The “novella” edits are done and have been sent to the editor. After which I decided to take a wee nap on the couch because I felt a bit tired.
I slept for four hours. And Then I went to bed at a normal time and slept some more. The edit took a lot of braining. OMG, we worked so hard on that thing. This is what happens when you stuff a novel sized idea into half the word count. Argh.
Also, the night before that, as I was about to drift off, Gordon came into the bedroom and said he needed me for firepower and moral support. We have French doors in the living room and those doors are the main exit/entrance for the dogs and cats. We have a couple of senior dogs and in the morning and evenings, the door stays pretty much open. Pets go out and bugs come in.
As a proper Southern woman, I wanted a screen door. Well, apparently, the French doors are installed in such a way that a screen door won’t work. They open to the outside, etc. So a few weeks ago I broke down and bought a magnetic door screen. Here I will link it for you, because you will ask in the comments. As always, it’s not an affiliate link. I was hesitant about the purchase at first, because it’s not the most esthetically pleasing look to have the screen hanging in your living room, but I got so fed up with flies that I stopped caring.
Anyway, I was super happy to get the screen up. It was an easy install. Basically you attach self-adhesive Velcro around the doorframe, tack it down with provided tacks, and then fit the screen on it. I even bought one in a proper size that fit over the wide doors. The dogs and cats learned to use it quickly, the screen snaps together well, and we have less flies.
Back to the night before last. After Gordon’s ER trip, we had an exterminator spray all around the property. So it’s midnight. I follow my husband out. He has salad tongs and a bucket of water.
Me: … ?
Gordon: Look at the door.
There are strange things sticking out of the screen on the left side, where Velcro attaches to the door frame. I look closer. Six scorpions, tails curled out.
SIX.
One right above the other along the door frame.
They looked dead, probably from poison the exterminator sprayed. Somehow they crawled up and go stuck in Velcro. So I went and got a fly swatter, just in case. And then Gordon proceeded to pull dead scorpions out with tongs and toss them into the water bucket. There are still some chunks of scorpions stuck to the screen that we can’t get out.
I wish I had taken a picture of the scorpions for you, but I was focused on scorpion extermination at the time.
So, a good buy on the screen. Ten out of ten.
So I shared the scorpion adventures on Facebook and Rachel Vincent, who by the way has an interesting looking book coming out soon, commented and said, “Years ago, I found one in my bed, flung it off the covers, then got stung when I stood up. Fun night.”
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night. My pillow fell on the floor. Guess who spent good 5 minutes beating and shaking the pillow to make sure there were no scorpions in there?
I used to check the locks before bed. Now I check the screens and the window shades. And rugs in the bathroom. Just in case. #ParanoiaRUs
So I was lying in bed one night reading from my kindle the only light in the room and just at the corner of my vision I saw something scuttle across the top of my bed clothes; in seconds I threw the bedclothes back and lept out of bed. My husband raised his sleepyhead and demanded to know what I was doing and I chattered things about spiders and bedclothes. Then I noticed the body of a curled up spider, which was rather large on the wooden plinth that runs around the edge of our bed. The spider must’ve froze as I threw the bedclothes back and I must’ve sat on it as I was trying to get out of bed in a hurry. I still get the shivers thinking about it.
When I lived in the foothills above Fresno, California I found one on my bedroom wall once. It got sucked up by the vacuum. Luckily it was the only one I ever saw there. But it did freak me out a bit at the time.
We are having rattlesnakes this year. We live at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. With the drought and hills behind us getting graded for new homes, the wildlife is moving down the hill. Caught one behind the barn two nights ago. A neighbor who raises ball pythons catches the rattlesnakes and takes them to an undisturbed hill.
I have never had to deal with the kind of insectoid livestock you guys do.
I got used to cockroaches in Los Angeles, though.
Mostly, I got them before they got me; but there is an emergency room tech in Los Angeles (probably retired by now) that I will be forever grateful to because he held my hands and talked to me about anything that came to mind so I could hold still while the doctor dug the cockroach out of my right ear at 2:00 AM.
In your ear! Eeeeew. I think you win.
I agree! I cringed at that. ????
Honest, I wasn’t trying to make it a contest. I’m thrilled I’ve never had to deal with a scorpion.
omg…. god bless your soul
Congratulations on edits (braining is hard), and death of scorpions (scorpioncide?).
A couple years ago for a wedding anniversary I got us each a flyswatter! One of the best gifts ever! We have our 20th anniversary coming up in August how do I top this?!
And they’re colorful ????
