Hernan came over last night to escape his cousin for a while. Turns out she is visiting with her 16 year-old daughter, but mom is a bit irresponsible and has been leaving Hernan to watch after the daughter. He said his place is a disaster with hairbrushes in the kitchen, underwear lying around, because the cousin from Corrientes has three women working in her house to clean up after her and apparently doesn't know how to do it herself. She sounds like a trip and I wish I'd met her. Unfortunately (fortunately for Hernan), she is leaving today.
When Hernan got here I showed him the ants. He told me I needed ant spray. I told him I didn't want to kill them, and showed him the black pepper, which really had worked to thin out the stream, and the orange peel, which seemed to be diverting them. He scoffed and said we had to go to the supermarket and buy something.
We were watching Zoolander on VH1, but as soon as it was over, we went next door to the mini supermarket only to find they didn't have ant spray. They had sprays for fleas, flies and other insects, but not ants. We bought a bottle of wine and I got some cinnamon for the ants, and were returning back to my place when Hernan asked me if there was another supermarket nearby. I told him there was a chino, and he was sure the chino would have ant spray, so we headed in that direction, only to find that the chino was already closed.
Since neither one of us had eaten, we stopped at a neighborhood restaurant and had dinner. I had trout with mashed potatoes and Hernan had black sorrentinos (they are kind of like round raviolis) stuffed with salmon with a mushroom cream sauce. He liked his pasta a lot. My fish was good, but my mashed potatoes were very runny. The restaurant is a cute little neighborhood joint. I went there with Saul last week. Hernan told the waiter the potatoes were runny and he didn't seem to care. I thought maybe we were going to get a free desert. It occurred to me this morning that I just should have told him I wanted something else. They were like potato soup and had no flavor at all.
After dinner, Hernan said he was going to buy me ice cream and said we could have it delivered. As we walked in the entrance to my building the evening security guard was at his post playing solitaire on his laptop. Unexpectedly, Hernan went up to him and said, "excuse me, we have an emergency". I thought he was going to tell him we were looking for Freddo and was wondering if he had the number. Instead, he told him about the ant invasion. There was a sign in the elevator that the exterminator is coming on Tuesday morning at 8:45, but Hernan told the security guard that if we waited until Tuesday, it would be a disaster (disaster is one of his more commonly used words).
The security guard was very nice and said that the exterminator had left him some stuff. He went into the garage and disappeared into the basement where the other security guard went to find a spare set of keys to my apartment. Eventually he came back with two plastic bottles filled with some liquid.
I had no idea what this stuff was and didn't want to be involved in this massacre, so I sat and watched Graham Norton, this funny gay British guy who has a travel show on VH1. He was at Dollywood and Dolly herself was giving him a tour.
I could hear Hernan in the bathroom knocking around and when he came out, he said it was a disaster but it was ok. He said I needed to wash the shower before I took a shower. The smell was horrible. It was like I was living in a toxic chemical plant. Even though the windows were open, we could still smell whatever was in those plastic bottles. I was afraid it would kill more than the ants.
Hernan didn't know who Dolly Parton was and he liked her - how could you not? The show was hysterical, but it was also really fun to be at Dollywood. I think it would be a fun trip. It's amazing how undeveloped parts of the US are, and Dollywood really celebrates where Dolly came from and also helps to infuse money into the local economy. People have jobs there because of her.
Fortunately, Hernan didn't spend the night. He had to go home and stay with his cousin's daughter who had been abandoned in his apartment. As soon as he left, I went into the bathroom where the walls were smeared with this foul liquid. Ant carcasses lay all over the sink. It truly was a disaster, and seemed very toxic to me.
I went ahead and washed as much of it away as I could and sprinkled some cinnamon in the spots where the ants seemed to be coming from. I closed my bedroom door to keep the fumes out and opened the windows as wide as I could to air the place out.
I went on You Tube and found some great videos of Dolly and sent one to Hernan. I also found the original Weathergirls video of "It's Raining Men". You Tube is really amazing. I'm only just beginning to appreciate it. As I went through and watched a whole bunch of videos of different performers, I came across one of Jennifer Holiday in Dreamgirls. I had heard her sing and saw Dreamgirls performed live (with a different actor), but had no idea how amazing she was in that part. I'm including the video here because it helped me to find an escape from the horror of the ant massacre.
The bathroom still smells of toxic fumes and there are still ant carcasses on the sink, but it is a lot better than it was last night. I can imagine those little ants singing "I am telling you, I ain't going", but we all know, Effie left and the ants are doomed to be evicted.
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