ninanevermore

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I was approached by a throw blanket with a wooly fleece lining last night. It stood just over three and a half feet tall, and the fleece side of the blanket was out, since dark blue blankets do not make good spooks.

“Whhoooooaaaaaaaaa,” the blank said, “I aaaaammmm aaaaaaa ghoooooost!”

“Uh-oh, honey,” I said to my husband, “We have a ghost. What are we going to do?”

( How to tell a read ghost from a fake one )

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I keep forgetting the dog is gone. My house is haunted by small, quadrupeds by no-see-‘ems that I catch with the corner of my eye but that disappear when I turn to look at them. I miss the dog, but I’m not sorry she is gone; her lifespan had run its course and it was time for her to go. I began grieving her months before she died. I am open to the idea of a new dog, even, to fill the empty space and for new tags on a collar to jingle and chase away the silence that now follows me from room to room the way the dog used to do.

Maybe a new dog could chase away the no-see-‘ems, too.

( No one is lying beneath that seductive oak. )

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about my car keys, and how if I had been able to find them yesterday morning there would have been a drive into work yesterday as well as one today. For the record, I didn't lose the keys myself, I had help. I almost never lose keys, I only misplace them for a short time. When I'm the one who last had my keys, it will take me ten minutes at the most to locate them. To lose my keys to the point that I have to call into work and say they won't be seeing me until I've had time to search the house from top to bottom, it takes the combined effort of a 17-month-old toddler, the toddler's father and a poltergeist for Jeff to place the blame on.

( Reflections on house keys, husbands, ghosts and babies )

Today on the drive into work, I was being attacked by the tiny ghosts of the fire ants I had killed when they decided that my foot was invading their turf when I stepped out on my back porch this morning.

I am amazed at the way they wait until there are a certain minimum of their number on your bare flesh before one of them gives out some sort of signal for them to all start biting you at once. After the initial assault where you crush and wipe them from your stinging skin, you still find the stray soldier ant wandering on your pajamas or munching on your elbow.

After they are dead, it can take a full day to exorcise the ghost ants you are left with. You feel them crawling on you in places that they never reached when they were alive. A tickle tracks its way across your back or up your arm, but when you look or reach there is nothing there. I swear there was one on my neck a few seconds ago. The ghosts, like the real ants that proceeded them, bite. I just had a ghost and bite my left back shoulder and the inside of my right knee. There are no welts, but there is also nothing left to kill this time. I just have to wait until these small vicious spirits get bored and crawl off to where ever fire ants go when they die. Hell, I hope.