up the remains. I didn't want that thing in my garbage can, though. What if he wasn't quite dead? What if he crawled out? ::shudder:: Despite having no coffee yet, I had a brainstorm. Throw him in the front yard!

And I did exactly that. I hope the ants feasted on his carcass. Not that I'm vengeful or anything. :-)

Bug Me Not

I hate bugs. Not just mildly either. Oh, sure, some bugs aren't too scary. Ants are a pain and so are box elder bugs, but they don't frighten me. Bugs are actually one reason why I stayed in Minnesota so many years even though I can't stand winter and snow and hats and mittens and boots and heavy jackets and scarfs and...well, you get the idea. Minnesota might have had horrible winters, but it kept the bugs small and mostly non-scary.

And then my job was relocated to Atlanta.

OMG, the size of the bugs down here is horrifying. When I first moved down, I stayed in a condo temporarily and it wasn't well sealed. I can't even tell you the size of the bugs that got in. My bug vac, which was totally fine in Minnesota, didn't have enough power to suck up the Godzilla bugs down here. I ended up chasing bugs the size of the VW Beetle through the condo with a full-size vacuum cleaner.

Centipedes. While living at the condo, I got used to doing a centipede check because sightings were frequent.

Moving into my house down here helped a lot. It was a newer house and it was well-sealed so a lot fewer insects. I also pay a pest service to put a ring of death around my home. It's so weird to say that because in Minnesota you only used them if you had some kind of infestation. It wasn't something you just automatically contracted for because it wasn't necessary.

My house, though, had it's own issues. Scorpions. Yeah. The first one I ever saw was also the biggest one I've ever had inside...at least that I've seen. What an introduction. :-/ I knew spraying it wasn't going to work because of their crunchy shell, so I stepped on it. I was wearing thick-soled shoes at the time. So far I've had like 13 or 14. I kind of lost count.

I used to love The Mummy 2. When I lived in Minnesota I was mildly repulsed by the scorpions, but it wasn't a huge deal. Now? Well, my experiences have ruined the movie for me. I literally get all icked out now when I watch it, so much so that I've stopped. Thanks a lot, scorpions.

The pest company that came out put down sticky traps at key locations. Over night something got stuck in the trap in my laundry room next to the door to the garage. It's big, it's brown, and I'm scared to look and see what it is. It's really, really freaking me out every time I go in there. I know what you're thinking: Just get rid of the trap. Yeah, easier said than done. Every time I try to get rid of those traps, it gets stuck to the broom bristles (or the stick or whatever else I'm using to get it in the dustpan). Believe me, I don't want to touch the trap to unstick it from the broom.

I'm also torn. Part of me wishes that thing had never gotten stuck in the trap. The other part of me is like OMG, imagine trying to deal with something that size loose in the house! Gak! I've decided I'd rather deal with the sticky trap.

Close Encounters

I've been under siege lately, at least that's the way it feels. This episode, though, was just too much.

Before Thanksgiving, my dad wanted to put the extra furnace filters up in my attic. Because I have no basement, that's where my furnace is located. He can't reach the string to pull down the stairs, though, and asked me to do it. The pull-down stairs are located in the hallway where the bedrooms and second bathroom are.

It takes a reasonable amount of force to bring the attic ladder down and I was standing almost square with it as I pulled. Something came tumbling down, narrowly missing my head.

This isn't unusual. There's insulation packed around the ladder, but that was white and what fell was dark. I stop to take a closer look and what did I see?

Scorpion!

That's right. I had a scorpion up in my attic that worked itself onto the ladder/pull-down thing and then tumbled to the carpet when I opened the hatch. The only good thing I can say is that it was already dead. That wouldn't have mattered if it had landed on my head. I'd need therapy. For years.

This was the third scorpion in just a few weeks. I'd killed one in my bathroom and another in that same hallway earlier in the month. That isn't the end of the story. After I went to bed that night, my dad said he killed a fourth one in the kitchen. Do I need to mention that the pest control company got a phone call?

I'm not sure it's a good thing that I've become so used to these things that I don't freak out any longer.

More Adventures With Bugs

I put the garbage out tonight--tomorrow is pick up day--and while I try to be quick in and out the door, it's not always easy when I'm toting a garbage bag and stuff for the recycle bin. Tonight, I wasn't quite fast enough.

