This blog exists in my bookmarks folder, but since the last posting (April, 2016) I have not had time to write. At some point a resurrection will take place. Maybe now? Only consistency will tell.
It isn't like there wasn't anything to write about. The rationale, if you care at all about the cliff notes version of the past three and a half years, is YB and I decided to move. Drastically. We now live in a different state. In a new home. Literally. We've now been in our new house for a year. Anyone wanting details leave a request in the comment section.
I've been thinking of starting my own blog, or a new Twitter handle from the perspective of a sarcastic Grass Valley Switcher. I think they'd both be fun. The former would have this post as its first.
But now it won't.
Because I'm writing it here.
At some point over the Thanksgiving week I noticed two bite marks on one of my feet. Which foot it was does not matter at this point. My mind started racing, since I travel for work so much. But an internet search later revealed I had nothing to worry about. The bites were in the wrong spot. No, these were more than likely the bites from fleas.
But wait, YB and I do not have any of the following: cats, birds, dogs, fish, anything reptilian, scaley. No pets. No vermin. No flea carrying creatures of any kind.
None.
Nada.
Yet here I was; the week after Thanksgiving beginning what I knew to be the start of a very troublesome process of being inundated with bites and having to bomb the house beyond all recognition to get rid of them. Thankfully, there were some good signs to notice.
G was not being bit. Neither was Z. YB only ever had two bites, three as the third came a week later.
So it was me, JD, who was affected.
All my clothes went in the wash. As did all bed linens and, $20 later, all bedding from the master and guest bedroom (as the fleas were traced to that room) at the laundromat. All affected mattresses were doused with Arm&Hammer Baking Soda. Suitcases were Lysoled. Everything was made to get rid of the fleas. It was like that episode from Seinfeld minus a Kramer-like neighbor huffing fumigated air.
The fleas followed me to my work site that weekend, the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend, rearing their ugly head in my hotel room. All clothing seeming to be problematic was (and continues to be) thrown in the garbage. I now need more pajamas.
By the end of the second week after Thanksgiving the fleas had been vanquished. I was then only fighting a cold from exhaustion and had between 10 and 20 bites on each foot/leg area, and five or six around my torso.
Fast forward to the Wednesday before Christmas (today). YB just had her paper published, I am finally feeling better from being tired out by the cold, my last physical therapy appointment was had (sprained ankle in July/August) and I'm finally feeling like working out again. Things are looking up. To the guest room I go, grabbing the spare tv and Apple TV to bring them down to the basement to set up an exercise area. Wait a minute, what's that stuff on my ankle socks?
Fleas. On my socks. More on both legs. Swiping one away only invites another somewhere else.
Upstairs to the laundry room I go. All of our ground floor is engineered wood and for the next 20 minutes I crush fleas between my finger nail and the floor. I Lysol my sneakers while watching fleas jump from them to their doom of my fingernail crushing them on the floor. I shed the clothing I'm wearing, throwing it in the washer for a hot wash with extra soap and oxi-clean, then finding the little buggers that were on those clothes jumping to the floor and crushing them between my fingernail and the floor. Anything that moves, anything that wriggles gets crushed between my fingernail and the floor. I am beyond livid.
To Home Depot I go, coming home with a case of fogger (because I'm a guy and overkill is better) and driveway salt (because we had none, I mean priorities right?). Three hours later everything in the basement had been moved and vaccumed or thrown out if these pests could breed on it. Half the case of fogger was then set off, releasing killing power on fleas, spiders, anything pest-ish-that-lives.
And now, you are reading about it as I continue to let the fog do its job. Going for four hours instead of two, wondering if every little speck I see on any surface is a flea and having to prove it is not by trying to crush it only to find a fuzzy or a small speck of a pebble.
And now, I must pick up the kids from school.
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