2021 Life Logs, Day 41: Creepy Crawlies
Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Cold; High 31, Low 20 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It didn’t get above freezing today and this is the warmest day until at least Sunday. So, the snow that is on the ground is going to be around for a while. Knowing that, I decided to go water plants for friends who out of town today even though I knew their very long uphill driveway was going to be an obstacle. It’s not going to get better until the end of next week, so I decided to go for it. I knew I would have to walk in the snow for at W half of the uphill trek, so I wore my boots and headed out. As I suspected, I was able to drive halfway up the hill as others live on that part of what I am calling a driveway and it had been cleared a bit. It was still snow-covered, but passable. When I got as far as I could go, I pulled the car over to the side and parked. Because it was a hill, I engaged the parking brake. After watering the plants, I returned to the car and tried to turn it around. No way. It was just too slick, so I attempted to back down to the main road. I got too far to one side and got stopped by the plowed snowbank. No problem, I thought. I’ll just rock my way out of this. But that did not work. I was just about to call a friend to come push me out of this mess, when I realized I hadn’t released the parking brake. Once I did that, I was able to rock my way out of the predicament and continue on with my day. I went into town to run a couple of errands and then headed home.
Once home, I took Shadow for his Morning Mile walk and then it was time for lunch. I turned on the impeachment trial and watched some of that while I was fixing lunch. About that time, my friend Peter Baranowski knocked on the door. I rent the cottage from Karen’s (Peter’s wife) Aunt Shirley, so Peter was going to do a thorough check of the attic to see if he could see where any animals might have gotten into the attic. I explained that I really think it was tree branches laden with heavy snow being slammed onto the roof by the high winds that had caused all the noise on Sunday evening, but we still needed to check. Heather had already checked things out, but a second look was welcomed. And because Heather had also discovered what she thought might be the remnants of termite activity, Peter had called Terminix and they were coming this afternoon. A young woman from Terminix arrived and we all checked out the attic. She said the problem is not termites, but rather carpenter ants. And that means the pest control squad has to be called in to deal with the issue. But she was not satisfied with just finding the problem, she wanted to know where they were coming from. She pointed out that if you treat the problem without finding the source and dealing with that, you will still have the problem. She found a tree very close to the house that she thinks is the source of the carpenter ants. Pest control will arrive on Friday and we’ll continue to track down the problem. In any case, I will be very glad to get rid of these destructive creepy crawlies in my attic.
With creepy crawlies on my mind, I went back to watching the impeachment trial after Peter and Terminix left. The video of the insurrectionists attacking the Capitol was being shown and now the insurrectionists looked like creepy crawlies to me. Carpenter ants can destroy the wood in your home very quickly if you don’t treat the problem. In the video the House managers were showing, the insurrectionists were destroying our democracy. Same, same. One is just blatantly more violent than the other. And as the young woman from Terminix pointed out, if you don’t seek out the source of the problem, the destruction will continue. It sure looks to me like it is clear that former President Trump incited insurrection on January 6 and he needs to be held accountable for that. But there are deeper problems that allowed him to rise in power and those are the true sources of the problem to which there is not an easy solution like calling Terminix.
