Colonial Miss

Waiter: To drink, miss?
Me: I’d like a nice white wine.
Loresman: AND A STRAW!

We have an assortment of fruit trees, which I’m especially fond of, namely because they aren’t the vegetables. In addition, they don’t require the same level of care as the other plants, and who do those other plants think I am, their mother?

Between the peaches and the pears is a large empty patch, a place in which you will not find apple trees, because the deer rip them to shreds before they can blossom. They gnaw the branches and tear away the very bark from the trunks. Apparently it tastes like apples. You know what else tastes like apples? APPLES, NOT THAT THEY WOULD KNOW.

I can imagine making it my responsibility to guard the apple trees, only to find them one afternoon being feasted upon by a jerk deer family. I’d stand there with my hands on my hips, scolding in earnest as they giggled and pranced about, spitting apple-flavored wood chips as they gaily frolicked back into the forest.

That about sums up my farmerly contributions. Entertainment for the gay deer.

Did you know that once you stop picking strawberries from a strawberry patch, said patch will cease producing strawberries even if you beg?

Loresman keeps coming inside with handfuls of strawberries, enthusiastically leaving them in sloppy piles on the kitchen counter where the majority of them shrivel away because I see what his dumb, corpulent dog produces in immediate proximity to that patch on a nigh daily basis and I cannot.

In accordance, I find it regrettable that the creation of colonialmiss was not powered by fresh produce.

I’ve lost nearly thirty pounds since my move, and if there were ever a person in need of a new weight loss program, I could wholly recommend the following:

• Remain so bewildered by the operations of a kitchen that you put off learning to boil an egg for just a few more months

• Permanently displace yourself from access to prepared foods

Though initially, I very well could’ve afforded to lose ten, maybe fifteen pounds, I would say that my current state could be best described as sickly. My dear grandfather, God rest his soul, would’ve heartily approved, however, as I assuredly could’ve captured a husband at a more suitable age of seventeen.

In addition, I purchased my wedding dress well over a year ago, and after trying it on in late May, the seamstress wagged her finger so vigorously I only recently stopped wearing an eye patch.

I’ll begin by saying I’ve overcome the initial jitters I displayed when confronted with the innumerable insects I would encounter when living in an older house in the country. Therefore, my fits of screaming for backup are at least somewhat less frequent.

In addition, I’ve been attempting, recently, to try and handle things myself. Mainly to boost my confidence for the times I’ll be home by myself but also that crap’s annoying.

Yesterday, I swung so wildly at a wasp, again and again, with a rolled-up Vanity Fair that I nearly felt bad when it flew straight for the screen door in what had to be sheer panic. I let it outside and am certainly considering it a victory on my part.

This morning, however, as I prepared for my day at 5:30, I noticed something small and dark moving along the top of my bedroom window. Hoping for a stinkbug, because that’s the reality in which I live, I took a step closer.

It was clearly a much larger wasp, and as I reached for the nearest magazine, I noticed it was especially engaged in…something? Do wasps eat other bugs? Do wasps eat stinkbugs?

Another step closer, and my eyes focused on a small bundle hanging perfectly centered on the inside of my window. The nest was growing by the second, filled with little waspy cavities, and within ten minutes would attract every wasp within a two-mile radius to inhabit my home and ruin the good furniture.

With Loresman having just gotten into the shower, I attempted to gather my fortitude by walking straight-limbed to the basement and pacing in circles. The dogs followed suit (a situation which inevitably becomes a veritable circus, with one being 140 pounds and the other less than 10).

I finally stood in front of the bathroom door and rapped away, adding suppress a wasp colony to my list of things I cannot begin to accomplish.