Disconnected Weekend Morning Musings

Here I am on a Saturday morning!  Barely morning I guess as it is about 25 minutes until high noon, but I will grasp at it while I can.  I am writing from the comfort of my own couch which is a bit of a novelty these days.  Here is the bonus info for today - my lovely dog let me sleep in until 10 a.m.!  I should clarify that we did awaken a few times prior to 10, but every time she just laid back down and snoozed some more.  It was heavenly.

Lena is now waiting patiently for me to finish up my writing so that we can go for a walk.  The dishwasher is running and I am also doing laundry.  Both of these things may seem simple, but for someone who is barely around enough to bring the the mail on a regular basis, it is very impressive.

My cross-stitch project is also sitting in front of me and I am pleased to say that it is coming along nicely.  Although there will be at least one flaw in it due to the fact that the original that I am using as a template contains a few flaws made by my aunt.  Fortunately, I was able to spot most of these, but one slipped past me unnoticed until it was too late.  Oh well, the beauty is in the flaws, right?

One of the great things about spending time at home is that I get to pull back from reality for a little bit.  I do not have cable TV and the digital converter box creates more problems than I am willing to address, so the only thing I use my television for is watching DVD's.  Now that my computer connection is tied to a mobile hotspot device, I am no longer able or willing to watch streaming video online either.  In fact, I find that I am only on the internet for limited periods of time if at all.

I just wasted about 10 minutes trying to import a photograph that I took of Lena watching me type as she patiently waits for her walk.  Due to some sort of issue with jpg files, I was unable to import the photos.  Go figure.  Someday it will all make sense to me, I'm sure.

There is something I feel that I should share.  Yesterday, I took Lena out for an evening stroll despite the 90 degree temperature with high humidity levels.  It was pretty gross, but a girl's gotta walk, right?  Anyway, along the walk I made some very interesting and slightly chilling discoveries.

No, it was not the kind of discoveries that I make when walking during the winter when I realize that none of my neighbors want to take responsibility for their dog's poopies.

It was that there seem to be a LOT of ants living in this neck of the woods.  Ant hills EVERYWHERE along the sidewalks.  HUGE ants crawling across walkways.  There was one section in the opposite end of my neighborhood where the edge of the sidewalk was literally SWARMING with ants.  It was very creepy.

This discovery has led me to ponder my own ant situation.  If we are experiencing an increase in ant population in the neighborhood as a whole, it seems possible that the number of ants I have experienced may somehow be related.  Sure, I realize that a few ants here and there are to be expected, especially when one leaves uneaten dog food in a dish for a day or two.  But if you had seen the number of ants that came out to my bait traps in the past couple of days, you would have been astounded as well.

I am happy to report that it seems that the bait traps are having an effect.  For the first day or so, there were tons of visitors, but the numbers have slowly tapered off.  I hope that this is due to the fact that the scavengers were returning to their homes with the poison to share with their housemates.  Normally I would not delight in a mass poisoning, but in this case, I cannot cohabit.

Well, it appears that the hour is now noon.  I should probably wrap this up and get my poochie out for a while.  As a concluding note, I just realized that I have written an entry every day so far this month.  This is not a feat I intend to continue, but it is interesting.  To me, at least.

Flashes of lightening and covert operations

Of all the weird ways to start a Friday... thunder and lightening?  Not to mention that fact that when I awoke this morning I had a very hard time remembering what day it was.  This can probably be easily explained by the fact that I have spent nearly every single Friday morning this year at my parents' house.  Except for today.  Yes, today I arose for the day chez moi. 

For an update on my ant situation (if you care):  I am working on it.  It is a bit tricky to place bait traps when one has a very curious dog, but she is pretty obedient when I am watching and I have not left her unattended near the apparent ant metropolis.  My guess is that there may be a crack in the foundation or an opening in the wall right by the entrance from my living room to the kitchen because they are coming out in droves for the bait.  Yuck.  What is the next step?  Should I go to Lowe's and check out the Raid sprays?  I think it may be time to go heavy duty.  Don't worry, I've done this before with much more dangerous critters.

Yet another strange occurrence this morning was the fact that my dog did not want her food.  She was not behaving unusually in any other way, so I can only assume that the strange weather patterns may have affected her appetite.  Either that or she is making a subtle statement that she prefers the food that my mom has over what I have.  This is odd because I intentionally bought the same food as my mom serves her dogs, so who knows.  She was more than willing to eat the treats that I give her for going willingly into her kennel before I left, so I know that she won't starve, but we'll have to see how she does with her evening meal.