After putting out the trash, I sat down to figure out what to blog about. As I'm thinking, I catch something from the corner of my eye to the right of the television and near the back of the entertainment unit. I glance over, but see nothing. It's a little shadowy in that corner because the recessed light that would illuminate that area burnt out and I haven't replaced it yet. Probably my imagination, I decided.

But maybe I should check it out anyway. But on the other hand, it probably was my imagination. This wouldn't be the first time I thought I'd seen a bug when there wasn't one.

Maybe ten more minutes go by. I hear something. This definitely sounds like a bug now. I get up and go for the bug spray. But maybe this low-test spray I have won't kill the thing. That quick glimpse I had suggested it was something big. I spot the broom for sweeping the patio and grab it.

I'm now armed.

I walk to the family room where I'd heard something. Before I can see anything, it flies right at me!

I jump back and try to use the broom to drive it away from my legs. It finally gets down on the carpet. I feel a split second of relief that it's not a giant roach like one of the guys at work had in his house, and then I whack it with the broom.

I whack it so hard, I bent the metal handle of my broom. It's still moving.

Again and again I hit it, but it won't die. I step on it. Nope, not dead yet. I step on it another time. And once more. Finally, I use the broom to sweep if onto the fireplace tile and step on it there.

It's still moving! What is this? The Terminator of the bug world?

The second time I stepped on him with the hard surface, he made a crunching sound. Dead, dead at last. Let this be a warning to you bugs of all sizes and ilks (I include spiders), if you enter my territory, you'll pay with your life. My word on it.

Adventures With Insects

I've had trouble with these black insects on my front porch. They looked like wasps to me, but I've been told they're black daubers, which is a member of the wasp family from what I read online. I've had the pest company out once to spray and they were out on Tuesday, too, but I'm not sure whether or not they sprayed again. I sure hope so because...well, let me tell you what happened.

On Saturday, the neighbor kid mowed my lawn and I went outside to pay him. No big deal. I don't leave the door open because I know better and I hate bugs, so it was closed unless I was actually exiting or entering. Apparently, that was a enough.

Sunday morning I wake up groggy. I head for the kitchen to turn on the coffeemaker. Must have coffee. And as I turn from the coffee to open the blinds, I see a bug on the floor under the table. A big one.

It looked like a roach in my blurry-eyed state and I'm like,  oh, God, no! I pull the chair out from the table and grab the broom. I whack the intruder.

That turned his body enough for me to decide it was one of those flying dauber things. And he's still moving. Crap! I use the broom on him again. And again. And yet again.

Still moving. I grab the bug spray and let him have it. He continues to crawl.

I grab the broom again and bring it down on him a few more times. Finally, he stopped moving. It took a good six or seven whacks to stop the Terminator of the insect world. Gah!

Since then, I haven't dared open my front door. I've walked through the garage to get my packages. Better that than having to go through another morning like Sunday.

Midnight Adventures

It was nearly midnight. I was tired and shutting down the computer for the night. While I waited for it to finish, I started putting stuff away. And then I walked to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and saw it.

Big, brownish-maroon, and crawling around behind the toilet. Palmetto bug.

I panicked. I flipped off the light and shut the bathroom door. Then I glanced down and realized the gap between the door and floor was big enough for him to sneak out. A new surge of panic ricocheted through my body. I can't leave him in there and deal with it in the morning. I have to deal with it now or he might be ON THE BED WITH ME WHILE I'M SLEEPING!

I needed a plan. From earlier encounters, I knew that spraying them with the Clorox Cleanup bleach stuff didn't stop them. That darn hard shell on their bodies. I needed the vacuum cleaner.

The first thing I did was put shoes on--shoes with toes, not sandals. Then I plugged in the vacuum cleaner and positioned it so it would roll smoothly into the bathroom. I didn't want it to get hooked on something while I'm trying to battle the biggest damn bug I've ever had inside. Just to be extra prepared, I grabbed the spray bottle with rubbing alcohol that I use to kill bugs. As ready as I was ever going to be, I opened the door and flipped on the light.

He was gone.

There was no relief. He was somewhere, and if I didn't find him tonight, I'd have to deal with him later. That's bad enough, but if you noticed the use of cap lock a few paragraphs earlier, you know my biggest fear. I have to find him; there is no sleeping until I do.

Luckily--or unluckily, depending on how you want to look at it--he was too big to have many hiding places. My best guess was he was in the linen closet. Behind the open bathroom door. This required more positioning of the vacuum cleaner and put me into a position with no escape. Still, there was no choice.

