Decembery

The millipedes have been transferred to a ten gallon tank that allows them to stretch out a bit more, plus the substrate is a nice bed of coconut fiber.  I gathered a bag of dry maple leaves from the piles in the parking lot, and have to bake them at a low temp to kill any fungal or parasitic cooties.  Millipedes, as many other living things, are susceptible to mites.  I've read to leave the mites alone, as they clean the host; then there is the opposite where you take a Q-tip dipped in alcohol and wipe down the side of your beloved critter.  I need to go on Amazon and see if there is a "Millipedes and You" book.

Now, the smaller tank has a few remaining pill bugs, and I was poking around with a chopstick (so handy a tool for many things) to see who was where.  And guess what!  Babies!!  I flipped up a leaf and the tiniest yellow string lifted it's wee self up as if to say "What on earth do YOU want?" and I am guessing that is a hatchling millipede.  Other movement indicates that more than one is scooting about, and then there were tiny yellowish pillbugs as well.  There is a nursery of arthropods and crustaceans in my kitchen.  I am thrilled.  The more, the merrier.

Pillbugs have gills, and are related more to crabs and lobsters than bugs. Millipedes are also closer to marine life, and are supposedly the first animals to emerge onto land some 450 million years ago.  They can live up to seven years, and make really nice, gentle pets.  Yes, I am a nerd.

Other than arthropod housekeeping, this day has been one grand headache; they suspect pneumonia, which will be decided once the x-ray doctor looks at the chest slides taken Friday afternoon BUT THEY WON'T BE IN UNTIL MONDAY.  I'm on the second set of antibiotics, the first being amoxicillin which just tickled the bacteria pink, then something called azithromycin, one tab a day for three days which further amused the farm that has taken residence in my lungs.  I'm going into the third week of bronchial circus, and feel like a semi-animated lump.

An interesting sidenote is that my sense of smell is completely gone, an experience brand new to this humble body.  Coffee smells like nothing.  The cat box smells like nothing.  Anything I've eaten tastes like dirt unless it has a load of salt, which is one of the few flavors identifiable.  I brought home a bag of fish sticks, not the healthiest food, but you just toss them in the toaster oven and then eat.  Were they fish, chicken, or extruded muskrat buttcrack cheese, I couldn't tell ya. Crunchy but only the desperate ketchup gave off faint tones of vinegar.  Any suggestions gladly examined.

I have lived through two neti pots, which several friends and my son swear by.  I hate them.  I don't mind pouring water up my nose, but the burning sensation created in my sinuses feels like a weasel is trying to gnaw its way out of my face. I have tried adding salt, brown sugar, store-bought additive, and plain filtered water and get the same result.  Pain.  Lots of pain and swears.   I will last till Monday, it's already been scheduled for being a sick day.  But enough of my meowing.

No snow, but this city has installed lights for year round that make it festive and fun.  There is now an ice rink downtown for those of you who like their feet moving in an opposite direction of their arse.  New restaurants and bars, and hopefully more attractions will come; but for now, we are colorful.  The grain elevators are lit with abstract patterns, building are illuminated in greens and reds, uplights scale walls of old brick, lending modernity to hundred year old facades.

The young people come down with their families; but even more moved are the folks who saw Buffalo go down into the shards of the Rust Belt as jobs were outsourced, as the Welland Canal took away the passage of grain ships through the harbor, as city planners ran a subway train down Main Street which eliminated traffic and saw the death of downtown.   It's wonderful to see, and if I ever shake this cream of lung inconvenience, I 'll be there as well.  Not ice skating, you understand, but a raised glass in their direction.

Tomorrow I have further plans for the millipedes; there are ample brachiopods that were gathered for Bri and Dana's wedding.  What better place to put them than in the arthropod tank with critters that evolved about the same time as the Spirifers?  It will be a miniature Jurassic Park, with giant bugs.  Fern.  I need a fern.  Plastic dinosaurs, except they didn't show up for another 200 million years. Two hundred million years, people.  That would bother me, the anachronistic warp; I'll think of something.  Maybe.  Head soggy. Ow.

I like December, a lot.  I wish I could recapture some of the enchantment felt when the giant, overheating Christmas bulbs on a sap-gooey tree loaded down with lead tinsel were plugged in.  Nothing like the aroma of hot lead with the potential of burning pine needles.  My Aunt Dorie's tree was fabulous, and she introduced me to the magic of magics: bubble lights.  At her house it was okay to plug in the tree, and enjoy the glow of blatantly primary and secondary colors.
It was calm, and I remember the drive home back to the empty country, and passing the city streets thick with snow and the ornate street globes of the time until we turned onto Genessee, which led to stillness and dark isolation.

The Christmas lights here stay on, this city is happy with the changes.  Change is good, for the most part; you reflect and grow through your choices and memories.  I miss my brother; but a very wise passage from a friend said that grief never ends; it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay, but aligned with the price of love.  Good night, John.  Millipedes and Christmastime, I think of you.  Sleep well, all.