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Raid makes an "Earth Options" wasp spray which is supposedly eco-friendly and not a biohazard. Right. Not a biohazard. Not even to... well, wasps. In fact, I think it functions more like a friendly warning, the equivalent of shaking your head and saying, "Tsk, tsk, naughty wasps!" This is a product that's marketed to people more worried about how much bug sprays stink ("Fresh Clove Scent!") than whether it actually works. Because apparently these people don't live in Florida, which is human-habitable only because we poison everything meaner, more aggressive and more dangerous than us. Which is everything. Anyway, I learned about this kinder, gentler, eco-friendly approach while trying to evict the wasps from their new nest on the mailbox. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) haikujaguar: Whoot, good-bye, wasps! *spray*Wasps: LOL SMELLS LIKE CLOVES haikujaguar: Uh-oh.... *sprays more*Wasps: HEY LOOK A HUMAN haikujaguar: *flees!*So, yes. The wasps laughed off the clove-scented eco-friendly spray. I came back with the Raid Neurotoxin-in-a-can and took great pleasure in watching them drop-dead midflight when a single drop hit them. You don't mess around with some things. -_- Stardancer Home.Tags: florida, humor, nature
Current Mood: O_O
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Depending on where you live, this might seem like an absurd statement... but constant sunlight becomes a terrible oppression. Every day an eye-watering blue sky, every day bright light and sharp shadows, with only the occasional respite of a cloud passing to give you shade. No breeze to stir the heated air and cool your skin; nothing but the glare of perfect illumination all around you. There is some respite in the rainy season, but like most of Florida's weather it's violent, abrupt and short-lived: a deck of black clouds just appears out of a perfect sky, taunts your skin with restless winds, and then splits open with a thunderous explosion, pelting the earth with a shock of rain... all of it come and gone within an hour. You walk out onto a world glazed in brassy puddles, licked in sunlight-emblazoned water, feeling dazed, like the world has just slapped you. But once in a while, some ephemeral combination of off-shore depression and kind air flow will bring a slow, drowsy tropical rain, an overcast sky, a world where your shadow is indistinct and you blend into the air and the wind and the ground. Yesterday it started raining at 5 PM, the kind of slow rain and gray sky that said, "We're in it for the long haul." And it rained. And rained. And rained more. It didn't stop. This morning when I woke up it was still raining. And raining. I ate breakfast in the kind gray light, feeling The Cozy. It's finally stopped, though the sky is still leaden and tired and gentle with clouds. I find myself wistful. Another week of it wouldn't be enough shield against the coming sun-drenched days. But perhaps we'll get another rain like this, soon. I hope so. To rainy days! Stardancer Home.Tags: florida, nature
Current Mood: calmed
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*drive drive drive drive sqqqqqqqqqeeeeal swerve!*haikujaguar: O_O haikujaguar: That was a turtle! In the middle of the road! Still moving! *drive drive*haikujaguar: That turtle is gonna die. Some car is going to hit it. And I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight if I don't go back for it. haikujaguar: Except that I'm really tired... haikujaguar: Turtle > tired. *u-turn drive drive pull over emergency lights*haikujaguar: Hey, are you alive? Turtle: Get away from me, crazy mammal! haikujaguar: *pulling sweatshirt down to knuckles* Just... don't move, okay? Turtle: AAAAAAAAAAHHH!! *FLAIL!*haikujaguar: Ooowwww! S-s-stop that, I'm trying to rescue you--AAAHH! Turtle: You freak! At least you dropped me on the grass! What are you trying to do, kill me? haikujaguar: Did I kill you? OMG, please tell me I didn't kill you! Turtle: I am getting the heck out of here before you decide to throw me into the pond! haikujaguar: Oh, thank God, you're moving. *wilt**get in car, turn off emergency lights, turn around, resume driving*haikujaguar: Wow, that's probably the most exciting thing I'll do all week. haikujaguar: ... haikujaguar: Drat, I have a camera in my phone. I could have taken a picture! Some blogger I am, I need to tape a note to my forehead that says: USE PHONE TO DOCUMENT LIFE. Oh well. Tired > photo of turtle. haikujaguar: I think. Turtle: *hiding in pond* Definitely. P.S. Tell me your rescue stories! Stardancer Home.Tags: florida, humor, nature
