Japanse New-Girl Monkey Network
Cockroach Sympathy (in which the Author assumes a whimsical and slightly archaic tone)
At the moment, I'm sitting out on the terrace connected to Mr Wiggins' office at uni, watching a lightning and thunder storm waft towards me through a wall of glass. In about 20 minutes, little spiky flashes of light traversed the horizon, creeping closer until now they seem nearly overhead. Thunder grumbles and growls overhead like the sky hasn't had its breakfast yet. The terrace is warm and doesn't have that air-conditioned, dry feeling of the office. Wireless is neat. I think I will get an Airport card for my iBook soon.
Seeing as I am currently lacking in terms of work or responsibilities, my life has become startlingly more social. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of introductions into Mr Wiggins' uni and family social circles. Last Friday was someone's birthday, so we ended up at a pub on King St, near Newtown train station, for an evening of revelry. We arrived at happy hour, and since being a complete teetotaller is too much effort in the alcohol-imbibing environment of both uni people and Australia in general, I ended up with a mango daquiri which I slowly sipped throughout dinner and the rest of the night (I'm a cheap drunk, so usually about one drink per evening is my limit). We were in the restaurant section of the pub, a little Thai-themed place cum beer garden in a covered courtyard in back. Bamboo abounded.
By the time I'd munched through most of my meal (tofu and chili jam with cashews and shallots) the daquiri had fuzzed most of the edges of my perceptions, but for some reason I noticed a healthy-sized cockroach making its way toward the counter where the food was ordered (I don't think it had any relatives in the kitchen-- the place seemed relatively clean for an outdoor eating area despite the ubiquitous bug population here). It was desperately dodging its way through the crowd, occasionally hunkering down when the foot traffic got too busy. No one else seemed to notice the little guy. In fact, the general population seemed so ignorant of the little arthropod that I started to question my mental state-- but since one mango daquiri is not usually known to cause hallucinations, figured that I wasn't any more psychologically skewed than usual.
Finally, one insensible foot flicked the roach over on its back. Its legs now scuttled and floundered as if it was an ancient Mediterranean ship with oar slaves all on amphetamines. At this point I was starting to root (er, uh, I mean "cheer"-- I have to train myself out of "root," it's something rude in Australian slang) the bug on, but surely now he was toast. Heck, I was even using a gendered pronoun (though possibly incorrect-- I don't have any idea how to sex cockroaches) for him instead of the oh-so-impersonal "it."
Strangely enough, the cockroach's luck held. Near miss after near miss, he never got stomped on, despite the countless number of legs shuffling through. He was never able to flip himself back over, but his frantic leg-scuffling managed to nudge him this way and that and somehow he always escaped squishy destruction. At one point I was held in utter suspense as some hip-hugger-flared-jeans chick's eon-long perusal of the menu blocked my view of my hapless little segmented subject, but finally she leaned toward her male companion and I got a view of the roach just in time to see him kicked by someone else back out into the main garden area, out of sight.
Lately, we have been fighting a small-scale war at home with slugs. We wake up in the morning and look on the floor and on my shoes at the new slug trails that have been shimmeringly deposited by some little slimy intruder that seems to emanate from a small hole in the corner of the living room next to the bathroom. We also occasionally find a tiny slug making its way up the shower curtain, which we promptly flush down the toilet. This morning a slug trail led up onto the coffee table, to the deposit book for the rent payments. A small hole about the size of a US dime had been eaten into the cardboard cover of the deposit book. So while I may have had a moment's weakness for the roach, the slugs are utterly doomed.
Well, the battery is now down to 28%, and the thunder is slowly giving way to the clattering of rain on the terrace roof. When will they invent wireless electricity? Solar-powered laptops? As much as I'd like to continue to sit out in the pleasant, non-air-conditioned environment (for some reason, air conditioning always makes my core body temperature drop about three degrees), and listen to the rain, its liquid resonance has induced sympathetic feelings in my bladder. Until next time, my dear virtual traveler-- adieu.
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