MOSCAS (FLIES), MOSQUITOES, AND OTHER INSECTS

You may recall that during my first year here, I commented on my surprise at the lack of bugs here.  You could never say we were bug free, but considering all the garbage piled on each corner block (trash pick up is very primitive here) and that we are surrounded by jungle, it was amazing how seldom I noticed flies or other insects.  Especially when you consider our weather, which is hot and humid (have you ever been to Florida in the summer?).  Well this year everything changed.

It has been hotter and we have had rain at some time almost every day for months.  First it was the swarms of termites.  It was a constant battle.   Each morning I would wake up to find the floor littered with tiny wings.  What that means is that the varmint has crawled away to find wood.  Now the older homes are all brick or concrete and all windows and outside doors are metal, so they go for the furniture.  They are so invasive that they invade live trees.  There was a large tree in the parking area at my old apartment that collapsed on a tenant's car one night.  When I went out to inspect it you could see that the trunk was totally riddled with termites (and the tree still had green leaves !).  The termites really love my equipauli furniture (pig skin over crude wood frames).  At the hardware store I bought a huge bottle of a foul smelling turpentine like stuff.  You apply it with a paint brush and it soaks into the wood.  It does work, but is a messy laborious task.  For some reason after a the first few weeks of rain the termite stopped swarming (doesn't mean they aren't chewing on some of my furniture however).  The geckos that crawl all over my walls and ceiling do help somewhat (they love to eat termites) but the problem is they also poop everywhere.

The flies this year have been very pesky and are constantly landing on you.  Even though I shower twice a day, your skin is still constantly covered with perspiration.  The ants have caused me some concern.  At first they made homes in my potted plants.  I did find a very toxic white stuff at the local nursery that is pretty effective, but they have moved to the floors.   I clean my own house, mopping the floors and trust me, there isn't a crumb anywhere.   We have three sizes of ants.  We have the regular ones, but also tiny ants that are almost microscopic.  Unless you catch them on something white they are almost invisible.  Also new this year are the huge red aunts.  I really hate those.   Oddly enough we don't seem to have much of a problem with cockroaches (which you would think we would).  I have always scattered about those "roach motel" from Raid and in three years I think I have seen maybe 5 or 6 dead ones.


Nothing has caused me more stress than the mosquitoes.  This year they are eating me alive, mostly around the ankles (more blood down there).  The City (or some municipality) sends people though the neighborhoods with bags of little white granules.  They will deposit them anywhere you have any standing water (I have 24 pots and all have saucers).  But you have to be home when they pass.  They were at my first two apartments, but so far this year, I have missed them.  The stores sell all kinds of products for mosquitoes and I have tried all of them.  There are the plug-ins, sprays, lotions and I even tried a home remedy.  You cut a lime in half and then stick cloves in it.  The most effective seems to be the smoke bombs.  It is a swirl of green stuff that you place on a little holder and lite it.   The downside is that it stinks and your home constantly smells like something burning (no I do not smoke inside my home).  One reason I really do not know how effective any of these things are is because you don't know when or where you are being bitten.  The mosquitoes here are tiny (maybe a little larger than a gnat).  They also make no sound.  There is no "Bzzzz" to tell you that one is about to suck your blood.

Besides the usual pests (if you can all any of them usual) we have some really strange things.  You have already seen that spider that was as large as my hand, but take a look at this odd caterpillar.  I check all my plants constantly for any problems and found that something was eating my palm trees (I have six of them)  First I found a huge green grass hoppers that could strip and entire frond in one night.  By hosing the plants and them stepping on the bastards I got rid of them.  But leaves continued to be eaten.  I finally found this odd bug.  I tried to pull it off and was badly stung by it.  At first I thought it bit me, but after spraying the pest until it dropped onto the tile, I discovered that it had horns and its whole body was covered with needle like barbs (I guess no bird would dare try to eat it).  I have so far found five of them all on one palm tree.  You look for little dropping then check the underside of the leaf above.

My holyconia flowers are attracting more wasps than ants.  Now some wasp (or I am assuming it is a wasp) have decided to make nests in my stair case.  I have knocked down at least 10 mud nests.  One night on my way to bed I had just turned off the lights when I saw what looked like jewels on my floor. As I moved toward it, the jewels moved !  I turned the lights back on and found a beetle like bug.  Within a few seconds he closed his brilliant neon like night vision eyes and all that was left was an ugly brown bug.  I stepped on it.  Now we do also have some very colorful butterflies, but one of them produced those horrible caterpillars. Yes, I know that some of you are reading this with your mouths hanging open.  What can I say ?  Not all paradises are perfect !

