I think I speak for us all when I say that nothing says, "Pestilence. Get yer fresh, hot steaming cup o' pestilence right here" quite as effectively as a crusty, oozing cold sore.

I've never had more than one cold sore at a time, so imagine my delight upon waking up on Saturday to find that THREE separate cold sores have erupted on my august visage. While I'm definitely through the worst of it, apparently Death Plague '09 is the illness that keeps on giving.

As an added bonus, the spousal unit has come down with Death Plague '09 as well, but his version is a much watered down version of mine. He has a mild sore throat, the odd sniffle and the occasional cough.

It's hard not to be bitter.

One of the great things about marriage is that someone has made you the No Matter What, 'Til Death Do Us Part promise. They have sworn to put up with you and all your crazy all your charming quirks.

This would include detailed cataloguing and obsessing about cold sores.

I solemnly pointed out to the spousal unit the cold sore location, crust factor, ooze potential and in charming detail explained how much it hurt to blow my nose. A lesser man would have fled the premises screaming something about mental cruelty. I was oblivious to this. In my eyes, this was his cue to start the pity fest. I waited expectantly.

"Oh yeah, three cold sores. Wasn't that one of the plagues Job faced?" was his dry reply.

I hate it when he makes me laugh at myself. Just hate it.

The last day of October was the warmest day of the whole month here. The spousal unit was giddy with excitement because it meant he could finish nailing the bracing on the roof of my woodshed without freezing various bits of his body off. I was giddy because it meant that I could throw yet more laundry on the clothesline. Not only do I get the best smelling sheets on earth, I get the added joy of depriving Hydro Quebec of their pound of flesh.

It's a weird happy, but it's our happy.

So I went outside with my fresh hamper of wet sheets, set it down on the deck, and found myself in the middle of a tsunami of lady bugs (more accurately, they're Asian lady beetles) sweeping out of the woods towards our house. And me.

It's hard to explain just how icky it is to have a wave of lady bugs come for you. Those that don't ping off your face, instead land on it and start crawling. It's their nature to pick a warm fall day to look for little crevasses in which to winter over We didn't have many warm days this October, so the 31st drove them mental.

Crevasses to them are any small place. They tried to climb in my hair, up my nose, under my collar, up my sleeves. If you start whapping at them you enrage them and they bite or ooze stinky stuff, kind of like being chewed and farted into submission. Shut up. It's not funny. It's foul.

I was forced to run back into the house. The loud and somewhat uncreative cursing I emitted as I tried to brush off a big whack of them while being nipped and stunk upon? That was optional.

These bugs are drawn to light, which means I'll be vacuuming them out of windows and lamps for weeks to come. Sigh. I even have to keep a special hand held vac just for them because the defensive ooze they release makes any vacuum you use stink. You can ruin a vac in no time with them.

Fortunately, a major weather front blew in about an hour later, and an afternoon of big winds pinned the freaking bat rastards in the woods. It is my fervent hope that they all freeze to death out there, but I know that won't happen.

I tell myself they're eating all the soft bodied insects that do damage in the garden, like aphids, but it's hard to get over the squick factor with them. Honestly? I hate their guts.

From here on in things can only get better. Believe me, I'm clinging to this notion.

--Marn