Wow! Looks pretty =D
An electric flyswatter, which are super fun to use… or a salt gun, my kid and hubby are more likely to shoot each other than flies with the salt gun though!!!
Happy anniversary!!!
Congratulations on your edits and your excellent screen purchase. And can I say that I am really glad I live in Maine.
No poisonous snakes.
No poisonous or deadly spiders.
No Scorpions.
One word, Minges!
+ 1000 for Canada, especially Newfoundland and other islands on the Atlantic Ocean. Happy Canada Day!
(And yes, I was delighted to see the reference to a Great Big Sea CD in one of the Curran stories! Great Big Sea are great! Try the song “Ordinary Day”. This is the story where Jim brings the photos/story of Kate, and Curran rolls the plate like a fruit roll-up.)
I’m sitting here going well I can’t complain about the terrible summer weather in Ireland & the flies/spiders, at LEAST I don’t have SCORPIONS!?!! (& Snakes!)
XD
Who needs a Rogan when they have a Gordon?
Our huge invasion of cicadas is now over in Maryland. Looking forward to being able to finally spending some time on our deck this holiday weekend.
I’m also in Maryland. It’s been so quiet the past week or so, now that the cicadas are gone…
I’m not laughing. Really, I’m not. 😉
Scorpions are gross and I’m glad the screen protected you! I love Rachel Vincent!
You would really love Australia then -_-
Every morning, shake clothes, shake shoes, shake jacket, shake towels before use, then shake bedspread etc.
Probably a lot of wrist injuries here. Just don’t move to Queensland.
Well, that was unexpected and nightmare-inducing. Any thoughts about moving to Texas for lower cost of living now out the window.
P.S. Pictures? No thank you. Yuck!
This is why cowboys shake out their boots in the morning ????
I thought “magnetic screen” just before I read the next paragraph. Good for you!
I’ve read, but can’t confirm the veracity, that lavender keeps scorpions away. Keep some cuttings at each window & door? Even if it doesn’t work, it’s 1 of my favorite smells.
I am so curious about the “novella”. I wonder what the title is.
We live out between Austin and Bastrop. I’ve just started shaking out any close-toed shoes and clothes before putting them on. We had scorpions at our old house in NW Austin but nothing like out here! Pest people come out every other month and this is still my routine. Hang in there!
Oooh. In the fifties my mom was at a very elegant cocktail party in a very elegant dress when a scorpion crawled up her skirt. She did the fastest strip tease ever in front of all the party guests and a huge picture window. Yes, it was in Texas.
I’m happy to see that your cost for the exterminator was worth spending. When we lived in Houston, I told a neighbor that I had a gecko in my house and couldn’t catch it to put it out and it was driving me nuts! She informed me that she was jealous of my critter because they eat cockroaches. It’s insane that you have to have reptiles around to keep cockroaches at bay. I left it in the house.
One day here in Ohio, I went to my laundry room and reached for my light switch when something caught the corner of my eye and I turned to see what it was. A majorly large wolf spider was parked an inch from the light switch. The only one here with me was our son, who was young. I went upstairs, got a fly swatter and had him come down there with me. His job, I told him, was to stand 6 feet away from the spider and if I missed, tell me where the thing went. Fortunately, I hit it with the first swing, but I needed that moral support to do it. Those things attack when you miss, and I hate them.
I’m glad the edits are done. I hope the scorpions are done. I’m glad you can keep flies out. May your life be as dull as dishwater for a while.
We lost a tree in a storm this morning, which I knew had happened only because our ancient miniature horses came galloping out of the “field” into the area behind the house, huffing. Sure enough, massive tree piece down, massive tree ruined, $1800 to get rid of it tomorrow morning. When old horses run, there has to be a reason. The idiots stand out in storms to get a shower, I guess. They stayed out in the rain instead of in the barn, but they were terrified when that tree came down. I’m ready for my dull life to resume. There have been way too many interesting things happening here lately. No scorpions here, though! Score one for me.
Totally get it!!! Omg I found a wolf spider in my bed the other night. The kind that scientists say have individual “personalities”…. I got rid of it and have had creepy crawlies ever since. My daughter was worried it laid eggs in the house and so I learned that they actually hold onto to the eggs and the hatched spiderlings ride around on mama until ready to go. It’s the only spider that cares for young and somehow that was reassuring lol. I’m really glad we don’t have scorpions in Massachusetts’
Back in the ‘80s, I spent a summer in Israel working on an archaeological dig. We lived in tents and learned to check our shoes for scorpions. The one time that I found a scorpion in my shoe, I screamed and threw the shoe, accidentally hitting one of my tent-mates square in the belly. She then shrieked and threw her hairbrush (in her hand at the time) at me, nailing me in side of the head. By the time we untangled ourselves from that, we couldn’t find the scorpion. We then spent the rest of the day on edge. Fun times… Scorpions and all, it was probably the best summer I ever spent.
