I have had company for the past few weeks. My borrowed house has a glassed-in front porch facing southwest and it gets quite warm every afternoon with the beautiful prairie sunshine streaming in. So the windows and the floor are covered with these bugs. Fortunately, a rare visitor on the first day of my retreat came to see me and identified the little critters basking in the heat. Otherwise I might have been spooked. I still am, sort of. A few of them have come into the house. I don't mind that much but I don't like them on my papers or in my bedclothes. I try not to bother them, though I have squished a few who were invading my space. I wouldn't like to wake up with one crawling on my face. I was very influenced by Albert Schweitzer, the reverence-for-life doctor, so I try not to kill any creatures. If a bee or a wasp gets into the house I put a glass over it and a card over the glass and shake it outside. I'm not so good with mosquitos. Anyway, here we are, the boxelders and me. I looked them up on Wikipedia and it confirmed what I had already observed, that they get fooled in the fall by unexpected warmth and come out from hiding to congregate. My only acquaintance with boxelder bugs before now had been with a book of poetry by the Icelandic-American writer Bill Holm, "Boxelder Bugs Variations". I have the book but it's at home, so I had to go to Wikipedia again: ".Bill Holm, of Minneota, Minnesota creatively tackles the subject of the Boxelder bug. This thin volume includes cleverly written poetry, essays and music on the theme of the Boxelder Bug. Example...from p. 26 'The Minnesota UnderTaker, Thinking Perhaps of Future Business, Looks Me Square in the Eye During Men's Night at the Golf Course, And Says: 'I thought of you last night as I flicked a boxelder bug off my lapel.' At times humorous, at times contemplative, and at times downright weird, Holm has created a truly unique book filled with off-the-wall poetry and prose." He was a weird man, proud of his Icelandic heritage - that's how I met him. He had strong opinions about vinarterta, the iconic cake that moved to Canada and the States with the first Icelandic immigrants. Bill was adamant that it should be 5 layers and un-iced whereas many felt it should be 7 and frosted with vanilla icing. Bill died a few years ago at age 65. He looked like Santa Claus. Most Icelandic men (even hyphenated ones, like Canadian or American) do. Icelandic men end up either very lean or round with white beards. The women mostly look like sweet little butterballs. you see what I'm up against? My Icelandic genes versus Weight Watchers. Just think what I'd look like if I didn't keep fighting. I'm a slave to my DNA, like the boxelder bugs.

I've been reading mysteries in my off time when I'm not writing, I mean writing my book.. It's like chewing gum for the mind. But I worry about the dietary habits of these driven, dedicated people. They just don't eat well and most of them drink too much. Did it all begin with Mickey Spillane? He liked rare steak, raw whisky and hard women, not quite in that order. Whisky first. A number of protagonists (they're not all cops or even PIs, but they work hard in whatever role they've been cast) have followed Spillane's unhealthy ways. Steak and booze. No mention of vegetables. Ian Rankin's Rebus has a drinking problem so he drinks Bru - is that the name of it? - a non-alcoholic brand of beer, I gather. Temperance Brennan is an alcoholic so she doesn't drink liquor at all, but longs for it once in a while. VI Warshawski eats and drinks like the men but she has a friend who feeds her quite well, and a favourite restaurant, so she eats. Ditto Kinsey Milhone who has 2 cooking friends: a neighbour who bakes bread and a cook in a restaurant who gives her huge, cholesterol-laden meals. She drinks California Chardonnay. Left to herself she eats tunafish sandwiches but never has time to shop for food. No one has time to shop, or even go to the bathroom, unless something disastrous is going to happen or something to further the plot. That's enough to give them constipation. Well, there's hope for Kay Scarpetta - Patricia Cornwell's forensic medical examiner - she cooks and makes nice Italian food with good sauces for the pasta. Then there's Stephanie Plum (I think) in Jovanovitch's books. One can hardly call them mysteries though the protagonist here is a professional of sorts - a bounty hunter. She doesn't cook either and she has a terrible sweet tooth. The men never seem to go home. When the women drop in to change or shower, they either tidy up a bit or let it all go. I don't want to know about their housekeeping or laundry habits. Now Jack Reacher, he has it solved. He just throws away his clothes when they're ragged, beat up or dirty and buys new, cheap ones. Once in a while someone buys him some decent threads as part of the plot but they don't last long. As for his drinking habits, he's a caffeine addict and drinks gallons of coffee yet manages to take 2 breaths and sleep instantly. He seems to eat a lot of breakfast, nothing continental for him, lots of eggs and bacon and pancakes (and coffee), and he misses a lot of meals. They all do. And they don't eat their vegetables. I worry about them.