The rose bush (in Castleton) is so pretty!

Spent the weekend in Samsonville, got chewed up by bugs (bugs hate, or love, me) and today I'm left with a couple somewhat worrisome, angry-looking , and very itchy bites.

All my seeds are up and looking good. Will mulch as weather allows.

Bugs hate me, spring 2013.

I have five incredibly itchy welts on my legs like this one. I got them on Sunday in Samsonville. It's now three days later and they show no sign of dissipating! I have no clue what the bugs were that bit me, as the bites did not hurt when they happened, and they did not itch right away. I was wearing long pants and not doing anything terribly adventurous, just sitting on the deck, with one stroll across the yard.

Something else I wanted to post on Friday but didn't: We were discussing super heroes (can't remember why, possibly roku-sparked). Neither of us had much interest in them when we were kids, but agreed that Batman was our least favorite. Bob said he'd always preferred Superman. I said my favorite was Superman. (But not the movies; I read and sort-of liked the comic strip.) I guess I identified with the high school geek element. I have two piercings in my left ear (and one in the right). In the extra hole, I often wear the (above) green spider earring. I find it rather amusing, since I was bitten and got very ill from a poison spider in 1984. But the coincidence of my teenage affection for Spderman had never hit me until now. I don't think I have any special powers though. (What's more ironic, that picture I took resembles a tick, ewww).

 Some of the others are gaining on it, but they are still dwarfed by Little Shop of Horrors

 The marigolds are finally thriving -- rain helped tremendously!

We had rain and thunderstorms yesterday and in the night -- the first truly "beneficial rain" we've had in quite a while. Hail was predicted in some places, and the lightening was terrific at times (almost had forgotten what it is like! See here) but we didn't sustain any damage and the plants loved it. I ventured out this morning and took the top two pictures of the tomato patch. It's a little soggy (not as much as it would be if we were not in such a dry spell otherwise).  Assuming it is a dry day, later I will check to see if there are any green beans to be picked. They were on the cusp of being ready Sunday night.

I am reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. A friend gave me the book for Christmas (I didn't see him until early July so that's when he actually gave it to me). I had to sit in the waiting room at Albany Med yesterday while Bob was having a test (he's fine) so I took my Kindle and started it.  So far it is an easy read, almost a page turner. My only criticism is that there are too many sentence fragments. They are intentional; that's the style. I follow that form myself sometimes in creative writing, but in this book it is excessive, and the fragments often come in a string, such as: "He stared into the dark. Squinted his eyes. Searching for movement. Turned slowly. Blinked." (This is not an actual quote, btw -- it is my approximation, but not that much of an exaggeration.) I am taking the train to Buffalo for a few days next week, and I plan to finish or at least make a dent in it then, so I'll have more to say after that trip.

Something I have been intending to share here but keep forgetting, a few weeks ago I received an email at my university account* about this blog post from 2003. Myrtle's great grandnephew was doing genealogy research on his paternal ancestors, and all he could find about her was my blog post. One piece of information I got from him is that her maiden name was Pemberton.

I wanted to help out, so my mother and I talked about Mimmie's stories, went through old pictures, and checked census records, and found that Lawrence McSpirit is listed as 13 years old in the 1910 Census (the page is dated May 11). Myrtle McSpirit's dates are March 9, 1905 - February 8, 2003. This is from the Social Security Death Index.

Ma said that Lawrence had moved from Hurley to Albany for work. This was at some point after the Ashokan Reservoir was constructed. He met his wife Myrtle in Albany. She also remembers that Mimmie said Lawrence disappeared after being paid on a Friday. His body was found sometime later in the Hudson River. The speculation was that he had been robbed, murdered, and thrown in the river. His father came up to Albany to identify the body and make the funeral arrangements.

The picture is of Alice McSpirit Krom (Mimmie's younger sister). The little girl on the left is her daughter Frances. The little girl on the right (blond hair) is Myrtle, daughter of Lawrence McSpirit and his wife Myrtle. Frances was born in October 1927. Our guess is that this picture was taken in the early '30s; Frances was probably 4 or 5. Myrtle looks to be about the same age. My mother remembers Mimmie telling her that this photo was taken after Lawrence's death. Little Myrtle stayed in Hurley for a while with her grandparents and Aunt Alice.

