I woke up at 4:15 AM.
I woke up again at 6:30 AM.
Toni came home at 7:30 AM.
At 8:15 AM I gave up and got out of bed.
Oddly enough, I feel OK. I hope it lasts until tonight, because I'm playing in the parade at the state fair with the Shriners' Drum & Bugle Corp. The Shriners' seem like they do a lot of good work, and they let the Frontier people play with 'em in the parade. I can't wear the little fez, but that's OK. They have parking passes & tickets so we can get in for free, but we're going to go early so I'll have to use 'em next time. Toni figured out a way to get in cheap ($1 + some canned food) and we're going to take the train & then the bus to save on gas & parking, 'cause we're this close to being broke, but we're going to go the fair anyway. You still have to have a life and do something fun every once in a while, ya know?
I'm a little (well, a lot) stressed about money, most especially about being so behind on child support. That bothers me a lot. I think I'll be all caught up in a few weeks, but that bothers me more than going through a foreclosure or getting my car repo'd. I feel like a deadbeat dad, and I hate that. I already struggle with feeling like enough of a failure as a parent (whether or not it's justified) because I only have my daughter one day a week and every other weekend and I don't get to log in the time that I still want to spend with her without adding the added burden of being so terribly behind on my child support. Ugh - last night it was getting to me enough that I actually decided to allow myself a few moments of self-pity in an effort to make the feeling go away. I haven't let me feel sorry for myself in a long time, but it was good to see why I choose not to do it anymore. I don't think I accomplished anything, and I didn't really feel any better afterwards.
On a totally different note, yesterday a HUGE bug flew into the apartment. It was one of these:
They're called tarantula hawks, or cicada killers. In scientific talk, it's Pepsis sp., (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae). They're giant-ass wasps. It was about 1 1/2 inch long, black with long legs and yellow-orange wings edged in black. Pepsis utilizes tarantulas as food for their immatures. They sting the tarantulas and drag them into burrows in the ground.
Good GAWD.
Anyway, one of these monsters flew into our apartment yesterday through the open balcony door. I have no idea why it had to select OUR apartment, but there he was, in all of his evil glory.
Now, in case you guys don't know, bugs bother the hell out of me.
Especially big bugs.
Especially flying bugs.
Especially stinging bugs.
Combine all three features and you have my entomological nightmare. In my apartment.
Well, Toni did the sensible thing and ran inside our bedroom and closed the door. From her place of safety, she told me to close the door to the bathroom and the door to Code Name Diamond's bedroom to prevent this giant bug from getting into either space. I credit her degree in Emergency Management to allow her to think clearly in a crisis.
Toni gets to run and hide from giant, flying, stinging bugs. Even though she used to run into burning buildings (as a firefighter) can handle a.45 almost as well as me and works in a prison, she's still very much a girl, and gets to play the girl card and run and hide. And truthfully, I was terrified, and I wanted to run and hide. I felt like fainting.
However, as the man, it was my duty to kill the giant bug.
Now, I'm here to tell you I'd have been less frightened if an armed intruder had kicked in the front door. I can handle that. I'd have almost preferred a rattlesnake, except that the cats might have fared poorly. As it was, Timone was desperately trying to assist and was leaping through the air like a wheat-colored fuzzy gazelle, determined to kill that bug. He gets the Helper Cat of the Week Award. I don't know what Oscar and Pumba were doing, though I suspect they were hiding under the table.
My first instinct, of course, was to grab my Glock and start shooting. My second idea, which was only slightly better, was to use the shotgun. I realized at that moment that I no longer own a flyswatter, and I was loathe to get close enough to use a cap or something similar. After ascertaining that Timone wasn't going to be able to take the bug down by himself despite my excited and enthusiastic encouragement, I settled for a weapon of opportunity and grabbed a 5-gallon plastic storage tub. As the lean yellow cat launched himself repeatedly into the air to a shocking height, and with Toni yelling "KILL IT! KILL IT!" from her place of safety, I swung viciously with the clear plastic box, eventually connecting and knocking the bug into the kitchen. The bug collided with a hard surface somewhere out of my vision, making noises that told me that he was down but not out.
Now I knew I had hit the wasp, but I couldn't see it. I could hear it buzzing and thrashing someplace in the kitchen, but I had a blind corner and a blind countertop I had to brave to finish the job. In that moment, I would have rather moved out than go into the kitchen, although I knew that, as the man, it was my job to protect my wife-to-be and my cats from this terrible bug. In a moment of training and experience overtaking situational awareness, I blurted out "Where'd he go? Where'd he go? WHERE'D HE GO?!?!?!?! " , halfway expecting my old MCPD partner Cpl. Mashburn to respond from behind his drawn 9mm, or, more likely, my buddy Brian to bellow the location this adversary from behind his Ubercocker as we've done in hundreds of paintball games. Unfortunately, neither of these men were present, and Timone's excited meowing was all I heard before Toni responded from behind the bedroom door with a baffled "How should I know?"
I swallowed hard and charged into the kitchen, where after a few short and terrifying seconds I located the wasp in the sink, struggling to right himself. I pounded the tub furiously into the sink, eventually landing a blow devastating enough to cause the now wildly thrashing bug to slip halfway down the drain before getting stuck in the strainer. At this point I dropped the tub and turned on the water, finishing off the bug by drowning it. It was an ugly victory, but I'll take it.
Anyway, that's what happened yesterday. I'll eat some funnel cake and a pineapple whip for you guys.
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