Who says an ant can't . . . freak us both out?

Today I figured out a relatively quick way to get from the West End to home during rush hour traffic. It may have just been a minimal traffic day, but even with some extra traffic, waiting through an extra light or two, it would be much quicker than the ways I’ve tried before now. I’ll never understand how 376E is still the fastest way in but not out. Never.

Upon arriving home, I see my neighbor’s mother leaving her place and after a few greetings, she tells me that there were ants in the house today. We discussed non-hazardous chemical ways to keep ants out of the house (cucumber peels, water on the other side of the porch – if you have any others, please let me know) and I went inside and didn’t really think about it.

After checking my email, reading my myspace message from K,

Digression: This led me to stumble upon the page of an ex, which I wouldn’t have sought out, but it just happened. He commented on another page and said something about his wife, and me being the kind of person I am, thought, “Great, I’m glad he’s happy” and promptly went to check things out. I’m pretty sure he’s some sort of racist pile of shit – from what I remember hearing about him after we had been broken up for years and the feel of his page and his wife’s page. Nothing comes right out and says it, but it’s the impression the pages give. Unfortunately, they have reproduced.

Further Digression: Sometimes, I don’t want to be right. Not wanting to type unfounded horrible things about someone, I checked it out. There are no pictures of him on the site (pics of him are on her site and I wouldn’t recognize him if he were standing in front of me), but there are five images, one of which has words and . . . are those swastikas? . . . yes. So I searched for the quote and sure enough, it’s some white power bullshit. I found it on the website of some fuck wad. With a book and a law practice. He talks about the masses of unemployed white people being rightly angry at lesser-skilled non-whites taking “their” jobs and therefore being able to live better than them. “Most of them [whites who can be persuaded] already have had their trigger event [life-affecting incident] by virtue of being unemployed while those less deserving continue to earn an income - and, after all, they no longer need fear losing their jobs for expressing politically-incorrect points of view.” There are few people less deserving to be earning a paycheck than this fucker. Okay, so now I’m pissed off that this grossly ignorant, sorry excuse for a man has a better job than I do and is making more money than I am. Can we please rise up against this shit? Thanks.

and completing various other chores, I finally made it to the kitchen to give the kittens their daily tuna. There are a total of four bowls in the kitchen, two each of water and kibble one set near the door, the other on the other side of the kitchen door. There was a line of ants from the door to the nearest kibble bowl where they were SWARMING. The ants were also in the water bowl and had formed another line across the threshold and into the other two bowls. Luckily there were very few elsewhere.

Yes, shut up, I’m afraid of bugs. Yes, even ants. Shut up. I was completely freaked out, but luckily was able to think clearly enough to distract the cats with their tuna first and then set about destroying our uninvited guests. As I’m getting the tuna together, Armando notices the ants (Mr. oblivious must not have seen them before) and is both fascinated and about as freaked out as I am, becoming very jumpy and agitated. So much so that he could not enjoy his tuna. No, really. He kind of hung out in the dining room not eating until the ordeal was over. Meaning that I sprayed everything down with Lysol multi-purpose cleaner, took the rugs outside and shook them out and then put them in the washing machine, and completely cleaned and properly refilled all bowls.