I wonder what happened to little Myrtle; all we know is Mimmie's note, where she wrote "married and living in Albany." This summer I will try to do something I have been thinking about since 2003, which is go to the Albany Rural Cemetery and visit the mother Myrtle's grave.  Perhaps Lawrence is there too.

*It's interesting that when strangers email me because of this ejournal or the Gully Brook Press website, they nearly always google my name and choose to contact me through the university, rather than the AOL or gmail email addresses I have listed here -- and this is true not just of academic and consulting inquiries, where it might be expected, but of correspondence of a more personal nature as well.

Later: I decided to do another knotweed assault. But the guy who cuts the steep part of the hill behind our house already did it!  He's awesome. So I just had to pull the stray ones that were coming up in the curcurbit patch. It was a humid 90 degrees, so I especially appreciated not having to weed whack the rest of the battlefield.

And: the weird round bruise on my shoulder from July 4 that turned into an itchy insect bite after a day and eventually went away has returned! Not the bruise but the itchy welt, exactly the same size and in exactly the same spot. What is it with me and freakin' bugs?

Bugs hate me, summer 2012 edition. On Wednesday, I noticed a small round bruise on my shoulder -- very dark and just a tiny bit larger than a pencil eraser. It didn't hurt or itch and I didn't notice when it happened. It almost looked as if I had been poked with a stick or wire although there was no cut or puncture. There may have been a tiny pin prick in the center, but I am not positive on that point. Today it looks like my usual reaction to an insect bite: larger (maybe the size of an asymmetrical quarter), angry red, very itchy. This isn't my only bug bite reaction this summer (I've had at least two others).  Despite the tag, I don't believe it is a BRS bite or Lyme rash, I just always categorize these bug bite posts that way. However, I'm watching it very carefully...

The Samsonville weekend was long and productive! Bob mowed, I planted zucchini and pole beans, we took the cover off the pool, went to the Memorial Day parade (the band was a little better than usual -- they played two songs), and did a lot of visiting. Ticks are no joke this year; I pulled one off of Sam on Friday (dog tick); Bob had one crawling on his wrist after mowing on Saturday, and I found one crawling around in my hair after we got back to Castleton. Both of the ticks on us were deer ticks. (And I took a shower and put my clothes in a plastic bag after removing the cover from the pool! I even sprayed myself with Off before that task, which is something I never do.) There were a few deer flies hoving around while we were working too. I should be more scared of those since that is how I got Lyme Disease! Maybe it is because ticks look like mini spiders?

Ah, that reminds me. While removing the cover from the pool, I encountered the biggest beetle I have ever seen. Seriously. It wasn't a June bug, either. Those are always big, but this made a June bug look like a Lady bug. Moments later, a huge spider appeared. Not only was it large, it was incredibly scary-looking. Hairy, fast, with an exotic pattern. Blended into the pool cover exactly. It wasn't a Black Widow or Brown Recluse (thank God). It looked like a Tarantula. Terrifying! I think Bob thought I was over reacting -- I was standing on the pool deck, removing leaves from the cover. There was no where to go to quickly get away from the thing -- couldn't jump into the pool and one of the stairs on the ladder is broken so you need to step carefully. He came up to see what the fuss was about, probably expecting to see a large wood spider or something. When he finally spotted it -- he freaked out too. This spider looked like it could take you down without breaking a sweat. I am not sure where it went once he got a look. It didn't stick around. Wasn't scared of me but figured he was a threat, I guess.

When we got back to Castleton, it had been so hot that my poor plants were so thirsty. Most looked dead. But I soaked them,and today they are fine. So -- planting day! The mosquitoes seem kind of tame by comparison to the jungle creatures in Samsonville.

Later: Google search indicates that it was probably a Wolf spider. A very large one! Biggest, hairiest and most colorful one I've ever seen.