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I am jerked from an uneasy sleep by a man's voice: a warm, folksy Midwestern accent used in a professional staccato, contradictory, disturbing. It takes me a moment to realize the weather radio's gone off, and then I am confused again: why is a real human being speaking through it? Our weather alerts are usually reported by an automated voice that reminds me of Stephen Hawking, issued from a local station. But no, it's Christmas Day, and we get a real human being from Oklahoma's Tornado Storm Prediction Center, telling us the weather is going to be nasty most of the day. As I draw the blankets closer, I hear the thready beat of an unsteady rain, torn by uneasy winds. The animals, elusivetiger tells me, are all unsettled and strange. I glance outside at the color of the air and I go back to sleep. Time enough to think about driving through this soup later, when I wake again. Stardancer Home.Tags: florida, nature
Current Location: home... for now
Current Mood: rrph
Current Music: weird rain patterns
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Summer in Florida is an act of violence. The sunlight burns the moment you step outside; you can feel the cells in your skin becoming agitated, the kind of restless excitement that has to find an outlet somewhere and bleeds into your blood and breath until you feel desperate and wound-up in a coil. Everything shines so brightly it carves afterimages into your vision, as if holding in so much reflected light is impossible and it's forced to throw it back at you in knives. Cars are so hot that getting into one causes an immense sweat to pop out all over your skin and then abruptly stop as your skin goes parched and taut. This is weather so caustic even the sky is moved to restless tantrums, and we feel the threat of our severe weather, our tornados and hurricanes like a predator with breath at the backs of our necks. All of this means: it's time for new clothing. Because only the most doggedly stubborn of fashion divas or those who have the luxury of never leaving an air-conditioned building will be able to stand something as hot as a pair of jeans or a thick cotton shirt when it's in the mid-90s. Unfortunately, there was no good clothing to be found on my expedition today. Some things that irritated me immensely, like shirts for girls that said things like "Buy Me Something (Expensive)" and "Addicted to Shopping"... but perhaps more importantly, a near miss. A cute brown shirt that said: "Hand Over the Chocolate and No One Gets Hurt." I mean... perfect, right? It had Tootsie rolls on it. Tootsie rolls. I didn't even known Tootsie rolls were chocolate-flavored until elusivetiger told me. I am still not entirely sure I believe it. If it had had anything else on it... a Hershey's Kiss, a Klondike bar, even generic ice cream... *sigh* Ah well. I am not that violent anyway. Why demand the chocolate when I can just make big-gooey-eyes at people instead? So what's summer like in your part of your country? Stardancer Home.Tags: florida, nature
Current Mood: overheated
Current Music: Wolfsheim - Hurting For the First Time
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It always takes me a few days to acclimate to climates with constant and benevolent breezes, like San Jose; here where I live there is no such thing as an innocent wind. Wind is always a harbinger of change and violence, of impending weather torsions. You learn to step outside and feel it on your face, your neck, the sensitive skin of your hands and think with a frisson of atavistic unease, "Something's coming."
But sometimes, a very rare sometimes, wind is a null, a leftover from weather on its way out, and so it is with hurricanes.
Today when I slipped outside, I found the cold front that pushed Hurricane Wilma to the south... along with the remnants of Wilma in air too restless to tease forth water from the puddles and damp concrete. I went on my longest walk just to feel it on my skin, feel it as a savior instead of a warning. I pray for the people in the path of the hurricane, as I always do, but I also give thanks to the cold front, the change that shielded us from its brunt.
There's a part of this walk that has no sidewalks, a part where I have to lengthen my stride and cross a field wild with twin-tailed switches, little weeds. I really didn't think much of it today... until oh, the wind tickled it and all those weeds rippled, lik | | |
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