I whipped open the linen closet door. There he was. He charged toward me, bent on attack. I screamed (good thing I have no upstairs neighbor right now) and fired with the rubbing alcohol. He retreated.

Now I go in with the vacuum cleaner. You know how close I had to get in order to suck him up. I get him and then I worried about him crawling out of the hose. I continue to vacuum half the house, but at last I have to chance turning it off.

Shaking, covered with sweat, I sit down. Any chance of sleeping is gone. I finally, nervously, climb into bed after 2am. I spent the day on Sunday flinching any time I thought I detected motion. I also made a thorough and careful check of the bathroom every time I had to go in there.

Adventures in Entamology

I don't like bugs.

People who know I don't like the snow and cold used to ask me why I didn't move south. My answer always was I still hate bugs more than I hate snow. Things got pushed to a head, though, when my job was relocated to Atlanta. I decided to move.

I've been down here about three months now. I like the warmer weather. I liked wearing my spring jacket in January and February, something that never would have happened in Minnesota. I still hate the bugs.

Apparently, having pest control come out and spray every few months is mandatory. Signed up for that. I'm still dealing with bugs now and then, though. The ants in the bathroom were icky, but I've dealt with those in the past so they didn't freak me out. The enormous queen ant (it had to be what it was) that I saw walking across the living room did make my hair stand on end, but I killed it. It was just an ant.

Spiders, though... ::shudder:: I hate spiders with a passion. Last week, I had one in the corner of my bedroom. I've learned that Clorox household cleaner with bleach is a fantastically efficient way to kill bugs. So I sprayed that damn spider, then I had a phone call, and by the time I got back to the bedroom, the spider had vanished.

Yeah.

But the worst was yet to come. I've dealt with a few centipedes in the unit. They totally creep me out, but in February I had to deal with one on the wall of the living room in the morning, and that afternoon, one was on the ceiling of the bathroom. I killed them both, but I've been paranoid ever since and I don't walk into any room without doing a sweep of the walls and ceiling.

One day, there was another one on the wall. I got him.

Then came a Monday at the end of March. I checked the walls and ceiling as usual before getting in the shower. It was clear, I swear it was. I get out, wrap a towel around my hair, and grab another towel to dry off. As I'm bending over, something falls past my head. I felt how close it was. I look down and something is scurrying. Luckily, I had the Clorox handy. I grabbed it and sprayed.

It kept moving.

I sprayed again and again and again.

It finally stopped. I put my glasses on and checked it out. Yes, a damn centipede had fallen from the ceiling and nearly landed on my head!

I might need therapy.

The Graveyard

The other day, I'm sitting on the couch, working on copy edits and I heard this clicking sound. I know what that means--either a box elder bug or an Asian beetle is hitting the light bulb in my recessed lighting. I look up and tilt my head back, and sure enough, there he is. Of course, with the vaulted ceilings, there was no way I could reach him, so I returned to work and tried to ignore that irritating clicking.

It was later, as I was gathering things together to put into my tote bag for work the next day that I spotted the little bugger (um, no pun intended) sitting on the frame to my front door. I changed course, grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen, and went to slay the intruder. I got him easily, but as I looked down, I saw it. The box elder bug graveyard is directly inside my front door!

I was not thrilled.

There had to be somewhere between 8 and 12 of the damn things. Most of them were dead and the rest were dying. I hastened on the end for them.

Now this isn't the first time I've found a dead box elder bug in my foyer, but the other times (yes, plural) I just figured they'd stuck to me as I'd come inside the house and didn't think anything more of it. But I hadn't opened my front door that day and I know they hadn't been there that morning. That meant only one thing--there's a gap in the seal of my front door and the damn things were crawling in.

Yesterday, my dad took a look, but said he couldn't see anything. I took a look myself and I did see it. There's a small gap--less than a quarter inch--but apparently big enough for box elders to crawl through in their death throes. This is going to be a pain until my dad can fix that for me. I so totally hate bugs.

Yard Work Can Kill You

Or an alternate title for this blog: Adventures in Yard Work. Take your pick.

I had a lot of things I wanted to do on Saturday, but I got a really late start. First, I headed over to my parents' house and helped my dad take the window air conditioner down. Then my dad and mom came over to my house. My mom resumed her attempt to balance my checkbook and my dad and I headed into the yard. Mission number one: Plant the burning bushes that the bulb company sent me as my "gift."