Aside from animal and insect concerns, my main mental preoccupation of late has been over my future career.  Professionally, I am a bit of a crossroads.  I am more than emotionally and mentally ready to move on to a new venture, but unfortunately I will not be in full possession of the degree that will allow me to really do this until December.  Initially, this fact was OK with me.  I was willing to wait out the time patiently in my current position and start the new job pursuit when I had the full qualifications in hand.

Unfortunately, I have started to grow impatient.  I want a challenge.  Knowing that I only have three more courses to complete until I have my Master's Degree has made me extremely eager to move into the field of libraries, archives and other such places.  Ultimately, my first preference would be to remain in Minnesota, specifically in the Twin Cities metro, thus allowing me to remain in my house and near my family.

Although I am concentrating my search in this area, I have not totally ruled out other locations.  Current economic conditions combined with the relatively high level of competition for the type of job I want in this area make the possibility that I may need to relocate something that I cannot ignore.

So the inevitable consideration is:  where should I live?

Up to now, I have really only considered places that are in the northern part of the country.  This is mainly based on my (completely rational) dislike for the kind of poisonous insects and other creatures that live in warmer climates.  However, the news that Brown Recluse Spiders may soon be extending their habitat into MN has me very concerned.  I had not previously considered Canada to be an option, but I am seriously rethinking this.

I guess you could say that I am now open to suggestion.  If anyone has any great ideas, please let me know.  I am fortunate enough to have friends and connections in other areas of the U.S. such as Portland (OR), Anchorage and Chicago.  There are also the "close to home" options in Madison (WI) and even South Dakota.  Then again, there are also the overseas options.  How cool would it be to work for the British Museum?  Not that there is much chance of this happening, but it would be dreamy.

Hopefully I will not have as much trouble remembering where I am and what day it is tomorrow when I awaken.  Hopefully Lena will be kind and allow me some extra sleep as well.  Tomorrow night I have a grill-out event to attend that is actually a covert matchmaking operation to introduce a couple of lovely young people.  Even if this is not a successful endeavor, at least I will get some good food and company out of it.

Battle of the Bugs

Alright, so I started a blog entry about this topic a week ago, but I didn't find it to be very inspiring in its original layout, so I have ditched that article and started afresh.  Hopefully this will work out better.

This past week has been a bit of a rough one for me and my overall sense of well-being.  On Wednesday, I had a small car accident in which no people or animals were hurt.  Basically, I rear-ended someone at the breakneck speed of less than 5 mph.  You would think that this would not be a big deal, and for the other car, it wasn't.  His minivan had nary a scratch on its back bumper.

Sadly, the same could NOT be said for my car.  When we pulled over to examine the damage, I think that the other driver actually felt sorry for me when he saw the HUGE crack in my front fender.  After refusing several times to take any of my insurance information, he left me to begin the long process of phone calls that eventually led me to missing a day of work while I filed an insurance claim, brought my car to the repair shop and obtained a rental vehicle.  I could go into more depressing details, but as this incident is not to be the focus of today's entry, I will hold off on that for now.

As everyone is well aware, the fall season is fully upon us.  Leaves are changing color and the need for air conditioning has ceased.  As far as I know, we here in the Twin Cities area have yet to experience a full overnight freeze, which explains why my allergies have not yet fully abated.  It also explains another troubling yet unsurprising phenomenon:  boxelder bugs.

If you are familiar with these insects, you may be able to tell where this entry is going.  Boxelder bugs are a common insect in MN, especially during autumn.  Technically speaking, these creatures fall under the category of "True Bugs" and have the scientific name, Boisea trivittata (see this Wikipedia article for a mini-description:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boisea_trivittata) Here is my artists rendering:

I have been familiar with Boxelder Bugs for a very long time, most memorably dating back to my childhood visits to my grandpa's farm.  Images of entire walls and floors covered in these nasty little creatures come to mind quite vividly to this day.

After my childhood farm traumas, I actually saw very few Boxelder Bugs in my lifetime.  Until I became a homeowner and was reintroduced to their creepiness.

One of the amazing skills of the Boxelder Bug is their ability to creep through small spaces or cracks in window sills or siding to enter indoor living areas.  For some strange reason, in my small townhouse, the primary place of entry appears to be my upstairs bathroom.  My first experience with this came about several years ago in a very memorable fashion.  I was actually using my toilet, which is situated right next to the window, when one of these guys came crawling out from behind my window shade.

