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Wednesday: Long Legs, Reedy Wings
I wish that I could keep them out of the bedroom.
It's not an option: until the season changes properly, the windows must stay open. There isn't air conditioning, and extended exposure to even moderate humid heat triggers illness. But the construction of the windows makes installing screens difficult at best, and we rent, so that hasn't really been an option.
I keep the lights low and the curtains pulled, but they always seem to sneak through. They're the size of chocolate coins -- the massive ones, the ones which appear to come from no known currency -- or sand dollars. Everything about them is scrawny and elongated. Their wings are almost shrivelled, and look as though they should serve no purpose. They bounce and hover idiotically, slowly. The moths take crystal meth; these take 'luudes.
'Luudes, man. Fuckin' 'luudes.
I don't have a name for them. Keith's told me, I'm sure, about half a dozen times, but I keep forgetting. I'm not sure I want them to have names; I just want them to go away. They have the same squirm and reach as spider gods or camel crickets. They go to bits strangely when they're squashed, and they used to be easy to smack down.
Lately, they've learned to dodge. Or perhaps I'm a snail; perhaps I'm caught in some warp, stuck at 0.8125em of normal time, and the fat moths aren't panicked after all. When the unidentifiables rattle in my hair, smack my glasses and vibrate against the wall, perhaps it's just some distortion.
I have Raid cans. They can't be helping matters in any sense, but there's only so much you can use as the outer slice in a book-bug-thing panini.
Autumn can come now. It's already September.
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at September 4, 2005 11:54 PM
Comments
Comment from: Dave Fried posted at September 5, 2005 12:16 AM
I'm sure there's a Perdido Street Station joke in here somewhere, I just can't figure out how to do it.
Comment from: Zaq posted at September 5, 2005 12:21 AM
Buy some of those insect-repellant bracelets and hang them around the windows. It won't keep all of them away but it will deter a measurable amount of them, and it's less smelly than a lot of other options. Unsightly, but that's the price you've gotta pay.
Comment from: kirabug posted at September 5, 2005 12:37 AM
I advocate the use of a small dog. Eats everything smaller than her. I caught her tearing the legs out of a cicaida the size of my thumb Tuesday. And the dog gets lots of exercise chasing the bugs.
That, and sleeping with my head totally under the blankets.
Comment from: Tangent posted at September 5, 2005 1:08 AM
It's not you. It's them. The mosquitoes have gotten much more agile of late as well. I accuse them of having cloaking fields AND teleportation devices. They laugh and bite me dozens of times in retribution. And that's three mosquitoes that I JUST CAN'T TRACK DOWN!!! GAH!!!
I can't wait for winter...
Rob
Comment from: Polychrome posted at September 5, 2005 2:16 AM
Get some window screens.
Or a window mounted exhaust fan.
Maybe even a window mounted AC unit. They should be cheap now that summer is ending.
Comment from: Wednesday posted at September 5, 2005 2:18 AM
Again, the construction of the windows is such that we can't mount screens. Fans also have this problem. Air conditioning has been a contentious issue; it's not generally accepted over here, and I share a house with someone who feels it's more detrimental than beneficial.
The weather is unlikely to remain a problem for much longer.
Comment from: Wednesday posted at September 5, 2005 2:20 AM
As for kirabug's dog suggestion... errrr... Eric's seen me around dogs. He might have some idea of how far away from my head my hair stands in their presence.
The bracelets sound like a plan, though. I've never heard of them, though.
Comment from: lucastds posted at September 5, 2005 2:21 AM
Summer is totally over where I live. Mosquitoes seem, like, a totally different dimension.
Comment from: miyaa posted at September 5, 2005 3:09 AM
For me, air condition is vastly overrated. It's either not cold enough, or too cold, and with my allergies, eh, I'm pretty miserable during the summer time.
Besides, I love the summer heat. Love it, love it, love it. Of course, that probably comes from spending a good portion of my childhood in Bangkok Thailand. (My mother is originally from there.) With that kind of heat and humidity, air conditioners would break down like after a month, so they generally forgo it altogether.
