Who doesn’t like summer in California? Well, me.
That’s not entirely (completely) true. I love the the warm temperatures and the sunshine. But there is one element (part; factor) of summer I dread (don’t look forward to): mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are those little insects that fly around, bite people, and suck (pull into the mouth) their blood. If there is a mosquito within 50 miles of me, it will find me. It will then feast (eat a lot) on me and bring a few friends for the buffet (meal where you can eat as much as you like).
Scientists say that many things attract (are appealing to) mosquitoes. Mosquitoes may be attracted to certain blood types, as one study found. (Your blood type is either O, A, B, or AB. It can be neutral or + (positive) or – (negative).) In the study, people with type O blood were bitten nearly twice as often as people with type A blood. I’m AB+, so I’m not sure where I stand (what my position or status is).
Wearing dark clothing can attract mosquitoes who use sight (the sense that allows you to see) as well as smell to locate victims (people who are harmed).
Mosquitoes can also detect chemicals and gases (substances in the air; not a liquid or a solid) that come off of people’s bodies, such as carbon dioxide (the gas that people breathe out) and lactic acid (a chemical that is released from muscles when we exercise). Even drinking beer can attract mosquitoes to your skin.
Mosquitoes have plagued (bothered) me all my life. To add insult to injury (to make things even worse), I have Skeeter Syndrome, which is an allergic reaction to mosquito bites. (“Skeeter” is a nickname for mosquitoes in some parts of the United States.) Instead of the small itchy (with a strong feeling of wanting to scratch) bump (small, round, raised area) that most people get, I get large welts (red, swollen areas) that itch for a long, long time.
Even better, I discovered a couple of years ago that fleas like me, too, and I’m allergic to their bites as well. Fleas are those very small insects that like dogs.
Finally, I’ve come to terms with it (have accepted a difficult truth): I am delicious. I hope no vampires are reading this blog post.
~ Lucy
Hello everybody..
Poor Lucy…I fell lucky because I get bitten rarely, and something I hate about mosquitos is when one is almost asleep and a mosquito starts flying just over one’s ear.
Then you wake up it goes away and you are an able to find it…and then after a while it comes back..that’s annoying to say the least.
You know what I do when bitten…I try to resist scratching in order to see my point of resistance…in order to see how much control I have over my mind..try..it’s fun!
Under that stand point one can argue that mosquitos make us stronger.
For sure they test our perseverance/patience.
I like sometimes when I am in the dark end my cat is nearby and as the mosquito flies by you can hear the cat attempting to catch it with its mouth….that’s funny..
Well I have spiders as allyes…I do not bother them and they catch mosquitoes …I like spiders..
Thank you Lucy
Lucy that you are delicious it is sure, I know it, but it´s just a pity that
mosquitoes have found it.
As Dan said, I hate the sound they do when flying over my head and
I am trying to sleep, it nearly gets me mad with that buuuuuuuu
What I hate more are cockroaches, only the sight it so puaggg
and after them I hate mosquitoes, and wasps that always bite me.
I am A – but it is the same.
Don´t go to Findland or Sweden in summer Lucy, over there
could be millions of mosquitoes.
My best wishes to you dear Lucy.
emiliano
I’m afraid I’m like Lucy in this aspect.
I’m the best insecticide for mosquitoes and all kind of insects It ever existed. To show you that, I’m going to tell you something that happened to me when I was younger, many years ago.
I’ve always liked to practice hiking, mountain climbing, in short, I liked to spend my time in the countryside surrounded by nature. My friends always wanted me to go with them to the excursions at the mountains. This made me feel I was someone important for them. I thought I was a smart and handsome boy and I felt like a leader or something like that, but nothing further of reality. 😀
One day I realized that they were using me like a good insecticide because all kind of bloodsuckers there were around came to me for feeding from me and then rise stronger meanwhile my friends slept all night like a logs. 🙂
Nowadays I’m 63 years old. My blood keep being “A negative” but it looks like it isn’t so nutritive than it was when I was younger. I don’t know if this is because my age or because my blood carry within itself some medicinal substances but the damn bloodsuckers keep biting and stinging me, although not so much than before. 😉
Greetings.
