The red ones are ok. I used to keep a bag in the freezer and release them into the garden gradually. I had an infestation of orange ones in the house one year. They bit.
A beautiful shiny black fly with sharp electric-blue highlights bit my arm six weeks ago and the skin has only just this week completely healed up. The entire back of my forearm itched like a sonovabitch. The only other bugs that ever caused that much skin distress for me were ticks. There's a place on my calf that every once in awhile just starts itching for no reason except that a tick bit me there in 1997. I scratch it bloody and then it goes away and I forget about it for a few months. I've come to terms with this, as I have with my lower back going out on a similar schedule.
When I was little I asked the adults about the /ladybug, fly away home/ poem. They would explain it over and over but it made no sense. It was mainly the idea of a beetlebug having a house (?) that can catch on fire (?), but it was also: bugs that can fly, fly away anyway. If bugs can understand what you're telling them, the world would be a nightmare... But they can't, and you're lying to it. And how is it a lady? Are bugs girls and boys? Are there girl and boy bugs? Yes, there are, kind of, but when I was five-or-so years old I could not grasp that. Girls and ladies look and sound like girls and ladies, boys and men look and sound like boys and men. Bugs are bugs-- they're obviously tiny machines.
My favorite bug was the pillbug. You touch it and it rolls up into a ball. That's so clever. Second favorite was the dragonfly. Third, let's say, ants.
The red ones are ok. I used to keep a bag in the freezer and release them into the garden gradually. I had an infestation of orange ones in the house one year. They bit.
ReplyDeleteA beautiful shiny black fly with sharp electric-blue highlights bit my arm six weeks ago and the skin has only just this week completely healed up. The entire back of my forearm itched like a sonovabitch. The only other bugs that ever caused that much skin distress for me were ticks. There's a place on my calf that every once in awhile just starts itching for no reason except that a tick bit me there in 1997. I scratch it bloody and then it goes away and I forget about it for a few months. I've come to terms with this, as I have with my lower back going out on a similar schedule.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little I asked the adults about the /ladybug, fly away home/ poem. They would explain it over and over but it made no sense. It was mainly the idea of a beetlebug having a house (?) that can catch on fire (?), but it was also: bugs that can fly, fly away anyway. If bugs can understand what you're telling them, the world would be a nightmare... But they can't, and you're lying to it. And how is it a lady? Are bugs girls and boys? Are there girl and boy bugs? Yes, there are, kind of, but when I was five-or-so years old I could not grasp that. Girls and ladies look and sound like girls and ladies, boys and men look and sound like boys and men. Bugs are bugs-- they're obviously tiny machines.
My favorite bug was the pillbug. You touch it and it rolls up into a ball. That's so clever. Second favorite was the dragonfly. Third, let's say, ants.
I am allergic to most bug bites and stings - sand fleas and mosquitoes cause me particular distress. They itch, swell, blister and leave scars.
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