Vacation Highlights!

As some of you know, I was on "vacation" last week. The quotes mean I didn't travel anywhere, really. I took a day trip. But really, this was a stay-cation. That's okay.

1. I drank a bubble tea in Saugatuck, Michigan! It was delicious but it contained mango so the day ended with me projectile vomiting in a Menard's bathroom because I am allergic to mango.*

My mum and her sister by the lake.

This is my face before mango was in everything, back when there was beauty in the world.

2. I bought shoes. They are adorable and yes, I can walk in them. The soles are ORANGE.

Obsessed.

3. I got the air conditioning in my car mended! And then I found out my rear brakes need replaced, so now that is happening. I will be poor for such a long time.

4. We scraped the house to prep for painting, and I was attacked by a swarm of wasps. I got stung (obviously) and my sting-sites became MASSIVELY swollen and really red and hot and scary, so I had to go to QuickMed.

Day one, when it looked sort-of normal-ish.

5. I was given a temporary tattoo by a doctor and a lot of steroids. A lot a lot. Plus I have to take antihistamines three times a day. And now I have to get tested for allergy to wasp stings, making me the female version of Richard Gansey III from The Raven Cycle. (I would rather be Calla.) That test is on Wednesday. Hooray.

Hard to tell, but this is a 4cm swollen blob of evil. And it BURNS.

I have opted not to show you the other stings, which are on the back of my leg. Not only would photography be next to impossible, I am so not photographing my thigh. Better luck next time, creepy internet people. We are sticking to Victorian-level scandal on this blog. Ankles only.

* Don't worry, I cleaned. I thought I was going to pass out and die, but I scrubbed that bathroom stall until it shone. That bathroom was nicer when I left it than it was when I walked inside.

In Which Laura Is Viciously Attacked.

I took a week off from work to help Mum with some things she's been working on around the house. Also I wanted to be free of work, since the summer reading program has ended, and now is a good time to detox from the crazy schedule we keep during summer activities and settle back into the normal library year, school visits, ordering books, preparing story hours, and so forth.

The first official day of my vacation, I got the air conditioning fixed in my car. This was brilliant. Now I can drive all over...except I can't because my rear brakes are making a clicking noise. Why all the noise, car? Why so much clicking? Mum and I spent the afternoon picking up color samples for paint and laminate to go on the top of the new bathroom vanity/sink thingy. Also we scheduled someone to come measure for said vanity/sink thingy.

Then yesterday we decided we would scrape one side of the house, prime, and paint it. This was an easy job because our house is only one story. So we set to work. The Brother and I did awesome. We laughed. We had a good time. The cabinet man came to measure. We kept working. Darcy came out and sniffed a plant. We kept scraping. She avoided crossing the line of plants to come see me, but we kept scraping. Then I took a step to the right and felt something stab me.

And then I was covered with wasps.

There were at least twenty just on my leg, and a cloud of them surrounded me. I took off screaming a high-pitched soprano scream, running like mad, using all the speed training I did during the miserable winter on the treadmill.

I was very lucky.

I did not stand ON the nest. Our work must have disturbed the wasps, but it did not involve us putting a foot into their hole in the ground. It was still early morning and quite cool, so they were more sedate. Only part of the hive came out, and most did not pursue me in my mad dash across the yard.

I was wearing long pants. The wasp stinger had to get through dense Lucky Brand denim with NO STRETCH. This meant they didn't hit me quite so hard as they could have, if I'd worn shorts to work on the house.

I, while covered in wasps, was only stung three times. THREE. That is so lucky. They were all over my legs, on my shirt, in my hair, and I only got hit three times with their nasty butt-daggers. I am allergic to everything and the last wasp sting I got made me long for the hospital and a Benadryl drip, but I got one minor sting, one medium sting, and one severe. Just one.

We were also at home, so I could strip, jump into a bathtub filled with baking soda, take Benadryl, use my inhaler, and make a baking soda paste to stick on the stings when I got back out of the water. By the afternoon, I was doing okay. By dinner time, I was back to normal. After dinner, I went on a long bike ride with Mum and Dad.

