Insects, Landscaping, and Thought
Sometimes I feel very conflicted. I'm here, in the Holy Land, at the Baha'i World Centre ... and I don't seem to have the time to do anything meaningful outside of work because I'm so busy just trying to live - kill ants & tarantulas, make sure our neighbor isn't encroaching on our property, mopping the floors [of all the house work, I dislike that the most!! Darn Swiffers really spoiled me!], etc.
Ah, you caught the tarantula part? I didn't think I'd be able to get that by you. Yes, Mark and I encountered and killed our first tarantula last weekend. The sweet joys of 'firsts' experienced with the love of your life....
Yeah, it was in our bathroom, and no, I'm not kidding. Yuck. The unfortunate thing was that Mark and I had just finished gardening for the afternoon and needed to shower. It took me about 3 hours to work up the nerve to shower. I don't think Mark showered until the next morning. He's not exactly a spider person - I'm usually the one who kills the spiders in our house. Except I felt I had every right to leave this one to Mark. And I did. So much for feminism, equal rights, blah, blah, blah. When big, bad, scary things enter my world I'd rather have someone else - ANYBODY else - do the work for me. Of course, I did kill a foot-long centipede in Guadeloupe. *shrug*
Our neighbor has retreated from our property, but not without some comments. He wants to repair our fence, which, admittedly needs to be repaired, but here's the issue: in Israel there's this bizarre law somehow that if you start putting your property on somebody else's property, eventually they won't be able to kick you off - it'll be your property [it doesn't take long]. Like, my bike, my boxes, my tools on your lawn, and - poof, it's mine. Okay, that's probably a little simplistic, but not much. So, I guess I'm just trying to be extra careful as I would hate to find out that because we were lax the Baha'i World Centre either lost property or had to go to court over it. Oh, and he also swears that a pile of wood and trash on our property isn't his. Except, well, then whose is it? We put everything out to be collected by the city, so...? Erg!
Oh, mopping and ants. We found ants in our bedroom last night. Now before you go assuming things about our hygiene, the only 'food' that enters our bedroom is a glass of water. These insects are just everywhere. Everywhere! Of course, keeping your home clean keeps you relatively insect free, but totally free of bugs is a major feat here. And comparatively, we don't have things too bad. We don't have cockroaches (knock on wood), and I know plenty of friends who do.
I will definitely NOT miss these insects when I leave. Man, I so did not count on a tarantula when I came to Israel. If someone had suggested leaving the day we found the tarantula, I would have been hard pressed to convince myself to stay. Ugh! Still gives me the creeps to go into the bathroom!
Comments
I expected to see a photo! And Daddy is starting to accept that the ants really are in our roof again and not coming in over the threshold. I wish they were.
Posted by: Maman | June 9, 2004 08:02 PM
Ants.
I hate ants.
I hate ants.
My hatred burns brightly, and when it comes to Formicidae, it burns genocidally.
I had an ant problem, a severe one, last summer. They were everywhere.
Now, they are all dead.
Muahahahahaha! Muahahahaha!
I'm heading over to my blog to post the way to kill ants. To kill them so completely that you leave no trace, that ants must rediscover your home from scratch from miles away - and then to protect your home so that should they come near it, they will find only a FIELD OF DEATH!
God, I hate ants. My eyes narrow to slits and my face becomes a paper-white mask of evil. No, no, E-VIL, like Fruits of the De-vil.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | June 10, 2004 12:54 AM
That is my brother, folks, any questions?
Posted by: Mara | June 10, 2004 06:12 AM
Mara,
I can not believe you KILLED the tarantula! I mean, put it in a glass and let it go. They don't bite people...anyhow...ha ha ha, I had forgotten about the stories I heard about Nathan and his ants! We have ants too...but we are on our way out so we just bought ant traps.
Posted by: Rae | June 11, 2004 12:47 PM
Yeah, it occurred to me that if your neighbor doesn't claim the pile of junk or whatever -- you can get rid of it! Yea!! It will be gone and out of your yard and no longer an issue or an eyesore.
Posted by: Maman | June 11, 2004 04:28 PM
Update: neighbor will now remove pile of stuff. He's not fond of me, but he LOVES Mark ... just gave him some yummy Israeli ice cream & said he'd remove the pile (we'll see)
Secondly, NOT KILL THE TARANTULA? Do you, when you see a large, black, hairy spider with fangs immediately think "oh, gee, that's just a friendly TARANTULA"?!?! There is no way on God's green earth that I would have been satisfied to know that thing was alive. It could come BACK. And on that, I will pass. I'm still wary of going into the bathroom.
Posted by: Mara Fojas | June 11, 2004 06:13 PM
Well we have scorpions (sp.?) and tarantulas and ants of different sizes and colors and now rats! have invaded.. and of course snakes..(haven`t seen tarantulas or snakes in city lately but did find a scorpion in a one of my kitchen pans. (that was a new one!) Our climate is exactly like Haifa`s so we get all kinds of bugs..and also have many of the plants that are in the Gardens.
Posted by: suellen | June 17, 2004 01:35 AM
Aunt Suellen, do you just get used to it after a while? Ugh, the thought of finding a scorpion is really freaky... yick. I am so showing my temperate climate roots... and I don't care!
Posted by: Mara | June 21, 2004 08:33 AM