Being surprised by the presence of an insect is never a pleasant experience.  If this happens to you while seated on a toilet, it is even worse.  Unless you have planned ahead, you will likely not have a swatting utensil within easy reach.  Thankfully, I survived this encounter and was able to use it to formulate a disaster plan for the future.  I now keep a single flip flop shoe in the cabinet next to the toilet in my bathroom.  It is a decision that has paid off numerous times in the years since this first encounter.

While I have been able to successfully address the presence of Boxelder Bugs in my home environment, I have not always been able to dominate them as well in other places.  For instance, the workplace.  For some reason, this year has been terrible for insects in the office.  I work in a open space with plenty of windows and other surfaces for insects to hide and land.  Although I have made a valiant effort to seek and destroy as many Boxelder Bugs as possible, there always seem to be three more for every one I kill.

I should perhaps pause for a moment to explain something about the structure of a Boxelder Bug.  If you have never had the unfortunate duty of disposing of one of these creatures, you may not understand the magnitude of the exercise.

Although they have been gifted with wings to fly, they are not very quick to escape which makes the hunt rather simple.  Unfortunately, the simplicity of the squishing does not continue from that point.  Boxelder Bugs are apparently filled with a yellowish and stinky fluid that is immediately released upon squishing.  I am guessing here, but I surmise that this fluid also causes a noticeable popping or cracking noise upon squishing as well.

Therefore, while you may rejoice in the fact that you have successfully eliminated another one from your living or work space, you must also face the prospect of a messy and smelly cleanup effort.  Trust me when I say that it is nothing like cleaning up a smashed spider, fly or wasp.  It is way juicier.

You may be asking at this point whether or not it is worth it to destroy Boxelder Bugs.  Are they really that much of a nuisance?  I mean, they don't bite and they aren't highly destructive.  Seriously, can't we live and let live?

The answers are as follows:  yes they are, and no we can't.

Here is why - if you let one go, you will soon find that the situation is out of control.  These things like to congregate.  If you need an example, I will give you one.

Several years ago, I found myself back in my hometown for the wedding of one of my best friends at the end of September.  It was a wonderful weekend and everything with the wedding went almost completely as planned.  The only snag was a $5 parking ticket that I received from leaving my car parked in one spot for more than two hours in downtown while we were getting our hair and nails done.

I wasn't too upset about the ticket, and I followed the instructions for payment.  To make sure that this was taken care of before I left town, I enclosed my money in the provided envelope and went to the city administration building to drop it off.  As it was a Sunday, the offices were closed, but they did have  drop slot located on the south side of the building.

If you read the Wikipedia article, you may have noticed that Boxelder Bugs, you may remember that they like to gather in sunny areas on the sides of buildings.  It should now be obvious where this example is leading.  I parked my car and approached the building, envelope in hand.  As I neared the drop slot, it became quite obvious that the Boxelder Bugs of Willmar had come together in order to make my drop-off as traumatic and dramatic as possible.

As I stared in fear at the black and orange-red wall covering on the brick of the building, I eyed up the small slot in the wall and planned my strategy.  I opted for the quickest method of running, dropping and running again.  Screaming a little as I ran, I completed this mission as quickly as possible and spent the next few minutes outside my car carefully inspecting my clothing for any stowaways that could potentially surprise and accost me on my two hour drive home.

Maybe you think that this wasn't a scary example.  Trust me, if you had to do it, you would understand.  Just pray that you never have to experience it.

So, to conclude, I continue to anxiously await the first freeze of the season.  Not only will it cause great relief to my allergies, but it usually significantly decimates the Boxelder Bug population for the season.  In the meantime, I shall continue my private crusade to remove them from my home and workspace.  There really are some things work fighting for.

Infestation: Part 2

As promised, I have returned once more to continue my tales of infestation in the Heartland. Tonight’s story is perhaps told in a simple narrative style as I really can’t think of any great way to introduce or build up to it.

Long ago, or sometime last autumn, I returned home from work in my usual manner. After a long day in the office and what was likely an uneventful but mind-numbing commute, I pulled my car into my garage. As is my custom, before closing the garage door and entering my house, I took a little stroll back out to my communal mailbox to check the day’s correspondence.

As I sauntered back to the house pondering the magic of the autumn skies, I thought about important things, such as what to have for dinner or if 8:30 was too early to go to bed. Normally, I do not pay much attention to the outside of my house aside from checking to see if my chairs are still in place and if some door-to-door annoyance has left a flyer attached to my door.



