Buzzing Demon

Welcome to August, where I finally vanquished my nemisis of the last three days!

No, not the monthly financial reports, although I did get those done. I’m talking about this not-so-tiny buzzing demon from Hell!

It’s truly amazing to me that an insect so relatively tiny can cause such chaos for me for days on end. He was in my office, and once I knew he was there at least I was able to keep him quarantined in that one room. If he had gotten out and was buzzing around my ears at night I might not have survived the war that would have had to follow.

As it was, every time I was in my office, which was a LOT the last few days (oh, who are we trying to fool, it’s ALWAYS a lot!) every ten or fifteen minutes I would hear that high-pitched whine as he buzzed my ear and tried to take some blood from my jugular vein. Then he would dart off, my work would be interrupted, and the madness would repeat.

The other thing that I noticed is that he was biting me repeatedly on my arm where I have a large bruise. (I fell off of a small laddar while refilling the hummingbird feeders a few days ago. The good news is that the “Have you fallen?” feature on the Apple Watch works just fine. I’ve set it off plenty of times while just minding my own business and being a bit rambunctions. It’s nice to know that it also goes off when I actually need it.) Where the bruise lies under the skin I’m guessing it’s that purple color because there’s a pocket of blood, or at least more blood in the tissue than normal. Can a mosquito sense that somehow and know that a bruised area is a target-rich environment? Google doesn’t say.

Starting the week and the month with the usual issues I was annoyed that this guy got me again. Then he vanished while I stalked him when I should have been downloading bank balances. But when he came in for another pass he was silhouetted against the monitors and my cat-like reflexes whipped into action. (HA!)

On closer examination, I note that this is one of those Asian Tiger Mosquitos – the black & white stripes on the legs are a dead giveaway. The issue is that these guys can spread the West Nile virus and other nasties, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for any symptoms.

There may be a viral load in my future, but for now, VICTORY IS MINE!