MEMORY (OR THE LACK OF)

Loss of memory of is just one of the banes of old age.  Anyone over about 70 worries that one day they will wake up with Alzheimer's Disease.  Very few do, but it is a worry.  The inability to retain information is quite common in old people.   It certainly is with me (okay, maybe drug and alcohol abuse contributed to my situation).  I must carefully plan everything and make notes.  I have already told you about my Day Timer Books.  Maybe I wrote about this before (but I do not remember).  This has a great effect on my ability to learn Spanish.  The irregular verbs are murder. The conjugation of some borrow not a single letter from the infinitive.  It is pure memory work (you can see my problem).  Everything on the computer requires a password now.  No way to remember all of them, so when I can I use the same ones (I know that is stupid, but so am I).  If I write the password down, I can never find where I put it.

Bridge at 1:00 on Thursday is pretty much ingrained in my head, but other dates or appointments not written down, will probably be missed.  I would never think of entering a store without a complete shopping list. The list cannot be done at one sitting.  Every time I realize that I am running short or out of something, I must write it down on my list.   Sometimes my "to do list" is carried over from day to day (sometimes for more than a week).  As I told you, I am basically lazy and if it can be put off, it will be put off.

Whenever I plan on leaving the house, what ever I need to take with me will either be tossed on the comforter or lying on the corner of the small dinning table at the top of the stairs.  I only have one pair of sandals with rubber soles.  If it is raining, I must leave them also at the top of the stairs or I will forget to change out of my leather soled ones.  Often as I reach the bottom of the stairs, I will think of something I forgot to take with me.  If I already have something in my hand, half of the time I will lay down what ever is in my hand when I pick up the new object (leaving the former behind),  It is not totally hopeless, but close.  I usually leave the key in the lock on the inside so it is staring at me when I exit.  This does not always work for me.

Last week I decided to visit a bar that is only a half block away from me.  My favorite bar tender was off that night at my usual bar.  Luckily a good friend of mine was sitting at the bar.  He had been in Canada before I left and I had not seen him since my return.  We had a nice chat and after my second beer, I said that I was going home.  As I walked toward my apartment I reached in my pocket for the key.  Not there!  My cargo shorts have six or seven pockets, I checked all of them. I went back in the bar and looked on the floor under my bar stool.  Nothing!

I explained to my friend about my lost key and that the only person who had an extra key was in California that week.  My friend thought I had better call a lock smith.   Then I noticed I had also forgotten to bring my phone.  Whenever I plug it in to recharge, nine out of ten times I will leave it hanging on the wall plug.  If it isn't on the table or on my bed cover, it will be left behind.  I told him that I had left the windows open as it was a very warm night and if I had a ladder I might be able to reach the balcony.  He suggested a lock smith again and said he would go get the number and left the bar.  I wondered if maybe at his home he had the cell phone of a lock smith who worked after 9:00 at night.

He was gone a long time as I sipped on my third beer.  Then the bar phone rang and the bar tender who speaks not a word of English handed me the phone.  It was my friend who had a ladder and said to meet him at my apartment.  I had to pay my bill and under the circumstances figured I should also pay my friends bill as well.  He had obviously been at the bar a lot longer and it seemed to take forever for the bar tender to tally the bill.  I would have said,  "Hurry up please!" but since he did not know English I knew this would just delay the process.

When I got there my friend had what looked like a ladder off a fire truck that he said he got from his landlady.  It barely reached the top of the balcony railing.  He insisted on climbing up (well it is at least 20 years younger than I am).  Shortly he opened the door with my keys in his hand (they were in the inside lock).  I thanked him profusely and told him I was going to have an extra key made and give it to him as he only lives two blocks from me.

Another narrow escape for me due to the kindness of friends.  It does make me rethink just how safe I am here since my windows are open all day for fresh air until I go to bed.  Had the fish restaurant next door been open, I am sure one of them would have ventured over to ask what was going on.  But the taco man across the street nor the dozen or so clients thought that a ladder to the second floor was anything unusual at all. Maybe in Mexico it is not that unusual.


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