Cue the Nostalgia

We're preparing to depart from Memphis in just about 2 weeks! Predictably, I'm getting all sentimental about what we'll leave behind...

Sounds
Memphis, the home of the blues. The birthplace of rock 'n' roll. The city's got a great vibe!

• WEVL, our local volunteer radio station. They place a huge variety of music, from bluegrass to swing to trippy electronica. I especially like their old-timey gospel music show on Sunday AM.
• The music at church (not just the choir, lol) - so many talented musicians play there!
• Cicadas, nature's buzzing harmonicas
• Thunderstorms, although my kids are starting to be scared of thunder so perhaps that's not a super sad one to bid farewell

Sights
To be honest, I've had to adjust my field of vision living here - I've never spent so long in a place that's so flat! When we first came here and I'd be driving on a overpass, I'd look around to see the mountains. But there are none. It's different, but I got used to it eventually. Here are some views I'll miss:

• The mighty Mississippi River flowing under wide bridges
• Crepe myrtle trees blooming for months on end
• The huge leafy trees in my neighborhood, especially as they change colors in the fall

Tastes
Everything. All the food. Seriously, Southern cuisine is the best ever! I hope that some Southern transplants to CA have restaurants where I can fill my cravings for turnip greens, smoked meats, fried okra, banana pudding, etc etc etc

Smells
The scents of tasty food fill our neighborhood, such as:

• The smoke from Corkys BBQ as you drive down Poplar. Smoked meat should be one of Memphis's official scents :)
• The aroma of Gibson's Donuts wafting over to the Kroger parking lot 

Touch?
I'm not sure I have anything specific for this last sense that I'll actually miss. I'm just fine with leaving behind the sticky summers, where you feel the sweat pool on your skin after a few minutes outside...

Oh, I know I'll miss the feeling of hugging our Memphis friends! Does that count?

Bugs of the South: Midnight Edition

Well, it happened again. I had another late-night cockroach encounter. Sheesh, bugs, why don't you just leave me alone?!

A couple nights ago, I was soooo tired. Both babies have been fighting sleep lately. B was sick; I don't know what was going on with A. I had spent forever convincing them to fall asleep last night, and they finally gave up. I crawled into bed, quietly, so as not to awaken DF. Curling up and thinking sleepy thoughts, I suddenly heard a rustling noise.

"What was that?" I thought to myself. "Is something crawling around outside?" I focused on the sound and determined that it was coming from...inside the house! It seemed to be emanating from near the door to our master bathroom.

Now, I should mention, we moved into this house last summer and less than a week later, I was in the hospital on bedrest at 29 weeks pregnant. As a result, we never fully unpacked. We still have a few piles of belongings sitting around in corners. Although I know this is known pest-encouraging behavior, I have yet to actually pick things up...

Ok, back to the night of the story. <scritch scritch scratch> came the noise from the corner of the room, getting louder. My imagination raced. "Is it a mouse? A baby squirrel?" (I've been concerned that a squirrel family has taken up residence in our attic.) I fumbled in the dark for my phone, not remembering how to activate the flashlight app. I leaned over towards the noisy corner and shone my screen as best I could, pretty sure I was going to find a mouse and have no idea what to do next. Then I saw a gigantic cockroach frolicking in a plastic sack of toiletries! ACK! Once it caught sight of the light, it jumped off the sack and ran to hide in a corner.

Oh dear, I thought, what am I supposed to do now? Trying to kill in under a sack would certainly create quite the ruckus and possibly wake up the babies. I decided that ignoring the roach would be the best option. Maybe it would go hide in the bathroom or crawl back down the drain or something. Just like last time, that plan didn't work. Before long, I heard the pitter-patter of little roach feet heading across the bedroom floor. I couldn't take it. I hopped up out of bed and grabbed a big handful of toilet paper as a weapon. (Wimpy weapon, in hindsight.) I turned on my phone flashlight again and pounced on the bug, but of course it scurried away...out of our bedroom...and ran under the door into the babies' room. DOUBLE ACK! MY CHILDREN ARE NOW UNDER THREAT FROM A DISGUSTING INVADER!

Quickly reassessing my strategy, I ran to the bathroom where I knew I had an empty plastic cup. Now, the tricky part was to catch the bug without disturbing two sleeping babies. I opened the door as quietly as possible, shone the flashlight down on the floor, and observed the roach running full speed ahead toward Baby A's crib. He bounced off the crib skirt and flipped onto his back. Seizing this moment of my opponent's weakness, I swooped down with the cup and trapped the bug on the floor. Success! Now I just had to pull the cup out of the bedroom along the floor without making too much noise.

