Another treatment & a vacation

The high today was about 112-113, and now at 9 pm it's still 106 outside. No dog park tonight! Isn't this a bit early for such high temperatures?

Update on the ongoing bed bug saga: Tuesday, another spray session in master bedroom and bath, plus. I did a passable job cleaning the rooms, and we emptied out all the dresser drawers completely this time. Grumpy managed to do his own. Thank you. More bags and boxes of junk baking in the back yard, including our Dish network receivers, which probably wasn't good for them. However, in case bugs are hiding inside... gotta do it.

Exhausted and both of us grumpy as hell, we leaped into the car and took off toward Prescott (where it was just slightly cooler than Phoenix) and found a "budget" motel that seemed okay. You can damn well be sure I checked the mattress for bed bug sign! I took Lady out to visit the "field" behind the motel where I'd been advised to take her by the obsequious desk clerk (Indian or Pakistani?) who also passed on a second hand restaurant recommendation (more on that later). The "field" looked wonderful on first inspection. The landscape rolled away down into a hidden depression (canyon?) that looked interesting, but a barbed-wire fence marked off the smallish area intended for motel doggies to wander around in -- or so I thought. No one around, Lady is always good about running circles around me when I take her off the leash, so that's what I did. But here, she was super-excited, doing a good imitation of reluctant city dog suddenly seeing wide open spaces again after a year's restraint. She took off so fast my head spun. No circles. She lit out in a straight line for the horizon, oblivious to prickly pear and not slowing down one iota for the barbed-wire fence. She had forgotten me, like city dust. When I took out after her, calling in all the voices I knew -- playful, demanding, panicky -- a zillion crunchy desert weeds loosed their multi-zillion sharp-as-glass-shards seeds directly into the openings in my Keen half-sandals, half-boots. I was too panicked to stop, sure I was losing Lady. I stopped at the fence (reluctant to crawl even though the lowest wire was about two feet off the ground) and called and called. Oh so reluctantly and with many second thoughts, she finally stopped, her gaze still on the far horizon instead of on me. She made a couple of restarts, then oh so reluctantly turned toward me, changing her mind repeatedly and back again. Thankful for so much off-leash conditioning, thankful she even remembered me, I snapped that leash on (bubbling over with praise and gratitude) and never took it off again until safe at home. Considerable prickly-pear spine extraction was required (Lady, not me).

If you ever go to Prescott Valley (the make-believe town 7 miles or so before you get to Prescott), you have to eat at Oliva's Mexican Restaurant. It's bright yellow, can't miss it. Our appetizer was a mountain of nachos with great piles of guacamole. Stunned, we would have cancelled the main course if it hadn't come straight away -- carnitas, with the best seasoned rice I've ever tasted and absolutely delicious altogether. No regrets. We had two meals out of it. Another drive up there just to eat is highly probable.

We luxuriated in a kingsize bed, stayed as late as possible the next morning, and drove home the scenic route (by way of Wickenburg (sp?) instead of the freeway), glum at the prospect of facing the home front anew. That night (about 1 am) I flashed on the light in the bedroom and found two live bed bugs on the mattress. Damn varmints!! But it takes a few days for bugs who were hiding in crevices to come crawling out to search for food, which they do every 4-7 days more or less. So maybe all is not lost. Grumpy has already shopped at Home Depot and brought home six bug bombs for a DIY in a day or so, plus diatomaceous earth to scatter along baseboards (maybe mattress also?) and cut them up.

Today, I made deep progress in cleaning the living room. My gut is knotted up with the effort, but I am finally starting to get into this cleaning stuff, hating it less. Here's hoping.