It Don't Bug Me None

Haven't blogged for a while, have I? That's because currently, I'm not speaking to the human race. I've found something much more entertaining, and which requires more intelligence, to do: observing the great variety of insects that inhabits my camper.

That's right, I said camper:

Last month I moved out of the house, nothing against my housemates or the squirrels that run wild in the eaves. I just needed my own space. Peaceful. Quiet. No wild parties till dawn (that'd be those pesky squirrels).

I may now be headed down the redneck road to becoming trailer trash, but so what? I like living here in my tin can, more so than in the the tin shack. It's not a boat, but still, I'm cozy and comfortable, going to sleep each night and staying that way until dawn.

The only bummer is the much longer commute to my canvas shop. Now I have to truck all the way across the yard in order to get to work:


But this will do for now, until I re-evaluate my life in the fall. By then I should just about be all done with my bug study.

Out There

The owner of this blog is currently very busy with a team of selachians, uh, lawyers, fighting an egregious charge of Blog Abandonment and Neglect for no Good Evident Reason (BANGER).

No I'm Not

I haven’t been able to keep up with the blogging recently. Have you ever tried typing by holding a crayon in your teeth? It’s so tiring.

Recently, I got a very personal tour of the mental institution down the road from here. Those new fangled straightjackets are much more difficult to get out of than were the older models…

No, I’m not crazy, at least not by my own standards. Just alitloff…

And oh yeah, I moved again, without leaving the property. Details to follow, when I can safely avoid those people in white coats driving that white van with the bars on all the windows…Oops, gotta run!

Rising Waters

Next time I hear that school got canceled just because it was raining, for cripes sake, I won’t think ‘pansies’. And I’ll stay home too.

This week’s floods created the need for some new road signs. We already have these, for the really stupid people:

Now we need a few of these, to keep safe those geese who have given up flying for interstate travel:


And for those lucky people with duck ponds in their driveways:


In other words, not all god's creatures were distressed by the floods. I wasn’t bothered until it took me an hour and a half to get home from three miles away. During that epic journey, I had plenty of time to figure out ways to redesign my Ford Escort into a more flood-friendly vehicle.

The first improvement would be an exhaust stack that would jam onto the tail pipe and run up the back of the car, above the waterline. With such an addition, that first puddle would have been a snap. As it was, we barely made it through, floating past three dead cars. Then the road got closed behind me. Two miles further on, I found the road closed in front of me, where three feet of water raged across, making me wish I still had a kayak.


At first, it looked likely that I was destined to spend the remainder of the rainstorm sitting in my car on the side of the road. But a small lane that looked a driveway was the way out, and my car forded the next water hole without all that sputtering. From there, the pavement rose on higher ground, leading me to think I was home free.

As I sat in my dead car in the next giant road lake, I came up with a design for some pontoons down the sides of the car, and a rudder/tiller that I could attach to the stern. Oarlocks could easily be attached to the roof, where the oars could remain stored until needed.

After some pushing and a bit of dripping, the car was game for the paddle home.

Ironically, my driveway in the swamp was the driest road I had traveled on that day.

Stupid buggers

I should be overjoyed and energetic. The days are getting longer, with little green bits and flowers popping up here and there. Despite seven inches of rain in less than a week, we had an absolutely splendid spell of spring-like weather, without a white flake in sight.

Not long ago, when a summer day was about to hit us full force, I decided that enough was enough, and stopped taking that stupid antibiotic, the one for lymes where you can’t go out in the sun without coming back in within minutes resembling an overcooked lobster. And oh, what a delectable day it was, sitting on the beach in tank top, shorts and happy bare feet, watching my dog romp, gazing at sailboats gliding up the bay, feeling the heat of the sun on what’s left of my body.

That was the last nice day I had, before beginning a dark descent back into an unsteady world of exhaustion. The person I used to be could stay energized for days, sticking to the wet, sideways-slanting deck of a sailboat in a gale with one toe. Despite eight months of treatment, this person I've become still sometimes can't remain upright on level ground, and wouldn't pass a sobriety test despite consuming no alcohol in nearly a year (because booze exacerbates the sick wobbly feeling I live with, that's why-and save the unbalanced jokes, okay?)

I hadn't expected to start falling apart for at least another decade, thinking it would happen gradually enough that there would be plenty of time to get used to the idea of becoming a decrepit doddering dame, instead of the physically strong, able-to-rebuild-a-sailboat-in-a-single-bound-bundle-of-energy that I had been.

I'm still struggling with having been bouncy and active one minute, and flattened the next. Now, it's hard to remove a lid from a jar that's already been opened. What a wimp.

Place your bets-will I get any of my strength back, or will I always be this weak pansy girl who annoys me no end by wanting to sleep all the time?