On this particular day, I did not note any of the usual disturbances. As I approached the entrance to the garage, a slight incongruence in the corner of my eye caught my attention. The strange and new anomaly was a small brown object that was the color of a paper grocery bag and was attached to the top of the outer frame of my garage door.



It should have been obvious to me immediately what this strange brown ball was, but I had to take a closer look. After taking two steps closer to the object, I quickly realized that it was not just a clump of dirt or some cute little bird’s nest; it was a nest of wasps.

I firmly believe that a fear or distrust of insects with stingers that are prone to angry attacks cannot be irrational. My reaction to my realization that I was sharing a living space with such creatures can therefore not be called overdramatic. I threw myself against the farthest wall of my garage from the nest and carefully crept my way to the garage door button to seal out these new houseguests.



(Please note: the walls of my garage are not teal, but now that I’ve used it, I realize that it might not be a bad idea.)

Once safely in the house, I sat down to consider my course of action. As I hadn’t seen any actual wasps on the nest, I thought that perhaps it was abandoned. It was still quite small, and I figured at most it could only contain one or two wasps so far. I vowed that I would simply knock it down with my snow shovel before leaving for work in the morning.

When the next morning came, I slowly approached the nest. On this visit, I was surprised to see three wasps crawling in and around the nest. I quickly abandoned my snow shovel attack as I felt it would be a poor defense against the insects should they target me for the destruction of their new home.

I went to work and promptly forgot about the wasps. If you have learned anything about me from my smoke detector story, you can possibly predict how the next couple of weeks went. I attempted to use avoidance and ignorance to solve my problem.

The event that pulled me out of my non-confrontational shame spiral was actually pretty simple. I came home from work one day to see a small child riding a tricycle down my street with its mother. She waved to me, and in a burst of uncharacteristic friendliness, I waved back. As I turned to walk back into my garage, I happened to notice that my wasp nest was getting bigger.

Faced with the possibility of a growing wasp problem and the potential threat to the children of my neighborhood, I decided that something needed to be done. I went inside to investigate my options. Obviously, the nest was not enormous, so calling an exterminator seemed to be unnecessary. Thankfully, I did vaguely recall that my father had dealt with wasp nests at some point in the past, so I called him to confer. He confirmed my memory and informed me that I could purchase wasp poison spray at any local hardware or home improvement store.

A few days later, I gathered my courage and put on my best “I look like I belong here in this do-it-yourself home improvement behemoth store” outfit. I drove the half mile from my house, parked my car, took a deep breath and went in. (To clarify, these giant house supply stores overwhelm me; they always make me feel lost and stupid.)

After half an hour of wandering and trying to look like I knew EXACTLY what I was doing, I stumbled upon the pesticide section. I performed a brief price comparison and bought the one that looked the meanest.



Once I arrived at home with my wasp spray, I sat down to read the directions. They were surprisingly long and quite specific. The first thing that surprised me was that they recommended that the extermination procedure be done either just after sunset or just before sunrise as this is when the wasps would be home and at their least active.

Other than the suggestion to stand at least 10 feet away and spray CONTINUALLY until the entire bottle was empty, the directions also indicated that it would be wise to dress carefully. In other words, cover up completely, because if the wasps wake up, they are going to swarm you. Apparently, they tend to aim for the head of their assailant.

All of this information made me nervous and a little frightened. Rather than take on the operation that night, I decided to consult my coworkers the next day to see if anyone had any other advice or insight. It turns out that I was wise to do this because apparently destroying a wasp nest is serious business and a lot of people have had to do it.

Every warning on the spray bottle was confirmed, and the consensus of my panel was that evening or dusk was the best time to attack. That night, I returned home and waited for sunset. I went online to check the official time of sun down, and learned that it was to be 8:30 p.m.

At 8:15, I went to my bedroom and prepared for battle. Even though it was fall, the outside temperature in the evening had yet to drop to cooler temperatures, so most people were still wearing light clothing. I would not be able to do so. I put on long jeans, a t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, thick socks and boots. I pulled out a scarf and hat, but ultimately decided to wear my big hooded winter coat instead. I did keep my mittens as I sadly do not own any work gloves or choppers.

Last but not least, the final yet most important piece of my armor: my safety goggles. In college chemistry, I was required to purchase a pair of super-sexy safety goggles, and they have come in handy quite a bit in the past ten years.

This time, I did remember to take a picture.




