If you live anywhere near Flying Pie headquarters, you have been outflanked and surrounded by billions of Tussock Moth Caterpillars and you can’t do anything about it. They show up in large numbers every mid-March, but this year they brought in all their relatives from Ukraine. The critters are everywhere---on gates and fences, your doorknobs, the car windshield, Fido’s dog dish, any unfortunate chairs, etc. When you lie on your back for yoga, keep your Oms to yourself or a pod of TMCs will drop from the oak trees into your open mouth, causing considerable consternation.
Despite your inherent kindness and respect for life, do not be deceived into thinking you will not passively kill several of these tiny troublemakers despite your best efforts. They are incomparably squashable and weigh around minus two pounds. We tried to flick one off the yoga mat the other day and it curled into a teeny ball and was promptly blown all the way to Homosassa by a gentle zephyr.
The Tussocks don’t even have the decency to morph into beautiful butterflies. After they’re through crawling through your hair, invading your water glass and sneaking into your cat’s bed, they grow wings and scarf down your winter coat. And just when you think it’s safe to go back in the yard, there may be a second wave of the things. Although the most common species has just one generation a year, the other two species return annually for Summer Break, during which times they drink heavily, invade neighborhood pools, engage in heavy petting and fight with the police. It’s not a pretty sight.
John Foltz of the University of Florida Department of Entomology and Nematology is entirely unsympathetic with these rascals and has some advice for caterpillar sufferers.
1.---Caterpillar management must be done before the larvae are fully grown and have ceased feeding. Waiting until the larvae are dispersing to pupate is too late.
2.---Those who want to minimize cocoons on their houses should walk around them with a broom and sweep the caterpillars into a bucket of soapy water. (Ooh, sounds harsh, John.)
3.---Cocoons can be removed by slipping tweezers between the cocoons and the wall. Wear a long-sleeved shirt to fend off painful attacks or incidental contact with hairs which can irritate the skin on the forearm.
4.---Collect fresh cocoons in ventilated glass jars and within ten days there will be adult moths and several natural enemies. Parasitism runs near 50%.
Thanks for the help and all, John, but we plan to wait it out, tread carefully and minimize the death count because we remember There Is A Season, And A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven. And also because the caterpillars remind us of Mandy Hade’s useful words:
“The caterpillar grows wings during a season of isolation. Remember that the next time you’re alone.”
We Were So Much Smoother Then, We’re Bumpier Than That Now
Plucky Robin Martinez, ten years older than me, used to prowl the gym floor in the early morning looking for conversations with people who agreed with her. She was convinced she knew everything and there was no sense arguing, so the stretchers and strainers just smiled and acquiesced to her seniority.
Robin was in relatively good shape for her years, with the skin of a woman half her age, no major health issues and a valid driver’s license. But not to hear her tell it. “When you turn 80,” she advised, “there’s something new wrong with you every time you get out of bed.” Mrs. Martinez pontificated about arthritis, neuritis and neuralgia, about pesky foot injuries and mysterious swooning bouts, about strange pains that appeared out of nowhere. For Robin, life was just a bowl of Mongolian Boodog.
Having crept past 80 myself now, I see the Truth in her complaints. Tiny insults suddenly appear and grow into larger ones if not tended to immediately. The sun-ruined skin on my arms presents interesting new blemishes every few days, I get arcane itchy spots which come and go with no regularity. My lower back would prefer I not pick up heavy objects from the ground. My lungs have asked me nicely not to jog, though they will permit fast walking. My stomach has bouts of minor colic. And then, out of nowhere, comes the Suddenly Aching Elbow.
I”m not sure what happens when you go to sleep at night but a lot of it is not good. You have dreams about losing your car in the world’s biggest parking lot, about being caught at a Georgia pep rally with your Gator shirt on, about walking across Death Valley with only a rose and a Baby Ruth. All this must be a little hard on the old ticker, which is blind to the fact that none of it is really happening and goes into paroxysms of concern and occasional atrial fib. “Yes, I just feel grateful that Grandfather died peacefully in his sleep.” No he didn’t, a crazed bull was chasing him through an endless meadow.
You go through strange contortions in the night, grunt, make bizarre breathing noises, flop your legs all over the place. I know this is true just from watching my dog, Lila. When you wake up, your limbs might be in disarray, muscles might be pulled, ligaments strained, legs charleyhorsed. You might even have The Elbow From Hell.
Where Can A Man Find Some Elbow Grease?
I have had sore arms in the morning before. You wake up to find an unhappy limb complaining of being stuck in an impossible position for hours, now sore, cranky and unwilling to cooperate. After a couple of hours of peace talks, it falls back into line and you promise to never let it happen again. Once, I had to take the thing to my Thai Massage woman for extensive painful repairs and the arm left a note under my pillow promising to behave if I took an oath never to take it back to that den of horrors. Since that time, we have maintained an uneasy truce, but a week ago the dam burst.
