The grossest thing happened yesterday. Well, maybe not the grossest, but right now I am having trouble thinking of a grosser incident (give me time though.) I walked into my closet and saw what I thought to be a feather blow across the floor. Then, the feather moved and I realized something was crawling and of course, I stomped the daylights out of it. It was no longer recognizable, but I think it was a baby roach.

I say this because when I straightened a stack of shirts (you’ve seen my closet – this is NO surprise. If not, see here My Life. One Story at a Time.: From Fashionista to Raganista) I noticed that there was a substance that resembled dried dirt going down the stack. It was at that point I observed a trail of black specks – oh yes – roach poop. Me, being me, freaked out immediately and then I froze in my spot. Bugs freak me out, especially roaches and spiders. Since I was home alone, I garnered my courage and began taking the shirts off the stack one by one desperately hoping that a roach would not come flying out at me. By this time, my heart was pounding.

One by one, I lifted the shirts and about half way down the stack, I found a little dead roach. I was ready to get down on my knees to say a word of thanks at this point. That little sucker must have done a Fred Sanford death march by the mess it made. I’m sure you’ve seen Sanford and Son. Old Fred grabs his heart and makes his way around the room several times before collapsing upon the sofa with a heart attack. This roach must have digested one of the thousands of roach pills I had scattered about the floor of my closet and then performed a death march up the stack of shirts I had nicely folded. I was none too pleased, but at least he was dead.

So, yesterday was spent washing that stack of shirts (short-sleeve), the long sleeve shirts, and about half of my sleeveless shirts on the same shelf. You just can’t be too careful. I was moving and scouring everything in my quest to clean. I am not embarrassed to write this story only because I know how clean my house is. I can honestly say that there hasn’t been a roach of any size in my house in ten years. I am that careful. Any item brought in from the market in a box is emptied into a container and the boxes are disposed of. The outside of the house is sprayed on a regular basis, the yard is treated, and ant and roach pills abound everywhere they can safely be placed. I am a fanatic. I do NOT like bugs.

Well, today is my birthday. It always begins a little melancholy because October 7^th is my sister’s birthday. She’s been gone a very long time, but I still miss my big sister, a lot. She is two years and a day older than I am.

I am 54 years old today and not at all one of those women who can’t spit out the number. It is what it is and as long as there are people out there who think I’m younger than I am, I’m perfectly happy to shock them with the number. I am fairly certain that will end one day and reality will set in. Besides, I know a lot of people older than I am.

The day has turned out pretty quiet. I guess that will happen when you live in the country and your kids live far away.

Today was one of those days I was happy for technology and what it affords us. We have email and Face book and through those entities, I did not lack for birthday wishes and that made my day. Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes!

Donna “Lucy”