After we got all the equipment together, we tried to decide where to put the bushes. My ideal location was out of the question because of the underground power cables in that space, so I had to pick alternates.

The instructions said that the hole should be twice the depth of the roots and twice the width. For plant 1, that meant 18 inches. My dad started the digging, before we switched to the plant auger. It's a long thing that fits into a drill like a bit. I can't remember what my dad headed off to get, but he left me alone with the shovel. The hole was nearly a foot deep then and the shovel was all the way in the hole. I stepped on the top with my toes and twisted my knee. I tested it, though, and it felt okay. I decided to leave the shoveling for my dad.

After putting the first plant in, I watered it per the instructions, but the water wasn't sinking into the ground--probably because we've had so much rain the last two months that the earth is saturated. We decided to leave that and move on.

But before planting bush two, my dad decided to find the places in the yard where the rocks were on the surface, dig them out, and fill the open space with the grass that was taken out of the spot where the bush went. This really started what ended up being big trouble. I dug one small rock out, smaller than my fist, and then I found another one. This one was big, I could tell because I had trouble finding the edges of the stone to pry it up. I figured it must be about the size of a brick, maybe a little larger.

My dad ran into the same problem and we decided to plant the second bush and then return to the stone. The original choice for location on this one didn't work--we ran into roots from the tree--and we shifted our location another twenty feet or so. We ran into more tree roots, but my dad said these were from a tree the builder took down and since he was pulling pieces out easily enough, I figured he was right since they were rotted.

There was a really big root, though, that he needed me to yank on while he used the shovel as leverage. I pulled with all my strength, but too much of the root was still in the earth. I pulled harder, the root snapped, I lost my balance, and my knee took the brunt of it--and my back since I was tugging while bent over. Now I was starting to hurt, but it wasn't that bad. We got the bush in and watered.

Now it was time to tackle the stone.

It turned out there was the big stone and another smaller broken stone right against its side. My dad was trying to pull the broken rock out, but I could tell that he wasn't jiggling it the right way. I took over. It took a little more force than I expected, but I got it out. We turned our focus to the bigger rock.

Rock might be a misnomer. Perhaps boulder would be a more accurate word. It turned out that like an ice berg, 90% of this behemoth was beneath the surface of the smaller, flattened top. My dad had the shovel in alongside the stone when I saw it--cables. "Don't dig!" I shouted. "Don't move! Cables!" He looks down and says, "That's from that old green carpet. I thought we got all of those." He bent down and tugged the fibers out. He went back to using the shovel to try to lever the stone out of the earth.

At one point, I tried to roll the stone out of the hole using both arms. Stupid mistake. Not only did I not move the boulder a centimeter, I finished torquing my knee and my back. The stone remains where it was found, a project for machinery rather than humans.

While we were working all day, the box elder bugs and Asian beetles were in attack mode. We were constantly fighting them off. As the afternoon grew later, though, the mosquitoes came out, and after all the rain we had, these things were mutantly huge.

As we reached the stairs leading from my yard to the deck, a large one flew toward me, and gardening tool in hand, I slashed at it--and put a nice, deep gash in my arm just above the wrist. It wasn't as bad as the time I sliced my other arm with the box cutter, but I decided dispassionately, this one was deep enough were it was borderline whether or not I'd need stitches. Or rather a stitch. It wasn't a very long cut. I opted to forgo the trip to urgent care for this.

It wasn't bleeding much, but enough so that my dad sent me into the house to get patched up. He took down the deck furniture by himself. Good thing I only bought cheap, plastic stuff, yes?

It was after I got the wound washed out and bandaged that my knee really, really started to hurt. I ended up sitting with the heating pad on it, but I figured it would be okay by the time I woke up Sunday morning--and it seemed to be. It was my back that was really bothering me. About 1:30, though, it was like someone flipped a switch. I could hardly walk. I don't know what happened, but between my back and my knee, yesterday was not the most enjoyable day ever.

So I spent Sunday hobbling, taking Advil, and running a heating pad for my back. I was having some fun, let me tell you. Then about 4, with the same suddenness that it came on, my knee felt better. Not 100%, but not excruciating. I keep wondering if it'll stay this way or switch again. Anyway, I learned my lesson. No more tugging at rocks or roots. Gah!

While I was hobbled yesterday, though, I got a lot done on my edits. I'm through chapter 22. Yea!