Attack of the Blood Sucking Viral Vectors

AKA mosquitoes. Yesterday was a beautiful beautiful day: 26 degrees. And then we had a thunderstorm...which is great, one of my favorite things about the summer...but literally the bugs just swarmed afterwards. Supposedly we are supposed to have a bad bug summer...lots of scientific data on why and how and where and when. I'm not so concerned...what I am concerned about is how I can keep them out of my house (no screens on the windows)

Travelling in Asia, you absolutely must have a mosquito net. When I was living in China, I slept under one the entire time I was there. (Kind gave me a sense of security about the cochroaches and 8 foot wide spiders) There is nothing worse to the attempting-to-sleep-er, than the droning, high pitched whine of mosquitoes as they buzz about your head. One night, in India, I attempted to sleep without a net, and I seriously wanted to put a stick in my eye. I think it would make a very effective form of torture. I don't know if it is the lack of sleep, or something inherent in the sound...but I don't think I have ever been so utterly unhinged. And they're clever too...should you decided to put up with the insufferable heat, and pull the covers over your head in an attempt to avoid them, they WILL find a way in...through the smallest crack, the tiniest hole, they will force their way in and then it will be you and them under the covers and now not only are you suffering from a lack of sleep, sweating like a stuck pig, but now you are claustrophobic as well. Seriously, this is hysteria inducing stuff. But then I've been told that I can be a little dramatic at times.

Occasionally I would wake up and about three feet above my face, wrestling the net with futility, would be sometimes in excess of 50 mosquitoes. But three feet away is far enough to escape the sound of the droning. It just always amazed me that they would be concentrated over my face like that. I wonder if they are attracted to the heat - perhaps my breath.

So we're all supposed to be worried about West Nile now, right? I don't know...I mean I'm not going to go out and look for mosquitoes to suck my blood...but in all honesty, it has more to do with the fact that I can't stand to be itchy, rather than fear of West Nile. Go to Asia...they've got malaria (which never really scared me...other then the fact that you carry it around with you for life. I had drugs which gave me an admittedly false sense of security, but one nevertheless), and Dengue Fever.

Now Dengue Fever...that scared me to bits. You know what the popular term for Dengue is? Break Bone Fever, or the Bonecrusher Disease. Ok, now, before I knew anything about this disease, I knew I did not ever want to get it. You want to scare someone into prophylactic measures...tell them that if they don't, they're gonna get something called The Bonecrusher. All I can think of when I hear that is pain, and a lot of it. The kind of pain that accompanies a trip to a medieval torture chamber. The disease was nicknamed due to the severe muscle and joint pain and cramping that accompanies. The word "Dengue" is a Spanish adulteration of the Swahili phrase, "ki denga pepo," which means - get this - "cramp like seizure caused by an evil spirit." So having Dengue is like being possessed...man, this just gets better and better.

Or if you get the rare and agressive version - Dengue Hemhorrhagic Fever...ai ya. Wikipedia describes the symptoms as: higher fever, haemorrhagic phenomena, thrombocytopenia and haemoconcentration. Now I don't know what a lot of that is (but it sure as hell sounds scary), and what I do know is that that the phenomena of which they speak includes bleeding from the gums...and maybe the eyes, and the ears. And then you can go into shock and die. And you know how they treat it - fluids. Drink lots of fluids. That's all they've got. And avoid taking aspirin. That's great...gives me lots of confidence. If you start bleeding out through your gums, they can give you a platelet transfer, but let's be real...you're pretty much done for by that point.

Oi...and if this isn't mood lifting at all...apparently there is a global outbreak about once every five years. In 2002, there was an outbreak where 1 million people were affected in Rio de Janeiro alone. So every five years, would bring us to....this year. Great.

Anyways, my only point is that West Nile virus is a pussy cat compared to some of the crazy stuff out there. And speaking of pussy cats...the one good thing about the recent swarms of bugs, is that Charlie is completely entertained in her futile effort to catch them. Although she is starting to climb things and leap from things in her efforts and I'm starting to worry that she might knock over a bookcase in her earnestness.