Sep 26, 2016

Monadism Monday

monadism ~ theory that there exist ultimate units of being

We had a stealth cricket in the house last week. I call him a stealth cricket because normally the first indication there’s a cricket in the house is the noise, followed by hours, if not days, of searching to find the culprit. However, this time first indication was the june bug sized black body creeping across the floor.

He was so big even the cats didn’t want to mess with him. Armed with a glass bowl, I turned on all the lights to try and find him, but didn’t have any luck. So I left the bowl in the kitchen and sat back in the living room and the little bugger, clearly mocking me, went from the bookcase to under the hubby’s recliner. I went back and got my bowl, just as he was traversing the carpet back to the bookcase, but before I could lower it over him he started to jump.

Do you have any idea how high a cricket can jump? Almost as high as I can. ;-)

We did spy him again later that evening and managed to relocate him outside without causing him any harm. You do know it’s bad luck to kill a cricket in the house, don’t you? This is a superstition passed down to me from my mother. She never killed a cricket in the house but always live-trapped them and released them back into the wild.

I can’t really blame him for wanting to be inside though. It’s like Mother Nature flipped a switch or something. After the first day of Autumn it became cool enough we didn’t need so much as a fan, let alone the air conditioning, and Friday I even wore a jacket when I went grocery shopping.

Saturday I spent most of the day huddled under an afghan as I relaxed in my recliner - although part of that could have been because I was sick from the cold the granddaughter gave me. Hers was mostly in the chest, mine was all in the sinuses and the first medication I took was an extra-strength, all purpose one. Did you know that extra-strength usually just means double the Tylenol? And I guess I don’t handle Tylenol well because it made me feel worse than the cold. So I switched to that super-duper decongestant I had from before and it seems to be doing the trick.

Saturday night I went to bed forgetting that the window was open in my office, and the temperature went down to the single digits (Celsius, which would make it the mid to high 50s Fahrenheit) so it was a mite chilly in the house Sunday morning. Even after shutting the window and keeping the deck doors shut all day, it still wasn’t overly warm. Which, to be perfectly honest, was okay by me. I’d rather be too cold than too warm any day.

Not a lot to report on the bathroom. Hubby got the first coat of filler on to make the walls all nice and smooth, and worked on some electrical stuff. It doesn’t really look all that different from last week’s picture, but you can see the drywall dust footprints he left on the carpet in the front hall. :-D



Because I just know you’re all wondering about the cricket superstition thing, I decided to do a little research, and here’s what I found out:

Superstitions regarding crickets come from all over the world, but only the Chinese kept crickets in tiny bamboo cages for luck.
For generations, the cricket has served as a watchdog in many Asian countries - at the first sign of danger, the cricket’s chirping will stop.
Almost every Native American tribe believed the cricket brought good luck, and it was considered disrespectful to try imitating one.
It is considered very good luck to find a cricket in your house, and very bad luck to kill a cricket, even by accident.
If you want to know the temperature, count the number of chirps a cricket makes within fifteen seconds and add the number thirty-seven. (I’m assuming this would be in Fahrenheit).
In Brazil, the chirping of a black cricket is taken as a sign of impending illness, that of a grey cricket money, and that of a green one hope.
A constantly chirping cricket foretells pregnancy.

Unfortunately, it does not say what happens to the good luck of finding a cricket in the house if your cats eat it. Guess I'd best stay vigilant ;-)

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