The Electrician and I drove out to my parents’ place this afternoon. His dad is home on holidays from working overseas, and has been visiting people all over the place over the last weeks, so we invited The Electrician’s folks out to the farm as well. It was the first time my parents met his dad, although we all got together without him at Easter while he was stuck working far far away. Luckily for me, my momma made my favorite chicken, dad popped a pork rib roast on the barbeque spit, and we had a beautiful meal from start to finish. I’m glad we could all get together since we’ve had so few opportunities to sit down to a meal with everyone at the table.

I was planning to bring my camera out to the farm, sure there would be awesome shots of Sherman, views from my parents’ farm on top of the hill, and teasers of all the nummy stuff Momma cooked for dinner, but I forgot my camera in the living room. Unfortunately, the excellent photo collection that I hoped would be today’s blog post exists only in my mind because I’m lame and very forgetful sometimes.

As we drove home, I turned to The Electrician and asked what I should write about today. Immediately, he turned to me, serious as the guy who puts makeup on folks before their funerals, and said, “Write about the stupid mosquitos.” As I write this sentence, it’s five to eleven at night, meaning I have about an hour to write this thing and stick in on the internet for it to count as “today’s” blog post. Remember, I’m posting every day for a year, and I am trying my darndest to not to break my stride since I’ve posted at some point each and every day since the beginning of April. The mosquito idea isn’t as exciting as I’d like, and it certainly isn’t an action shot of Sherman dashing across my parents’ park of a lawn with the clouds hanging low in the background, but it’s late and I’m wiped, so bugs it is.

We drove home to Edmonton in the summer dusk tonight. The wind that tossed my curls around this afternoon had died with the sunlight, and the temperature dropped considerably. At a point shortly after we crossed the North Saskatchewan and beetled our way past little agricultural towns where all the farmers were surely already in their jammies, the rain started. Well, we through it was raindrops. As soon as The Electrician flipped the switch for the wipers, however, we realized the spatters on the windshield weren’t as liquid as they were goopy. The rapid pelting on the glass was caused by our forward trajectory (although I don’t know how it related to me singing along with the iPod) and ploughing through every bug on the road.

Mosquitos seem to make a light, cheerful ping as they die. Moths are almost silent but nearly explode with airborne innards, and dragonflies replicate the thwack of a wooden spoon on the edge of the stovetop. Go ahead and test your spoon on the edge of your own stove to check my theory; I’ll wait here.

By far and away, we hit more mosquitos than anything else, which is why it really did sound like we were driving into a rain shower for about half an hour. It was truly disgusting, but I feel a little better that each of those little pings was a mosquito that won’t terrorize any more nice people this summer.

I’m just doing my part.

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