Dog Out, Mosquitoes In

Woody hiding in his usual spot under my desk.

Well, my sister's dog has gone home after spending the past eight days with me. I found it strange tonight not to be able to look over and see him keeping an eye on me every time I shifted or got up to move to another room. I miss that little guy. On my way to the dog park on Friday night, missing my son and knowing the doggie would soon be going home, I decided I need to get a dog again. It will take some serious shopping to find a dog that gets along with the kiddo and tolerates his silly behavior. My son chased Woody around all week, but I noticed that whenever the kiddo would stop, the dog would run back and wait for him to start up again, so he obviously liked the activity. Tonight when I took the dog home from the dog park, I actually shed a few tears, thinking about missing his company. Well, golly.

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In other news, in the "I feel like a jerk even thinking about this with the whole Katrina thing going on" category, I seem to have some sort of mosquito thing going on in the house. We live within yards of a bigole lake, which has its pros and cons. The mosquitoes appear to be on the con side. I always saw them outside in large groups in the evenings, but I think some have gotten into the house and taken up residence. I first noticed them on Wednesday or Thursday and killed at least 10 in a 24-hour period. In the past three days or so I've killed maybe three a day. Although it sounds gross, I think probably a couple got in during our regular comings and goings, and they set up shop in the side of the kitchen sink that I rarely use that probably had a little water in it (the side with the garbage disposal -- can you tell there's not a lot of real cooking going on here?).

I dumped some counter cleaner with bleach down that drain and hoped that would take care of the problem. I've read online that mosquitoes can live for one to three weeks, though, and tonight I've already killed two and one has escaped me just now. (Note: Just killed the third one this hour.) I'm hoping, since I poured bleach in the drain and have since been flushing it out regularly, even when I'm not using that side of the sink, that the mosquitoes will run their course and not reappear before the nights start getting a lot colder. Either that, or I'm going to have to use some indoor foggers, although I'm not sure if the pilot light in my clothes dryer poses a danger with that. Must check with someone on that.

For those of you who live in mosquito-crazy climates -- what do you do during mosquito season? Anything in particular to keep them at bay? I don't run my air conditioner much, but my windows have screens. We do go in and out of the house at dusk quite often, and this is probably how the mosquitoes got in -- they're *always* out there in the evenings! Obviously this is all nothing compared to the mosquito presence (and presence of other yuckier bugs) in other geographical areas, I know. The thought of these things flitting around inside my house really creeps me out, though, and I don't even want to go to sleep with these things in the house. Also, of course, there's the West Nile virus thing on my mind, so I'd like to keep the kiddo (and myself) from getting bitten. (I have one bite, but I don't know if I got it in the house or at the dog park at dusk.)

What I can't figure out is why we never had mosquitoes in the house until now, after living here for two years! I think I'd rather have spiders -- and speaking of these, there are *none* to be seen right now! Maybe this is what I get for killing spiders over the past few months. :-)

Suggestions welcome. And yes, I know I should just be grateful I don't have flying cockroaches.