It all began with a text from M to the effect that she was loosing her mind…
Turns out she found critters in the pantry. In Texas, the ubiquitous term ‘bugs’ is applied to everything you don’t want inside your house; the only known exception is ants, which are simply called ants, (Of course, once you get to the water cooler discussion about this topic, is not only acceptable but, in fact, very fashion forward to mention what kind of ants, as in “Yeah, those little sugar ant bastards, again; had them in the master closet a few years back…)
She’s pulled everything out of that pantry, tossed everything that wasn’t hermetically sealed, and stacked the rest around the kitchen; we couldn’t cook if we wanted to until that project’s done, but so be it. She’s painted all the shelves in nuke-proof white enamel and is gonna do the ceiling in cool deep red. It’ll look great, and hopefully, bugs don’t like paint fumes any more than we do…
Bucky observes the proceedings with due caution…
Next came storm damage; we’re in the throws of a pretty nasty drought. The other day, something like 24 wildfires were burning around the state. This is supposed to be storm season, the land drenched by waves of potent thunderheads on a regular basis: We’ve had exactly two storms, neither of which hit us directly; the second was close enough to kill one side of the back yard fence, though. This structure is not really a fence any more, it’s more like a line of sticks engaged in fence-like activity, really. What I really did not want on this already loaded three days off is dig fence post holes, but it is what it is.
This is life in Tejas…
Urb's Notebook 