Dear Diary . . . day by day

Monday November 27th - Ants go marching . . .
Burning Man
Photo Gallery
2000 Winter in the Bay Area means cooler temperatures - highs in the low 50's, brrrr! - and rain. I used to love the rain, I really did. I loved thunderstorms and walking around in the warm summer rain back in Indiana. I know how to count between lightning flashes and thunder to find out how far away it really was; I've even stood on my back porch and felt the wonder and fury of a passing tornado. I love thinking that any minute I'm gonna have to gather blankets and brave the terrors of the crawlspace just to survive Mother Nature's temper.
Out here, however, we rarely get thunder. When we do, I always get very excited, but it's always paltry, tenative thunder, not the full-blown confidence storms get by the time they reach the Midwest. No, out here winter means rain with no thunder. And rain isn't nearly as bright and pretty as snow.
But that's not really why I'm talking about rain. See, one of the things rain does is displace all the ants. And I don't know why, but ants simply seem to be ubiquitous out here; I've yet to live in a place that didn't get an influx of ants into the kitchen every winter when the rains start. Houses don't use very good insulation out here, so I'm not surprised the ants find their way through the cracks, but it's really annoying. Ants, I've found, don't go away with natural, good-for-people-and-the-enviornment disuasion. Nope, it's get out the RAID or deal with the ants.
My friend Todd used to try to reason with the ants, tell them that while he didn't want to kill them, he was going to have to unless the obeyed his cease and desist order. They never listened, of course; they're ants.
So, when I started this new job, I started eating breakfast cereal at my desk with my morning Coca-cola. And I stupidly, stupidly left them on my desk when I left for work. You can guess what happened, right? The ants found their way into my room, onto my desk.
And now they won't leave.
I no longer leave the dishes, any water or food of any sort, and I can't type without one crawling up my sleeve. They're no longer swarming, but they can't seem to give up the hope that I'm gonna leave them another dirty dish.
I've just been putting off using the RAID. I'm afraid to, really; my bed isn't very far from my desk, and it's not like I can leave the windows open to air out the room right now. Sigh.
So the ants go marching, three by three.
Exercise log:
Hiking today and Friday - hillier today, but there was frisbee on Friday, too, which counts.
Writing log:
1000 words of new sister/sf story.
I'm currently reading:
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier

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