Summer Office

One of the privileges of working from home is that I can outside in nice weather.

Hence my summer office, pictured here.

It's not quite as picturesque as this at the moment, because I have all the gauze drapes down and zipped, while the mosquitos buzz in fury around the outside. A few make it inside, too, but they are easily dealt with. More easily than a swarm, anyway.

By dealt with, yes, I do mean killed. Without a moment's remorse or hesitation.

When I was young, I came home from school one day crying because my friends had said I couldn't hurt a fly. They, of course, meant I was weak and physically inept, which I surely was.

"Of course you couldn't," my mother blithely replied. "Because you don't like to kill anything. You wouldn't kill a fly."

Which was also true. I was the kid who hearded the moths, flies and spiders out of the house, rather than kill them.

Moquitos, however, have always been different. I used to claim that I would never kill one of God's creatures, but since mosquitos weren't one of them, no such restrictions applied. I'm a mosquito magnet. Always have been. I'm the first and most often bit. If enough of them bite me, I'll actually start getting a systemic histamine reaction. My grandmother said it was because I'm so sweet. (See? At least ONE other person thought so!) I've heard others say that my negative rH factor, or even my A- blood, makes it so.

I light my citronella candles. I give thanks for whoever invented mosquito netting.

Do they have mosquitos much in Santa Fe, I wonder?