Old garments cast aside

[primsong]

Back in the 50s my church apparently went through a legalistic phase, the 'no smoking, no dancing, no makeup' kind of thing and of all of that only a lingering whiff of 'no dancing' was left by the time we came around to it.   For the past 20 years every time dancing came around (even the chicken dance at a party) there were always a few older people who had that 'I feel like I should feel guilty for dancing, but I don't, but what if there's an even OLDER person here who still thinks it is wrong?' reaction. 

Well, we have officially jumped the shark on that topic now - with the approval of my teaching bellydance to the ladies this coming January.  Talk about casting aside the old garment with flair!  Haha!  It's on a freewill donation basis to fund-raise for building updates, I'm quite curious to see how many actually sign up.  :-D  I'm actually quite astonished that they let it go through.

Hm - while watering plants outside this morning something stung my foot and now my little toe looks like a sausage... little toes are strange enough as it is, hopefully won't last long.

Comments

[primsong]

Oh dear - it sounds like you speak from experience on the WORST STING EVER? 0.o

Wasps are truly evil creatures.

[blackmare]

Warning: Nature Geekery

Perhaps this is because I am weird, but aside from the pain I found the wasp really interesting. It was between my big and second toes, so I got a good look at it, and I thought it was beautiful. It looked approximately like this:

http://hyg.ipm.illinois.edu/photos/spider_wasp_adult.jpg

At the time, I'd never seen one before, so I looked it up. These wasps hunt spiders, walking around on the ground, which is how the incident happened. But aside from self-defense, they are not aggressive and now that I live in MN, I often see them on flowers, gathering nectar. I've taken many photos like the one I linked, at very close range, and never felt in danger of being stung.

The thing I'm more wary of is hornets. Less severe of a sting but much more danger of accidentally stepping on a shallowly-buried nest and winding up in a world of hurt. One professor of mine did that while mowing his lawn, and he came to class all puffy and pink and with one eye swollen shut. "I got in a fight at this bar ..." he began, before telling us what had actually happened. :-D

[primsong]

Wow, I've never even seen such a thing before - I almost feel sorry for the spiders! And yes, hornets - aaaack - definitely create their own no-go zones when they nest. I wish I could turn all such things into bees, bees are so friendly by comparison. We had one trapped in the house yesterday, I put a drop of honey in a glass and 'cupped' the bee - who after a moment of panic found the honey and began to happily slurp it up as I took it outside.