An ill-fitting window fan and a hastily (badly) installed air conditioner meant winged and crawly things had easy access to our house this summer. So long as you were under an inch or so in diameter, it was come on in! The air is ON.
So, today I have been sweeping up the bits of moths, spiders, lady bugs, wasps, etc. that survive when the rest of bug has turned to dust. These bits collected in every corner of every room. There was a thin layer of tiny, light-colored bugs on the living room floor in front of the window fan. They were too small to be identified. I think they must have tried to come through the fan blades. This didn't work out well for them. There is still a Daddy Long Legs hanging out (literally) over the dog's dish. Hand-to-heart, the thing could straddle and Eggo. It has been clinging to the side of the cupboard for days, still as stone. It looks so delicate, though, that it felt like murder to sweep it away. I left it. A proper spider, a miniature version of that one in the Lord of Rings, did not fare so well. It scurried out from under a baseboard while I was sweeping and I stomped it instinctively. I felt a bit bad about this but at least I was quick and it was trespassing.
I also cleaned my 13-year-old son's room today. (He is now off at school and so unable to eject me as soon as I open his door). I rounded up some items there for Goodwill. I found two pairs of sneakers from last year, now two sizes too small for him and too dirty and torn for Goodwill. These went into the trash in the kitchen. One, a basketball shoe, sat disconcertingly on top of the pile and gave me the whim whams as I went to and fro, it looked so much like a disembodied foot. I heard a news story recently about how feet in shoes tend to wash up on certain shorelines. Apparently corpses in water tend to break apart at the ankles and the feet go drifting. More cleaning ensued. Now the shoes are covered by other trash and it's safe to get a Diet Coke.
My summer was short and lame. I did not go swimming once. This has never happened before in my nearly 50 years. I had some surgery in mid July (just when the water temperature in our Vermont wild rivers might be getting tolerable). Bathing was then forbidden for weeks. No proper vacation either. (See note re: surgery).
The good news is that I have a trip to England on my horizon now, and closing fast. (I just called my doctor to get my "airplane medicine" and my credit card company to put them on notice). The Infanta is my travel companion. Why England in September? Well, Kate Bush is, as you should know, giving a series of concerts in London in these next few weeks. In a fraught moment last May, I managed to snag two tickets. KB opened the shows this week. I have been reading the reviews at every lull for the past 48 hours. Every one has fallen in that narrow spectrum between glowing and "I"M WETTING MYSELF." I can't wait. My step mother is coming to stay with Shackleton. She can be relied upon not to let the place go to wrack and ruin in the four days that we'll be gone.
