Jun. 7: Ants-b-gone

We have ants. Just a few, and they’re those little teeny ants, but that doesn’t make it any less icky. There is small comfort in the following:

• I have not found ants anywhere in our house but-cept for the kitchen
• I have not found ants in our food
• I have not eaten any (I hope)

Where’d they come from? I blame the big dog. Recently she briefly stopped digging outside to put her paw in my coffee; when she finished stirring it, there was a little ant doing the backstroke in there. Ergo, Lucy’s fault.

(Oooh, I kinda liked using “ergo” in that thar sentence up yonder. I think this usage of “ergo” might be a first for Stuff Jen Says.)

We got ant killing spray and take-it-back-to-their-nest-goo traps but the ants keep coming back. In the past week I’ve smashed, like, six of them every day. I know; it’s far from an infestation here at the House of Manullang, but still. Yuck. So yesterday I got on the ‘net to find out what repellent or poison or whatever I should use to make the ants leave our kitchen. Here’s what I found: [insert glorious sound of the heavens here] BLUE DAWN LIQUID DISHWASHING SOAP is the answer. It must be Dawn, and it must be blue. The ants hate it.

Supposedly even a residue of a blue Dawn and water mixture will keep ants away, so I figgered I’d not only spray the kitchen countertops, I’d wash every item in the kitchen with blue Dawn and that would increase the chances of this whole effort being effective. Smart, no?

Slowly and methodically, I cleaned every item in the kitchen with blue Dawn and put it back in place. Once I got into the cleaning groove, I enlisted the help of more cleaning products. I used a razor blade to scrape wax off the window and tile where Jack exuberantly extinguished a candle. I ran vinegar through the coffee maker five times to make that “cleaning required” light finally go off (full disclosure: it wasn’t so much the vinegar as—heh heh heh—I might have broken the light). I thoroughly washed all the windows. I scoured the stovetop with baking soda. I scrubbed every inch of the top half of our kitchen. In the end, the room was spotless. I was filthy, but everything else was OCD-clean.

And then I saw a little mofo ant walking along the edge of the sink.

[Insert the curse heard ‘round the world here.]

All ninja-like, I sprayed the ant with the blue Dawn/water combo and ffffzzzzt. Dead.

It. Was. Awesome.

Sure, I was irritated that after all that work, the blue Dawn residue didn’t seem to be repelling the ants, but it was all kinds of powerful cool to have something so immediately effective in the spray bottle. I might have maybe possibly kinda turned into James Bond for a minute. Or maybe Charles Manson, just bat- ant-shit crazy. Whatever; if there was a black speck that even slightly moved, it got sprayed.

I found two ants checking out the sink this morning. They were probably looking for their friends who never came back from hunting yesterday. Ha! Those ants are extry-clean now. All day I’ve been checking the counters for more and I actually squeal a little when I see one—more ffffzzzzt! Wheeee! I don’t like having ants, not even a little bit, but OMG, I sure do like spraying ‘em.

Now, what we know about ant behavior is that the rest of the ants will hear about the carnage in our house and move on to another one, right? Or will they develop new skills and advance above me in the food chain? I really don’t know how ants work.

This extermination thing may not be going like I planned, but it is going well. The twitching, muttering, foaming, slightly blue girl in the mirror says so.

May 23: Couldn’t think of a title

My back has begun to hurt so much that the only way I can sleep is to sit up straight on the couch with a heating pad on a pillow. If you’ve ever tried to get a decent night’s sleep while sitting up straight then you know how much it sucks to be me. On the other hand, I have much more sympathy for astronauts now.

Lots more yard work today, but for the most part I played supervisor. I wasn’t allowed to do much because Victor’s being super-bossy of my back pain. I know it’s supposed to make me feel loved that he doesn’t want me to stress my back even more, but I think he’s just tired of hearing me whine. Of course, he gets the bed to himself when I’m sleeping on the couch, so who really knows what his ulterior motive could be. I just know there must be one.

I learned a long time ago not to buy aquarium fish at Wal-Mart, as they come pre-diseased. Today I learned not to buy nursery stock at Wal-Mart. All four of us were covered in aphids after walking through their garden center. Y’know, I’m not even all that worried about having an aphid infestation in our newly landscaped front yard—it’s just way creepy to have little bugs all over you.

There’s good news, though. My cough is virtually gone. Gotta love antibiotics for doing what they’re supposed to.

Soooo tired. Done writing now.

Mar. 18: Let’s just say spring is here, OK?

On my way back from the mailbox this afternoon I spied a little bit o’ purple in our side yard and took a closer look. Here’s what I found:

This makes me oh-so-happy because crocuses/crocii mean spring is here. Of course, sometimes crocuses/crocii bloom too early and then it snows even when it’s supposed to be spring and then I think the world is just a cruel joke and we’re all just its idiot victims. But this year? This year (I’m deluded and) know that these little flowers in my yard mean spring is here.

I walked around and saw that one of my tulips is popping up nearby.

This makes me happy too, but the callapidders have already gotten to the leaves and I’m pretty sure by the time the flower is ready to bloom it’ll be gobbled up completely. We’ve got some aggressive vegetarians living in our yard. I’m not holding my breath that I’ll ever see this tulip any prettier than it is in this picture, but I still love that it’s giving us an effort.

It’s beautiful and sunny and warm in Portland today. I had energy once I got up and started moving around this morning, and I even went in to work for a little while. And, of course, I was greeted by these little garden gems when I got home. Not a bad day for Jen. I hope yours didn’t suck either.

Mar. 3: Pants on fire

This is my cat-hating husband and the kitty who loves him anyway. They napped together like this last night for about half an hour. Adorable, ain’t it?



I think maybe he doesn’t hate Millie after all, and it might have something to do with him being allergy-free (dander-wise, anyway) since we got her in September. He expected to need daily drugs, antihistamine shots and a sinus transplant but nooooo. Apparently she’s hypoallergenic. She’s also a really sweet little kitty with a motor that’s so loud, you just can’t help falling in love.

Even better news than Victor being a lying liar who lies is that we’ve seen no mice, or evidence thereof, since Millie’s been here. Come spring, I’m betting we’ll be free of any grasshoppers or praying mantii that venture into our yard too. She’s not only a cuddlebug, she’s a hard little worker. Yay, Millie!

Oct. 29: Not-so-proud mama

I am so not enjoying the kitten bringing home her kill. This must be what Sarah Palin’s kids feel like. “Yes, Mom, we see you got another head to mount on the wall. We’re very, very proud. Good job. All that. Can we get back to watching The Daily Show now?”

This is the tally so far, of which I’m aware:

• Grasshoppers (minimum of two per day; max is six)
  
• Box elder bugs (a few)
  
• Flies (two big huge ones)
  
• Snakes (one large, one small—I think both survived only because of our intervention)
  
• Praying mantis (one)

Notice not a single one of these things has fur. The cat has clearly forgotten the conditions she agreed upon in exchange for a warm home and being carried around upside down by a six-year-old. Er, something like that.

Here are pictures from the latest capture, her praying mantis—which I must add was the most disgusting so far to hear her chew up:



And it’s an especially sad story because you can see in the close-up picture that this praying mantis was a girl. Note the long, wavy, flowing hair (click the photo because it’s not even a tiny little bit disgusting to see my dirty floor):



If these critters were evil I would praise Millie for a job well done. But what horrible thing did they ever do to deserve being tossed about for a scary five minutes and then gobbled? Except for the flies. Flies are the door-to-door salespeople of the insect world. I mean, praying mantises (mantii?) are good bugs, aren’t they? I feel sorta bad.

On the upside, there’s this: I said “tally.” Heehee.