Right on. This is basically what my father said to me when we were at an aquarium while on vacation in Florida in '92. He commented on how boring it must be for the large fish who were swimming 'round and 'round, that it was not natural. "The Other Coast" is currently my favorite comic strip, btw. Since I don't get The Record any more, I read it every day online.

Since Tuesday, I have been fighting a cold. I had a minor symptom or two on and off, but it didn't settle in until yesterday, when I must have kicked back and allowed it in. Winter session class was almost ready, so now my defenses betray me - figuring there is time to be sick!

Tomorrow is my last day of classes, and although I have not canceled a class this semester, I really don't want to do it on the last day so I hope I feel better by then. I had a dentist appointment today which I had to reschedule. This is reminding me that I got a terrible sinus infection immediately after going to the dentist last time. I don't think it was a coincidence. Then, in September, I had a cold on my birthday. (Of course.) I have not caught every cold going around since a few years after the brown recluse spider bite. After that, my immunity was compromised, but in recent years I don't get many colds. Certainly no more than 1-2 a year anyway. I suspect my elementary school observations are the culprit. I was there Monday, and the same was true of the birthday cold. I am not sure how teachers manage.

I have been looking forward to tomorrow night's classes, because I made an experimental change in the Thursday class and it worked out great so I wanted to try it in the Tuesday classes too. I will write more about it eventually.

Computer Hell: I am in the middle of a computer nightmare with my laptop. It has a really, really bad virus. I have avast (fully up to date), windows firewall, as well as advanced windows care for malware - and still something got through, whether from the Internet or from a student assignment - I can't tell, could be either one. I spent all day yesterday on it and still can't fix it. I am at the point where I might have to reformat. I don't want to, and I will probably have to buy the recovery console CD (because naturally I can't find it)  but I don't have the time to continue with tweaks in the hope that one will work. Time to cut my losses. I can hardly think of anything else (except my final paragraph, that is).

Phone Hell: Landlines in Samsonville were down for 18 days from Irene, and finally got repaired last week. Then they went out again two days ago. So once again my parents had no phone. Tech support said it would be October 1 before they would be fixed! However "someone with juice" intervened and service was restored yesterday. Yay! In Castleton, I use Home Phone Connect - which is from the wireless division. (Actually I use it in Samsonville too, with a network extender.) Works like a charm. But, since I have DSL, I need a landline. So that telephone is exclusively a fax line. Turns out it has never worked - since it was installed in February. DSL works great, but no voice. Technician came out last week and is stumped. Why should I pay for the phone part when it doesn't work? So once the computer issues are solved, that is my next battle.

Alternative Transportation: Bob is traveling and this is a campus day, so that means I have to hitch a ride somehow. CDTA canceled bus service to Castleton about two years ago (except for a senior bus on Wednesdays - now I may be 50 but I have not yet received my AARP solicitation and besides...). So this means taxi to downtown and then bus to campus. This morning I feared I'd have to cancel class since I could not find a cab willing to make the trip to the hinterlands! I finally did - crisis averted. Then the bus ride up Washington Avenue was interesting. To say the least. I used to do some of my best writing on mass transit, and I remembered why.

Arachnophobia: All summer there has been a spider living between the bathroom window and the screen. I don't routinely kill stuff, so I have tolerated its presence and the web behind the glass. I remind myself that they are good bugs for pest control. A couple of weeks ago, when it was getting cold, I thought, that spider will soon freeze once the season changes, and I sadly remembered the story of Charlotte. Well, a couple of days ago, the spider somehow slipped between the window and the molding and relocated itself to the inside of the bathroom window. It hangs out on its web, not too far from the bathtub, towels, and toilet. I can't have a spider right there - somewhat because it is a strange thing to let go in the house but mostly because as a survivor of a Brown Recluse bite, it is hard for me to put the fear out of my mind. I know it is just a common spider, not a poisonous one, but it is quite large and very fast, and besides, I don't want the dogs or cat to get bitten. But, I can't help but think that it is smart, with a strong survival instinct, to slip inside before the frost comes. Bob told me he will squash it one day when I am not around. I know he will, and one part of me can't wait, but another hates to have that happen. I suppose he could catch and release it (he might if I asked him to do that instead) but then, it will just die outside in the cold anyway. Tonight in class we began the discussion of moral questions - and so this is my own personal moral dilemma.

