ILONA ANDREWS

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Caterpillar Invasion

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In all the excitement of the release and some unexpected family issues, we missed our wedding anniversary, which was on August 2. Twenty-two years. 🙂

Now we are being invaded.

We keep trying to put them back in the trees and grass, but they are insisting on a suicide march into the pool.  We lived here for 6 years and have never seen so many caterpillars.

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Comments

  1. Many congrats on your anniversary. I hope many more will be in your futures, and many more years of happy memories.

    Good luck with the caterpillars. Maybe they are just thirsty?

  3. Happy Anniversary! I hope you are still together after another 22 years of happy memories!

  4. Neem oil in a spray bottle (1/4 oil to 3/4 water) is a good deterrent. They hate the stuff and it is non-toxic to them. Now if you just want to obliterate them then a pair of flip flops will do.

  5. You guys, my husband and I have been married for 33 years, and have missed our anniversary twice. Life gets in the way. We made up for it the next year, once by planning a romantic trip to Vegas, once by planning a perfect day hiking the Columbia river gorge, then having a lovely dinner at a winery.

  6. Aww congratulations! I’m heading towards 30 years this October. My husband, my son & I will probably just go out to dinner.
    My friend here in California had those caterpillars invading her home too. She doesn’t live far from me but I’ve never seen them…attracted to nice people perhaps?

  11. Probably an invasive species: gypsy moth caterpillars. If so, do your state a favor and KILL THEM. Gypsy moth caterpillar strip forests. Connecticut tries to prevent their destructive ways with a fungus. Crazy, but true: Maimaiga Fungus.

  12. Happy anniversary!!!
    As for the Catapillar’s, maybe you can reason with them and explain suicide marches into the pool or a very bad idea? I don’t know… Good luck.

  14. Happy anniversary, and many, many, happy returns of the day! We both missed ours one year as well. I was working and taking a couple of classes. My husband was in law school. It was exam time. I got to work, looked at the calendar. Looked again. Asked a coworker the date to confirm. I announced we’d both forgotten our anniversary. My coworkers had a field day.

    Lona’s comment that she and her husband missed theirs twice, but made up for it each time by planning an extra special celebration for each of the following years, was a fun way to deal with it. This December will be our 44th, so, as with Lorna and her husband reaching 33, missing one or two won’t even make a dent – no worries. Planning a special celebration for next year is good, but don’t let that stop you from celebrating now, even though you are a couple of days late!! I don’t think either of us has forgotten individually, though that might be because one or the other of us reminds the other ahead of time.

    Hey, tell the kids they dropped the ball! Happy Anniversary!

  15. Historical day. I was just listening to a talk on the Battle of Cannae, still studied to this day.

    Wishing you many more anniversaries.

  16. We’ve been married for 31 years and have missed about 6. I was at a conference for one and she was out of the country for the others including this year (she left 2 days before). We almost missed another but she showed up late at night at my conference. I was groggy and thought she was maid service. Once I packed an anniversary card deep in her luggage. And the airlines lost it. Fortunately they found it and delivered it to her on our anniversary. Whew.

    Let’s hope this is yours only one.

  18. Happy Anniversary! It will be easy for me to remember as it is also my son’s birthday. 😀

  19. Happy Anniversary!!

    And we had a crazy caterpillar explosion one year at my folks house many moons ago. I don’t recall what incited it but the critters were EVERYWHERE. Hasn’t happened since as far as I know. Was just odd.

  20. Unrelated to caterpillars, but not sure where else to ask, is there a published story relating what happens to Kate and Curren coinciding with the action in Magic Stars?

  25. Maybe it’s hot? Or cold? Or dry?

    I mean to say, weather.

    Ants used to commit suicide in my “sealed” water bottles at night in Vellore, India. It is a hot (routinely in the early 40 Celsius) and dry place, but some nights it got _cold_. Well, relatively cold, when you’re used to 40 C. And ants would die.

    The moral of the story is, eventually the deaths stop bothering you, and you learn to fish the cold, dead bodies out, and make use of the water as you planned. In my very vegetarian case, drink. In yours, perhaps swim?

    Unless it’s blocking stuffs for the pool. In which case I have no tangentially useful anecdotes to share.

    • ALSO. Happy anniversary! Will you be creeped out if I/we remember next year? (The answer to this question will determine if it goes into my calendar).

  27. Your trees probably told the caterpillars to go jump in the pool as they wanted to keep their leaves.

  28. I know the husband is the one who is suppose to forget about dates but I never could keep them straight. Today it’s a funny story that we tell together.

    Butterflies?

  29. Happy Anniversary late. I hope y’all got to do something fun.

    I actually ALWAYS forget ours. It’s a thing. John always gets to surprise me.

    On pool suicide. After we put the pool in we had that with these gigantic spiders all doing that. Like 100s. I really worried we had that many around us. It’s finally slowed down to about 2 or 3 a week.

  31. Are you sure the bugs are caterpillars? They look like millipedes. We took down some ivy before painting a house and were invaded by millipedes. We called the Orkin man.

  33. Heh. I am so utterly hopeless with romantic stuff and remembering dates that I ensured that (i) I proposed to my husband on a palindrome day (I knew that this would also be an important date to him, and, I hoped to make it more memorable to me. Nope. Did not work) and (ii) suggested that we get married on my company’s year end date (this one does work for me, but mostly because of my needless dread of the admin associated with company reporting and sorting taxes. Not particularly romantic, sadly). My poor husband. It is probably very telling that he is (a) very amused by all this and (b) he is an accountant.

    And, yes, I do put all important-to-him dates in my diary. I (mostly) remember the key dates as a result, but cannot for the life of me remember them when asked. Apart from the company year end/wedding anniversary one.

  35. It’s caterpillar season in the south. Look for white silky nests in trees. That’s where they are coming from

  36. Congratulations on your anniversary! I wish you many more. Good luck with the caterpillars.

  37. Happy Anniversary We just celebrated our 32nd . I got the date wrong by one day ! Isaid 27th instead of the 28th. My husband has never let me live it down! June 28th 1985 in Solano County.Ca.

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