Although as I think of it, and hearing the tales from others who've gone to France, Germany, and Switzerland, sometimes I wonder why are we Americans are so hypersensitive to being clean, washing and soaking ourselves in citrus fragerances where most Europeans treat bathing as just something to do when it's necessary to remain sanitary. Then again, maybe everyone's culture is just plain weird.
It pretty much coincides with my penultimate goal in life: live and have my remains buried in a location between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. At the very least, Margaritaville.
Comment from: Noip posted at September 5, 2005 4:11 AM
Mosquito Hawks? Crane Flies? Are these the things you are talking about?
Comment from: Kludge posted at September 5, 2005 4:31 AM
Crane flies are indeed what she's talking about, although the name I've told her is the local name for them: Daddy Long-Legs.
..which I think might be why she doesn't remember, because if I recall correctly Americans and/or Canadians use Daddy Long-Legs to mean long-legged spiders, which we call Harvestmen.
Keith
Comment from: SeanH posted at September 5, 2005 4:33 AM
I have the same problem. I usually just shut the window when the sun goes down and endure being baked; my dislike of heat is outclassed by my hatred of insects.
Comment from: larksilver posted at September 5, 2005 10:02 AM
I live in Houston. I know from hot and humid.. and I love my a/c. Granted, I don't like it as cold as my sweetie does... but that's another story.
I love my a/c for two reasons: 1) I hate it when the house is hotter than outside by 15 degrees, which happens even with screens, cause, well, breezes just don't happen 'round here. and 2) no screens, less bugs.
The mosquitos in these parts range in size from teeny little whining noise critters to gigantic "oh my god it's coming this way" tiger-leg striped ones, and they multiply by the million. We don't have a proper winter here, either, which means we've got skeeters year round. And that's just the mosquitos; moths and other multi-legged creatures abound as well. So, we've learned to take certain.. steps.
Mosquitos tend to hate citronella; there are dozens of products that utilize it available - heck, you could even just put some in a pot on the windowsill, if you've one, and if your moths dislike it. Other bugs tend to dislike lavender, mint, lemon verbena, cloves, eucalyptus, and a lot of them dislike rosemary. I've even a recipe for "shoo-fly potpourri" you might want to try. If you're interested, I'll post it. I've not yet tried it, but it might be worthwhile.
Comment from: Karacan posted at September 5, 2005 12:41 PM
However, lavender and cloves appear to attract bees and wasps, and after one hot summer finding two wasps crawled into the bed I rather prefer Moths, Mosquitoes and what's called Schuster over here, though they rarely fly as high.
Insects are one reason I don't like summer. Heat is another.
Comment from: SeanH posted at September 5, 2005 1:11 PM
Speaking of, you know, webcomics - is anyone else really enjoying Scary-Go-Round's new art style?
Comment from: Kludge posted at September 5, 2005 1:37 PM
John's hand-drawn style has always been pretty kick-arse. He's seldom very proud of it, and you can see a definite progression in skill between early bobbins and the current stuff - but that said, he started off good, so...
Comment from: Wednesday posted at September 5, 2005 3:34 PM
Crane flies. That's it.
Comment from: Sempiternity posted at September 5, 2005 4:04 PM
I'm totally with you, miyaa!
Living in the subtropics has been my lifelong ambition ever since i started having to both emplace mosquito nets in summer and endure the long cold misery of temperate zone winters...
Comment from: Copper Hamster posted at September 5, 2005 6:49 PM
Daddy Long Legs are indeed a spider here in the US.. at least the southern US.
My friend from New England calls em something else, but I forget what.
Comment from: Quellan posted at September 5, 2005 8:51 PM
The wikipedia page mentions that 'daddy long legs' refers to as many as three different critters. Namely crane flys, harvestmen which is what we refer to as daddy long legs in Southern Ontario, and vibrating spiders.
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