Fortified in full battle regalia, I ventured forth into the now dark evening. I measured out approximately 10 feet, read the instructions one more time, and commenced the spraying.

I have to say, after all the build-up, I was expecting a little more drama from the wasps. In the end, all that happened was that the nest was fully soaked with spray and there were three dead wasps on the ground beneath. No wasps even flew out of the nest. My protective clothing was never put to any real test.

According to the instructions on the spray, I was not to attempt any further contact with the wasps that night, but in the morning, I could knock the nest down and smash it. This was in case any of the wasps had been away from home during the attack. If they came back during the night, the poison would still be viable and would finish them all off.

In the morning light, I approached the dormant nest with my snow shovel and knocked it down. Using the flat side of the shovel, I smashed the nest to smithereens and swept all the mashed up debris into the grass.



In retrospect, I believe that this episode is one of my greatest success stories in life. Especially when you ignore the fact that it took me almost a month after discovering the problem until I actually solved it. But overall, the net result is that I was 100% effective at eliminating my wasp infestation, and I did it all through my own physical force (with the help of a store-purchased poison spray and some safety goggles).

Infestation: Part I

On a normal workday, the first voices that I hear in the morning (other than the ones in my head) are the morning radio hosts on my favorite station, The Current. One of the things I enjoy about my favorite station is that there are no advertisements and the announcers do not talk for long periods of time about nonsense.

Although they tend to feature more music than other stations, they do have brief news-oriented segments that are usually quite interesting. Today, they discussed the increase in the infestation of bedbugs in the United States. I had heard this all before; in fact, it has been several years since I heard that they were having a local resurgence, especially in hotels.

While I’m fairly certain that my own bed is pest-free, it did cause me to ponder the other types of infestation I have encountered in my six years as a homeowner. I could try and cram all the details into one long entry, but since I do now have some school related reading to complete in my evenings, I figured I would make it a little bit easier on myself and break it out into a trilogy.

To ease you into this theme (which some people might find a little frightening), I will start with what I consider to be the most innocuous pest infestation: ants.

As a general fact, ants in a house do not really scare me. In fact, I believe that most people at some point or another will have to deal with their presence. As a child, I remember my mother putting out little pieces of cardboard with Terro on it around our house during the summer. When I asked why they didn’t die immediately upon eating the poison, she told me that they have to live long enough to bring it back to their colony so that they can kill off the rest of the ants at their base.

When you really think about it, the idea is a little bit sad. I mean, the ant thinks that it has hit the jackpot in the super awesome tasting Terro and simply wants to take it home to share and eat with its family. Too bad it doesn’t work out better for them.

This childhood ant-pity stayed with me for quite a while. At least until I found my first ant in my own home. After completely pulling apart all my living room furniture and vacuuming over every square inch of my first floor, I laid out the new version of the Terro trap. Instead of the old-fashioned cardboard with poison deal, they now make enclosed plastic containers that are theoretically less messy.

Even though I have no doubt of the poison’s effectiveness, I like to take a little extra precaution. If anyone knows me well, they know that I am not a fan of spiders. It’s not that I hate them, because I really don’t think it’s sane to get emotional towards something that is definitely not emotional towards me. Instead, I live by my own “personal space” philosophy.

For me, “personal space” with respect to spiders comes down to indoors versus outdoors. If the spider is indoors and is in my personal living space, I will not feel guilty about squishing it. If it is outdoors, unless it is attempting to actually crawl ON me, I will live and let live.

However, when it comes to addressing the ant or other small bug infestation issue, especially in my entryway, I am a bit more lenient. In fact, if you were to look around the vicinity of my front door at this moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to find two or three well-hidden spiders. I am more than content to let them live. I consider them my henchmen, or the “muscle” of my war on pests.

If at any point the spiders themselves become an infestation, I may have to use my vacuum cleaner to thin the herd. As I have learned from working in an office that has spider overpopulation, it can quickly escalate into a scary and dangerous situation.

Hopefully I have not scared anyone too much with this entry. I know that creepy crawly things can be major hot-button issues for many people. To give you some incentive to return for my next two infestation installments, I should tell you that both entries contain far more specific and humorous components. As a teaser, let me just say that the next one involves the use of big-gun pesticides, not just wimpy Terro.

On a side note, I apologize for slacking. I may not be able to sustain my original tempo once school starts next week and I have to start reading and writing for grades. I promise that I will not ignore this entirely and hope to find ways to keep my friend Rox laughing out loud at work for a long time. J