They are exiting? Not before taking the trees and branches across from my house. There was a crew here all day. I'm not complaining, except about the racket. That's one of the hazards of working from home so much. It can be beautiful, peaceful, birdsong the only sound (admittedly punctured occasionally by one or both of my buddies joyously barking). Or it can be VERY annoying - someone running a chainsaw, lawn mower, wood splitter all day, playing music at high volume, revving a motorcycle engine constantly or screaming while riding downhill in the winter (the hill behind my house is the best).

I like to do most work in natural sound. That's what I call it instead of silence. Years ago when I was studying for the GREs or something else high stakes such as comprehensive exams (a one day cram session, typically me) it was one of those days noise-wise - and I did something completely out of character, opened the window in my office and yelled outside to shut up!

Anyway, I remember a couple of weeks ago there was an article in the TU (advocate section I think) about people freaking over trees being cut. Admittedly, the picture did make it look pretty drastic, but I can't say I mind. It isn't that I don't like trees because I do. I love wilderness of all kinds, to the point that even though bugs hate me, I hardly ever kill them; I try to live in harmony with things others seek to exterminate. (Hardly ever rather than never because with my history sometimes I have no choice; it is self-defense. I apologise for it as the gardeners did in Atwood's In the Year of the Flood.)

The reason is because when the weather is bad, I am so grateful when the electricity stays on. This really hit home yesterday, when I was re-organizing the shed. (An aside, years ago we bought a Rubbermaid shed. Everything about our architectural footprint is small, the shed fits in perfectly. You know how sometimes you buy something and are uncertain whether it will be worth it? Well, that Rubbermaid shed has been worth ten times what we paid.) Back to spring cleaning. Something that was in the front of the shed is a kerosene heater. We had to buy it last time there was a major power outage that lasted a while. We don't lose our electricity all that often in Castleton, but it is routine in Samsonville. It is pretty rare for it to be off for a few days at a time even there, but still. And it is even worse in the winter when it goes out. So within reason, when powerlines are above ground - I say cutting branches is OK.

I have had Lyme Disease, been bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider, and been attacked by fire ants. On Sunday, I got swarmed by ground bees. Thankfully, only one sting on the back of my head. It hurt all night, and yesterday and today it is so itchy! Why do bugs hate me so much?

Sam aggravates bees - he thinks snapping at them is a fun game. He gets stung all the time, although usually the bees don't bother retaliating against anyone else. But ground bees hardly need to be provoked to be aggressive! Bob was stung twice last week. Sam is such a baby about pain, carries on terribly when he is stung. Not that it stops him from playing his game! Luckily, unlike Sophie, he is not allergic. On Sunday, Sam ran to the house as I was being swarmed. I did my best to get them off me before opening the door to the kitchen so we could both run inside. The ones that were chasing us didn't get in, but I brought in one under my shirt. I was in a panic until I found it.

So this morning I checked around the yard to see where the nest is, since I am going to have to weed whack sometime this week, also I can't risk Sophie getting stung, because she will have a reaction. Bad news! It is under the composter.

After my sister sent that link, I decided to search "deer fly" rather than "black fly." It works better, resulting in the following links: from Ohio State University, from yahoo, and finally, this one. There are more, but most of these searches are already overlapping.

In thinking about it, we have never had many classic Adirondack black flies in Samsonville. They are deer flies, as described in the OSU link. That must be what bit me.

Also, I've added a "Lyme Disease" tag to these posts.

A few weeks ago I added another record in the Brown Recluse Spider bite site. I had to create a new one, rather than just adding the incident to the existing record from the 1984 bite. I decided to share it there not because it is due to a BRS this time, but just because that is a great site that people go to for information when they have a weird reaction or rash.

