Cato for President

The nighly slaughter

pill bug,
originally uploaded by Marko_K.

I find at least 30 woodlice every night on the floor around my cottage. Just the skin left, their innards sucked dry, dessicated. They come in from the garden seeking warmth and dry land, and find instead a large number of voracious spiders ready to suck the life out of them. Even though I pick them all up, there are more the next morning. My house spiders are very satisfied. Consequently, I have no live bugs inside my house at all.

Woodlice are crustaceans and have more in common with lobsters and crabs than with insects. There are 3,500 species of woodlice in the world. They have seven pairs of legs. You probably have a few in your garden.

I've got fleas

I noticed them on my thigh last night. They were bouncing up and down as if they were testing my flesh before they bit it I was aware of them all night long (they are almost as bad as the cat!). I got up at 4:14 am to wash the cat blanket, which I had neglected to wash for a year and a half. It made the sink water brown. I am sure that is where they are living and now I'm afraid they have moved out more broadly into my house. I'm afraid I am plagued as I can feel them now at work sitting at my desk writing to you. It is winter! There should be no fleas. But the man at the pet store told me fleas are "epidemic this year!"

I remember once, when I lived in Berkeley in a little hole-in-the-wall on Milvia, I was eaten alive by fleas. I could not sleep at night because there were so many of them. My neighbor had a dog and wouldn't take care of the fleas. I bombed my room, but it did nothing. I began to drink a half-gallon of red wine at night and would smear Cutter's all over my body before I could sleep comfortably. I tried to get my landlandy to spray the whole house, but she was an alcoholic, who wore her hat (with wig attached) backwards and sometimes her dress too. She could not understand I was being eaten alive by fleas because her brain was so rotted by alcohol. She would show up at all hours of the night to find out what I was up to -- as if I was up to anything. What I was trying to do was survive the fleas.

Fast forward 30 years later AND I've go the same landlandy! But, of course, she's not the same, just a smilar personality. Seems like I attract the same personalities over and over, but right now I don't have time for therapy, I've got to get rid of the fleas before I scratch myself to death along with the cat.

What to do about fleas.

The illustrations is a scanning electron micrograph of a flea. The image is provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is in the public domain.