A Sticky Wicket (Caused by a Cricket)

I have previously remarked that I am willing to live with the crickets that cohabitate with us, provided that they stay in the closets. This has not always been a great arrangement; especially that time when I put my bare foot into a shoe containing cricket remains. The main problem I have with our crickets is that they are really, really slow. When faced with certain demise under a shoe or magazine, they just sit there. Usually I will try to nudge them toward the closet or behind a piece of furniture, but half the time I end up breaking one or more of their legs.

I recently decided that possibly the crickets appear in the middle of the floor because they are ready to die, perhaps of starvation. I have no idea what crickets eat, although I could probably name five or six things that eat crickets, including people in Korea if I remember correctly. I decided to ask the internet what crickets eat, to determine whether or not they are finding food in my closets. I’ll admit that I was also eager to confirm that they do not dine on mouse droppings or cockroaches or human remains or other things that I’m assuming are not in my closets.

While information on what crickets eat was rather hard to find, I did learn this information from Wikipedia:

"Crickets are popular pets and are considered good luck in Asia, especially China where they are kept in cages (Carrera 1991). It is also common to have them as caged pets in some European countries, at least in the Iberian Peninsula. Cricket fighting as a blood sport has also been popular, particularly in Macao."

Um, what?

As it turns out, according to ezine articles:

“Crickets are omnivores and feed on almost anything-usually organic materials, plant decay, grass, fruits, seedling plants, fungi and even meat. Crickets need good diet otherwise they tend to feed on each other.”

So, I’m going to go with that last bit - that I’ve got squeaky clean closets and a crazy sect of cannibalistic crickets on my hands. The ones that come out into the open to die are obviously wracked with guilt over their lifestyle or weak from spending so much time in hiding from the more aggressive ones. All of that is fine with me. If the crickets need to work out their demons in the middle of my dining room floor, I’ll give them space.

What I will not tolerate, however, is their new trick of lurking in the toilet. Another interesting bit in the ezine article was: “Crickets also need a good supply of water. However, keep the water away from the food to keep the food dry and fresh. Insert cotton swabs into the water vessel to prevent the crickets from drowning.” Clearly they are not good swimmers, so why would they choose the toilet as a new hang out? Three times in the past month I have found rather large crickets perched inside the toilet bowl. Each time I gasped, shuddered, and flushed them down because bugs are gross enough without rescuing them from places of questionable cleanliness (want to come visit me?). They put on rather a dramatic show as they circle the bowl, first fighting against the pull and then almost shrugging as their thin little legs start to swirl around them with the force of the water.

I guess bugs in the toilet would not prompt most people to write an essay. Unfortunately, my repeated encounters with the crickets have brought to the forefront of my mind a horrifying story that my friend John told me in college. Apparently, one afternoon when his mother was using the bathroom, a rat came up out of the toilet. He said after that day she always kept a teakettle full of water on top of the toilet lid, in case anything else ever tried to come in that way. Honestly, since this was a true incident (and if you saw how he gave a little laugh and shook his head and said “my poor mother” you’d believe him too) and not an urban legend, for the past 20 years I have been uneasy that such a thing could happen. (Not to mention all those news stories about snakes in the plumbing). More times than I care to admit, I have glanced down into the bowl and inspected the pipes behind it and wondered if a creature could make it into my bathroom. I think that fear is a main reason that I am so quickly in and out of the bathroom at bars and parties.

And so the crickets will not earn any sympathy from me. Maybe they are thirsty, maybe they are hiding from their cannibalistic friends, maybe they are just looking for a way to die. But as long as there is even the slightest possibility that something that would like to eat a cricket is lurking in my plumbing and looking for a reason to surface, the crickets will be destroyed quickly and without remorse.

Caution: This One is Depressing

Somehow yesterday I stumbled upon this article about the shootings of the little Amish girls in September. I couldn't get to the New York Times article it referenced (because it costs money and I'm in favor of a free press), but I did read this article which contained excerpts of the New York Times article. While the Pennsylvania police went out of their way to emphasize that the school was "a target of opportunity" and that the gunman probably did not have anything against the Amish, the author of the Times article, Bob Hebert, describes the attack as a hate crime because one group was singled out for terror: little girls.

Hebert states that the lack of in-depth media response, extensive coverage, or outrage was due to the fact that the victims were

"just girls, and we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected. Stories about the rape, murder and mutilation of women and girls are staples of the news, as familiar to us as weather forecasts. The startling aspect of the Pennsylvania attack was that this terrible thing happened at a school in Amish country, not that it happened to girls."

Maybe he is right, I never considered that point of view. I assumed the toned-down coverage had something to do with trying not to exploit the Amish or because it didn't happen in Aruba, but maybe it was because it was "familiar news". Honestly, I didn't care that the lifespan of that story was short and that the details were spotty. Not because I didn't care about the victims and their families, but because I have lost all hope that there is anything that can be done about it.

What solutions could possibly be proposed? Better gun control? That could never happen, regardless of the opinions of average Americans. Cozying up to parents trying to protect their kids does not bring financial rewards. Why would an elected official listen to us when the NRA is available with open checkbooks? More security at the schools? Obviously the Amish are not going to install metal detectors, and even if they had them, this attack would have likely transpired in exactly the same way. Since the Amish problems had no easy solution, the discussion of school safety seemed to die even quicker than the story of the shootings. Our kiddies had a "stranger danger" drill shortly after the incident, but if someone was determined to harm kids at that school, he'd likely gain some measure of success. A politician can find no money in upgrading school safety, and no money for upgrading school safety, because all of it is getting kicked back through tax cuts.

