Hornets

The hornets have been bad this year. One of the disadvantages of living in a low development region is that the environment is great for carnivorous flying insects: there's plenty of roadkill and tons of trashcans, not to mention all of the bugs lefts dead and dying the constant work of lawnmowers. There's a hive under the eaves of the garage, and now there's one in the kid's treehouse. The treehouse was build by the previous owner and is pretty solid, but she built it with two-by-fours and then covered with plywood. There are also some inside parts that are covered with plywood but exposed top and bottom-- this provides the hornets with the ideal hiding place. I have no idea how to get them out of there. And the kids really love that treehouse.

So I get out the can and read the instructions. The first one says, "Use this around dusk, when the hornets are at their quietest." Now, I have to wonder about the competence of manfacturers that can't speak English. I suddenly fear that I might not be in good hands here. Next to this is a little icon, white on the red background of the can, showing the sun going down.

"Point the nozzle at the hive and depress the trigger. Hold the trigger down until the you have emptied the canister." This is a nice way of saying, "Use it all up in one shot so you'll need to run out and buy more to get the next hive." This icon shows the classic bulky stick figure leaning back and pointing the can, shooting the upper-left-hand corner of the icon box.

But I bravely walk out to the garage around dusk, put on my safety goggles just in case, and point the can up under the eave. Usually, this place is buzzing with one or two hornets, but right now there are none. I press the trigger.

The white stream is coming out of the can and flying through the air, scoring the nest and most of the underside of the garage, covering it in a white sticky foam utterly unlike anything your gutter minds might concoct, but there's a lake of it pooling at the cusp of the garage and the driveways, right next to a big grate with a painted stencil that reads "Drains To Freshwater River" and a picture of a fish. Great, I think, great. I'm destroying the planet. But hornets aren't about to link arms and antenna and sing Kum-ba-ya, right? So what am I supposed to do?

Holy carp, this is taking a long time. The stream keeps coming and coming and I'm probably pissing off a great raft of hornets, a huge attack cadre of hornets, the biggest damn flotilla of hornets ever to get mad at one little Elf.

Finally, the stream runs dry. There's only a hissing sound coming out of the can. I remember clearly the last instruction on the can. The icon is most informative. It shows a figure running to the right with an arrow pointed at his back. I follow it to the letter: RUN AWAY! You have to love a product that has, as its last instruction, "Run away." Well, okay, it says, "Leave the area immediately." What it really means is "You've pissed off a lot of hornets, dummy. Do the right thing!"

Unfortunately, the hive survived my attempted homicide quite handily, and now I have to find some way of getting rid of them. Some other way. And the one in the treehouse, I have no idea how I'm going to get them out of there.

The Crazy Season ends...

The Crazy Season officially ends October 1st. I theory, at any rate. There will be no more conventions, no more walls to mend, no more lectures to give, no more appointments to keep until Halloween. October, Omaha and I have decided, is going to be downtime. We're going to spend time with each other and the kids and our close friends, rather than running about to all manner of insane places and doing intense things with crowds of people we barely know.

It has been insane. Two S/F conventions, the wall, the diagnosis of tendonitis, Omaha's little company going bonkers, the trip to the Puyallup Fair, my company ordering mandatory overtime (which is still in effect, sigh), one election, Omaha was sick for a few days, Quicksilver came out, I had my HTML lecture...

On the other hand, I have to say that my weeks look even less flexible than they ever did. Yamaarashi-chan's mother has invited us to take her for two week evenings instead of one, and I've accepted. On the one hand, that may pin Omaha and I down more often to the house-- both Tuesdays and Thursdays now-- but it does mean that I get to see Yamaarashi-chan more often and keep up with her life. But reality is what it is, and blissfully our babysitter charges for time, not by the kid, so we may still go out on those weekdays. I missed going to the school's "curriculum night" Monday because I had my regular obligation of taking Omaha to her work at exactly the same time. Kouryou-chan and I went home, had a nice dinner and then made chocolate chip cookies, big ones!

Now that I'm free, I've been reaching out to friends who I haven't seen in a while and would love to see again. I'll have Yamaarashi-chan every Tuesday and Thursday for the forseeable future, and the weekends of the 4th and the 18th. I'll probably be working Sundays for the foreesable future, too-- annoying, but survivable. I have Kouryou-chan every Monday evening. This leaves lots of Wednesdays and Fridays and even a few weekends open, although remember that some of them will involve both girls, if you're coming down.

Huh... all that and I didn't write about what I meant to write about.