Life in progress

Tag Archives: fruit flies


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One-Liner Wednesday – Works for Them!

You might remember my post from a few weeks ago when I asked if anyone knew what this might be:

Turns out it was a bag of water with a coin inside for discouraging bugs to come in the door.

So I decided to try it in my kitchen full of fruit flies:

They love it!

Turns out it works for them. 🙄

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If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

#1linerWeds badge by Dan Antion


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#SoCS – The Occupant

The obligatory eight-legged occupant is back in my kitchen this year. Every summer, a small spider moves in and makes a web far enough away from where I normally walk that I leave it, thinking why not? It’ll eat the occasional fly and I won’t have to race around my kitchen with a tea towel chasing it (the fly). By July my occupant is medium-sized and by the end of August it’s a giant, sitting in the middle of its web patiently waiting for its next meal. It’s definitely more patient than my kids, I’ll give it that.

Except this year I have two eight-legged occupants in my kitchen. They’re about six feet apart and so far I’ve seen neither stray from its web. I just hope one of them doesn’t decide to visit its neighbour.

If I have hundreds of eight-legged occupants in my kitchen next year, I’m moving out. I already have hundreds of six-legged occupants in my kitchen. Fruit flies have six legs, don’t they? They’re too small to dissect, and anyway, by the time I’ve gotten one to slow down, it’s flat.

This post is going downhill. I’d better put an end to it.

Awesome new badge up there ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 😀

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is a weekly prompt that I run … and sometimes I even participate before Sunday gets here! If you’d like to check out the prompt and read some of the other posts (which you’ll find links to in the comments) click on the following link: https://lindaghill.com/2017/08/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-1917/


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Who Needs Glue When You Can Sniff Fruit Flies?

I’m completely and utterly discouraged tonight.

I had a weekend off but had very little sleep, but that’s not why I’m discouraged.

I got barely any work done on my novels, but that’s not why either.

I have a sink full of dishes that I haven’t the energy to do, but that’s not entirely what’s got me down.

I killed a fruit fly this afternoon by breathing it forcefully (by accident) up my nose and blowing it back out into a kleenex – that was actually the highlight of my day.

I want to go to bed but I have to wait for kids to go to sleep, but that’s not what’s really killing me.

I have so much to do that I don’t know where to start, but that’s not the worst of it.

What really has me discouraged? It’s all of the above combined. Except the fruit fly thing. That’s just funny.

How was your weekend? Please tell me it was better than mine.


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My To-Do List w/o Aug 10-16, 2015

Because I just know everyone out there in WordPressLand is interested in my to-do list for the next week, I’m posting it publicly. You see, I have a partial week off. Which means the kids are with their dad for a week, but I still have to drive my mother here and there, and I still have my basement troll (aka my eldest son) and his cats dwelling in my dungeon. During this time I hope to accomplish the following:

  1. Finish editing my novel.
  2. Write the remainder of my Second Seat series for my fiction blog – only 21 days left to go and I’ll have published one entry every day for an entire year!
  3. Annihilate all of the fruit flies in my house, if not the world.
  4. Pitch an article to at least three different publications for my Interview with a Magician. (Yes, I italicized it to make it look as awesome as it’s gonna be.)
  5. Write some fiction, poetry, and articles to sell, to raise money for my upcoming trip to Tokyo!! (Yes, I’m going again in November. The tickets are booked because I won the lottery to get the concert tickets I wanted!!!!!)
  6. (And this may be the hardest of all,) get away from the computer and get some exercise.
  7. (And this may be the hardest thing to avoid, but I have to be realistic,) procrastinate.
  8. Remind everyone that there’s a contest going on for which we have one (fantastic) entry so far. It’s for the new SoCS badge in case you missed the memo. Don’t make me break out the pom-poms. And for pity’s sake don’t make me enter it myself. You’ll rue the day you have to look at any more of my mad paint skillz.

 

So there you have it, WordPressLand. Can I do it? I think I can. Wish me luck.