You guys need some house lizards running around and eating your scorpions. Or an owl. That would be cool, and you can train it to fetch the mail and bring it inside. Pretend you’re getting invitations to Hogwarts and get rid of scorpions at the same time- win win.
Geez, and I had to read this before going to bed. What was I thinking? Maybe I won’t dream of scorpions. I have to hope. Interesting tale, and clever delivery, but still, Scorpions???
Good job on edit completions AND the nap!
I’ve lived in the Deep South, Hawaii, the northeast and now the midwest. Every one of those places has some nasty bugs. The cockroaches in Hawaii were enormous. But not as scary as scorpions, just a bit creepy.
Found a friend standing on an ottoman screaming her head off, and a giant (3-4 inch) cockroach waving his little feelers around. She had been vacuuming and the vacuum cleaner was still running, lying on the floor. I picked it up, vacuumed up our visitor and she calmed down. I quietly emptied the vacuum cleaner bag. No need to have her up on something else screaming again, right?
In Hawaii we had to watch for centipedes. They were about 5-6 inches long and VERY hard to kill. Seriously, you had to hit them HARD with a 2 x 4 to have any luck in making them actually dead. I’m not fond of making other creatures suffer, so kinda dead was not cutting it for me.
Banana spiders would have freaked yo ass out, man. They were about the diameter of your palm, yellow and black. But they were harmless and really pretty. Still, wouldn’t want them to crawl on me.
30 plus years in SO CA and I never once saw a scorpion. My husband saw them a lot as he and his friend did a lot of night hiking and mountain hiking (not so much climbing as hiking).
Grossest bug? Potato bugs (Jerusalem Crickets). Eeeeewwwww! They are butt-ugly. And BTW, please google them and look for a picture of their faces. I swear this has to be the inspiration for the face of the alien in Predator.
When in comes to venomous wildlife, paranoia is a sane response. I live in New Mexico. We have scorpions, snakes, and cute little mice that can infect you with plague ????
You have my sympathy. My recent wildlife adventure was a couple of weeks ago. I heard what I thought was one of the cats covering in the litter box, and she was hitting the side of the box repeatedly so I got out of bed to see who it was and to tell tell her she’d covered enough. I opened the door to the basement, and did not see a car. I did see a small snake on floor of the basement, which is the unfinished side of the lower level. The noise was a small mouse in a wash bucket jumping up and down trying to get out, but it couldn’t jump high enough. We live with woods surrounding is so there are occasional mice, who don’t last long indoors as we have four cats. Don’t know how the snake got into the unfinished part of the downstairs, but I suspect up the drainage for the a/c that is in the floor and covered with a small grate. It was a very skinny snake. I got a clear plastic container over the snake so it couldn’t slither anywhere while I dealt with the mouse, which involved taking the bucket outside and dumping the mouse out. I then got a thin piece of cardboard under the snake and plastic container and took it across the street to the woods and gently let everything drop into the weeds while I scurried back into the house. I retrieved the container in the morning when I could see there was no snake. I think it was a small garter snake, but I really do not like snakes. But I’ll take a baby snake over dead or alive scorpions.
thank you for sharing…now i know the inspiration of the Roman scene, when Kate and Curran ask him to officiate their wedding…
I apparently once had a nightmare when still stationed in Texas where I thought I saw a scorpion in the bed! So I woke my husband up, freaked him out saying I saw a scorpion and he was madly looking through the sheets on the waterbed for a few minutes. Then he asked me; how did you see it in the pitch black dark? Oh….yeah. Ok maybe it was a nightmare! Lol I had just had a baby at Fort Hood’s hospital 2 days before and we weren’t getting any sleep anyways!
Can you do a retractable screen door? That would keep out bugs and can use of doors open out
Useful info! TYVM!
I have had blood poisoning twice due to insect bites. I’ve stopped feeling bad about my paranoia since it helped me catch the 2nd incident early on.
Wash all cuts and wounds with soap and water. And a streak running up your arm from the bite/wound site is probably not a good thing????
Spiders around here, lots of spiders. Mostly seasonal residents; they like to come out and build gigantic webs all in one night. Webs carefully placed to catch human prey as they are built across walkways, from deck railings to the roof, and crisscrossing over stairs. I think of them as the Spiders of Bellevue (like the Umbrellas of Cherbourg) to give them a whimsical title. One greeted me the first night we moved to our new house by dashing towards my sleeping bag. He was civilly acknowledged but not invited to stay.
