hormones and pantry moths

*   This month, I ignored the PMS Buddy e-mail as per my usual, and am living to regret that, as usual. I really need to come up with a better coping strategy for this few days each month; being blindsided by nightmares, niggling worries, and the feeling that everybody hates me is the pits. 

*   PANTRY MOTHS. PANTRY MOTHS. OMFG PANTRY MOTHS! I woke to find that the frost had ripened some tomatoes early, and threw some into a saucepan with the last of the basil and some oregano and onion and a little lemon pepper, and then I went to get some quinoa to put in it and PANTRY MOTHS!

*   Hotter has suggested that we empty out the cabinets, line them with newspaper, smuggle the hens in from Squatter Workshop, and shut them in until they've eaten every last moth and larva. I think that'd be a capital idea if not for a) hens being accomplished shitters who would laugh at newspaper and b) our hens being cagey enough to probably realize the pantry moths are the benevolent deities that have gifted them with an entire box of organic quinoa and half a box of orzo just today and worship them instead of eating the fuckers.

*   The tomato stew was delicious with just some feta crumbled in, and I probably didn't need the carbs anyway. Grumble, grumble.

*   Someone popular at one of my jobs is being kind of a bully, in a "pick on MFA Mama and call her an airhead and ridicule her intellect" kind of way, and it sucks. I think I'm just going to try calling them out with honesty and maybe saying something like "hey I've noticed our exchanges have taken on kind of an unpleasant mocking undertone lately, and I'm not really that nasty of a person and you aren't either so can we maybe try and be a little more positive with each other?" The problem with that though is that it kind of makes me want to steal my OWN lunch money and call myself a hippie. We'll see I guess. At least this year it's someone being mean with their words and not actually threatening to cut me, so, you know. Better off, indeed! And yes, this person is aware that I have Actual ADD, but the problem with ADD is that it's kind of like telling people you have an automatic whoopie cushion built into your ass. Sure, they might ACT understanding, and eventually you'll sit down and they'll snicker, and hell, you might too, because fart-sounds are funny. But oh boy, just wait'll you do it in front of COMPANY sometime, then NOBODY wants to know you! Sigh.

*   Isis needs her claws cut and we're both trying to pretend she doesn't. She's pretty good about it, but not quite so good as to hold still without some help, so Hotter has to dangle her clasped to his chest, curled like a big awkward grub. It's nobody's favorite thing. I'm thinking maybe she'll suffer that indignity, and then I'll suffer some fucking exercise walking her to dull the edges. Ready...GO!

Comments

[R]

A friend told me to use borax mixed with sugar to get rid of the ants that plagued us in the kitchen (sugar to attract, borax to kill). It was a wondrous thing! A quick internet search just now found references to using (food grade) diatomacous earth or borax to get rid of those dreadful pantry moths. I opened a bag of flour once and it was filled with creepy crawlies. I took it back to the store and they gave me a new one. (I had just bought it the day before.). Don't ever want to have those again!

[Amanda]

I make a homemade hippie cleaner with borax as one if the ingredients. I used that several times and killed every one of those fuckers I could find. I finally figured out they were living behind my pantry cabinet and duct taped/ caulked a the openings. That did it. But I had those fuckers for almost a year.

[MFA Mama]

I think y'all are thinking of boric acid (for the critter-killer stuff). I've heard of mixing it with bacon grease for cockroaches and sugar for ants...thankfully we haven't had to use it for either of those here! Borax won't kill much of anything besides a bad smell as far as I know...I use it in laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent :)

[marguerite]

You have to clean out your cabinets. Check everything and toss the infested stuff. You'll probably find an especially infested thing (in my case it was Arborio rice, absolutely teeming with the bastards). That's where they started and it will probably radiate out from there. Put clean foodstuffs in glass jars. Clean all the shelves and corners well. The whole process takes time, a lot of time, but it has to be done. You can vacuum, but throw out the bag. You can buy pantry moth attractant traps. The moths come in as larva on food packaging, so you may not see them when you buy the food. When they hatch, they're attracted to the traps and that's it for them. Replace the traps every three months or if you see sings of infestation.

[ChaosRu]

Ugh, My parents are depression-era peeps, with a Costco habit. Made them get sealed containers to hold all that crap when I had to basically throw out several trash containers full of infested food. I get angst at food fight scenes in movies, throwing out that much food made me tearful and nauseated.

Sophie has the toenail issue and us pretending not to notice a bit too long between trimmings, too. Wanna come help? She is not bad, just huge and wiggly.

[K]

Dude, I TOTALLY remember when you almost got shanked at that job. Holy balls. That broad was CUH-RAZY.