tell a story about bugs

This has been a banner year for mosquito bites. I think I may have some permanent scarring on my legs.

Mosquitos were bonkers around here during the second half of the summer. Deer flies were a little over the top as well. My pet theory is that more pesky insects were able to survive last year due to the 17-year cicadas, which made easy targets and filling meals for local bird populations.

guess how many ants there are?

TWENTY QUADRILLLION

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/19/ants-population-20-quadrillion/

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsonstappedout/images/2/2a/Hail_Ants_in_Episode.jpg

yeah so the weather got cold again and the box elder bugs have returned and i surrender. you win, box elder bugs, come on inside. but is that enough for them, of course not, because i have offended an obscure greek god of bugs or hair or bugs-and-hair and now they buzz around while i'm doing stuff at home and land, yes, IN MY FUCKING HAIR as is tradition. and i have just given up doing anything about it. they don't sting, they don't bite, they are probably pooping on me but who the heck gives a darn, so i go about my business with a bug in my hair until it bumbles off to go be an idiot somewhere else. i can take a fucking hint, eventually! i'm meant to be the radagast of bugs. fine. cool. great. i'll start wearing a dumb little fascinator of a tiny birdhouse and put a neon sign on it that says "come on in you buggy schmucks, go ahead and make yourselves comfortable since i know you will anyway and this is just my life now" fucking bugs, fuck.

i wonder if it's possible to train these bugs? if you could coordinate with them you might become very powerful!

these bugs is ungovernable, sweet krrl. howsoever i may plead or cajole, they will not be swayed from their predetermined course of action, no matter how wild, no matter how dumb. "box elder bug, i will release you from the light fixture you have trapped yourself in but please try to stop getting stuck in there" an hour later guess who's bopping their dopey head against the light? surprise it's both the bug and me because it's too donkeybrained to stay away and i'm too squeamish to let the fool thing die in the weird bright hell inside the ceiling light. "no, box elder bug, you must stay away from the drain while the water is running!" i call out in dismay. saith the box elder bug: "i'm having an adventure whee gurgle gurgle blub blub [drowning bug sounds]"

My daughter has come a long way with her relationship to arthropods. Just a few years ago, we were hiking through the woods and came across an area that was swarming with daddy long legs (opiliones/harvestmen) and I had to give her a piggyback ride as she cowered in fright. Last week, she told me that she came to the rescue of a daddy long legs, which her friends were freaking out about at school. She picked it up and carried it over to the woods, which earned her the nickname spider-girl. Opiliones are NOT spiders, but that's nerd shit for another day.

Anyway, we were taking a hike in the woods on Sunday when she came across a yellowjacket with a broken wing. Following her caring instincts, she reached down and let it crawl onto her hand. My eyes bugged out of my head and my jaw clenched. She interacts with honeybees, bumblebees, and carpenter bees all the time, reaching down to pet them as they gather pollen from flowers. But she has never in her life been stung. I'm glad for this. My childhood fear of arthropods had been incited at a young age when I was bitten by a cute little field cricket I had picked up and it took me years to get over that. So when she reached for the yellowjacket, I was sure that this was it. "Here we go, bring on the waterworks and get ready to throw her over your shoulder to hike back up that hill," I thought. She pretty much shuts down when she even skins a knee or whatever. But it was not to be. She let the wasp crawl around on her hand for a minute and deposited it safely on a tree trunk, out of the way of crushing foot traffic. She knows that she risks being stung, and she hears me when I say that it's a pain so intense that she can't comprehend it without knowing it, but she is still be a friend to the bugs.

So when she reached for the yellowjacket

you need to rewire your child lol

naw it's cute, the world needs more entomologists

Yeah, I'm pretty impressed by her.

As a side notes, this isn't an observation of mine, but I just this moment learned that there is a moth whose common name is Psychedelic Jones

https://bugguide.net/images/cache/ERQ/H4R/ERQH4R0HSRDLYLNLLZOLKZDL7ZCLXZVLGRSH6RDLERTL7ZBLQZKHXZLHSZ2LFL6LFLELZZNLZZTLZZ2LMRJZERYZZZ2L.jpg

Here goes my kid, tempting fate again.

https://i.imgur.com/JM4Efm0.png

As we were walking out the door to the bus stop this morning, she saw this bumblebee on some flowers on our steps. It was moving slowly; temperatures were around 60°F. I suggested that she go over and pet it to warm it up. Instead, she put her finger out and it climbed right on, hugging her finger tightly. I was worried that it would still be on there when the school bus arrived, so I tried to coax it off onto a stick. It started to look a little agitated while I was doing this, but the transfer was managed successfully. Then it crawled from the stick onto my finger, and I'm much more scared of getting stung. The school bus arrived and my daughter left, leaving just me and the bee, clinging tightly to my finger. It shook its wings off and started moving up my arm. Please don't try to climb up my sleeve. It gained speed and took off, flying straight at my face before taking a hard left and buzzing off into the morning air.