April 2004 - I title this day: THE SWARM

It is a beautiful day. REALLY REALLY beautiful. We've been told all week that it's going to pour down rain and that we need to cancel the party. Lane and I are optimistic. We have always had really good luck with our Easter Egg party. We have always had beautiful weather no matter what the forecast (now, if it had been our PUMPKIN CARVING PARTY, we would have prepared for the flood of Noah - it rains almost every year for that - we should start just calling it the Great Garage Pumpkin Party "come carve by the cat litter, you'll barely notice the smell").

So it's BEAUTIFUL. I had made guacamole the night before and chicken salad that morning. Chips were in bags on the table, waiting to be opened, and bread was in packages, waiting to be sliced. It is 1:00 and I am just then getting to putting on my makeup because we've been cleaning and getting ready all morning (Lila is really slowing us down!).

I hear Lane sweeping in the kitchen. He starts to stomp. Stomp. Stomp. "Shit. Shit." STOMP. "Shit!"

I come out from the bathroom to see him stomping tiny black bugs in the kitchen, kind of like a cross between ants and millipedes, with wings. He tells me that these bugs are coming from nowhere and he doesn't know where. We search the kitchen and find an old sack of potatoes. I am convinced that the bugs are coming from the sack (nevermind that there are NO BUGS anywhere under or around the sack), so I tell Lane to spray and I go back to my bathroom.

"Shit!" STOMP. "SHIT!" STOMP STOMP STOMP! "FUUUUUUCK!!!!"

I go back in to have Lane tell me that the bugs are falling down from the light fixture. It becomes Amityville Horror in our kitchen, with handfulls of black bugs pouring from the light. Neither of us has a clue what this could be, but we know we need help. I call JR and Michael, who are just around the corner.

They come, and JR is all "You have termites" and I'm saying "no, no, that can't be!" and he looks them up online and DAMN IF WE DON'T HAVE TERMITES. JR crawls up in the attic and sees them swarming on one of the pipes out of the attic. They are everywhere in the kitchen. Lane and I are FREAKING OUT.

I call the Bug Master folks and tell them I'm in the middle of a TERMITE EMERGENCY. They say they'll have someone out that day.

Not knowing what that will entail, and seeing all the bugs, and COMPLETELY UNWILLING to put open food out in this mess, I keep asking Lane if I need to cancel the party. Lane says, yes, he thinks so. I send out Email Number One and then start calling the list of folks who RSVP'd to try to catch them before they leave the house.

Sondra got the first call. You can ask her how I sounded. I'm pretty sure I was screaming at her and I honestly don't know what I told her. I just wanted to tell her not to come and to get on with the other phone calls. I left a message for Tim, then called Knox & Michael. NO idea what I told them or how I sounded. Again, there was the Freaking Out.

At this time, the Bug Master Guy called back and started telling me Things I Didn't Know About Termites. For example, I was sure they were living in my attic. This is not so. Apparently, termites live in the ground exclusively, and once the colony there has grown strong enough (takes about 2 years after initial infestation), they swarm and spread to other locales. Usually there is a good rain (like last week) and then a beautiful sunny day (like Saturday) comes and the ground is prime for them to swarm. They rise up from the earth and through our walls in search of light (like our kitchen fixture) and Come Forth to Swarm. Bug Master Guy told me to turn off our lights and they would head on to other light (like our attic pipe). He also said that the swarms only last two hours once they start, and that we would be find to go ahead and have our party. He said that he was at another home where the bugs were also swarming out the kitchen light fixture and that he expected lots more calls that day.

Hence the second email.

Sure enough, shortly thereafter, the swarm stopped.

I call back the three sets of folks I already called. Sondra thinks I'm crazy. Tim, who didn't actually speak to me earlier, is on his way. I had to ask Michael what on earth I said to him earlier to be certain I communicated what I needed to to him.

Lillian was the first to arrive. As a strange coincidence, she said that when she left her apartment, termites were swarming in her bathroom. She turned off the light, stuffed a towel under the crack in the door, called her landlord, and left the house.

The party went on and was lovely - even with a completely dark house. We had lots of good stories to tell. Lane was a little twitchy the rest of the day, but the day was GORGEOUS and we had dogs and naked babies and eggs and a cool tent and great food and it was a very good day.

When the Bug Master Guy arrived, he was greeted with hugs and cheers. He and Lane spend about 45 minutes tromping around and figuring out what we needed to do. We've seen the Bug Master Guy twice since the party and he's located the colony and will be killing the bugs Thursday. Yay! We highly recommend him.

It was exciting, to say the least. I wanted to tell those of you who weren't here to hear it first-hand what happened. Thank you to Beth who suggested I share. :)

Thank all of you for your patience. I'm sorry to those of you who got the first email but not the second. We missed you. I'm sorry to the folks who had to talk to me on the phone, especially Sondra, who got the Ground Zero interaction.

Wheeeeeeeeee! :)

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