Business and Bad Omens

Every day from now to the move is full of appointments. Today I have to see the dermatologist, then go off to school for attempt #2 at a surprise attack, then pedicure, then haircut, then babysitting.

I'm not sure I'll even try to do anything for Japan until I'm in Florida. It's just too hectic here. That said, I'm calling Laura on Sunday to ask her what she's done, and I'll probably go ahead and order my rail pass. I think I'll send everything to her house because it's more permanent, and just in case things get lost in the mail or whatever we're there until the end, so we have the most chance of receiving it.


The days leading up to the move have seen some bad omens:


Bees in the Birdnest:

We tried to take down the birdhouse for Mrs. Maniscalco, because she said she wanted it. I walked across the mulch barefoot towards it, looked down to see no fewer than three spiders, none of them poisonous. I swallowed and kept walking until I had my hands around the long wooden stem of the birdhouse. I heard a fantastic hissing noise and quickly backed up, not knowing whether I had hallucinated or what. My sister tried next and heard the same thing. Bees! She said. And, sure enough, a bee flew out of the hole. My dad went out next and grabbed it, running upstairs with it. We thought there was just the one bee, and eventually it flew off. Then suddenly a whole swarm flew out. My dad finally had to powerwash the inside of the birdhouse with the hose, and afterwards kill up to 20 bees by stomping on them. A bit sad, really, but what could we do? The honeycomb itself, with the honey in it, came out too.

Yesterday I went to that spot and found scores of homeless bees, wandering aimlessly or else sucking the honey from their squashed honeycomb, pieces scattered amoung the dead and blackening bodies of the rest of their family.


The Dead Snake:

In our front yard we have some bricks that line the garden. A snake managed to wedge itself between two of these, and we can only assume that it became stuck there and so died. It was a green-grey snake, and a reasonably sized on. We went over to see it and found that it had been dead a long time. It split open at the gentle poking of a stick, and it was crawling with maggots from tail up.