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So, I’ve avoided posting about this, but just before xmas eve we discovered a bedbug infestation. It could be worse, I suppose—it’s pretty much localized to the bedroom, we threw out the bedspreads and a lot of stuff, and washed everything else, and have been camping out on the folding couch in the living room while we try to prep for the fumigators to come.
This has so far involved throwing out all the boxes that house Andrew’s comics collection—the comic books themselves seem to be ok, but the corrugated-cardboard boxes were definitely providing the ideal hideout for the disgusting critters. I bought thirty plastic bins and we’ve been transferring the comics and many of the books. Andrew’s been keeping it together better than I could have hoped, at least.
In order for pesticide spraying to happen, we need to 1. get as many of the shelves as possible away from the walls, and 2. to get the cats out of the apartment for 4-6 hours. This will be the hard part—Nana can be wrangled into a carrier, but in the five years since we brought her home, we’ve never been able to capture and hold Beatrice.
I guess, living in an apartment, it was only a matter of time. Meanwhile, of course, the wider world continues to be even worse.
In slightly better news, last week I read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. An SF novel about large intelligent spiders might seem an odd choice of comfort reading under the circumstances, but I’ve a feeling that in addition to watching a lot of David Attenborough nature films, Tchaikovsky has seen a lot of classic Doctor Who. His spiders are easy to root for, and his desperate human colonists fleeing a doomed Earth are somehow not quite as bad as real-life politics. I’ve also fond of Holsten Mason, the tragi-comic Classicist who, due to only getting woken out of cryogenic suspension when the crisis du jour specifically requires an expert on Old Galactic Empire dialects, is experiencing the whole multi-millenial epic as “a rough few weeks” during which most of the other crew outage him by decades.
I think my own writing is coming back after a rest following my Yuletide fic—I at least managed to make a bunch of notes today for Gentleman of the Shade, which for some reason has decided it needs another flashback, this one set in a 1970s supper club.
This evening’s migraine is being held at bay by rizatriptan, but it included, for the first time in my life, one of those zigzag rainbow auras I read about. Weird.
This has so far involved throwing out all the boxes that house Andrew’s comics collection—the comic books themselves seem to be ok, but the corrugated-cardboard boxes were definitely providing the ideal hideout for the disgusting critters. I bought thirty plastic bins and we’ve been transferring the comics and many of the books. Andrew’s been keeping it together better than I could have hoped, at least.
In order for pesticide spraying to happen, we need to 1. get as many of the shelves as possible away from the walls, and 2. to get the cats out of the apartment for 4-6 hours. This will be the hard part—Nana can be wrangled into a carrier, but in the five years since we brought her home, we’ve never been able to capture and hold Beatrice.
I guess, living in an apartment, it was only a matter of time. Meanwhile, of course, the wider world continues to be even worse.
In slightly better news, last week I read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. An SF novel about large intelligent spiders might seem an odd choice of comfort reading under the circumstances, but I’ve a feeling that in addition to watching a lot of David Attenborough nature films, Tchaikovsky has seen a lot of classic Doctor Who. His spiders are easy to root for, and his desperate human colonists fleeing a doomed Earth are somehow not quite as bad as real-life politics. I’ve also fond of Holsten Mason, the tragi-comic Classicist who, due to only getting woken out of cryogenic suspension when the crisis du jour specifically requires an expert on Old Galactic Empire dialects, is experiencing the whole multi-millenial epic as “a rough few weeks” during which most of the other crew outage him by decades.
I think my own writing is coming back after a rest following my Yuletide fic—I at least managed to make a bunch of notes today for Gentleman of the Shade, which for some reason has decided it needs another flashback, this one set in a 1970s supper club.
This evening’s migraine is being held at bay by rizatriptan, but it included, for the first time in my life, one of those zigzag rainbow auras I read about. Weird.
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Date: 2026-01-06 04:25 am (UTC)From:I read this tag originally as "bugs ew," which seemed a legitimate description of dealing with bedbugs. May the fumigation work and may you be able to wrangle Beatrice without too much injury. I have been gradually accustoming Hestia to short periods of handling over the years, but the carrier is still approached with me basically gauntleted like a falconer because biting and the sincere effort to disembowel will occur.
I’ve also fond of Holsten Mason, the tragi-comic Classicist who, due to only getting woken out of cryogenic suspension when the crisis du jour specifically requires an expert on Old Galactic Empire dialects, is experiencing the whole multi-millenial epic as “a rough few weeks” during which most of the other crew outage him by decades.
That's actually the first thing anyone has said about this novel that makes me want to read it; thanks.
I am sorry the evening involves a migraine. At least it did something interesting.
*hugs* if desired.
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Date: 2026-01-06 12:25 pm (UTC)From:Hugs accepted.
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Date: 2026-01-06 02:38 pm (UTC)From:*additional hugs*
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Date: 2026-01-06 11:46 am (UTC)From:Loved Children of Time though.
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Date: 2026-01-06 12:31 pm (UTC)From:(Not sure of the original broadcast date, and the novel came out in 2015, so it might be a lucky coincidence)
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Date: 2026-01-06 02:49 pm (UTC)From:We spent the autumn going through multiple rounds (five, spaced two weeks apart) of whole-house fumigation for German roaches. Spent two months basically living out of plastic crates. Not fun, and we still haven't gotten the master bathroom fully unpacked. At least the cats aren't runners from their carriers (one, the orange, likes to sleep in his).
Sympathies as well on the migraine.
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Date: 2026-01-06 07:47 pm (UTC)From:large intelligent spiders might seem an odd choice of comfort reading under the circumstances, but I’ve a feeling that in addition to watching a lot of David Attenborough nature films, Tchaikovsky has seen a lot of classic Doctor Who.
All power to the Eight-Legs! All power to the Great One! XD
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Date: 2026-01-07 04:00 am (UTC)From: