I got home from work last night and flopped in my bed for a quick snooze. It was just one of those days. I had a bizarre dream where I was at some sort of amusement park. I was in the game alley and I was in front of the game booth where you try to toss softballs into old-time milk canisters. The grand prize was an old leather WWII pilots hat and goggles that had a big Viking-like horn coming out of the center of it. I wanted it pretty bad. Naturally I could not win it and in my dream I vowed that I would build a set of milk-containers and softballs in my backyard and practice until I was the master of it. Of course, once I woke up I knew I would do no such thing because in reality those game booths never have cool prizes.
There were other strange parts to the dream. It was simply one of those vivid dreams that stick with you a little while after you wake up. I have them every now and then. I had one last week where there was a little cottage somewhere that a prophet was kept in. He was considered dangerous so they kept him locked in there and was garded by a small army of plaster gnomes that all had the point part of their hats pointed at the cottage. They formed a ring that encircled the entire cottage and because of this the prophet could not get out.
I tried to go for a bike ride last night, however riverwalk was swarming with those annoying bugs known as midges. They were everywhere. They are big fat bugs as well so I could feel them every time one hit me in my face, or when they landed in my hair I could feel them crawling about. Ugh, it was horrid and I quickly turned away and went back home.
When there is a big event or parade riverwalk takes measures to keep the population down by spraying and some machine they use to churn up the muck in the water so the midge larva does not survive. I wish they would do it year round. However, that is the price you pay for living in the great swamp of Florida.
I hate swarms of bugs hitting me. Once many years ago I was an intern at the University of Florida. I used to drive home on weekends because my roommates up there were freaks. Once I was driving home at night and it was a nice cool night off for a change so I decided to take my shirt off. I was driving my old VW bus at the time and the only a/c it had was those little triangle windows you pivot to direct the air flow at you. So I was driving along and enjoying the breeze on my skin when I suddenly went though some sort of huge swarm of mosquitoes. The little airflow window scooped them up and sprayed them all over me. I was yelping and spitting them out and the van was swerving. Finally I had to stop and get out and pick out all of those damn bugs out of my chest hair. It was fairly gross.
I puttered around last night and then watched a couple more episodes of ‘Kingdoms Hospital’. It really is an excellent show even if I have no clue as to what is going on. The best part of the show is the rich diversity of characters they have running around on it. And then there are the little things you don’t catch unless you have been watching them in a row. Like the maintenance man who is never there but has a different replacement every day, and the replacements have absurd names. It’s little things like that that tickle me.
Tonight I am going to make homemade clam chowder and watch ‘ghost hunters’. Mm. Clams.
2026 Update
My time machine's coal bill is outrageous, but 20 years ago Ed with midges in his hair is worth it.
Ed, you absolute swamp creature, this is prime 2006 specimen. Back then a blog post was a raw confessional with an Amazon image URL slap-dashed in as if that counted as illustration. Now everything is a polished video or a subscription wall, and the only bugs in my feed are glitches. Your physical torments are almost quaint: midges in the hair, mosquitoes scooped through a triangular VW window and pasted to your bare chest. Today’s Floridian would complain digitally from inside a sealed, app-controlled car while the car nags them about their phone. Television was a mystery you consumed on a disc; now it is a ten-season buffet with a recap episode and an army of online explainers. Clam chowder meant clams, effort, and a pot; now it means a delivery bag arriving with crackers and a side of platform fees. And the little things that tickled you—the maintenance man’s absurd replacements—are now Easter eggs designed by a writers' room, not accidents you noticed by watching in a row. I almost miss that mess. Almost.
“2006 Ed, be honest: after the mosquito-paste incident, did you ever wear a shirt in that VW bus again, or did the dream of a horned WWII pilot hat make you risk it all?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you ask a fair question, and the honest answer is no, I didn't start wearing a shirt. I just learned to keep that little triangle window shut when there was any chance of bugs, which in Florida means always. But I did keep my chest hair trimmed, so if another swarm hit, there was less real estate for them to land on. As for that horned WWII pilot hat, I still think about it, and I still haven't built the milk canisters, so I guess I'm not risking much of anything except looking like a fool at the fair. The mosquito paste dream was gross enough that I'd rather drive with the windows up and sweat like a sinner in church. Take that, foul insects.
