How one earwig cost me $216.53

The following is a true story how one measly earwig cost me $216.53.

Yesterday, I found the house hot, very hot. It wasn't until 5:30 p.m. when I discovered the fan was on, but the central air unit wasn't. In the heat, my tolerance level is zilch, especially in the light of the fact we spent a fair bit a money two months ago in replacing our central air with a new unit. The breaker wasn't tripped, so we decided to call in a repair man.

At this point, I took my livid and angry self outside (where I discovered to my chagrin that it was much cooler outside than in my house) into the air condition glory of my Matrix and drove to an appointment. By this time, dear husband had called the heating and cooling company. The technician told him the call would be free if it was a technical issue. But we'd have to pay if, let's say, an earwig had clogged one one the parts.

When dear husband told me this little gem of information over the phone while I was waiting for my appointment to start, my livid and angry levels increased ten fold. Instantly, I knew it wasn't a technical problem. I 99.9 per cent knew that an earwig had did something and we'd be forking over some serious cash to get this problem fix. For the last week I've launched a full-on attack on earwigs. Usually, to keep my karma in check, I will go out of my way to shoo flies, ants and spiders out of the house. Not earwigs. I've got absolutely no love for earwigs. They usually meet the bottom of my shoe before I clean up their remains and flush them down the toilet. In my experience, never turn your back on an earwig. Those damn things come back to life. Always flush them down the toilet to ensure they are dead.

The other night I killed six of them with a construction level. (It was the only thing that I had handy at the time when I encountered them). Perhaps, that's when karma decided to kick me in the butt. Perhaps one of their brothers or sisters decided to seek its revenge on me by crawling into the contractor coil and clogging it. It must have been a kamikaze earwig as it died in the process.

So now it is all out war. No sympathy whatsoever will be given to any earwig that crosses my path. It will definitely meet the end of my shoe. Due to Ontario's pesticide ban, my options are limited in getting rid of the suckers. According to the nice staff member I encountered at the Home Depot, beer can help. Apparently the little buggers love beer. But it in a container with a lid resting on top of it, the earwigs will go in for the bait (beer) and drown in the process.

My aunt, who is having problems with earwigs, says spraying a solution of soapy water can help deter and kill them. At this point, I'm willing to give anything a try because my foot can't be everywhere in squashing them.

Yes, I may sound cruel. One may argue, they are just earwigs. They harm no one. However, they are damn gross and I can't have them in my house. Plus, one of them cost me a $216.53. And unless they want to reimburse me for the repair bill I now have, the war will continue.

Photo Wednesday

This week I have another tower creation to show the world. This time, it is made out of alphabet blocks and animal pieces from Darling Daughter's Melissa and Doug's farm puzzle. I thought I'd take a quick photo of it before it got knocked over.

The Hills: an end of a pop culture era

After six seasons, The Hills comes to an end on MTV tonight.

The reality show has been a guilty pleasure of mine on and off for the last four years since the show first aired. And during my The Hills TV watching, I've wondered several times what the hell I'm doing and if any of my brain cells have been lost in the process. Let's face it, The Hills isn't exactly quality television. But it is riveting. The continuing drama involving Lauren, Heidi, Spencer and alike always sucked me back in, despite my efforts to stay away and watch the evening news. After the show was over, I had to stay tuned in as The After Show hosts, Dan Levy and Jessi Cruickshank analyzed and broke down that night's episode. With their humour and ability as straight shooters, I dare say that The After Show was almost better than the actual Hills episodes.

But after our heroine Lauren left the show, The Hills hasn't been the same. Other than Heidi's plastic surgery controversy, the revelation that Spencer has an obsession with crystals, and the dragged out romance between Brody and Kristin, the show not been doing much of anything of late, not going anywhere, just simply existing. (To reliving the good old days, visit Entertainment Weekly's photo review of the 12 game changing moments that have happened on the show during the last six seasons).

