Sunday, August 10, 2014

My current desktop photo is of my two best guys, Mike and Andrew.

I took this photo the day we got to keep Andrew for a few hours and in the photo Pop-pop is getting Andrew to wave at Grammy, who is sitting in the golf cart, waiting for them to come back from riding the kiddy rides.

Can you believe it?

“Believe what?” you ask.

Can you believe this big old gruff man is putty in the hands of this little boy? I know right! Me neither! But Pop-pop and Andrew adore each other.

This past Friday night was Hot Summer Nights here on the Strip in Lake Ozark. There were lots of people and lots of cars on the Strip that night.

“Where’s the pics?” you ask.

Well, I didn’t take any pictures of the Strip.

“What’s up with that?” you wonder.

I’ve taken lots of photos just like it over the years and seldom find a use for them. But had I known I was going to tell you about it, I’d have taken one!

The Lion’s Club sets up in our parking lot and sell the best hamburgers and brats on the Strip. And since Andrews’ parents are both members, I got to keep Andrew for a while.

He is so stinkin’ cute, I’m tellin’ ya! And smart too!

Andrew knows where Pop-pop and Grammy live. Once he had a heart painted on his arm and a Spiderman balloon from Sparky The Clown, he pointed upstairs. He wanted to go upstairs! So Pop-pop and I took him upstairs. Once there, Andrew made the rounds between all his favorite haunts at Grammy’s house, one of them being my bed where he knows I keep my Nook. That little stinker can work my Nook better than I can!

“You have your shoes on Grammy’s bed,” I said to Andrew. He looked down and saw that he did indeed have his shoes on. He laid the Nook aside and reached down for the Velcro strap of his sandal and he peeled it open and he took it off. Getting to his other shoe was a little bit more of a challenge as he had his leg folded under him. I didn’t help him though, I let him struggle until he got his foot out in front, then he took that sandal off too.

“Good job, Andrew,” I told him, took his sandals and put them by the door.

One of the things that Andrew loves is loud... Things. I don’t care if it’s a helicopter flying overhead, a truck, car, or motorcycle with loud pipes, revving motors, squealing tires, or fireworks exploding in the night sky. If he hears a loud, unexpected noise his eyes get big and he gasps in surprise and points. Well this night there were lots of loud noises from outside so after a while we decided to go back down to the party happening on the Strip.

“Put your shoes on,” I said to Andrew and I helped him get his shoes on. He is either much better at taking them off or I’m not as patient with the putting on process. Then I got busy with something else and I was in the kitchen when Andrew comes in carrying my shoes!

“Thank you Andrew!” I said taking them from him. What a kind and generous young man he is!

“He got mine for me too,” Mike told me when I told him about it. I hadn’t known that.

“He’s a pip,” to quote my favorite Jersey boy, Mr. Zee.

Oh my gosh! You won’t believe what happened to me this past week!

I haven’t been taking many photos lately, mostly because it’s been too hot to go walking with the dogs. The weather has started to cool off some and I knew the passion flowers were in bloom and I really wanted to shoot them.

I harnessed up the girls and walked down the access road behind our buildings where I knew there were passion flowers. I didn’t think the road was too overgrown with weeds so Ginger and I picked our way along as Itsy rode on my arm. I found and took a few shots of these beautiful flowers and thought “I’d better get out of here.” I turned to go and oh! There was a swallowtail on the ironweed! Ironweed by itself isn’t a very pretty flower, but put some bugs on it and I’m all in! As I stood there snapping photos I realized there were at least four different

swallowtails. I thought it would be cool to get as many swallowtails in a photo as possible, but the most I managed to get in any one shot was three and it didn’t come out very well.

Trying to get that shot caused me to stay and move around in the weeds even longer! I knew I was risking chiggers and ticks. Every time I felt a tickle on my bare legs, I’d glance down expecting a tick but it was usually the brush of a weed that I had felt. The lure of a good photograph trumps the fear of a few bug bites, don’t ya know?

After I had tempted fate long enough, aka the butterflies flew away, I headed back out to the blacktop. Along the way I see this pretty little flower growing beside the weed overgrown track, but it didn’t take me very long to click off a few shots and I quickly moved on.

I hadn’t gone very much further when I felt a tickle behind my left knee. I glanced down I what do I see?

“A tick?” you guess.

Nope. Only about a million specs and they were moving too!

“What are those?” I wondered. “Baby spiders?” Then I saw they were scampering every which way and spreading out and I thought, “The heck with what they are....get them off me!” I brushed at them and they were still there. Nope, not spiders! If it had been a nest of newly hatched baby spiders that I had gotten against, a brush of my hand would have knocked them off. Chiggers? Ticks? I don’t know that much about chiggers, but I know that ticks are kind of sticky. You know what I mean? You can’t just brush them off, you have to pick them off.

