Momedy Sketch: Night-time gardening..

We are doing some re-landscaping in our backyard in order to give our darling offspring more space to play. Said off-spring had jolly well better appreciate it! It has been taking more time then we thought it would. Imagine that! Underestimating the time/ effort/expense of a home improvement project! It's hard, hard work, and when I say blood sweat and tears I am not exaggerating. OK maybe not tears yet, but the sweat and the blood were all there. In fact, as we spent the second evening in a row well past sunset, feeling like criminals as we floundered about, digging holes in the dark, the mosquitoes joined us for a bit of a feast. And what a party that was! I now look as if I have cystic acne. As I stood there scratching and cursing these infernal devils-pets, I imagined a scene like this unfolding in the area around my head.

Little Mosquito: Mom I am starving! Can we go eat at Chuck-E-Finny's tonight?

Mom Mosquito: No, you've had quite enough of Chuck-E-Finny lately not to mention McGabe's and Gracie-hut. We need to be eating closer to home.

Little Mosquito: But mom I don't like home food! I like Chuck E Finny and McGabe's. Their skin is so soft and easy to pierce and...

Mom Mosquito: And that is exactly why your proboscis is getting so dull lately and I have noticed my thorax starting to expand.

I've been watching Moprah and she is had this Anopheles on who had been getting so sluggish that she had come *this* close to being slapped by a BABY, three times! That was when she knew that something had to change. So she went through this huge mid life-cycle thing and then wrote this book about how she started partaking only from foreheads and she has never felt better. Apparently the forehead skin is very thin, very little fat, just good pure blood. The only thing is that she will not pierce any foreheads with make-up on them. Can you imagine? What is there left to eat?! I mean it's hard enough these days to find a forehead which does not reek of repellent! No wonder she is so thin. And then when you start cutting out babies, because really, they are just pure fat. Man! Everything good is bad for you.

Little Mosquito: Moooooooooooomeeeeeee I don't care about Moprah! I'm hungreeeeee when are we going to eat? Can we go to Gracie-Hut? Benj-ehana?

Mom Mosquito: Ok well here's the thing, and I do NOT want to hear even the tiniest buzz of whining about it. We are eating at Mother's tonight.

Little Mozzie: NOOOO not Mothers! Her skin is all tough and yucky and her blood tastes weird. Sort of vinegary and old.

MM: It will be good for you. It would not kill you to actually have to work a bit to pierce something once in a while. And it's a good safe meal. You know she has only killed like 2 comrades in her life and she is from Africa for heavens sake. You almost have to feel sorry for the woman. Ok come on, let's go.

LM: (high pitched whiny buzz).

MM: STOP THAT! You are going to get slapped! Oh! I smell our exit, hang on! Ok, there's the Mother Forehead. Now eat up fast so we can go home, it's a school night. Stay close, no wandering off, I don't want you getting stuck in one of those deep valleys, if she frowns you're a goner.

CM: Suck blech-yuck.

MM: I saw that young man, if I catch you spitting out your blood you will just go to bed hungry. No ankle snack later! There are mosquitoes in Europe who don't have anybody to suck. Don't be so ungrateful!

Sigh. I guess a mom has got to do what a mom has got to do. I should be more sympathetic to the plight of the Mommy mosquito. Yeah how about I work on that compassion the very same day that they eradicate malaria.

Photos to follow. No, not of my deformed face, I'm not quite that depraved yet. The backyard! Actually we are quite curious as to how it turned out ourselves. Things tend to look different in the light of day to how you imagine them when you are feeling around in the dark. I'm not entirely sure that I did not plant a row of Hostas upside down.