I'm back in Minnesota and there are still woodticks

Well I'm back for a visit.  I have been here less than 24 hours and I have seen, elk, buffalo, deer and a snapping turtle.

Minnesota is never dull.   A tad rural perhaps, but never dull.

The scare came when my brother and I were driving back to St. Cloud from "up north"... I had been paranoid earlier because we were going to be outside, and, as usual, I had forgotten to bring my "Off"  fogger and my Cutters lotion and I was afraid that I would run into the dreaded state bird, the mosquito.  Had that happened, I would have had one of those magnificent allergic reactions.   It didn't happen.   Too cold and a little rainy.   So, I escape without incident.

And then, in the car on the way home, my brother finds a WOODTICK on his leg.   If you don't know what woodticks do, then you never grew up in Minnesota and had one burrow into your waistline or your scalp, and have to have a doctor remove it while you took antibiotics for a full summer.

So now, I am totally paranoid.  Came home and did a thorough tick check.  Didn't find any.  But, I'm here through Monday.  Stay tuned. 

PARODY

What better to engage in than parody...taking something beautiful and goofing it up to suit your mood. Over the course of a couple of posts and some aimless emails, you doubtless know that I am flea-bitten. It has now been 21 days and (yes, hit me baby one more time) 3 rounds of doctoring/steroids (plus 2 nights in a hotel, 1 day of flea bombs and 1 visit from an exterminator...oh, and a partridge in a pear tree) since I was victimized by leftover fleas who miss my doggy. Hell, it's awful to be so allergic (a wasp bite will probably kill me -- put that on my tombstone, wouldja?).

So I take the sublime, Rilke and twist it to suit my mood. If you would like to comment, your favorite verse from a well known poem, followed by your own poetic parody on my insect infested state, will give me a chuckle.

Know that, I am currently comfortable and confident in my abode, and the lesions are healing. (e.g. I think I finally defeated it!)

Perhaps all the dragons
in our lives are
princesses
who are only waiting to
see us act, just once,
with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that
frightens us is, in its
deepest essence,
something helpless that
wants our love.


Rainer Maria Rilke

Perhaps all the insects

in our lives are

fleas

who are only waiting to

use us as a host, just once

while mourning the doggy.

Perhaps everything that

frightens us is, in its

deepest essence

something tiny that

wants our sanity.

Lynne Quido

(driven to insanity by prednisone)