blinkit

Strawberries in the freezer

Today's bLINKit: This might come a bit late for people in my biozone, since strawberries seem to be pretty much done here, but for those with different growing seasons or those still enjoying the little red fruits, here's one of the better bits of online info I came across on how to freeze strawberries. I've frozen three big Ziploc bags of 'em (now that the bug war is done, I have to find another use for my Ziplocs other than protecting my clothing). I didn't want to smother them with sugar, since they're sweet enough, so I froze them using the non-sugar method. So far, so good, and we'll see how they last during the winter. Strawberries don't freeze especially well, or at least don't hold their shape when they thaw, but they do thaw tasty and, I imagine, at least nutritious in a way that junk food is not. When the blueberries come out next month, I'll freeze at least 40 pounds of those as a winter reserve. It's my small contribution to buying and eating local. And in reference to that, I was appalled last week when entering a local Save-On: here we are in the middle of local abundance, with farms bursting with produce only a few klicks away, and almost all the vegetables and fruit were from California.

Speaking of local abundance, when in my area check out the Westham Island Winery. I recommend the rhubarb and currant wines as great summer sippers. Also note in the winery tasting room the signed pictures of people like Charlie Sheen. Lots of filming goes on around Westham, I'm told, including this and this.

Hot enough for you?/VB Day

WMD: I woke up with summer in Vancouver. This evening, it feels like Kamloops. I very much appreciate my fridge, and realize this is another lesson in our dependency on the regular flow of cheap energy.

And today I'm announcing that to the best of my knowledge, the scourge is over. The much previously discussed bugs are gone. Now that the war is over, life is getting back to normal. The troops are coming home, industry is turning out consumer goods instead of tanks and rifles and the women are being sent back from those factories and back into the kitchen to make apple pies. It's the 1950s at Blinkit, and we're enjoying the opening years of the Eisenhower administration and booming economic growth. And don't worry, we'll let the women get work again. Perhaps part-time to start.

Silent spring

Bug war update: It's been one week since the last visit from the pest control company, and it's been all Rachel Carson in my home with not a known critter crawling or found hiding in at least five days. And no new bites. That's all a good thing. I also know it could be temporary, so the hygiene protocols, frequent laundry and life stored in plastic bags remain in place. But it's the longest respite I've had since this adventure began.

I'm cautiously thinking about the future, which will include:

* new flooring, probably laminate: fewer places for bugs to hide and propagate
* a new bed frame: probably with metal legs and frame, for the same reason as above
* new sheets
* inviting company over once again

And as bedbugs apparently increase in prevalence to become a routine part of the North American lifestyle, I'd suggest a few protocols for everyone to observe to avoid an infestation:

* don't accept or buy used furniture, especially bedding: This is a tough one, because I like the idea of people recycling perfectly good sofas and chairs. I've frequently donated items to charities in the past. But unless you know the provenance of the furniture you're taking in, you're taking a risk.
* be careful on the bus: I got an email from a biologist in the California department of health the other day about my columns. She sent some info from her department, part of which states plainly that bedbugs are common on public transit. They especially like the cloth seats buses come with these days. (As if the middle class needed another reason to avoid public transit.) I like the bus. I use it all the time. But I'm not sitting down on it for the next six months ...
* after you come home from being out and about, don't sit, lie down or nap on your bed with your street clothes. Don't put your backpack or bag on it. Change. Used stuff goes right into the laundry basket. Have a set of home clothes. A lot of you probably do this already. My workplace has no dress code, so I never did. I will now.

Second wave, day two: watch your garbage

WMD: Another pest control guy was here yesterday. This time, he was here longer, which I hope is a good sign. And since the new spray, there's been no sign of the little nasties since their reappearance a few days ago. I'm not holding my breath, since I've been down that road before. Oh wait: the apartment was sprayed. I am holding my breath.

One thing I've learned is to watch what you throw away. This domestic disturbance has been an opportunity for spring cleaning, as I've gotten rid of stuff that I don't need and that may be either harbouring or attractive to the bugs. Case in point was an old small bookshelf that I had recently put in my closet to hold all the Ziplocs that contain my clothes. The day before the recent spray, I took it apart out of curiosity and discovered, of course, a small colony of bedbugs (about half a dozen tiny ones) on its underside. Since I don't need it, I threw it out. But when I went to the garbage bin in the alley way less than an hour later to throw out regular garbage, the shelves were gone. I encountered similar experiences when I first tossed out stuff before the first spray: anything I put into the bin was either sorted through or taken away within 30 minutes of it being placed there. And yet I never saw a single soul in the alley. There's two lessons here: first, watch what you throw out. If you include any personal papers, even letters and old bills, shred them beforehand to avoid any possibility of identity theft (paper documents are the main source of identity theft, not online hackers). And second, there's a whole ecology to this city that the mainstream of society never sees: small armies of binners and garbage raiders who prowl the alleys, largely unseen, and live off what the rest of us cast away.

Jericho Watch: The season finale of Jericho, a drama set in the U.S. after it's been attacked by terrorist nuclear bombs, produced the best TV line of the month: "I'm about to go to war with Newburn, Kansas, home of the nearest Costco. Today's about as weird as I can handle." And then the show killed off a major character. Also its best actor. We'll see if it survives the loss, let alone gets renewed for the fall season.

Today's bLINKit: Corey at Scratch Factory takes on Hollywood for calling Canada the world's biggest haven for movie pirates. (The people who video films in theatres -- not the guys with the peg legs and parrots.) He also takes a whack at bad reporting. I'm with him.

Bug wars: The next offensive

WMD: They're back. I found a nesting area in a plastic tray of pens, pencils, paper clips and a million other pieces of junk. Needless to say, the contents went into a Ziploc and the Ziploc into my freezer (which already is full of Ziplocs of books and papers and my cycling saddlebag) and the tray went into the garbage. I also found a fully grown adult in a previously cleared out hiding place in my bed frame. I don't know if it was orphaned there and couldn't get out, thanks to the surrounding double-sided tape, or if it found its own way there. Either way, there have also been some recent bites. That's why I'm glad the pest guy is coming again tomorrow as we nuke the place once again in the great struggle. I'm also leaning toward dumping the frame altogether. Same with the mattress. What I'll sleep on will be an interesting challenge -- I'm looking at cots/portable beds at Canadian Tire as a transitional step.

One thing to add: bedbugs are not the only critters people face. Friends and family have recounted their own similarly stressful tales of dealing with head lice (common in school children) and fleas (common in pets). And they, too, require some stringent measures in dealing with them.

And a second column on the subject, courtesy of readers who wrote in to tell me their advice about how to deal with the bugs. Some interesting suggestions.

Finally, I've bought more of these. Time to buy stock in the company.

Today's bLINKit: Lisa Smedman is doing another terrific history series for the Courier. The first story centred on the early history of the Chinese in Vancouver. The most recent story tells about the early Germans: their early glory and their fall from grace as a result of the First World War.

SL Neighbourhood Update: Trouble in paradise. First, I haven't been able to log on for about two weeks because I'm having major video card problems. I'll be getting a replacement card soon. Not being able to log on annoys me, because someone offered me about $40 for my land, an offer I'm considering but haven't been able to negotiate. The second problem is universal: SL is falling apart due to too much growth (kind of like Vancouver), and residents are losing their patience. Read a recent petition here.

All quiet on the western front

WMD: No bedbug sightings in the last three days. And from what I can tell, no new bites. A few nights ago, I took apart my bed frame and went in hand to hand against a couple of hiding places where I suspected they were hiding. Flushed them out, killed them all, swabbed those areas with alcohol and then surrounded the terrain with double-sided tape. I also taped over any other conceivable openings in my frame. I followed all that up by buying a mattress enclosure and using it to encase my mattress. Same for my pillow. Then I placed lines of doublesided tape at the head of my bedsheets, since the line from my frame to my pillow and head seems to be the Ho Chin Min trail for these little guys. I also moved my bed away from the wall. It's awkward now to walk around the room, but it's also necessary. Has it worked? I don't know. It gives me the feeling of being active in the fight, as opposed to being lunch, so psychologically it's good. And the bugs have disappeared. That means nothing, unfortunately, from other combat accounts I've read. They could have found new hiding spots and are now patiently figuring out a way to get back at me. They could be resting after a week long feast. They could have gone dormant until a more opportunistic moment. I figure I won't declare myself bug free until two months have passed without a bite or sighting. Apparently it can take that long.