If I had to pick an overwhelming emotion for the past year, it wouldn't be sadness or loneliness or even anxiety, although I've had my share of all three. What I feel most often is helplessness. What happens in Washington never intersects with what goes on in my life. Articles like this and this and this and this only reinforce my feeling that our elected officials are not only unconcerned with the problems of average Americans, but contemptuous of us. They think we're stupid. Politicians assume that if they tell us the problems we see with our own eyes aren't there or that solutions are coming, then we'll believe them.

I used to have some hope that in November, if Congress changed hands, something might improve, but I don't feel that way anymore. After John McCain signed off on terror, I finally admitted to myself that politics is only about the power. I have bored my family with this sentiment before, but to me, God spoke right to John McCain and said, "You know what happened to you. You can keep it from happening to someone else. What are you going to do about it?" And John McCain answered, "I can't worry about that now. I'm trying to get elected president."

While I have always been an optimistic and idealistic person, now it is obvious even to me that politicians will do anything to get power and then hold onto it, regardless of their rhetoric or intentions on the way in. Even with the internet and blogs and all the mainstream and fringe news, no one is accountable. The average voters will never find out whether their congressperson actually tried to do what he/she promised. The motivation to fulfill the wishes of the voters probably evaporates quickly.

And so the sad conclusion of my train of thought from yesterday is: I realize that I can't waste any more hope on politics and I'm out of optimism for the future of the country. I have to narrow my focus to my own family and find my happiness and hopefulness there. Luckily, the kiddies are smart and cheerful and optimistic(and cute). Maybe someday they'll find a way to change the things that the HP and I must protect them from now.

Would You Really Read an Entire Post about My Dinner?

Earlier tonight, while preparing my dinner, I pulled the wine bag out of the wine box that I bought on September 21. This is a time honored family tradition of diligently pursuing every last drop of the bulk wine in the refrigerator, because really, there are starving people in China who would love that last 3/4 ounce and what’s the point of buying cheap wine if you are not going to consume it all and realize the greatest possible ratio of ounces to dollars? I straightened the bag back into a square, held it by the top corner so that any remaining wine would collect down by the spout, and positioned it over my glass.

Then I noticed some brown spots under the clear plastic that surrounds the spout. I know that alcohol isn’t normally considered a “growing medium,” (particularly by the HP who sees it as an especially effective antibiotic) but what other explanation could there be? I had to conclude, given the advanced age of the box and the lack of any other explanation, that some sort of mold was growing around the spout (note to self: drink more/faster). So against everything that I believe and everything I have been taught, I threw out the end of the wine.

Fortunately, having had a short stint as a brownie/girl scout, I was prepared and had a bottle of Kendall-Jackson Sauvignon Blanc that had been chilling away in the refrigerator since late September. I got my handy Screwpull foil cutter (probably one of the most useful tools in my kitchen and an item that everyone should have) and took the top off the cork.

But it wasn’t a cork. It was a plastic “cork.” The kind those Australians use. The HP and I both read an article years ago about how the advent of the plastic cork has caused heartache and woe for the Portuguese cork farmers (but now everyone wants cork floors, so I’m going to assume those guys are back in business). The farmers were so down on their luck that the European Union declared that plastic corks were not allowed for European wine. Whenever we see a plastic cork we always lament the poor cork farmers (and then drink until we’ve forgotten all about them).

Since the HP left, I have been talking to myself more, or saying things in my head that I would normally say out loud if I had someone nearby to say them to. And so, when I saw the plastic cork, I thought to myself “Well, well, well, look who’s gone to the plastic cork now.” This is in fact, a quote and exactly what the HP would have said if he’d been here, so I don’t know if I was actually talking to myself or listening to a hallucination. In any event, the cork answered me.

I know. It seems unlikely that a cork would answer to my unspoken thoughts. Some of you may be ready to pick up the phone and demand to know exactly how many bottles of Kendall-Jackson Sauvignon Blanc I had opened and emptied before the cork talked back. But it answered me before I even had a sip. Here’s what it said:

(It says “I selected this cork to ensure the highest wine quality – Jess S. Jackson” and although I took more than 15 pictures of the cork (no, I only had the one glass) I can’t produce a readable one. I don’t know if this is a limitation of my capabilities or the camera’s, but I will admit that Sony is a lot more successful than I am).

Is this evidence of a guilty conscience? A nod to the wine traditionalists who crave the thrill of trying to determine if the cork has turned moldy and spoiled the wine? A preemptive strike against people who like real cork because they like the little chunks it leaves in the bottle? I don't know the true motivation, but I imagine there is a vintner on a therapist couch somewhere trying to reconcile these possibilities.

The wine was entirely necessary to sit alongside my dinner.



This may look like takeout from a fine Chinese restaurant, but it came from my freezer, courtesy of my big brother (who may be the nicest person on the planet) and Home Bistro (who may be my new BFF). I’ll admit I felt a bit like an astronaut boiling up all these plastic bags (sheesh, of course I know as well as you do that boiling water in outer space would not be hot enough to heat the food – I’m just trying to say the whole thing seemed rather “space age”), but when all the food was liberated from the plastic, it looked and tasted delicious – with no obvious reference points to its former life in the freezer.

Well, it needed one addition.

wasaaaabi

But it was some good eats.