Hello everyone
Dear Lucy,
Maybe the problem of attracting mosquitoes is not a matter of blood but of skin. My cousin is not only the one that always is bitten by mosquitoes and other insects, but also allergic to some body and face creams. Meanwhile, I barely get bitten or sunburned, perhaps because of my thick skin.
I would like to bring here two key words: mint and basil.
It is known that plants of mint chase away mosquitoes. I have recently been in an outdoor café with a mint plant flowerpot on each table. Apart from preventing mosquitoes to come disturb, that little plant smelt wonderful and gave a cosy atmosphere in the shade that hot noon.
As for basil, this is another aromatic herb that is supposed to get away insects. All in all, if you have basil but it doesn’t work, it is also possible to make a pesto sauce with it. It is easy to prepare.
I check out on the internet and I find that besides basil and mint, jassmine plant is recommended too. I remember then when I used to go to an open-air cinema when I was a child. As I entered towards the venue, I could smell the scent of jassmine flowers because there was a big plant along a big wall. It was so cool and refreshing… Now that I recall it, I think never heard of felt any insect there.
Bye
Oh dear Lucy,
I’m the same as you, and I know how you feel.
my type of blood is AB+, too, and all the symptom you mentioned I have when mosquitoes bite me, how irritant!
I’m sure you are delicious, but I’m sweet (I mean my blood is sweet, as people here say to the person when they are bitten by mosquitoes more)
I tried many things that could reduce the itch, but they didn’t work, just one thing which is useful for me (I discovered it, hahaha!)
I’ll tell you, maybe it works for you too,
Please don’t laugh at me,
It is your SALIVA, rub it on you skin where you are bitten, I hope it works.
And thanks’ Lucy for the post, I learnt very useful words.
Bests for you,
Elham
from Iran
GARLIC, it is a good product once you have been bited, may be the best.
Just cut the garlic with a knife and rub it against the bit, once, two or more
times.
After a while or the following day you will be allright.
What said Mari Carmen it is true, a mint plant is really good to have
mosquitoes far from it, and from you if you have one, two or three plants
close to you in the garden or the window.
Also the other plants are like repellents for the little crawly insects, but
may be mint is really one of the best and smells so nice.
emiliano
Hey guys..
I have just realized that I do not know my type of blood.
Am I supposed to know that?
Thanks
Being a driver Dan, you must know it or even you could be a blood donor what is really
good and necessary.
Regards.
Hello everybody..
As I was watching one of those videos where you are supposed to learn something, in the series ^life hacks^…
In the unfortunate case of mosquitos bite, one has to heat up a teaspoon and put it in contact with the bite for one minute…
I have never tried that..I deemed a good thing to share with you..
Given Lucy’s skin reaction she probably needs a spoon…
Lucy’s sarcastic title made me thinking which one between the two presidential contender is the most bloodsucking?
My answer is….Hillary…..she’s the ^politician^ she took yuge money for speeches…and she has the so called ^foundation ^…
I am 100% positive Lucy agrees with my statement……hehehe..
Thanks
Hello again
I’ve got three of four things that come to my mind that I would like to share:
1.- I find the verb bite quite, how would I say, extreme for insects, since the idea of biting in my own imagination and language includes tearing with the teeth. To my sense, it is required at least a kind of mouth. I imagine a mosquito or a spider with teeths biting someone and I simply feel I am in a nightmare or in a dellusion. However, I know that the word is correct and I assume it.
2.- It would be magic if there were natural repellents for politicians, suckers, stolers, and all those talkative cheeky people.
3.- My blood type is 0+, but I don’t know my cousin’s. I will ask him.
4.- I love the Spanish words for mint and basil, which are respectively hierbabuena (literally, good herb) and albahaca (this word can’t deny its arabic origin).
And that’s all for today, bye
P.S. A quick preview to Podcast 1221 (palindrome!) promises to be very interesting with new words and expressions. I will listen to this podcast tomorrow. Thanks Lucy for the script and thanks Jeff in advance for your explanations.
Hi everybody
Thank you Emiliano for reading my comments. I had never hear about garlic to heal mosquito bites. It seems a quick and effective remedy. My cousin told me he would use a product sold in drugstores to rub on the bit, but he said it doesn’t work much.
Best wishes, again
Tell me about it
I hear u Lucy !
Mosquitos has an ongoing love afair woth my skin and blood too.
