Thinking of Stinking: a nature story

EHNH!

Thanks, Karen, for finding out this is a Pinacate beetle. I call him Mr. Stinky. You notice how he seems cab-forward. He's about to do a smelly headstand - it has a name in yoga, but I don't know the Sanskrit. Back at home, one of his kin was circling my lazy chair outside. He was pretty aggressive. I went left, he followed. I went right, he was with me. I ran like a little girl, he chased me. I considered going back inside, but he couldn't seem to scale the chair, so I relaxed and sat down with my book. He struggled to get to me, but he failed. I forgot him. I kicked off my shoes. I read.

Later, having read enough and become temporarily too smart, I grabbed my shoe and found Mr. Stinky under it, on his back. MR. STINKY! WHAT HAVE I DONE? I flipped him over, but he resisted and flung himself onto his back again. Okay, Mr. Stinky, this behavior might be okay in the checkout at K-Mart, but we're in the desert now. I'm not buying you Skittles again.

Finally I got him righted, and he stuck his butt in the air. What are you doing, Mr. ... OH! Once all that stink was on the outside of him, he marched away and didn't give me a second look.

Now, you tell me your funniest Pinacate beetle story.



I really wrote this blog post just to give you this information about why Google AdSense smells. If you run AdSense ads, you need to read this. Then I'll stop bugging you. Hint: malware



It's time to move, and we scouted out some sweet piney-wood sites a little norther and a lot higher than we are here. We found a perfect spot, but it was near a tank (water hole) that appears to be permanent. With elk prints all around it. It's not that we mind elk, but apparently a Duck parked that close might inhibit the kind of thorough hydration that piney-wood creatures need. I can't have elk thirst on my conscience. The watering hole is called "Ewe Tank," which sounds like a booth at the State Fair.

This area is still below freezing at night, and we don't like to be. We'll stay low for another couple of weeks.

Vultures and Annie's hair

MEOW.

Talking to my son on the phone:

Yeah, go ahead and send ... oh!  Sorry, just a vulture ... oh man, two vultures.  So, drop that in the mail ...  oh my god, three vult ... FOUR!!  There are FOUR VULTURES ... 

Mom, don't spoil tomorrow's blog post for me.

Annie has been out of the workaday, button-down office lifestyle for three months, and she's starting to relax.

I AM smiling.

Her hair is starting to relax, too.

A few of our friends have asked us to have a travel map.  I wanted one that beams our exact location like you cool Datastorm people, but that felt like a big bucket of TMI.  Absolute best would be a map where we could plot precise coordinates after we had left a boondocking site.  Now we have settled for a vague map for indicating roughly, in a general way, more or less where we are or have been.  If you want to know our precise physical coordinates, phone us;  we'll make up numbers on the spot after we blow the whistle into your ear.

Here's where we've waddled.  There should be a map on the sidebar, unless you have AdBlock.

A couple of times a week we go into town to watch TV.  My mom shakes her head.  She understands not having TV - they haven't gotten reception for years - but she doesn't understand going out to watch it.  We subscribe to Hulu Plus to see just the shows we like, and they stack up in a pile waiting for us to get to town.  [BREAKING NEWS:  I went to get the link, and I found out YOU can get two free weeks to try it out, and GIVE US two weeks free at the same time. A freakin' twofer!  That's why the link is obnoxiously trebucheted and emboldened now. Everything is going my way today.]

Ech.  This will gross you out.  Have you ever seen anything so huge?  Look at the legs on that thing!  I want to vomit.  Phil says the heat lets everything grow bigger.


Now, check out the bug!

Extreme grasshopper close-up, for Rob and Sean:



I have a sinus headache which I am treating with reflexology and neck auto-massage.  What self-care do you use that you don't tell people about?

Go Annie! It's your birthday!

She turned the Big Four Five today,which she read somewhere is the Fudge birthday. Someone needs to get control of Wikipedia.

We're at a hunting camp in Georgia, where it is cicada season. Hunters everywhere, but their guns are so tiny! Really, we're alone on a great remote road. These bugs have been underground for thirteen years, long enough to be closeted. Be out, loud, and proud, you guys! I'll sleep when you're ... done talking. We drove up to I-20 to get some quiet.

But, guess who is nocturnal! And loves hunting camps! And can sing all night! And is looking for love! [Not a men's choir.] A whipoorwill. It would be great if the cicadas kept the birds awake all day, so we could ALL sleep tonight.

Some sputtering from the Duck just as we settled into our spot. Why would that start suddenly? Chugging and coughing. Ideas? We're a couple of miles down a dusty road, but nothing different otherwise.
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[All obscenities are my own and are not the product of AutoCorrect.]