1) Guess what I spent probably over half an hour doing last night. OK, I’ll tell you. I was using a magnifying glass to examine the pattern of hairs on the butt of a grub that we found in our lawn. (When we tilled up the area we use as a vegetable garden last night, all of these grubs came to the surface. GROSS. I mean, we knew they were there because the lawn is a disaster area, but I prefer to pretend everything is fine since I usually can’t see them.) Anyway, apparently that is the only way you can tell what species of grub it is, which dictates what kinds of controls you can use. But my point is, what the hell is wrong with me?!

(The good news is, I think we got it figured out, assuming that my interpretation of the grub butt hairs was accurate, which may very well not be the case. The bad news, again working under the assumption that I know what I’m talking about, is that it wasn’t a Japanese beetle–and we looked at more than one, god help me, so I feel like they are probably all the same kind–so we can’t use that cool Milky Spore stuff. Boo. Also, as long as I’m on the subject, do any of you who might be smart gardening types know why the Japanese beetle-specific milky disease parasite has been isolated and commercialized but the one for other beetle grubs hasn’t been? It seems like there would be a market for other ”types” of Milky Spore.)

1a) Incidentally and horrifyingly, the other option for determining what kind of grubs we had would have been to put a bunch of them in a margarine container and mail it to the Milky Spore people for analysis. NO. I know insects are sent through the mail all the time by garden supply companies and such, but I am opposed to inept homeowners like myself being allowed to plop a bunch of GRUBS in a container, tape it up in a half-assed manner, and toss it in the mail, with no labeling or warning whatsoever to alert the mailman or anyone else that, say, my shipment of coffee is sitting right next to–and I cannot emphasize this enough–a MARGARINE TUB OF GRUBS that have probably escaped by this point because Bob T. Homeowner, who is already frustrated and inclined to rush through stuff because his lawn is being destroyed by grubs and he just injured his hand on the rototiller and this was only supposed to take 20 minutes but here it is 11 p.m. and he STILL hasn’t had his beer goddammit, only had Scotch tape on hand when he put the package together. EWWWW. Milky Spore people, I appreciate what you are trying to do here, but I can assure you that people like me are not competent to securely post disgusting turf pests through the U.S. Mail, and I wish you would not encourage us to do so. 

2) “Natural” food manufacturers, please stop using pineapple and pineapple juice as some kind of ”healthy” sweetener. Pineapple is about the farthest thing I can think of from “neutral” tasting, and it makes your baked products taste gross.

3) As of tomorrow, Activity Points will no longer be a part of my life. I have developed a new scheme, the details of which I will not bore or depress you with here. But I consider this a very positive step–exercise will no longer be inextricably linked to how much food I “can” have on a given day. Yay.