Yellowjackets, Motel Racket, and We May Not Be a Good Band, But We Have Fun, Dammit!

Last week, we started getting yellowjackets in our house. We've had the occasional one before, being summer and all, but last week, we started seeing them every day. We talked to our landlady about it before heading off to Devils Lake for the weekend. Coming back, we found a note that she was coming over Sunday evening to spray.
Why not Friday or Saturday evening, I don't know. We usually don't have any problems with our landlady, but if she says she'll get back to you on something, you won't hear from her for weeks. But she isn't intrusive or demanding about the way we run our house (some private landlords can be).
Anyway, she did come over and spray, and the next morning we still had them coming in. The big problem now, though, is that we can't figure out how the hell they got in in the first place. And once they get in, they get pissy about being swung at with a newspaper (I'm serious--I have a killing paper and my aim and snap is getting good), though they're angry little buggers to begin with. Not like bees. Bees will fly around you, bug you a little, but at least will generally wait until you make the first swing before buzzing "self defense!!" and pointing their little butts at you. No, these are wasps--Dolichovespula--these things don't die after first sting--they can sting you several times before it becomes embedded. Karissa was stung last week (just once), and it was still alive when she realized what it was, crawling on the couch.
And they're like ninjas. You don't hear them. They sneak up behind your head, and you don't know it until your girlfriend's eyes get big as saucer plates and she deftly leaps off the couch and says calmly (aware of the irony there), "There's a wasp behind your head."
My reaction, though manly, was quick. Following a blasphemous exclamation, I grabbed my killing paper and did the deed every man must do for his family.
So moving on, we still couldn't pinpoint their position of entry. I closed the vents, barracaded the floor moulding, and sprayed anyplace else I thought they might be using. This morning, I stuck a bug bomb in our attic, then Karissa, Aiden and I (Isabella was already at Headstart) went to Kevin and April's house.
We dropped Isabella off at Daycare that afternoon, then went home to see how(if) it worked. We found 3 wasps on the window shade, 2 on the couch, and 7 on the floor, all writhing in various states of dying agony and unable to fly. Just about all of them were still alive. The bittersweet news is that it's working, but unfortunately we don't know how many more of these little fuckers we have to find in our house before we can say we got them all. Also, those still alive and not poisoned have got to be REALLY pissed that we just committed vespicide on their whole community. If we don't hear from our landlady by tomorrow, I'm thinking of getting some Delta dust for a last ditch effort before w call in a pro.
Changing the subject, this weekend was fun. It was nice to see my mom again, we hadn't seen her since Easter, and hadn't talked much since then either. Summer seems like a better time for her anyway. Her spirits are usually higher and she seems more interested in seeing Isabella. We didn't have a big party or anything for Isabella--by the third party, it's really just giving her a few presents and watching her open them--but she had fun. She got a new green Carebear from Tab and Derek, which she now prefers to her old blue one for now. My sister got her a little yellow duffel bag whic works better for toys than her canvas bag did. My mom got her a little outfit and surprised us all by choosing a really cute one that wasn't dated.
When we were up in July, I wanted to jam really bad, but no one was really into the idea, so this time around I kind of forced it on Derek & Kevin. Kevin wasn't really into the idea at first, but once we were loading the amps in, he got into the spirit more. How fitting is it, that for all our connections to the hospitality industry, we would be practicing in a shut-down wing of a motel Derek's wife manages? It was very run-down and dingy, and it was awesome. Kind of like when we practiced in Amadon's basement, except without Amadon being a little bitch and his wife being a little Amadon.
We sucked. But that's okay, we knew we would. I just had to get into a place where I could get fucking loud and play the hell out of my Dean. Guitars need to be hotrodded on every now and then, that's how they feel appreciated. The good ones like it rough.
We also worked on some original stuff. It was funny, because when I show Kevin some riffs I had in mind a while back, he thought they sounded silly. But when I played them in a full song, he warmed up to them a lot more and saw how well a foundation I had started with.
I'm making Kevin sound a bit prickish, so I'm going to go ahead and say that he needs convincing. I have to sell him on ideas I have, and I appreciate that he's not blindly receptive. Don't want to play tonight? Just humor me long nough to get behind your drumset. Don't like that riff I'm playing very much? Just listen to it within a song. That's the way I can find out if I've got something workable. If he hears it and still doesn't like it, well I'll probably tell him he's wrong but I just feel better if I can get him enthused. And to be fair, he usually has to sell me an idea the same way. That's probably why we've been able to get along musically while having such different tastes.
Derek, on the other hand has forgotten much of what he learned on bass. He'll admit it himself. It's been a while since we practiced on a schedule (which I reinforced every Wednesday night in high school for almost a whol year), and he's busy carving out a metalworking niche for himself. in fact, I'll post his myspace address shortly so those of you who havn't seen some of his work can check it out.
But Derek shares many of my musical tastes, and what he listens to, he loves.
Kevin's got a history of musical education backing him, as well as a natural aptitude for learning. That makes him highly adaptable musically. Derek's got drive and passion. That makes him worth my time to work with. What do I got? Well, duh, I'm Doug. That's what I got.
Speaking of my awesomeness (I havn't nough yet), a new page of Golden Brown will not be seen this week, so I may bring you a short comic I did as a beginning assignment for my comics class. It won't be inked, just penciled, and is slightly unfinished. Our assignment was to grab a couple sheets of paper and bang out a story in 20 minutes. You'll see it Friday. Golden Brown will resume the following week, but Iwarn you right now that this may happen frequently.
One last thing. I have a digital recorder that I use to record riffs and songs with my acoustic. I bought a cheap MP3 player at Gordman's that just happens to have a recording function, and it records my acoustic way better than my digital recorder ever did. Isn't that fucked up?