Observations on the South and Southerhoodness (Part 2)

Preface: 

Dear Georgia (and residents),

I'm sorry if I'm sounding a bit uppity regarding my feelings towards you. I may be displacing all my negative emotions about my current lifestyle on you and your inhabitants. For where I have done this in error, please forgive me. For where you are at fault, I shall try to overlook your extreme humidity, swarms of gnats and seemingly creepy men constantly pacing the sidewalks in front of my house and keep my complaints to a minimum.

Sincerely,

Lyndsey Brown

Wildlife
Georgia has surprised me with its abundance of natural beauty. The state is full of deep green foliage and brightly colored trees. And while I imagine there are worse places to live and I enjoy most of the scenery around here, I have two main problems with the wildlife here in Georgia:

Problem #1
The things I like, I don't recognize.

Now, I understand this is my own fault for not being more educated on the trees and birds of the world, but at this point, I don't even know how to go about learning these things.

For example, every time I walk along the river, I see these beautiful bright red birds. While Karyn was here, I pointed one out to her and said, "I think that's a robin."



My reasoning? It looked like red robin symbol from Red Robin the restaurant.



Karyn looked at it and said, "I think it's a cardinal."

Her reasoning? It looked like the cardinal symbol from the  St. Louis baseball team.



The culprit up close:



I think Karyn wins but I can't be sure. Looks about right to me...



I'm still trying to figure out if a real red robin even exists or if it's just the Santa Clause of birds who brings you balloons and steak fries.

Problem #2 
What I don't like, I recognize all too well.

Namely, these demons.


This one I found dead on my front porch. I seriously can't look at this picture. If you don't know what that is, that's a beeping cockroach. And these things are everywhere here in Georgia: in the streets, on the sidewalks and unfortunately, constantly trying to get into my house. 

I swore I would officially freak out if I ever saw a cockroach in our apartment (traumatic childhood experience -- one crawled into my hand while I was sleeping). And lo and behold, God was finally punishing me for the time in high school when I shared a tent with 4 other girls in Mexico and I saw a cockroach scurry across the floor and I didn't kill it because I was too scared of it. Then when my friend Amanda went to put on her jeans later in the morning, and well, the cockroach was hiding in her pants and nobody knew it...and she pulled them over her legs and...then she started screaming and fell on the floor and couldn't get the cockroach pants off...and we all laughed about it a lot...later...but it was my fault...and now I know your sin will find you out.

So last week while I was putting the dishes away, a stowaway cockroach had evidently made a home in my cupcake tray. When I took the tray off the counter (it was upside down) the cockroach fell out of one of the cupcake cubbies and landed on the back of my hand and then fell on the floor. I promptly let out a set of broken high pitched noises and there was a lot of screaming and jumping and pawing at the air. Andrew just kept shouting "what! What?!" until I whimpered the word "cockroach" in which case he was mildly (extremely) annoyed that I scared him into thinking something "serious" had actually taken place. At which point I broke into tears because I can't think of anything more serious than a cockroach trying to hold my hand. Worse still, it ran into our bedroom and took up "homeage" somewhere undetected for the next 24 hours. And although I didn't sleep a bit that night for fear that the hard-shelled monster would once again end up in my bed, he got his comeuppance in good time.

Since then, I have been in the presence of two more. Just the other day I opened the door and one ran between my legs and I screamed but I didn't step on it because I thought my sandals were too thin and that I would feel its body crack under my weight and that sound and feeling would be permanently embedded in my psyche and I would have a mental breakdown. Soooo I let it dart behind me, where thankfully, Android was waiting wearing manly tennis shoes and he took the sucker out.

Then this morning I came out into the living room to find yet another cockroach dead on the floor. And I don't care how it died. Maybe there's a gas leak in our house. Doesn't matter to me. At least it wasn't moving.

God only knows how many more I will see in my house before we move.

Have I mentioned we're moving to Savannah? In August? But more on that later.

In the meantime, if anyone knows of some natural insecticide recipes I can lace my house with, or a good southern bird watching book, I'm all ears. Apparently I have a lot of learning about birds to do and a lot of "boss showing" to give some cockroaches.