Friday, October 23, 2009

Don't Sweat the Small Bugs!

Let me start by saying that I do not have sex with insects, nor do I involved them in any way shape or form in my sex life. I know this is the common dictionary definition of entomophilia, but I’m an Ancient Studies major and looking through the lens of my Classical education a word like entomophilia reads as “the love of bugs.”

Maybe it’s just the nature of a sensitive soul. When I was five or six I remember crying hysterically because some kids killed a beautiful spider at school, and tore down its web. Its web was large and perfectly constructed, and the spider, resting in the middle, was also quite large and multicolored and shining in the morning light. I stared in wonderment, and others must have noticed because they came and killed it, and laughed.



I fell asleep on the couch last night, too sick to get up and put a bug outside that I noticed on the curtain of the bay window. I excitedly noticed it was one of my favorites, a leaf bug! To my dismay, this morning when I woke up it was in the exact same position. I was sure it had died. I thought I would take some pictures of the lovely creature before taking it outside.



As my camera flashed, the leaf bug started crawling! The flash must have woken him up. I happily took several pictures, went and opened the door and got something for it to crawl into. I went back into the living room and the leaf bug was nowhere to be seen. I’ve left the door open as much as possible throughout the day in the hopes that the bug will find his way outside.

These magical bugs look exactly like leaves. I live in a very leafy state so they’re fairly common here, but I never tire of finding them because I’m fascinated with bugs, especially “strange” ones. I’m even taken with the house centipedes that live with me (not when they surprise me, though).


I wrote the above section this morning. This post was originally going to be about my entomophilia, but something happened when I was getting ready for my bath...there was a tick in my thigh. The same tick I noticed last night and tried to get rid of, but I guess he came back for his revenge. Ticks are nearly impossible to kill. It's like something out of a scary movie, you have to burn them alive, or chop them up into little pieces...or in my case, just flush it down the toilet.


I know what some of you are thinking. Why do I flush ticks, but put leaf bugs outside? I don’t have an answer for you, except that life is full of such contradictions.

Soon after disposing of the tick I checked the site of the bite, where I could feel a dull, pulsing pain, and noticed a bullseye. An eye for an eye (pun intended). I drowned the tick, but not before he gave me Lyme’s disease.

The point of this post isn’t really about my relationship with insects. What I’ve realized through something seemingly trivial is this: there are a lot of roadblocks on the road to recovery. I was doing pretty well the first week and a half or so out of the hospital, but then this week I came down with the flu. And now I have Lyme’s disease. The important thing is that I don’t get negative, feel sorry for myself, and let these pesky setbacks drag me down. Nothing lasts forever, and a positive attitude makes for a quicker recovery.


P.S. A great example of the power of positive thinking in healing.

8 comments:

  1. This post is wild Madeleine! Are you okay? And I had a similar experience to your spider murder one... I've always been amazed at the human propensity for brutality. Anyway, thanks for sharing and hope you're feeling better soon.
    xo
    Eco Mama

    ReplyDelete
  2. Madeleine - these are wonderful photos. Hope you get better and glad you don't like wasps, they scare me. I've uploaded some more snaps at Lourdes as well. Tim

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great photos again! Particularly the spider. Beautiful shot.

    Oral antibiotics will take care of the Lyme's disease in a couple weeks if started early. Lyme's is such a nuisance around here. I think everyone I know has had it.

    Hope you are feeling better,
    Alicia

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey nice pics! But the writings better. This deseases knocks us out everytime we try to say urecka! Anyway hope you get better....

    ReplyDelete
  5. These pictures are fantastic! I can't wait until my four-year-old wakes up so I can show them to her. She's going to be thrilled, I can already tell.

    Sorry to hear you've been sick, but I'm happy to have found your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  6. That leaf bug is so beautiful, my goodness. I had no idea such a thing existed. And I think I would flush a tick down the toilet, too. When I lived on Vancouver Island, our dogs used to get ticks, and we would burn them out with a match. It was the only way to get them out without hurting the dog too much. Ticks are nasty little creatures.

    I hope you are recovering from your swine flu. It's nasty too. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. You're so amazing!!! You're such a great writer and photograper, I'm so impressed!

    You're so right, I LOVE your positive attitude. Hope you're feeling better soon:)

    p.s. I just found out that the comment I tried to send to you yesterday morning before I rushed out to work didn't go through. I wanted to let you know that I got your message re you posting about positive thinking and I was excited to read it:)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice post - lyme disease pictures ..Keep Posting


    Ron
    lyme disease pictures

    ReplyDelete