There is a bright side to this whole fight: I've gotten rid of bags of clutter. I've gotten rid of clothes I don't need. I got new bookshelves to avoid piling them up on the floor. My closet looks vastly better. I've decided to get laminate flooring sooner rather than later, if only to make the place less bug friendly. My apartment overall feels leaner and more Zen-like, which is what I strive for as a domestic aesthetic. Less physical baggage, less emotional and psychological baggage, too. For that, I thank the bugs.

Today's bLINKit: Fairly hot Australian does interesting kind of solo video in which she plays all the roles. It helps that she can act pretty well. (This one is about germs, kind of a riff on my current attempt at bug quarantine.) Part of a series.

24 Watch: bugged out

24 Watch: Maybe I'm tired from four straight days of doing laundry and putting all my clothes into plastic bags, but 24 very nearly put me to sleep. (For the record, the lame Canucks-Ducks game did indeed put me to sleep when I paused 24 and switched to hockey for about 20 minutes.) It wasn't a bad episode, but it did feel like the writers were moving things somewhat awkwardly around to set up characters and events for coming dramatic high points. And at least they didn't go very far with Jack being a rogue again. Indeed, he's getting fairly inept at it. Maybe he's right that he doesn't have what it takes anymore. Meantime, he upped his bodycount by taking out two bedbu--, uh, I mean two bad guys. He also borrowed a cellphone from the terrorists. And he rescued another person, this time someone important to him. His stats are now updated.

Today's bLINKit: My column on my bedbug plague. There is a small irony in what's happening to me, in that our paper first broke and wrote about the bedbug problem in the Downtown Eastside about two years ago. Back then, it felt like an exotic if disturbing phenomenon. It's interesting when the news you cover literally comes home.

D-Day plus 3: heavy casualties on both sides

WMD: On Monday I awoke to discover what I'm pretty sure are new bites. I say "pretty sure," because I don't really know. It could skin irritation brought on by stress and lack of sleep. Or eczema. Or new bites. I think the latter because I also found a dead bug in bed with me. That felt like victory. I've since discovered at least one other dead one on the wall near my headboard. That would mean the chemical treatment is working. Not always fast enough to stop them from getting to me one last time, but enough to stop them for eternity. And that's the goal. So I continue to sleep in my bed as strategic bait.

I also now am acquiring Vancouver's largest personal collection of extra large Ziploc bags. Yes, I am following the Bedbugger prescription of sealing freshly laundered clothes in bags and only taking them out when you want to use them. I don't want to get new bugs from clothes that are infested. And I don't want to spread the bugs around or at work. I'd be mortified if anyone I knew got them. Most of all, this is a war, and I intend to win. Right now, I can't decide the extent of the infestation. There seems to be no evidence that they've spread to my living room, or even to most areas of my bedroom. I've found no evidence of them in my office cabinet, not far from the bed. No sign of them in my electronics or computer desk. I've found, and terminated, one in the closet. (The closet was also treated Saturday.) From what I've read, that doesn't mean there not elsewhere: I just haven't found them there yet. And I hope I never will.

Speaking of Bedbugger, Nobugsonme, the author of the post I noted previously wrote me a nice reply. It's in the comment section.

And Casper has returned home from a weekend's stay at the vet. He thought the place smelled funny, which I'm sure it does for a cat. But I'm wondering why he didn't think the bedbugs smelled funny, since they, too, can exude a sweet, raspberry-like scent. Then again, I'm not surprised. This is the same cat who seemed to notice not at all that Mr. Squirrel was silently and secretly decomposing away under my bathroom vanity. And he wonders why I took his webcam away.

Next up on bLINKit: less bugs, more TV and reading, plus thoughts on 300.

Today's bLINKit: Most of you have probably seen this, but this is a great Google self-parody.

D-Day plus 2: Hedgerow hell

WMD: Those familiar with the Normandy invasion metaphor I was playing with in my previous post will know that it's not a metaphor for swift victory. After the Allies took the beaches from the Germans, they faced weeks of the toughest, bloodiest fighting of the war on the western front, especially in the hedgerows, which heavily favoured defending troops. So it is with my war on the bedbugs, if what I've read is to be believed. The Bedbugger blog, an excellent source for bedbug sufferers (hence bedbuggers), seems to want to hammer home the notion that you're in for a long campaign to get rid of the bugs: multiple treatments, social isolation, and a quarantine lifestyle in which freshly laundered clothes go into sealed Ziploc bags to prevent re-infestation. The blog, a collective enterprise of people who've gone through or are going through bug problems, noted recently how lingerie, for example, for women becomes a thing of the past. They won't survive the repeated laundering involved in getting rid of the problem. It's a lifestyle change:

And then there’s the inconvenience and the cost and the work. Most Bedbuggers–male or female– start washing everything after one wearing. This means much more laundry than ever before. And your clothes wear out faster–being washed so harshly on hot and dried on hot, and then washed this way much more often, in many cases. Some try to cut down on laundry by changing into “indoor clothes” and sealing up their “outdoor clothes” for another use. But this can lead to wrinkles and mustiness (sealing worn clothing in a bag leads to very different effects from airing it on a hanger.)