I have to go back to the doctor for a follow up. He asked me when I was there on the 14th whether I consider myself to be at high risk for Lyme Disease. Am I outdoorsy? I said yes, definitely. Not that I am one for camping or tromping through weeds, because I am not. But I am not exactly a couch potato and my surroundings are often rural. I am careful about checking for ticks (I've never found one attached) and wearing long pants etc. in risky areas. But both Samsonville and Castleton are known as places for deer and ticks and I always hear that so-and-so has Lyme Disease. Rudy had Lyme Disease when he was about 7, at that time we used to walk him at Schodack Island State Park (we stopped as soon as we figured out that it is loaded with ticks near the Hudson).

When he asked me, I didn't say yes for this reason, but Castleton has tons of mosquitos (although I think they may have been worse in some past years), and Samsonville is loaded with deer flies (especially this year).

I tested positive for Lyme Disease! So that means 28 days of Doxycycline. Yuck. I am so nauseous from my morning dose as I write this. But I certainly don't want to get any other symptoms of Lyme, so take it I will. What is scary about my diagnosis is that everything I have read about Lyme says that it takes ~3 days for an attached tick to transmit it, and that there is no evidence that it can be transmitted by other insects. Yet I was standing on my deck and felt the bite. Checked it within five minutes and saw the reaction, and no attached tick.

So to me this means, with my n=1, that I got it either from a flying insect (such as a black fly) that bit me through my jeans (which is what I suspect), or that a tick crawled into my pants, bit me, immediately dropped off, yet gave me Lyme Disease. I know a lot of people who have tested postive without ever finding a tick. The assumption is that they had one attached, didn't see it, and it fell off eventually. Now I say, maybe not. Maybe they were bit by a black fly and didn't think anything of it. Didn't get a rash or major reaction, but then developed Lyme symptoms weeks later.

I did find these websites, here, and here, of people writing about their Lyme experiences. Both mention black flies as the vector. So I make three! I say, why not? In Samsonville, there are lots of deer. Also lots of deer ticks and black flies. A tick can pass Lyme from a deer to a human. Why can't a black fly do the same? I am remembering the Brown Recluse bite in 1984 again, that at that time almost no one had heard of poison spider bites and the trouble I had with a diagnosis. So I am always Case #1, it seems.

Also in my research, although my rash was not the classic bull's eye, I can see that it resembles a Lyme rash. In darker skinned people it can look almost like a bruise, and that is how I would describe my rash in some places.

What a summer!

This is the story of my 1984 Brown Recluse Spider bite.

And now for the latest chapter on why I like winter.

I got bit by something on Sunday while I was standing on the deck at our house in Samsonville. I felt a sharp bite on my leg. I think it bit me through my jeans, high up on my right thigh on the outside of my leg. I suspect it was one of those mean flies we have there but I am not sure. There was no blood and the bite is tiny. Bob thought maybe it was a bee since Sam was stung earlier in the day, but it didn't hurt like a bee sting. I went inside and pulled down my pants and it looked terrible within minutes. There was no tick attached or anything like that. I shook my pants out and couldn't find any bugs. By late that night when we were back in Castleton it was just awful, about 4" across and very red. Not a bull's eye, a dark, solid red circle.

It only hurts and itches a little. I had to be on campus Monday and had forgotten my insurance card at home so couldn't go to one of those urgent care places (there is one right next to campus), but I was kind of worried all day. Monday night I put baking soda and cortisone cream on it and thought it looked OK, maybe even a bit better so I stopped worrying. By yesterday afternoon the redness and swelling had traveled to my groin and I freaked.

So I went to the doctor, she said it could be any type of bug but they suspect a spider, although probably not a poisonous one like last time. (She said they do get a growing number of people in recent years who have been bitten by brown recluse spiders, though, which is interesting.) She also said it doesn't have the characteristics of a tick bite. I still think it was a flying insect that bit me through my pants because I'm pretty sure I would have seen a spider inside or outside of my pants.