It could have been so much worse. Even if now I'm afraid of everything that makes a buzzing noise, including small electronics.

Benadryl The Gilmore Girls and Lizzie Bennet

I found out last night that Netflix will have The Gilmore Girls available for streaming starting on October 1st. Clear your calendars, everyone. It doesn't matter that I have the series already, I am still excited. For two reasons: 1. More people will be willing to talk about The Gilmore Girls with me at length and 2. I won't have to stand up and change discs in my DVD player anymore.

That is how lazy I am.

I could use all the help I can get right now, because my wasp-stung finger now feels like a piece of overripe fruit, about to break open and be devoured by insects. It itches. It burns. It will not go away.

Yesterday I bought myself a chocolate shake just to make myself feel better.

Today I am taking Benadryl at work and trying to stay conscious while sitting at the circulation desk. I feel weird and floaty. I think I bought lots of tea. I can't remember how much.

It's also possible that we have a drug dealer who has set up shop outside the library.

So instead of writing you a real blog post, I am going to distract you by giving you this:

It is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a contemporary re-imagining of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My friend Kate told me to watch it, and it is hilarious. Usually I ignore modern-day (or any) Austen-inspired offering, but this is so well written that I adored it. You must all watch it.

To get the full story, go here. The characters talked to each other on Twitter, Lydia made videos, and the story got so much bigger than what's in that playlist. Enjoy. While you watch that, I'll be over here trying to convince acquaintances, friends, and loved ones to remove my finger using various household implements. I'll also be watching Emma Approved.

Sadistic Little Winged Hate-Filled Buzzing Chunks of Crap

Sometimes nature is pretty. There are butterflies. Birds. Flowers and junk. Stuff looks nice, and you walk around and breathe in the fresh air and think, "This doesn't suck."

Is that just me? No. Of course it isn't.

Monday I was walking through a parking lot. And parking lots aren't pretty or anything. There are even songs about how not-pretty parking lots are. But you walk through them, usually at least once a day, unless you didn't bother to leave your house that day. Who knows. Maybe you're a recluse. Maybe you've been marathoning the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and it was way more important to watch that then go outside and see sunlight and interact with other human beings. Trust me, I get it. I have been there.

Me. Parking lot. Book in my hand, because that's what lunch is about. Lunch is for reading. But my book felt like something weird was on it. I thought it was a straw wrapper, because I was just in my car and I swear straw wrappers replicate in my car, like every time I turn around they double. And then I close my eyes and they double again. And again. And now I have a batch of self-replicating straw wrappers that will eventually fill the car and take it over, leaving me with no recourse other than to start biking 20 miles to work everyday.

The second I felt my hand brush against it, before the thought "straw wrapper" could fully form into words in my brain, the straw wrapper was actively stabbing into my hand with its stinger, because it wasn't a straw wrapper it was a FREAKING SOUL-SUCKING WASP.

That flipping bug of Satan, the spawn of the unholy, wasted no time after seeing movement, because wasps believe in nothing but screwing humans over the second they see you or come near you. They see you walking and they think, "RUIN DAY OF HUMAN" and "DIE DIE DIE DIE." Actually wasps probably only think the latter thing, because they are wasps.

It stung me on the pinkie finger, right at the top joint, where the finger is really narrow and so blood vessels and nerves and stuff are right there, easy to reach. I quickly killed the thing dead (or scared the freaking crap out of it) by exercising the Laura Maneuver, which is sort of a combination jump, swap, and flail. It usually results in insect death, but wasps aren't insects, they are the spawn of the beast, risen up from the pit. They don't die like other things die. They carry on, intent on ending their victim (me) and our entire species.

By the time I'd entered the restaurant (Pizza Hut), my finger was numb and yet somehow managed to hurt worse than the pain I experienced after I paid some guy I'd just met thousands of dollars to use a combination vacuum / leaf-blower, tweezers, and a camera to rip out one of my less-vital organs through my belly-button.*

I have a lot of minor aches and pains, but few ever make me just want to cry. This did.