So goodbye to Jessi, Dan, Lauren, Kristin, Audrina, Lo, Speidi, Justin Bobby, Brody, Frankie and the rest of the gang. It has been a good four years, but all good things have to come to an end. See you in reruns.

Food for thought

It has been one of those days where I've been questioning myself as a mother, particularly a stay-at-home-mom.

I've got a headache. It's summer. I don't deal with heat well. Darling daughter didn't nap at all yesterday and didn't get to bed at 10 p.m. and this afternoon she didn't nap as long as she should have. I could say all those things were working against me today, or the simple fact that it is "one of those days," but whatever is going on, I think I need to sit down and start giving things some serious consideration.

I've been home for the last two years. They have gone incredibly fast. But lately I have started entertaining the ideal of returning to work. To do what, I haven't a clue. Returning to journalism is not realistic because quite frankly the profession isn't all that family friendly. On the car ride home from visiting family, I was reading a story in an old Reader's Digest my grandmother gave me about a man recounting his experiences as a husband and journalist. He wrote about the long hours and how it took a toll on his family. I remember those long hours vividly. I don't miss them.

Being a mother is the hardest jobs I ever had. I'm not too sure if the return-to-work thoughts I'm entertaining have to do with the toughness of the job or the fact that I want to return to work. I realize the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side, but I think I may be missing something. Today, I was so happy to see dear husband walk through the front door, 10 minutes early. So I'll be giving this more thought.

It is too hot to fight over the radio

In the last week, darling daughter and I have been fighting over the radio.

I'm a news radio junkie. I may not necessarily agree what the commentators are discussing, but I feel by listening to news radio I have some connection to the outside world. Some days, listening to an adult voice makes me feel sane. Recently, I blogged about darling daughter's love for Johnny Cash. Yes, she loves Johnny Cash. Although Johnny Cash doesn't exactly rock my boat, I do enjoy some of his songs. We've been listening to our one and only Johnny Cash CD for more than a month now and I'm getting tired of listening to his ballads about Folsom Prison and being a boy named Sue.

However, I can't touch the button to change the CD player over to AM radio without darling daughter screaming "song, song." Some times I try to push the envelope, so to speak, but saying, "Mommy wants to listen to talk radio." Doesn't work. "Song, song" soon becomes "SONG, SONG" and then the tears come between her insistence that we listen to Johnny Cash. I've tried to change it while she's napping in her car seat, but she'll wake up and groggily say, "song, song." Quite frankly, she is becoming a dictator when it comes to the radio.

But this week it is simply too hot to fight over the radio. So I continue to listen to Johnny Cash. If this is going to be the reality, then I better invest in a new Johnny Cash CD. There are only so many times a girl can listen to Get Rhythm before it starts to drive her bonkers.

Photo Wednesday

This week's photo is of tower building. Or in this case, tower rebuilding. One of the new activities darling daughter and dear husband have been doing in recent weeks is building towers and knocking them over. They have great fun.

Too hot to run (or is it?)

According to dear husband, it is definitely too hot to run. His plan of getting up at 5:30 a.m. this morning for an early morning run went bust when darling daughter woke up at 5 a.m. After tending to her, he reset the alarm clock because he figured it would be too hot to run.

Me, on the other hand, have ran the last two nights. But they have not been long distances. It was tolerable Sunday night. Barely tolerable, I should add. I really dragged my butt on that run. I was not so much fun last night. I had to wait until 9:15 p.m. before running. And since I didn't want to run far from home because it was dark, I ran laps around two crescents in my neighbourhood. I greatly appreciate the efforts of one neighbour in his attempt to keep his front lawn green with a sprinkler. It was nice to have the sprinkling of water on me, even if it was for a brief moment.

So dear husband is firm that he won't be running in this heat wave. And who can blame him? Me, on the other hand, is still considering running tonight. We shall see.

Edited to add: Yes, it was too hot. (And it still is). I didn't end up running.