I woke up with a right arm virtually useless. Moving it at all was extremely painful. When I stood up, the left arm fell straight from the shoulder but the right was curved at the elbow and difficult to straighten out. You would think, under the circumstances, that the right arm would still bend in, but it wanted no part of that, either. Even the fingers wanted to be excused from duty. I had appointments in Gainesville, so I drove there one-handed, working in an appointment with my venerable natural health practitioner, Dr. Mariana, a no-nonsense Bulgarian.
“What have you done to yourself this time?” she wanted to know. (Doctor Mariana doesn’t coddle her patients.) I thought she might poke a few acupuncture needles in the afflicted area and send me home with a nice red lollipop.
“No needles,” she said, palpating the elbow. “Injury is in the joint, only rest can fix it.” The doctor gave me three subcutaneous shots around the elbow to lessen the inflammation and sent me home. A couple of friends said my plight sounded a lot like tennis elbow, which affects the area around the elbow joint and can only be repaired over time. Siobhan dug up an elbow brace and life marched on.
All good reunion maestros need sleep so I repaired to the medicine cabinet and dug up a bottle of 15-year-old Hydrocodone tablets. Amazingly, I slept for 6 hours and when I awoke the arm was significantly better. It continues to improve daily and is now 90% normal and no deterrent to my daily activities. I would celebrate but after walking particularly fast this morning I have this little twinge in my left knee. I’d ask Robin what to do about it but she’s moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the better to ice all her ailments. I think I know what she’d say though: “HAH! You think you’ve got it bad? Wait til you’re NINETY. You ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet!”
Mazel Tov, Alte Man!
In spite of himself, my odd pal Jeff Goldstein will become 70 years old on April 4, 2022. Typically, his birthday will be celebrated at Heartwood Soundstage two days earlier on a Saturday so he can get more attention and presents. I was going to buy him a painting of his favorite subject (Jeff Goldstein) but my artist friend came down with a severe case of inertia and now I’ll have to look elsewhere. I thought about getting a pretty girl to jump out of a cake but I couldn’t find anyone to build the thing. If you know anyone who constructs pop-top pastries, give me a call.
You know how kind people are always charming you with balderdash, telling lies about how you look twenty years younger? We’re not going to do that. The best we can do is to say that Jeff doesn’t look a day over 69. He attributes his longevity to grouchiness, smoking pot and associating with degenerate musicians, but he doesn’t give himself enough credit. Jeff has given up drinking, cigarettes, loose women and bad dining habits and has shrunk from a roly-poly 300+ pounds to a svelte 160. Not bad for a hedonist.
Jeff was raised by doting parents who catered to his every whim, so now he is used to getting his own way. If you disagree with him he will pout, raise his voice, jump up and down and pretend he’s become ill. People new to this behavior rush in to assure him everything will be alright. More experienced friends take a seat, put their feet up, light up a fat one, and wait him out.
Jeff Goldstein is a music lover and a friend to musicians. During Sub Circus Reunion proceedings, he personified a union rep for the bands, stomping around in a snit any time he suspected his pals were getting short shrift. On the other hand, he abhors slackers and insists the music-makers don’t go to sleep during their performances. If someone has a bad set, Jeff will be the first to let them know it. Someone in the know told us Goldstein was once an accomplished oboe player who was on his way to Carnegie Hall when a bout of the rare Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome laid him low and crushed his dreams. Others blame a shameless Wolfie’s waitress who broke his heart, took his money and left him in tatters on the streets of Miami Beach.
To his credit, Jeff Goldstein rose from the dead, got into the music business and brightened things up in Gainesville, producing a long series of Halloween Costume Balls unrivaled for their ingenuity, musical stylings, debauchery and arrest numbers. The prim University of Florida, site of the crimes, abruptly cancelled the Balls and Jeff fled into the hills of Burma until things quieted down. When Heartwood Soundstage appeared, Goldstein came down from the mountain to help guide this precarious babe-in-the-woods through its early trials and tribulations. The good-hearted owner of the place, Dave Melosh raves about Jeff’s stolid devotion to duty but admits he sometimes has to shut off his phone and hide in the cellar.
So now we gather to celebrate the passage into Septuagenaria of a Man For All Seasons, but mostly Summer. Jeff Goldstein has spent the last year fretting over, tending to, fighting for and watering daily his notion of what will be the finest Last Tango In Gainesville possible. If he someday falls off the wagon and is found living in a dumpster behind Domino’s or peering through peepholes in the nunnery shower room, remember these, his days of glory, and give him a ride to Salvation Army headquarters. Happy Birthday, Jeff, now which way to the snacks and liquor?
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen
