Ugh, what a drag, we have a flea infestation up the ass.

I am fighting the big fight right now, doing pretty much every recommended thing under the sun to be rid of them. The cat is NOT helping at all. We treated her with Frontline on the nape of her neck, and she cleared up in a couple of days, but she is not helping by being a mobile poisoning unit because she figured out where the fleas were and avoids those areas now! Frontline is supposed to work by allowing fleas to jump on your cat and ingest the poison in their blood. Sadly, Nietzsche is now spending all of her time on the kitchen stepstool, a sewing machine that for some reason lives in the kitchen now, and an end table in the living room. She refuses to set foot in the girls’ room, where she dropped her big load of fleas in the first place on their little rug.

I have tried shutting her in the girls’ room for short periods of time, trying to get her to sleep on their beds in the sun, and she cries and paws the door. Useless thing!

So I am vacuuming, putting their blankets through the dryer on hot, washing things, sweeping, and spot-spraying with Knockout ES. One morning we wake up and the girls have no bites, and the next morning they wake up with twelve. Of course they have no self-control, so they scratch and scratch, and end up all scabby. They insist on showing me this repeatedly: “Look, this one burst!” Ugh, lovely.

This morning I was stretching before my run when I stopped to slap some of the bites on my ankles, rather than scratch them. I have tried to teach the girls to do this as well, but when Strudel gets mad at me or tired, she claws herself raw. That will show me who’s boss.

Franny noticed I was itchy and said, “Mom, do you have flea bites too?” All amazed.

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“I didn’t know!” she said.

“Well, I don’t complain about them.”

It was like you could see the hourglass turning over. I love these moments where there’s a little glimmer of realization that adults have problems too. Sometimes it takes her a couple of days to discover that I have the same cold she does. She is always amazed. I am not playing momtyr, but I was raised not to complain until I am half dead, so generally I don’t. That’s what this place is for. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

In Other News: The Wall, I Have Hit It

Oh my heartbreak this morning as I was out, dashing happily around the lake, when I was taken out by shin splints. I was so angry I thought the top of my head was going to pop off. I NEED this running right now.

I slowed down and stopped to rub my legs. “FUCKITY FUCK FUCKLOAF ASSBURGER FIDDLESTICKS COCKTOAST…Oh, hello, ma’am, I did not see you and your stroller full of impressionable preschoolers there.”

The lake is kind of a funny place to run, since I kind of fall into myself and pretend I’m invisible when I’m doing it, and it’s full of people. This morning the center of the lake looked dead white, like it was the gateway to the edge of the world or something. I saw herons and falling yellow leaves. I am so happy that I can’t see shit generally, except, er, when I’m driving at night. People’s faces are a blur. I pipe music in through big ass cans instead of ear buds, which always hurt. This makes the world even more muted. Today I was listening to A Night at Birdland, and with Art Blakey’s wet cymbals you can’t even hear the gabbling, latte-swilling stroller moms.

So I hit that wall and walked until they settled down. I think I need to change a few things: more stretching, and new shoes. I think I am resting enough. I also need new jog bras. My currents are from before Strudel, and they are not quite doing it. They fit around, but the cup…it is a little like putting a small egg into a regular egg carton. It just rattles around and looks sad in there.

By the time I got to “Night in Tunisia” my shins felt okay again. That’s gotta be one of my all time favorite songs. I think I have a dead musician crush on Lee Morgan. I have almost all of his albums and a few of Blue Mitchell’s. I think trumpet is my favorite. Rock N Rolla!