Once I had the cup + roach in the hallway, I grabbed a piece of junk mail and slid it under the cup so I could transport my prisoner outside and toss him unceremoniously in the dirt next to the garbage can. Back from whence you came, varmint! I would've stomped on him, but I wasn't wearing shoes, and he ran into hiding before I could shod myself.

Whew, victory! My adrenaline was pumping and it took me quite awhile to fall asleep after that. I think the bugs and I should enact a cease-fire line that extends around the perimeter of the house. Wonder if they'll send their prime minister over to negotiate? Or maybe that was him, and I threw him out the door...

Things That Make You Go Eeeek!

This is the latest in my occasional series, Bugs of the South. Do not read this post if you don't like stories of creepy crawly critters. You have been warned!

We've lived in Memphis for almost 3 years now. In that brief period of time, I've had enough encounters with cockroaches to last me a lifetime. Seriously, eww! They need to leave me alone. Since they seem intent on cohabitating with me, I'll cope by recording the more disgusting of my encounters with them.

But first, a photo of a flower garden at the Alabama State Capitol. There are probably some bugs living here. I'm ok with that. I'm just posting this picture at the top so when I link to my blog on Facebook, people don't have to see a roach picture!


Roach on the Garbage Can
When I used to work from home (when we lived in an apartment), I had a desk set up in our spare bedroom where I camped out with my laptop. Under the desk, I had a little garbage can. One day as I went to get up from my chair, I glanced down and saw a GIGANTIC cockroach perched on the side of the garbage can. I was too paralyzed by fear to move, so of course I had to grab my phone to take a picture of the humongous invader.


After gathering my wits, I used a piece of paper to knock the roach into the garbage can. Then, I flipped the can over, trapping the bug inside. I slid a piece of cardboard over the opening, then carried the whole collection outside where I dumped the contents on the sidewalk and thwacked the roach with a shoe. Victory, Salmonista!

Things That Go Scratch In the Night
When we moved into a rental house last year, we had a lot of roaches at first. I don't think the previous tenants hired a pest control company to spray, and I also think they were kind of hoarder-types. Yeah, it was...gross. And since I was getting up at all hours of the night to pump (breastmilk), the roaches and I had lots of quality time to bond. Here's a particularly memorable incident.

It was, let's say, about 2AM. I was sitting on the couch, hooked up to my pump as usual, trying to stay awake. I heard the tell-tale "scritch scratch" of cockroach feet scurrying somewhere nearby. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a medium-sized bug crawling up the bookcase about 4 feet to my left. As I was a bit, uh, indisposed, I had to just let the bug be. I kept an eye on him as he summited the piece of furniture. He proceeded to patrol the scene by doing laps around a small box that was on top of the shelf. We stared each other down for awhile. When I was done pumping, I grabbed a shoe (my weapon of choice) and went to finish him off, but he was no where to be found. Argh! That's the worst feeling, when you know there's a cockroach in your vicinity but you can't find it. I searched for awhile with no success. I decided to go back to bed.

Lest you think that is the end of the story...

A Cockroach Ate My Baby! (Well, tried to)
The next day, I was sitting on the couch, feeding one of the babies. I had a pillow under my left arm up against the edge of the couch. Suddenly, I saw some movement on the edge of the pillow. It was (I assume) the same vile cockroach, this time getting too close for comfort! How dare he crawl next to my baby's head?! I jumped up off the couch, yanking the bottle out of the baby's mouth in the process shrieking, "cockroach! cockroach!" DF sprang into action but not before the roach managed to scurry down behind the couch cushions. Oh dear. We stripped the couch of all cushions/pillows and got out the vacuum with special cockroach-sucking attachment (or is that the upholstery tube?), but we could not find it. Ewwwwww! We decided to assume that, in all the excitement, the roach got scared and ran away. But we also did not sit on that couch for a few days.

Seriously, The Grossest Part
Well, eventually we needed to have our couch back, so we did a final thorough roach check before reassembling the cushions and tentatively sitting there again. At this point, DF had returned to work, so at night, the babies were sleeping in the living room in their pack and play and I slept on the couch while DF attempted to catch some more solid Zs in the bedroom.

You know where this story is going, right?

I was taking my chances, sleeping on the couch where the roach had previously been sighted. The weather was still pretty warm in Memphis, so I was wearing light pajama pants and a tank top. In the middle of the night, I was dozing on the couch when I felt something tickling my chest. I looked down and THERE WAS THE COCKROACH, RUNNING ACROSS MY BARE SKIN! ACK!!!!! I could not scream, because the babies would wake up, but I certainly could jump around and make scared/grossed out faces, which I did for a good long while.

Of course, in the commotion, the roach once again escaped. I slept on the other couch after that, even though it's not very comfortable.