It’s 1 a.m. and I’m reading your blog and enjoying all the buggy stories. I happen to look down and there is this huge spider crawling (very rapidly) across the floor. Now I know what the cat was so intent on a few minutes ago! The spider is no more.
I’m so glad I live in New Zealand we don’t have any snakes and only 2 spiders that can give a painful bite.
If you move next, come to Switzerland!
No nasty, stingy wildlife here!!!
Greets and happy dreams for the future!
Inga
You have giant spiders for pets and scorpions are the big bad arachnid, lol. Sorry, not funny since a hospital visit happened and that’s serious.
Glad Gordon is okay and that House Andrews is well.
Scorpions are hunting carnivorous bugs. Unlike spiders (ugh, shiver), scorpions don’t have a hole, hut or web to weave, steal or trap and poison their prey. They seek they’re prey out.
What attracts your scorpions?
Try buying frozen blood worms and/or frozen pinkies. Put them in a bowl and add water. Set it outside your open door before the sun sets somewhere the family pets can’t get to. If you can’t exterminate them, give them somewhere else to go other than your door. Will also attract the ants, bonus.
Though that screen looks like it’s doing it’s job can’t hurt to try to keep them away from it if you can.
Pillow safety is very important 🙂
When we were stationed in Colorado I would leave the glass sliders open (they did have a screen) in the bedroom at night because we didn’t have windows. One morning my husband texts from work “there was a scorpion thing in the room this morning”. I assumed he meant some strange large bug since he said “scorpion thing”, though I did begin using the A.C. instead of leaving the door open. Fast forward approx 6 months and our dog starts freaking out around the tv console late at night. Back and forth. Back and forth. She had locked on to something, I assumed we had a mouse, maybe a large fly. I’m watching this unfold waiting for mystery critter to emerge AND IT’S A GOD DAMN SCORPION AND I LOSE MY MIND. My husband then promptly reminds me we had them in the bedroom and I ask he be more direct in his descriptions in future…
I’m born and raised in Texas. I remember at camp one year they warmed us to shake out our shoes every morning because the scorpions would hide in them. Glad your pillow at least was scorpion free!
I live in Nebraska. I haven’t ever seen a scorpion, but I do believe there is a small scorpion.
????
So there really are monsters under the bed. The kids were right all along!
Editing is finished ! Yey ! Happy for you ???? Hope you can relax and enjoy now ????
OMG for the scorpions ????????????????
O-O. We have mosquitoes that would drain you dry in Wisconsin. But scorpions? Just no. I will take my mosquitos and put on more lemon balm.
My Dad grew up in Overtown in Miami in the 30’s. The houses were built on posts for airflow. All the kids would play under the houses with scorpions. Fast forward 50 years to me finding a scorpion in my bedroom. I jumped on the bed and screamed for my Dad. He explained how you step on the tail to straighten it out, then pick it up. That man proceeded to chase me with a scorpion. Fun times.
That’s funny! But at least they were dead!!! I don’t blame you for paranoia tho.
I hate scorpions and the monster American roach. Did you know those things can fly if cornered by your broom in the garage? I screamed as the thing flew in my face and frankly I’m not a screamer. It was just such a frigging surprise.
Congrats on finishing the edits!! I imagine you’re happy to have that one over.
Wonderful to have finished the edits AND get some real sleep. As regards scorpions, that’s not paranoia, that’s good sense. The screen is a great idea. I had one on my old greenhouse. It worked very well. I spent most of my life happily trotting around through the woods of northern New England and Atlantic Canada. In recent years I worried about ticks, but bears? Moose? Nah, saw a few, but they were never a problem. Never did see a rattlesnake although technically they did inhabit some of the areas I was in. Now I am in the south and you could not pay me to wander through the woods and along the creeks for fear of venomous snakes. My husband laughs at me, but I carry a snake stick when I garden and literally beat the bushes before I prune or reach into any plants. If I ever see a scorpion around my house, there will be major death throes in the crawling insect population.
I love gargoyles! They are so versatile and very cool.
I’m up in Canada.
My sleep is too precious to worry about bugs/scorpions/etc that I would take it as a sign from God to move and I’m an atheist!
My youngest son, age 30, can’t stand bugs even during the day so if he was to experience that at all he would be elsewhere …
Hate to add another paranoia to the pile, but my aunt used to live in Boerne. She met me out front of the house when I went to visit so she could point out the small scorpion warming himself on the lit doorbell button (in case I missed it).