The last time a wasp noticed stung me, I was in gym class and ended up with a living insectoid hypodermic needle stuck in my arm and ended up traumatized for life. It still didn't hurt like this sting did, and I didn't even have to run the mile after being stung this time.

At one point Monday, I could not bend my entire hand because it was so swollen.

Wasps SUCK. They are like suck on wings, except that implies a certain level of cool that wasps can't have, because they are literally manufactured out hate and misery siphoned off of society and condensed into something living. They are evil incarnate. At least bees have a use. Wasps just exist to ruin peoples lives, taking as many victims as they can before they eventually are absorbed back into the dark forces lurking in our universe.

The way I see it, bees have a gun with one bullet, so they use it to protect the hive or themselves if they HAVE to. They die if they strike, so they don't do it lightly. Meanwhile, wasps are like Jeffery Dahmer, they kill for fun because they like it. They are sadistic little winged hate-filled buzzing chunks of crap. And they are everywhere.

* AKA, gallbladder surgery

In Which the Air Conditioning Stops Working

Some of you know that a few weeks ago, I tried to change the fan in my car from the defrost position and discovered that it would not move. Then I tried again and something let go, and now the knob that adjusts the direction of airflow turns a lot, but the air only comes out on the windscreen. My air conditioner only works as defrost, and because I live in Indiana, it causes condensation on the outside of the car and means I am driving around with my windscreen wipers going on a day without rain.

It's hot in my car, most all the time.

Yesterday, after a thunderstorm, I arrived home and got out of the hot car. I walked through the humidity, and I walked into the house.

It was hotter inside the house than outside the house. This was a problem.

We investigated. It turned out that the thermostat was working. the fan on the furnace that moves air around the house worked. Except the box outside wasn't moving. I flipped many switches throughout the house. Nothing happened.

I called the AC Man. He said, "Turn off the power. Turn it all off. And wait 15 minutes. Then turn it back on."

I did this. I did not electrocute myself. I was proud.

Nothing happened.

I called the AC Man back. I said, "Please help us. Come as soon as possible. I have asthma and might die. No worries, though."

He agreed to come today. He said he'd come over in the afternoon. I got home at 12:30 PM and ate, then I waited. And waited.

The man finally arrived. He stayed for about five minutes, just long enough to rip the side off the air conditioning and flee, because inside the air conditioning unit, there was a NEST.

Now, last year we had a giant snake living a few feet away, but it was not a snake nest. The AC Man did not even know about the snakes, which is good, because they moved out ages ago and that story might have freaked him out a bit.

He told us he'd seen WASPS. And that there was a nest. And also that there was buzzing. And he said, "I don't know who you should call. But you should call someone. Also I cannot put the machine back together until they are gone. Also when you clean out the nest, it will still not work."

Then he drove away in his minivan, leaving us to heat and eventual death by hornets.

I called Dad. "Bring home as much deadly poison as the store will sell you," I said. "Also bring home some that sprays from far away, because you will have a head start."

A few hours later, Dad came home. He had a bottle of unimpressive-looking wasp spray that didn't even come with any safety gear.

I showed him the nest. I turned off the power to the AC so he didn't accidentally electrocute himself through the stream of deadly poison leaving the can. He said, "Oh, that's not wasps, I don't think."

And then he took a paint-scraper. And he stabbed the nest with the scraper and waited for the wasps to come out and attack him.

Nothing happened.

"It smells like mice," he announced. I did not ask him how he knew the smell of mice. He proceeded to use a garden trowel, a mini-crowbar, and the paint-scraper to dig all of the nest out of the air conditioner.

I made him spray for wasps anyway, just so they wouldn't get any ideas. Then I called the AC Man back again. He could not come, but he is coming tomorrow, so that's something. Just one more day of sticking to furniture and gasping for air as my lungs swell closed, then the air conditioner will be fixed.

Unless he needs a part.

Unless the whole unit is ruined.

Unless there are basilisks living under the paving stones around the air conditioner.

Wish us luck.