Anyway, I am on keflex. When I got to Rite Aid to get my prescription, the pharmacist came out and had one of those counseling sessions. I mean a real one, not just one they make you sign off on. He asked me about my penicillin allergy. He said there is a 5% chance I will react to keflex since it is related. I don't think I have ever had keflex before, at least not as far as I can remember. He said if I get a rash I should stop taking it immediately. I laughed because a rash is what I am taking it for!! But a friend of mine told me to take that very seriously, because the 5% is too much of a softball, and the reaction could be delayed, or more serious. (Great, so now I have something else to worry about.)

Too bad there were no digital pictures in 1984! No one would believe me that the Brown Recluse bite was worse.

Don't tell me there's not a chance of being bitten by a brown recluse spider. Or, for that matter, that medical professionals are even close to being eager to make this "myth" diagnosis. On July 4th in 1984, I was at a Long Island beach. The next morning, as I was taking a shower, I noticed I had an extremely itchy bug bite on my calf. I didn't think much of it. Later that day at work, I noticed my calf area surrounding the bite was swelled so much that my pant leg was tight. I showed the bite to a co-worker, and he agreed that it looked a little strange, but still I didn't think much of it. Still later, we went out to dinner in NYC with friends. By this time my leg really felt odd. Again I inspected the bite, and my friends agreed that it looked weird. By the time we arrived at our stop on the railroad late that night, I couldn't walk. Bob and the conductor had to help me off the train and down the escalator from the platform. We took a cab home, and I foolishly went to bed, but I couldn't believe an insect bite could be anything serious.

In the morning, I couldn't get out of bed. A friend who was going to help with a barbecue we were having that day arrived, and she looked at my leg, called her mother who was a nurse, and she told me to get to the emergency room immediately. I didn't have health insurance at my crappy fairly new job in an artists' representative's office, and although I was reluctant, by this point I had no choice but to take the advice. With help, I put on shorts, even though I needed a shave there was no way I could shower, and pants were out of the question by now. I sat in the emergency room with my dark purple, throbbing leg, while almost every other patient was taken ahead of me. Their lacerations and broken legs just seemed more serious to the staff, I guess.

When the doctor looked at my leg, he was stumped, but he said it was very serious. In fact, he wanted to admit me. The emergency room was filthy, it seemed to me that they didn't know what was wrong (and besides, it was only a bug bite!), there was my lack of insurance (and salary so low that eventually paying the bill seemed an impossibility), and plus, we were having people over for a BBQ! So I refused to be admitted. Instead, I got a topical ointment, instructions to soak and elevate my leg, and a prescription for antibiotics.

Days passed and my leg got no better; in fact, it may have been worse. I visited an upscale dermatologist, who told me from behind a serious sunburn that I had to pay $275 to become his patient before he would treat me. I refused his generous offer, and hopped on one leg the several blocks back home (in addition to little money, we had no car). I looked in the yellow pages, and found the name of a general practitioner named Dr. Santos who charged only $25 for an office visit. He took me right away. I remember sitting in his shabby office, where his only staff was a nurse/receptionist. He examined my leg, declared that I had been bitten by a fiddleback spider, and said that aside from the antibiotics, all the treatment I had received so far had been wrong. My leg should not be elevated or soaked, although I would have to stay off it for quite some time, and not move around too much. He gave me a prescription for some little pills that he called anti-venom, and he said that they would make the poison leave my system. He said it was likely that my immunity would be impacted by the episode for some time. Dr. Santos was from Puerto Rico, and so I figured he knew about exotic spiders.

My leg healed with no problem, and what he said about my immunity wound up to be true - for several years I caught every cold and flu that went around. Later I researched fiddleback spiders, and discovered that they are the same as the brown recluse, which is not commonly found in New York. However, in the past few years, I have heard of maybe five other incidents, mostly in Long Island and one in Schenectady. The Schenectady case was in a trucker, and the speculation was that he had been bitten while on a trip.

I have great respect for scholarly research - and the spider guy in this article does seem to have the stats. I admit I did not see the spider that bit me. But my leg looked exactly like pictures I have seen of brown recluse bites, and my symptoms were the same as those listed. I certainly didn't have cancer, and believe me, there is no way this was poison ivy. In my experience, sometimes simple wisdom is more powerful than stacks of studies.

