The Bow Belle

It's summer, unofficially.  It's Pride Month.  It's cicada season.  Cicada season means that my silk cicada clip is making a reappearance .  Etsy shop is TarnavskayaStudio . Yeah, June is Pride Month.  While I am on the rainbow spectrum I usually avoid taking part in pride events for reasons that I discussed last October.  That said, there is a pride event that I can get behind 100%...and it ain't asexual pride.  This shirt came from DeepFriedBits . Cicada pride, baby!  I freaking love these guys, and this year two particularly big broods are supposed to take over local trees.  Brood 19 is a large horde of 13-year cicadas, and Brood 13 is a similarly large band of 17-year cicadas, and they're BOTH supposed to be hatching this year.  Periodical cicadas look like this, with a dark body and red eyes.  I've never seen one in real life. Brood 19 and Brood 13 will be joined by our usual annual cicadas, with which I am VERY familiar. ...

Ah yes, the dog days.  I remember the long, hot stretch between Independence Day and the start of school as a bittersweet wild card for my family.  The sweet consisted of afternoons spent in the pool, of day trips to Cape Girardeau or Fort Massac or wherever, of staying up late playing Uno or Pop-o-matic Trouble, of weenie roasts with s'mores and lemonade, of stargazing and bat watches.  On the other hand, the bitter consisted of bad sunburns, of the occasional spanking or family squabble, of long periods of heat followed by waves of violent thunderstorms, of the impending school year and the changes it would bring, of MOSQUITOES!!!  There are times when I wish the gates of hell would open and devour the mosquitoes, but the swallows, the bats, and the house spiders (all of whom I love) live off mosquitoes, so maybe I need to just shut face.  I have a pretty good relationship with most of the insects summer brings out (mosquitoes and red wasps are the exception),...