Wednesday, May 23, 2007

ohh, what a tangled web we weave......

ok, some of you who read this blog may have figured out that i like animals.

i also believe in not killing them and this extends to also not killing bugs unless they are posing some threat to me (stinging, biting, etc.). often, i have them on the "catch and release" program — especially spiders.

as spring has sprung, it seems every species of bug in town has awakened and somehow gotten into my home through some crack. most of these insects are less than pretty. while my first instinct is to whack them, i sometimes stop and think that maybe their little buglet friends will somehow know and come and attack me while i'm sleeping. neurotic, eh? mostly though, i feel wrong about killing another living creature and hope that if i ever came back as, say a spider, someone would catch me and let me go on my merry way (or at least end it all with one solitary good whack ;p).

the past two years, i have been battling wasps. i hate them. i REALLY hate them. they've also made life difficult for me as they built a small nest outside one of my doors, hidden very well. i couldn't understand why i was seeing so many of them until i discovered their papery hive. i very carefully, if not bravely, managed to destroy the nest completely without getting stung. stupid me thought this would be the end of it. it seems even though the nest was gone, they returned and spent the next summer harassing me once again. they didn't bother rebuilding the second time. i put all sorts of chemicals where the nest once was in an effort to try to deter them from buzzing around but to no avail. it made it literally impossible for me to be able to enjoy the outdoors. a few of them, over the two years, had even managed to find their way into my home which was pretty scary. bee and wasp stings are no fun. included in this scenario was a kitten
leaping from furniture trying to catch the wasps. luckily, i managed to kill them before either of us got stung. now i am sitting and waiting to see if they come back.

to this, add the eventual emergence of literally billions of "brood XIII" — and while i don't think i'll be affected for geographic reasons, i know their confreres will show up as they do every summer in the trees behind me buzzing away so loudly you wanna scream "shut UPPPP!!

i'll end this by introducing "charlotte" .... a little critter who appeared two days ago and is on the run escaping me every chance she gets (as i think, "G-d, no, don't lay eggs in my house!"). i told her it's either jump in the canister and be released or meet the jaws of death of the cat when i am not looking. you'd think she cared.

charlotte made her appearance the other day by running across my hand when i reached under the computer screen to grab a pen. i, needless to say, was not amused as she proceeded to run across my computer screen and jump on the wall.

i managed to grab a canister and actually got her in it. stupidly, i checked to make sure she was there and she jumped out and ran across my shirt, leaping to the floor and ran away. i found her last night in the livingroom but she darted away before i could get her and now she is playing hide and seek in yet another room.

enough already, charlotte. your days are numbered.

i know i need one of these. (lee valley is a GREAT store).

btw, she is the size of a silver dollar {shudder}. big, eh?

9 comments:

TopChamp said...

My mum and dad have one of these spider catchers. It's not a very big plastic bit so you have to be pretty accurate with it. I don't mind spiders so I'm happy with a cup and bit of paper. Those big flying things look HORRIBLE.

Thought you should know: I had a fudge incident..... gonna make some in an hour or so but the story's up already.

burekaboy — said...

TC - those BIG flying things ARE horrible!! they're pretty harmless but very, very noisy in the summer. we also have bugs called junebugs which are HUGE black beetles and they fly. those are way nasty.

that plastic contraption, hmmm, i'm sure it looks more useful in the catalogue than it is in real life. guess it's good when the spider is right in front of u.

oooooh, fudge incident. must read all about it!! i'll be by to check it out. catch u later :)

TopChamp said...

Hello! Fudge is chilling. I'll snap a pic tomorrow.

Glad we only have little bugs. I am seriously scared of moths... that's about the only bug I can't cope with. I think they're awful and even felt sick when I put my finger on a dead one in the shed when I was mowing the lawn at the weekend. Uggh!

Having said that I commend your not killing any of them thing. I try not to either.

burekaboy — said...

TC - the older i get the more empathy i have for the bugs. years ago, i'd have squished everything in my path (ok, well, not really) but these days i figure they've as much right to life as we do :) i still kill flies and ants on occasion. LOL. for some odd reason, big black ants don't bother me. go figure.

can u believe, after i wrote that post, the cat found a HUGE bumblebee flying around my bedroom! G-d knows how it got in my house. at least, it wasn't a wasp.

oh wow, didn't realize you had made the fudge already. hope all went well in the process and was easy to make. looking forward to hearing about it. more importantly, finding out how it tasted!

Jihan said...

lol am sorry, but I find this whole post so funny. In Guyana we are accustom to have insects with us all year long. And the spiders am use to seeing run around the kitchen is big like your hands. But the are very friendly. We normally search for there egg sacks and keep them in a match box to hatch. And when it does and you open the box, theres like a hundred babies spiders running all over your hands.. it feels so ticklesh. I miss doing that..

I never like wasps though, cause there nest are so messy when you break it down. There is actually two kinds that bother us but the marabunta is much more common. I got stung like three times by them.
But once you catch one and pull out the stinger its okay to play with.

Over here my cuzins are afraid of centipedes the are like babies compared to the one we have in Guyana. Only thing is there feet are longer than ours. And am a bit scared of them for that. But I am more brave to kill them than the ones back home which are about four inches long and 5mm thick.

Oh apart from insects, what drives me crazy is the lizards. The poop all over the house and are very hard to get raid of. But the do help eat out alot of insects. Mosquitoes are also always there everyday. But our house had meshes so we didnt see the much in the house.
Then we have sandflies that come out at sunset, the come in the millions and are really tiny so you have a hard time avoid gettin bitten if ur outside..

A tin of insect spray is a must in everyones house...

Emily DeVoto, Ph.D., said...

Oh, please spare Charlotte! She will help you keep on top of the other bugs. I guess all spiders have the potential to bite, but she looks harmless enough, and sounds like she's comfortable with you.

What about the cat and the bugs? Does he go after them?

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Charlotte is a cute spider ;-P! I'm also like you, I don't like killing bugs and always try to save them ("catch and release" program, hehe)...
I loathe wasps and their agressive and dumb ways! They are horrible and never want to let go. Since a few years, we have Hamalayan mud wasps and they are totally different; peaceful, minding their own business and not at all interested in you or your food, only in the soil in our plant pots :-)....

burekaboy — said...

PJ - thank goodness i live in canada! big insects creep me out so much they make me feel repulsed. i can live with lizards no problem but huge insects ... no way. that bit about the baby spiders made me laugh but i'd be grossed out by hundreds of baby spiders.

it must be fun though with all the different animals; canadian ones aren't too exotic.

one of my friends was telling me about sandflies in dubai in the desert. i'd be annoyed by them, for sure. glad we only have the big ones.

em - naw, i wouldn't kill her. i have to catch her first!! she's quite elusive. i'm sure my "first alert" system for bugs would let me know (the cat). he eats them though if i don't get there before he does.

hey rosa - yeah, wasps are no friend of mine. they annoy the hell out you and attack. don't think i've ever seen a mud wasp. i'm praying i don't show up this year. they always come when it gets hot and now the temperature is in the 90s F here.

burekaboy — said...

lol, rosa, meant praying THEY don't show up this year! i'm already here.