Anyway, my money - all $25 of it - is on Dr. Santos being right. I will always be thankful to him for saving my leg - and maybe my life - in his humble practice. And after that I really took the "stay off the dunes" signs to heart.

Tired today, and facing a week of intensive student evaluation. The grades for my class are due on Friday. I try to finish up by Thursday night, so that students have a day to react before I actually get the list to the registrar. It is possible to change a grade after that, but I try to avoid extra paperwork. Up to five students per semester ask me to explain their grade - and occasionally I do make a mistake in my spreadsheet. But more often students who did very little in class and so failed or ended up with D- try to get a higher grade, and most often students who did well (B+ or A-) try to get A- or A, respectively.

The weekend was active. Lots of yardwork on Saturday, and a Mother's Day trip on Sunday to South Deerfield, MA where we met the in-laws, went to Yankee Candle and then out to dinner. On Saturday, as I was moving hosta, hosing off the resin furniture, weeding between the bricks of the walkway, and anticipating planting that 5 pound bag of green beans from Seeds of Change, I was thinking about bugs. Something I like about winter in the northeast is that in late Fall there's a frost - and bang, the bugs are gone!

Now, honey bees are always welcome. Also, I plant beneficial flowers near my vegetable garden to attract "good" predator insects that eat "bad" crop-detroying bugs, so I am not referring to being creeped out by bugs in general. What I mean is, I don't like the seasonal infestations of pests. I especially don't like the annual Spring scourge of ants that appears in the kitchen. Then, last July, pantry moths hatched out of a big bag of dog food and by October, forced me to throw away an entire pantry of food. As far as mosquitos go, don't get me started.

I won't use pesticides, an exterminator, or insect repellent. I have found some effective natural products for moth control in Gardens Alive. The ants I either ignore until they disappear, capture and release outside, or kill them manually the minute I see them - depending on my mood and philosophy that season. When I was a very little kid, on a visit to Florida, I got hung up in an anthill, and red ants swarmed on me and bit my legs. What an awful experience! The ants in my kitchen are not those red, tiny things but big, black ones.

I do confess to having a can of unscented Raid, which is reserved for the occasional wasp or yellow jacket that makes its way into the house. I am too scared and incompetent to capture and release or manually kill wasps, and I am terrified that one of the dogs will try to get them. Sophie was stung last summer, and as she is a very allergic dog, her reaction was frightening, and required an emergency call to the vet. Rudy likes to catch flies, so I'm afraid if it was in the house, he would try to get a wasp, too. I spray nothing else; not even spiders, even though in the 1980s I was deathly ill on Fourth of July holiday from being bitten by a brown recluse (fiddleback) spider (they are poisonous). But I know spiders are good bugs, and as long as they avoid me (and are not too awful looking), I do my best to avoid them.

Anyway, this year, we had a couple of weird days in April that were 95 degrees - about a million wasps hatched out. They had nests on the porch, in the awning, near many of the house windows. Although I have the wasp killer, I don't want to use it very much, so I thought, "why didn't I search for and knock down all the wasp nests I could find when it was cold outside?" An army of ants appeared at the same time. Then it dipped below freezing; it may even have snowed. The weather has returned to normal, and I don't notice the wasps. But I think the ants were impervious, because they are back.

Yesterday, after Yankee Candle, we stopped at a butterfly sanctuary called Magic Wings. There was a greenhouse-type room that you can go in, with exotic and beautiful plants, and butterflies of every description flying around. It was incredible. The place was packed. It struck me that if it was another type of insect - mosquitos or wasps or spiders or ants - how freaked out we all would be!

I received a very nice email, from John Kavanaugh, the man who manages the Port Authority's memorial website, reporting that my story about Sirius, the only dog to die in the World Trade Center (see my April 24 entry), has been posted on the website.

I have been doing a little surfing in the weblog world. I am intrigued not so much by any one particular journal but by the phenomenon itself. More on this subject in the future, but at the moment, after reading some of the weblogs of various people, I can envision the need for two journals: one an off-line bound volume, filled with scribblings about its online rival!