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There are Two Morals to this Story

It all started last night – two fruit flies sat on the edge of a ledge in my kitchen. Side by side. So close that I could kill them both with one slap. I wound up for the hit (they were big fruit flies, okay?) and I… missed. The fruit flies that is. What I hit was the fruit fly trap (that’s not working). It fell off the shelf knocking a wine glass into the sink where it broke. Damnit! I thought. I smashed a wine glass for nothing.

But that’s not where it ended.

This morning I was getting Alex ready for camp. He followed me into the kitchen and started complaining that his foot hurt. I didn’t get a chance to look at it; someone knocked at the door. While I dealt with that, Alex began to scream. He didn’t come out of the kitchen and the man at the door (the postman) is Deaf, so I ignored Alex and finished up with the postman. When I got back into the kitchen there was blood everywhere. It took me a while to figure out where it was coming from – turns out there was a cut–a hole actually–on the bottom of his foot. Yes, the fruit flies strike again.

So while I was discussing with Alex whether or not he would go to camp, Chris, my Autistic son came downstairs and began to insist I take Alex out of the house. He had plans to spend time in the living room (rather than the computer room where he locks himself whenever his little brother is home). When Chris has plans, they’re not easily changed. He ranted. He yelled. He swore. He threatened. He banged doors and hit walls. And then he went for a walk. Luckily by the time he came back he’d calmed himself – he even apologised and gave me a hug. I still couldn’t help imagine what might have happened if he’d been hit by a car or something while he was out. It’s the writer in me… and I’ve always had a bit of a morbid imagination. Anyway, I could just see it.

Officer: What happened, Ma’am?

Me: Well you see, it all began with an attempted murder… of two fruit flies.

The morals of the story? Karma’s truly a bitch. And never underestimate the significance of a fruit fly.


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SoCS – Guilt

Ah, guilt is such a wonderful thing, isn’t it? It’s not often I feel guilty for anything – I’m rarely bad. But now…

I want to go back to Japan. This year. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: but you just went! But there’s a reason. Another concert is coming up that I want to go to. Such a flip excuse, isn’t it? Yet here I am again. Wanting to fly off and leave my kids with someone else. Just take off. So selfish. So extravagant.

It comes, for me, under the heading “you only live once.” I may just have the funds and I have a plan to get more, which I’ll write about later. My plan, if I can actually pull this off without guilting myself into not doing it, is to work my hopefully-fit-by-then ass off to save as much money as I can and do good things for other people so I feel worthy of a trip. Deserving.

I’m not writing this for praise, nor am I hoping for permission from anyone. But I’m sure many people can relate to what I’m going through at the moment. Poor me… yeah. Pthththhth. It’s a conundrum. And this has been a hard post to write and will be even harder to publish.

Meantime, my fruit fly problem doesn’t seem to be improving much. I’ve caught more in my homemade trap (a jar with a piece of tomato in the bottom and plastic wrap on top with two small holes punched in it) than the store-bought one. But there are still clouds of the little buggers in my kitchen. It’s a plague, I tell you! But at least they’re not mosquitoes. Now THAT would suck. Like a mosquito.

Time to stop. 😛

This random post has been brought to you by SoCS: https://lindaghill.com/2015/07/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-1815/ Click the link and get in while the gettin’s good!

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions


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I mean, seriously

Who invented fruit flies? What are they good for except invading our kitchens and eating our fruit? Would they fill up the belly of a bird? No. And I refuse to let a bird into my kitchen to test the theory. How many tiny fruit fly bodies do I have to pick out of my wine? I get enough protein, thanks.

Every year it’s the same thing. You go into the grocery store and see them swarming around the onions and you think to yourself, the strawberries are far enough away from the onions that they shouldn’t have got into them, right?

Ha!

And so every year my kitchen is either on the wing, or littered with fruit fly traps. The home made ones are the best. A jar with a small piece of banana peel inside and cling wrap over top with a tiny hole. They can get in, but they can’t find their way out.

They are still and always will be a bloody nuisance though!


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My Quote of the Day

“Wine is good. Fruit flies are a nuisance.”

Me.