“Peg, you can’t see chiggers,” I hear you say.

You know what? You can. Now the old me couldn’t have, but the new improved me-with the help of my laser-vision glasses, could. Especially when there are a million of them in one spot.

“Laser-vision glasses?”

Yep! I got glasses this past week, and now I can see little things! But that’s another story.

“So what did you do?”

Good question. I didn’t know what to do so I kept on doing the same old thing. I kept brushing at them. It wasn’t working any better the fourth or fifth time so I thought maybe I could roll them and kill them. I rubbed my hand up and down my leg as hard as I could...but it didn’t seem to affect them very much.

Sigh.

“Now what?”
I was wondering the same thing myself. Maybe a wet nap? I think I have a few in my doggie bag. I fumbled around in my doggie bag looking for a wet nap and found everything else but!

Geesh!

One of things I had pushed aside in my search was a bottle of lotion with sunscreen. Not finding any wet naps maybe the oil in the lotion would make them let go of me or in the very least suffocate them? But the last thing I wanted to do was stay in the weeds any longer than I had to, so it would have to wait until I got out to the blacktop. Doggone it! I’d just have to suffer the little critters crawling on me until then.

I hurry along then I hear the call of hawk. I glanced up and there he sat, just as pretty as you please, on the branch of an old dead tree. Of course I have to take his photo, even if the little devils on my leg are heading toward my panty and sock lines. You have to have your priorities straight, right? After I snapped a few photos through the foliage which I first spotted him through, I walk on and realized that even though he saw me, he wasn’t leaving. I had to stop and take a few more photos! Consequences be damned! I wanted at least one photo that wasn’t blurry. Then I moved on. I was hoping he’d stay a little longer but this is the closest I got before he flew away.

I got to the blacktop, put Itsy down, fished the lotion off the bottom of my bag and squirted it out onto the palm of my hand. Take that! I thought as I slathered it over the thirsty little blood suckers.

“How’d that work for you?” you wonder, to which I will answer, not very. They stuck to me tighter than super glue and it didn’t slow them down a bit!

“Cut them off!” you say. Well, now that you mention it, I do have a pair of scissors in my doggie bag for harvesting herbs. I dug them out, sat down on the blacktop, opened them up and raked the edge against my leg and...

I could have cried.

It didn’t do a thing! My old scissors were as dull as a butter knife. The little shits were going everywhere and I was out of ideas. I had just started my walk and I’d have to turn around and go home and get in the shower. I didn’t know what else to do! I stowed the scissors back in my bag, picked Itsy up and half drug Ginger as I high-tailed it for home. She wasn’t ready to go back yet!

Quick as I got in the door and got the girls out of their harnesses, I headed for the shower, kicking my shoes off and stripping along the way. I stopped only long enough to grab a plastic bag to put my clothes in, a trick that has worked for me in the past. After about a week you will see all kinds of dead ticks through the plastic after they came out of your clothes in search of food. I hoped it would work again.

Once in the shower I poured soap all over a scrubby and scrubbed just as hard as I could-everyplace! I scrubbed with a vengeance, I’m tellin’ ya! My skin was a pretty lobster-pink when I finally emerged from the shower.

I sure hope it was enough, I thought to myself.

Shoot!

I was hardly dressed when I felt a tickle on my left arm! I looked down and saw a spec moving. My new glasses are wonderful. I tipped my head back and with the aide of the strong bathroom light, I looked through my bifocals in an attempt to identify it. I couldn’t tell very much because the little bugger wouldn’t stay put long enough for me to focus on him. About all I knew for sure was that he was moving. Quickly I picked him off my arm, trapping him between my finger and thumb. Maybe with the magnifying glass I could see better. I went to Mike’s desk, turned on his high-powered LED (laser emitting diode) desk-lamp, picked up the magnifying glass and attempted to focus in on it. I’ll tell you what! This thing was tiny! I couldn’t really see anything other than it had legs. That and it didn’t like being pinched in my fingers. He came out the shoot running and I was afraid he was going to get away from me.

I surmise it was a tick since it survived the shower and the scrubbing. They’re nearly indestructible, you know. But one thing ticks can’t stand is fire and this one is waaay too tiny to get a flame on. The other thing they can’t stand is being crushed. As carefully and quickly as I could I maneuvered him between my two thumb nails and gave him a big ole hug.

Yeah, they don’t survive that.

I was fine that day and thought I was going to come through the event unscathed, but it was not to be. The next day I reached to scratch behind my left knee and there were bumps! Lots of itchy little bumps! Not only that, I had bumps popping up all over! My arms (worse on the left side of my body), back, belly and even my feet. They were chiggers after all.

Sigh!

I really hope you like the photos.

Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike