So Much for Karma!

Yes, I have yet another hornet story - this time, Saturday afternoon as I sat on my balcony, peacefully doing word game puzzles, a yellow jacket stung me on the left arm. It was completely unprovoked! So much for my good bug karma from helping that big black hornet... I went into the house to find an onion to apply to the sting but could only come up with a dessicated, ancient leek so I put some baking soda on it instead. THEN I noticed the evil wasp was still hanging out on my Hawaiian shirt! So I squished it with my comb. Then I went over to Richard Bonomo's house, where A-Fooze was making Hungarian chicken for him, Anna Banana II, Kathbert, and me, and A-Fooze was able to provide me with a small piece of onion. Then Kathbert arrived, and she had just been stung on the thigh by a yellow jacket while she was out biking! She suggested we use ammonia, so Rich gave us some and we went outside to apply it, since it reeks. The epicenter of the sting swelled up pretty badly right away, but by the next day it was fine.

But you are probably more interested in hearing about my drunken bike ride than my wasp sting. Friday morning I decided to save myself the trouble of biking up the hill to the birthday girl's house (she actually lives on Hilltop Road!) but it was so much effort getting Eusebius into Erin Caitlyn O'Honda that I was already sweaty by the time I arrived... and then I put the front wheel back on wrong so it was pretty difficult biking to the first stop! Luckily the birthday girl's father Dennii was able to fix my mistake, so then Eusebius was the smoothest ride ever. We biked all over town, ringing bells and honking horns and squirting each other with water guns. We stopped at several bars and several houses and had a big water fight. At a New Orleans-style restaurant, the birthday girl had a shot of sake that came from a bottle with an enormous rattlesnake in it. Freaky! She said it started sweet and then had a kick. After eleven hours of this, some people were still going strong (and many others had left), but I was worn out so I called Rich to come get me and Eusebius in the Bonomobile. (Also, I didn't have a light so I was afraid of being ticketed by the bike cops.) Rich had just come back from a visit to the Mothership, so he had lots of baklava. (He said as he was leaving, the Mothership said, "Rich, you're getting fat! Here, have some baklava.")

Saturday night I went to a "Leo party," which was supposed to be a birthday party for "all the Leos," but it seemed that the host was the only Leo there. Most of the other guests were Brazilian, and they sang and played Brazilian music and made delicious Brazilian food. (Sorry to tell you this, Hardingfele, but it seems like in Brazil they mostly eat meat.) (Which made Rich very happy to hear!) There was actually a guy there who knew all about tuning systems; he said he tuned his piano in (yuck!) equal temperament, his harpsichord in Werckmeister, and his clavichord in sixth-comma mean tone. He also told me a local piano seller HATES equal temperament (cool!) and tunes pianos to seventh-comma mean tone, which I'd never heard of. But hey, at least it's not equal temperament! But if you think sparks flew between me and this man, you are wrong because I am made of some kind of non-flammable material.

Famous Hat