Husband Saves the Day
The next day, DF was out in the living room when he saw the cockroach (the same one, for sure!) crawl up from the couch cushions and start running around on a ruffly throw pillow. He knew that he had to defend his family from this creepy invader! So he grabbed a shoe, threw the pillow on the floor, and started whacking at it. The roach was stunned enough that he was able to carry the pillow outside, shake out the bug, and kill it some more on the sidewalk. Hooray!

After that, we kept the pillow sealed up in a box for awhile to make sure no one else had taken up residence in the ruffles.

Since being woken up by a cockroach prancing across my chest, I've actually calmed down somewhat about bugs in the house. I mean, yes, they are still gross, but if I just see them on the floor instead of on my person, hey, that's not so bad.

And we also have a pest control company that comes to spray regularly now!

8-Legged Surprise

(warning, don't read this blog if you have a vivid imagination and/or fear of crawling critters)

I've heard that it's a good idea for couples to go to bed at the same time, for the health of the relationship. So although DF gets up a lot earlier than I do, I usually turn in when he does. My normal routine is to wait for him to fall asleep, then pull out my phone and hide under my pillow to block the screen while I read blogs or play games until I'm sleepy. To fully paint the picture: I'm laying on my stomach, with the pillow propped up on my head, turned at a slight angle to block the light from my phone screen, which I'm holding at about bed-level.

A couple weeks ago, an ant crawled across my phone screen during one of these late-night reading sessions. I squished it. Sidebar: squished ant smells weird. That was kind of gross, but since it was just a little ant, it was no big deal.

Last night, though, was a different story.

It was about 11:30pm. I was scrolling through the latest stories in Feedly, relaxing, letting my brain wind down from a busy day. Then I noticed some movement out of the corner of my left eye, the eye closest to the pillow. In a split second I realized this object was crawling and it had a lot of legs. SPIDER! CRAWLING UP THE UNDERSIDE OF MY PILLOW RIGHT NEXT TO MY HEAD! PANIC!!

I recoiled and the pillow fell on the bed. In the dark, with DF asleep, I didn't know what to do next because I could no longer ascertain the whereabouts of my little nighttime visitor. I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand and hopped out of bed. Remembering we have a flashlight out in the dining room, I scurried out to retrieve it, bumping into walls and furniture as quietly as possible in the dark. With flashlight in hand, I grabbed a handful of Kleenex out of the bathroom, my self-defense weapon of choice against bugs.

Returning to the bedroom, I tried to focus the flashlight just on my side of the bed. This commotion elicited a "hhnghhh?" from DF. "Sorry!" I said. "There was a spider!" He did not leap out of bed in fear. I guess he doesn't mind sharing his sleeping quarters with creepy crawly critters. Or he was still asleep...

By this point a good 3 minutes had passed since the last spider sighting, and I mentally prepared myself that the arachnid may have managed to escape my pillow trap. I had to check, though. So I counted to 3 and flipped the pillow onto the floor. A spider carcass dropped onto the carpet. Apparently when I had yanked my head out from under the pillow earlier, the force of the falling object was too much for the little guy to withstand. Bwah hah hah, that was my plan, exactly!

I checked to make sure it really was the same spider, then squished it for good measure. It was a decent-sized critter. Probably a 1/2 inch body, sort of yellowish-brown, with long brown legs. I think. It was still pretty dark and I was a bit amped up on adrenaline.

After disposing of the remains, I crawled back into bed, but not before carefully inspecting the area to make sure no other spider friends were coming to check on their fallen comrade. I told myself that it was just a random one-time occurrence and there's no reason to think my bed in normally overrun by spiders each night. Somehow I managed to get to sleep...eventually.

Critters

Life in the south is full of creepy-crawly critters. My coping skills aren't very well developed. So far there's been a lot of shrieking, squashing, and scurrying away.

Here's a list of what I've found INSIDE the apartment so far:

• Spider carcass (upon move in)
• Mosquito
• Clear spider
• Brown spiders
• Slug (seriously, since when do slugs come indoors?)
• Fruit flies
• Cricket
• Potato bugs, aka pill bugs, aka roly-poly
• A couple other unidentified small bugs
• Little cockroach
• HUGE cockroach

In addition to the above, this is what we have OUTSIDE:

• Mud wasps/dirt daubers
• Other wasps
• June bugs
• Cicadas (no visual confirmation, but I hear them)
• Lots of ants

After the cockroach sighting in the bathroom, I went into full combat mode. I decided it probably came in through a hole in the back wall, under the sink, where the pipes are. So, after fully disinfecting the bathroom, I used packing tape to cover every possible crevice or little hole where a bug could come through. We are also closing the drain stopper in the sink when not in use. I put in a maintenance request with the building management to come seal up the holes, but who knows if they will take my concerns seriously. Some people here have the philosophy of, "It's the south, so you're just going to have roaches." Uh, no, I am not interested in that!!