Yearly Archives: 2007

Flotsam / Jetsam

Name that nemesis

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My winged nemesis returned yesterday afternoon and proceeded to traumatize Sophie. Keep in mind, Sophie’s roughly 4 feet tall, and the bug was buzzing about about a foot away from the apex of our 16-foot ceilings. She was convinced it was going to dive bomb her, though, and she had two solutions to the dilemma:

  • Solution One: Go outside, where the bugs apparently don’t have nefarious intent.
  • Solution Two: Throw Marsha at the bug. I doubt that my cat-throwing skills would prove accurate enough to allow her to grab a one-inch insect from midair. Also, I don’t think I could propel her 15 feet into the air. It might be fun to try, though.

    Anyway, one of the insects made the mistake of landing today, and Marsha quickly pounced on it and rendered it immobile. Before I disposed of the body, I rallied up all of my courage and opened the bundle of bug-carrying tissues to snap a picture.

    Can anyone tell me what this thing is? And most importantly, does it mean me harm?

    … update! …

    I posted the beasty photo in the Field Guide to Insects and Spiders group on Flickr to see if I could find someone who knew what it was. According to Flickrite Frasspile:

    That is a mud dauber wasp and it looks like the Black and Yellow Mud Dauber, Sceliphron caementarium. Look around the outside of your house/apartment building for mud tube-like nests often under the eaves of roofs. They wont aggressively sting people, but if you stepped on them, sat on one, or something like that you likely could get stung. They are good to have around though, as they hunt spiders to provision their nests.

    If they’re getting rid of spiders, I have little complaint with them. Thanks, Frasspile, for the info!

    • Family matters

    Happy to oblige

    The first thing Wilson asked when we got home yesterday was, “What can I vacuum?” Being a good hostess, I told him to vacuum whatever he wanted. So he vacuumed the living room rug and most of the upstairs.

    This morning when he asked if we could do something fun, I offered to let him wash the windows. He was thrilled.

    Reading

    "Hymn to the Comb-Over"

    I love Ted Kooser’s intro on this one.

    American Life in Poetry: Column 122

    By Ted Kooser
    U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
    The chances are very good that you are within a thousand yards of a man with a comb-over, and he may even be somewhere in your house. Here’s Maine poet, Wesley McNair, with his commentary on these valorous attempts to disguise hair loss.

    Hymn to the Comb-Over
    How the thickest of them erupt just
    above the ear, cresting in waves so stiff
    no wind can move them. Let us praise them
    in all of their varieties, some skinny
    as the bands of headphones, some rising
    from a part that extends halfway around
    the head, others four or five strings
    stretched so taut the scalp resembles
    a musical instrument. Let us praise the sprays
    that hold them, and the combs that coax
    such abundance to the front of the head
    in the mirror, the combers entirely forget
    the back. And let us celebrate the combers,
    who address the old sorrow of time’s passing
    day after day, bringing out of the barrenness
    of mid-life this ridiculous and wonderful
    harvest, no wishful flag of hope, but, thick,
    or thin, the flag itself, unfurled for us all
    in subways, offices, and malls across America.

    American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Wesley McNair. Reprinted from “The Ghosts of You and Me,” published by David R. Godine, 2006, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.