It's that time of year again. Or one of them. Everyone in the house feels like they have the flu, my voice vanishes behind a pain so great it feels like the Sea Witch from the Little Mermaid and I have some pact, and even my stalwart husband goes down for the count. This time, literally blacking-out in the middle of teaching tai qi. I've done needling, oils, and the good old favorites- nyquil, dramamine, and robitussin (oh, the taste of teenage memories spent chugging a bottle, walking on the back of your friend's couch, throwing up for 30 minutes, and then spilling your emotional life-story to someone equally out of it. If you don't get the reference, good. Abusing medication is bad, and totally not worth it.) We ran through the zyrtec and went on to the big guns- Benadryl. I say this because it is the one medication that has been able to consistently render me unconscious since childhood. You know what, though? They make regular, dye-free, Extra-Strength... but what they don't make is what is desperately needed: TEXAS STRENGTH. Before you wave me off as over-reacting, let me explain. Not only does Austin have a year-round pattern of pollen, mold, and mildew allergy seasons... but the plants here over-produce pollen like they're paid by the grain. We may actually be breathing in more pollen than actual oxygen right now. I grew up in a deciduous rainforest, had allergies, got allergy shots. Took claritin when it was a prescription. This leaves all that in the dust (sure, pun intended). This year is even worse; Tobias developed a fever, wouldn't eat, was genuinely affectionate... I was worried. Now, he's just wiping his snotty face against anything and anyone except tissues. It's revolting, but since he can't understand what is going on, there's no way to explain why it's so gross so we're in an endless cycle of wiping, reprimanding, wiping again. Meanwhile, we adults chug water like we're at a kegger and wait. Wait until it's something to which we aren't allergic that comes into bloom.
In other news, as the weather heats up... the desert fauna flock indoors to try and survive the heat themselves. This has resulted in Tos and I being covered in mosquito bites, me killing a brown recluse, and me actually getting stung by a SCORPION while READING IN BED. I'd been there over half an hour, meaning he had just been cuddling up to me that whole time. I didn't handle that with the aplomb that it could have been dealt. Mostly, I threw off my covers, jumped up, grabbed my thigh while cursing, and shouted, "Justin! Scorpion! Stung! Scorpion in bed. On the floor! Kill!" He used one of my books to flatten it, which I later felt badly about (scorpions sting instinctively...it was scared), and we searched it online. It was a striped bark scorpion or c. vittatus, common around here and not particularly dangerous. I know people keep them as pets commonly. Admittedly, the websites lied- it does not feel like a wasp, hornet, or bee sting and lasts several days longer..but it wasn't that bad. They also have adorable little faces with cute little eyes:
Anyway, that's not the thing that's bothering me (except for obsessively checking my bedding every time I climb out of it for a moment and get back in). It's that w live in Texas, where everything is bigger. Since we live in a wooded area near a creek, the cockroaches are absolutely
ENORMOUS. The last one I killed was about 3 inches long, and.. they fly. I keep expecting to look outside and find a flock of velociraptors fighting over a deer. Everything is huge here, especially the bugs..though I did see a 6ft rattlesnake just crawling down the pedestrian sidewalk in our neighborhood. I'm not afraid of roaches, but I am rally disgusted by them. Not if they're outside. I'm an outdoor person; they belong there. When they're in here with my food, my baby, and my bed... that is the difference. We put out the chemical traps when they first began to pop up, but they're resilient and have made a comeback. After killing 4 in one morning, I asked Justin to put out some more traps.
So later, I notice Tenebrae (our black lab) chewing on a piece of black plastic. She grabs her temporary chew-toys from the garbage; not eating but eagerly dismantling paper, cardboard, plastic, and styrofoam alike. Mostly, it just means I pick up the pieces when she's done and we don't waste money on chew toys that she devours whole in 3 hours. However, when Tobias woke up from his nap, I walked in to find the living room floor covered in shredded, destroyed black plastic. I was aghast- what was this? We didn't leave anything out like that for her... did she grab one of the toddler toys? Was I seeing the destruction of Batman? I gingerly picked up one of the pieces that appeared to have writing on it and felt myself blanche. Roach traps. Since our phones have been off, mine was missing, so I had Mori call and ask what sort of traps Justin had used and whether I should be trying to induce vomiting in this hyper, unwilling 70lbs of pure fur-covered muscle. He replied that even having eaten all of the ones we'd set out (6), she should be fine. My response was divided. Clearly, these were effectively delicious to entice a large dog to painstakingly remove them from hiding just to enjoy the taste. On the other hand, if the dog kept eating them then the roaches would never get a chance. Looks like we're going back to the previous brand.
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