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Close Encounters of the Cicada KindThursday, May 21, 1998 -- 11:41AMMom went out in the backyard this morning for some reason, and when she came in, she did something at the sink. I was in my room, just hopping online, and I went out in the kitchen to hear what she was telling me. She was facing the sink, her back toward me, and I saw something vaguely bug-shaped on her, right at her shoulderblade. I told her she had something on her, and she freaked out. She yelled for me to get it off her, so I grabbed the pair of shorts I'd left on my floor when I got ready for bed last night, and went and scooped up the cicada in it. I let mom take it and throw it outside, then she tossed my shorts in the laundry hamper. I think I will stay out of the backyard until those critters are gone, thank you very much! That was a close enough encounter to last me a couple lifetimes! When I was about six, living out in California, I was sitting out by the pool when this big ol' grasshopper jumped out of the planter behind me and landed on my leg. I freaked out, of course, being six. Later, in summer day camp, I had two close encounters with bees... One was under a sofa in the room we called the "Fireside Room", which had a chimney complete with beehive (they later got beekeepers or someone to come in and get the bees out of the chimney). They made us go in and take naps -- it was the year John Lennon died, I remember the principal coming in and telling us about it, but I don't remember how old I was. I was laying by a friend, next to the sofa, and she was trying to tell me there was a bee under there, but whoever was watching us told her to be quiet; next thing I know, I was stung. Another summer, the playground was invaded by some sort of black bees. We were sitting out along the long sidewalk that ran from the chapel all the way out to the street, painting or something, and one of the bees landed on me. As usual, I froze, and whatever it was, it started biting me and it looked like it was peeling back a little bit of skin. I'm probably remembering wrong, but it definitely hurt, and one of the teachers had to come drag me to my feet and get me moving toward the cafeteria. I've had more than enough encounters with bugs in my life, so they can just stay away; I won't complain! Websurfing the other day, I stumbled across something amusing. I'd been looking for links related to Hypatia, and came across one with a description that went something like this: "I work in a small mid-missouri library..." Well, I live in a small mid-missouri town, with a library, so I followed the link. After poking around, reading about the computer lab, and the descriptions of how to get to the bathroom, and where people usually ended up because they didn't listen to the entire instructions, I came to the conclusion that that library and the one I go to are one and the same. It's such a small world, sometimes. TNT finally made it through all the episodes of Babylon 5 from seasons 1 to 4 and tonight they start all over again. I missed one or two the first time around (and if Jev doesn't have a VCR there, I will probably miss more), but I'm going to try to tape them for myself to watch when I'm in the mood. I have most of the Quantum Leap episodes on tape, too, but they're not exactly in the best condition or the right order. I caught a few episodes of that on the SciFi channel when I was with Connie (our cable service here is pretty pathetic), so maybe once Jev and I are settled, I can record those; the cable company where he's at gets Comedy Central, so I'm assuming they probably get SciFi, too. I don't hate TV entirely... I just have strange tastes in what I'll watch. We had a big thunderstorm here this morning; the sky got so dark it looked like it was about 8:30 in the evening instead of 10 in the morning, and once the clouds let go, we had a good deal of rain, and some gumball sized hail thrown in for good measure. It really did a great job of cooling the place off though, and since nothing seems to have been damaged by the hail or lightning, I won't complain a bit. Once it started to rain, the sky lightened, and I went out on the porch and worked on my cross stitch a bit more. I came in to hop online thinking I might catch Gillian before school, but it's 10am for her now, so I'm off to make some lunch and get back to my cross stitch while the porch is nice and cool. Take care! || Home | Journal Index ||
 
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