Further down, they write:

People stop sitting in soft furniture, walking barefoot at home, and resort to checking sheets and other bedclothes obsessively before getting in, and worrying about taking anything from home to car, work, or anywhere else. They shower, dress in fresh clothing, and rush out to work and appointments, because lingering at home means things might crawl into their clothing and be moved elsewhere.

It sounded extreme to me when I first read it. But look at all the comments under the above post from bedbugger. It's like living with an STD in your home (hopefully not a permanent one). Meantime, I'm now on a quest to buy extra-extra large Ziploc bags. So far, no luck at Rona and Home Depot, but I need something that can seal tight and is large enough to put my pants and shirts in.

WMD2: Frequent reader FdC suggested I play Streisand all day on the stereo to get rid of the bugs. He says it's how he got his own children to leave home.

Today's bLINKit: Bedbugger is the aforementioned and very well done blog.

D-Day plus 1: Die, bedbugs, die

WMD: The liberation of my apartment is well underway, with a firm beachhead of pest control and a breakout expected soon into bedbug-free status. The initial airdrop behind the beaches got a little frantic in the past two days as I scrambled to get the place ready for the treatment (cleared out the bedroom closets and drawers, dismantled the bed frame, vacuumed everything, moved a ton of books into the kitchen, sealed a whack of CDs in big plastic bags, laundered every item of clothing I own, threw out tons of stuff I should have tossed a long time ago, landed airborne commandos in gliders at both ends of key bridges at critical river crossings), but I got it done on time. The technician said I made his job easier and quicker through my prepping. He was a friendly, intelligent guy, who told me that five years ago, they never had bedbug calls. Now they're a major part of his job as they spread throughout the city. His theories about their resurgence include the increasing globalization of Vancouver's population base, with people from all over the world bringing their quaint, critter pals with them, and the increase in international travel, with people from here going out to distant lands, meetingt exotic, foreign bugs and bringing them back home.  (It's also the same reason TB has increased here, too.) For example, he noted a major hotel across the river from me has had a major infestation in the past. Yes, they're the new reality. Bedbugs went away in North America for half a century. My mom remembers them when she was a little girl. But now they're back. Watch the skies.

The treatment itself is a chemical spray said to be harmless to humans and animals. It's a direct application on infected furniture, the base of walls, carpets etc. I had to be out of the house for six hours after the treatment, but according to the technician, that's largely because the chemical is applied with water and they don't want people trudging through the damp carpets and disturbing the chemical barrier until it's dry. I also aired the place out for half an hour before I re-entered. So I drank a beer on my balcony last night after opening all the windows and watched the rain come down. But I was away for a total of 13 hours, so it was largely unnecessary since I already had windows open a bit, and rooms exchange gases on their own within four hours.

I also noted that I was getting my home doused in chemicals during the Earth Day weekend. Oops. But that's mitigated by the thought that right now, all these bedbugs are either dead or about to die, writhing and choking to death on their own vomit as they come across the treatment. Good, I shout, as I exult in the lamentations of their women.

Back to laundry now, and putting my bed together, books back etc. I have to launder everything on hot, although the delicates I can apparently get dry cleaned, so I'm keeping those in a separate bag. The kicker is that the pest guys will be back in two weeks with a different chemical treatment. Just to make sure, he says. So I get to do this all over again.

There are extra costs to this: the cat is in a hotel at the vet's this weekend. And I decided to replace stuff, such as my laundry bag, that I probably didn't need to. But I want to make sure I'm clear. Believe me, bedbugs beat last year's problem with Mr. Squirrel by a mile.

And now for some good news: The rear brake light is fixed. My garage did it for free. They said they just used a different bulb than what I was using. OK.

Today's bLINKit: The Bedbug Resource. All you ever wanted to be creeped out by.