Do I Have an Ant on the Back of my Arm?

This is a question I posed in a quite normal voice when I was in the bank yesterday. The man behind me replied in a quite normal voice that he didn't see any. If I had asked that question in Milwaukee, well...I wouldn't have asked that question in Milwaukee so I don't need to go into any detail about how I would have been looked at in a hard, Germanic "Are you flippin' crazy?" kind of way.

It is obviously ANT SEASON in Southern California. Exterminators are gleefully extolling the virtues of their various toxic services while tidy housewives frantically call with tales of how their homes are crawling with various forms of insect life. We are dealing with our annual ant infestation and are still unwilling to commit to the over-poisoning and big bucks that the bug killers want.

No, Himself wanders the house with a roll of paper towels, a bucket of water and some rags. He is determined to not use poison inside and it is one of the thousands of reasons why I love him. So, the big gun sprays stay outdoors and he doesn't spray wildly. The Argentinian Ants that have overtaken the ants that are supposed to live here are allowed to live and play around our property in Topanga UNTIL they start snaking their way into our house. The minute they try to breach our defenses, Himself is out there with his poison, determined to find their nest and do them serious damage.

This is the time of year when you don't feel quite as relaxed in your own skin as you do in the winter. This is the time of year when you always wear shoes and put your hands over your ears and sing loudly when Himself is trying to tell you that the gardener found a rattlesnake in the oleander hedge and whacked it with his machete so don't be surprised when you open the garbage bin if there are snake bits among the coffee grounds.

Yesterday afternoon when Himself was doing his new daily swim of half a mile (I do it, too!), he stopped just short of his wall touch in the deep end. Why? Because there was a two and a half inch tarantula who'd stopped by for a drink. They're not really dangerous...just shocking. I guess that's really like much of Southern California.