Mo' Bugs

Today, the teachers at my base school also told me that the next time I see one of those kabutomushi bugs (see previous post) that I should definitely capture it and they'd buy it off me, and then I could make money on the side.

I told them it was impossible, and we laughed. Seriously though, doing that is impossible for me. Even if it were dead, I wouldn't pick up the thing. One of the teachers pointed out that it looks like a cockroach (which was why he didn't like them). They both have hard shells, it's true. They both make that sickening crunching noise and feeling if you step on them. Gross.

I had another interesting run in with some bugs today. Spiders, to be exact. So like, I've been seeing these little round cocoon things all around my house, outside the windows, etc etc, and I've just thought that they were cocoons that the spiders had spun around their dead victims to save for... a rainy day or something. I don't know why. It never occurred to me that there could be living things inside of them.

Well, it turns out there are. I got my full sized refrigerator back today, and when I went to open the door, I noticed this like... swarm of small bugs in this spider web. I knew about the spider web. I had seen the spider there before - black, round body with white spots. I was kind of like, okay spider, you can stay there so long as I can still walk out the door. But I bent down to look at the small things - I thought they were ants or small gnats that had gotten caught in the web - when I realized that these tiny things were actually moving. Along the spider web. And they weren't flying bugs. They were mini spiders. At least a hundred of them (it's so tempting to say hundreds, but that's probably exaggerating it a little bit). All crawling around.

Disgusting.

If they were on the outside of my house... maybe it would have been different. But inside my house. Ew. Do not want. Especially do not want to wake up and find them crawling around in other places, so I asked people what I should do.

One of my cool JTEs told me about this bug poison that you can get at drug stores. Apparently though, it's like... super strong poison. The strongest. Which is saying something, because Japanese poisons and bug sprays are really strong to begin with. Like, they generally won't sell you the bug poison just over the counter (he said). Actually, he advised me that if I wanted to buy them, to tell the person that I have cows and I need to keep the flies away or something. Me. Cows. I kind of giggled at that, and he was like "no I'm serious."

Yeah though, I found a much better, healthier solution that involved a little bit of grovelling and humiliating myself in front of the old lady who works at the dormitory cafeteria. I thought about asking one of the students, but she just came out and was like "are you okay?"

So I asked her what I should do about the tiny spiders, and she recommended getting a broom and just sweeping them away. I gave her, I guess, a look, and she asked me if I was afraid and I was like "yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, ONEGAISHIMASU." So she came and I gave her one of the old brooms and she just briskly swept them all away. They didn't jump at her or anything, and she just kept sweeping until they were allgone.

yah, I need to buy her some nice present or something. She's always really nice. And by always really nice, I mean she's said hello and we've had a little bit of smalltalk conversation.

Thank goodness for that though. I mean, if there had been a way to remove them and place them far far away, I'd totally be down with that.

Oh! So for some good news, I tried my hand at planting zucchini the other weekend. THERE ARE GREEN THINGS GROWING IN MY BOX. O_O Like, actual plants and stuff. I was kind of shocked and astounded. I also planted them wrong though, too close together, and too many in one little hole so now I'm like "ahhhhhhhhhh what should I doooo?!"

I know absolutely nothing about gardening. The internet has only been minimally helpful. It told me that I should thin out my plants (thin! Earlier on I was trying to think of the word and all I could come up with was 'cull') buuuut it said "the weak looking ones". To me though, they all look the same.

Even if they don't actually end up growing zucchinis, I will be happy they sprouted in the first place. :) For so long I was like "nah I'm not going to do a garden because I'm afraid of bugs" (and I still am) but then I found out how much zucchini cost out here... and I do enjoy cooking zucchini. They also said zucchini was really really hard to kill. So I'm hopeful. It's my first time gardening though, so I'm like Ahhhhhhhhh! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO.

Also, I'm not sure if the old man who comes and keeps my lawn tidy (he's the school gardener) is watering them or if it was raining, but the soil was moist when I checked it today.

Yeah, I'm still super happy about the leaves. :3 My tiny basil plant also has leaves! Though it would take three or five of those to actually get enough basil to actually cook or do anything with other than use them as a garnish or something.