Annoyed by mosquitos season

The cavalry, in the form of dragonflies, has arrived. Unfortunately, the cavalry has not yet engaged the swarms of the enemy mosquitos, so I did something that, as a card carrying sustainable, organic, environmentalist I don’t think I should have. I bought and used a spray can of insecticide for mosquitos. Apparently, from the microscopic directions on the can, it’s safe to  use if you can hold it one county  away from where you’re standing while you spray, or something like that. There are unconscionable numbers of biters gathered in the ell between the back of the garage and the house. That’s where I sprayed today in an effort to thin out the population so I don’t need to attire myself in armor every time I want  to get at the backyard hose.

I realize that dragonflies and birds and bats and heaven knows what else feeds on mosquitos. If they had fed more and sooner I could have save almost $5.00. All too often, I lack the patience to let Mother Nature take her course. So be it. I am an imperfect creature living on an imperfect planet. I wonder if the mosquito spray contains PFAS or PFOS. If not, it’s probably one of the few things these days that doesn’t.

If it’s not clear from the preceding paragraphs, I have a(nother) case of the grumpys. Yet another one of my idols has been found to have clay feet. Yankee magazine this morning shared an email with a recipe for grilled swordfish. I still remember from way back when that swordfish was one of the first species to earn a consumption advisory due to high  levels of mercury. It’s still in that class according to the EPA and FDA. That suggests to me, in the strongest possible terms, that Yankee magazine shouldn’t be promoting the consumption of swordfish even if it means the end of New England’s entire fishing fleet. [To demonstrate, I deliberately avoided linking to the article I’m objecting to.]

In another New England related matter, today is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s birthday. According to The writer’s Almanac:

In his book Nature (1836), Emerson first introduced the concept of Transcendentalism — the idea that spiritual truth could be gained by intuition rather than by established doctrine or text — and he would become a leader of that movement. He was a popular public speaker, and gave more than 1,500 speeches in his lifetime.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Much of today’s world seems to be engulfed in a battle between those who would have us be ourselves and those who would only have us be like them. Another source of the grumpys for me.

NO PHOTOS TODAY BECAUSE  GOOGLE INSISTS ON TRACKING ME IF I UPLOAD JPEGS FROM MY COMPUTER. THIS MAY BE A SIGN TO SHUT  DOWN THIS BLOG.

However, the dame’s rockets are beginning to bloom; weekend weather is supposed to be mostly warm [hot?] and sunny; and I need to dig out my copy of Emerson’s “Essential Writings.” The last time I opened that book I couldn’t figure out how folks would live long enough  to read them all, let alone how Emerson wrote all that in one lifetime.

Day Beginning with Seeing the International Space Station and a Full Moon Over the Gulf of Mexico and All Its Invisible Fishes

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

None of this had to happen.
Not Florida. Not the ibis’s beak. Not water.
Not the horseshoe crab’s empty body and not the living starfish.
Evolution might have turned left at the corner and gone down another street entirely.
The asteroid might have missed.
The seams of limestone need not have been susceptible to sand and mangroves.
The radio might have found a different music.
The hips of one man and the hips of another might have stood beside
each other on a bus in Aleppo and recognized themselves as long-lost brothers.
The key could have broken off in the lock and the nail-can refused its lid.
I might have been the fish the brown pelican swallowed.
You might have been the way the moon kept not setting long after we thought it would,
long after the sun was catching inside the low wave curls coming in
at a certain angle. The light might not have been eaten again by its moving.
If the unbearable were not weightless we might yet buckle under the grief
of what hasn’t changed yet. Across the world a man pulls a woman from the water
from which the leapt-from overfilled boat has entirely vanished.
From the water pulls one child, another. Both are living and both will continue to live.
This did not have to happen. No part of this had to happen.

—2016

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