They attract to me by the bunch as if I m their picnic grounds or sth:)
I kill them right on my skin because when they land on my skin ,they loose the will to take off.
Man
The post-sting red mark is itchy abd irritating. I get welts too
Lucky me , Tornto is cold most part of the year.
U need to use mosquito repeller sprays
I apply them to my skin every time I m going camping or a simple walk in the park.
Still, they bite me
I , too, made my peace with it.
Well , it is what it is
Some guys attract girls
I attract flys :))))
Very Cheerful and attractive post. Well ,not For the fact that u r “mosquito magnet” :))))))) ( how about that ) but the wording and the way u put the post together
A learning guid member
🙂
Pete
I live in Brazi,l a country located in tropical zone, with high temperatures, lots of water, and people, the complete recipe for mosquitoes. Besides, for my bad luck, I am O+ blood type, the type mosquitoes like most. Poor me! Worst, mosquito bite can transmite deseases like dengue, zica and others. If you are to come to Brazil, even for a short visit, have in mind you must be careful or else you can get one of those deseases and probably die. So pay attention for your health.
From Brazil
Me
Hi guys
Happy 4th of July to all ESLP team
And good luck to Juno as it’s approaching the giant Jupiter the same day.
Thanks
Reading you Mari Carmen for long, and I like what you write too.
Years before I was always here, writing about nearly everything
but now I am not so smart and even I have not nice ideas to write
as life take a way I don´t like at all.
But, ¿what can we do about the subjet of being old and sick?
Nothing.
My dear wife is not at home any more and I am really very
sad about it.
Such is life, sooner or later if we live enough it is the way to
walk.
Regards and go on writing Mari Carmen as much as possible,
just what I did before for years and years.
TIPS FOR LUCY
Quite right, it seems that color to be one of the attractions for them, and yellow color in special, thus it means food for them, while indigo blue color frames the outside window facade to prevent its entry into the house in Maroc quite effectively.
One of the most surprising things about them is that skeeters are always females looking for food to feed her incipient eggs, and precisely one of the most effective electronic repellents reproduce the voice of the skeeter male looking for a love affair with a little lovely mosquito girl. As everyone can guess, the mom when hearing the skeeter male sounds, flees away immediately chasing other people with A(+) types blood around. After all, there´s plenty of them and sex is always sex.
Very interesting Hilario, I do not know anything about that, good post.
Dear Emiliano
I don’t know what to say about your current situation, since I am not very good at giving advice. Perhaps you are about a turning point or a change in your life, who knows, I don’t know. However, if I were you I would try to change some kind of self-ageist attitude into, let’s say, a more creative mindset. I mean, the reason is that, as I see it, given that time life expectancy is becoming longer and longer, it seems it is not much practical to think only in terms of youth (and in terms of health).
Although I started reading and writing on this blog in 2014 or 2015, it’s been seven years since I listen to esl podcasts. I find it a good and useful way to practice my written English, because I try to express my ideas correctly, though it takes me some time. I sometimes feel a bit frustrated when I see mistakes on my writings once they have been published, but in the end I think it’s worth it.
I’ll go on writing here as long as my other commitments allow me, thank you for your encouragement, Emiliano.
Yours, sincerely
Mari Carmen
lunes, 31 de agosto de 2015
(from my blog)
GET THE FEELING
Some imaginary person asked me questions some time ago.
I get the feeling you are Emiliano pissed all day, you do nothing more than write with some fury seeming to hate everything around you, judges, politicians, unemployment, the crisis, the lack of hope, start have a boring broken record.
Sure at this rate you will lose readers who feel depressed by the amount of bad news and for your continuous anger.
You should tell us more fun things, anecdotes, what do you do, what makes Gatufo, how you feel you look good in the world around you in order to optimism and hope it is what we need to transmit when you write.
You’re right for once, whoever you are, unnamed interviewer, storytelling, or curious and heavy that explores our lives and propagates the Web. Are you not ashamed to be so nosy?. Having our little secrets and you can always taking off from inside?.
No, I’m not ashamed, it is my mission to dig inside people. Like I do with you doing with others.
There are many like me who are dedicated just to that, to dig, to help the emotions to surface and people like you Emiliano, Cuca or other link to download the pack and I release them from your hidden feelings.
psychiatrists we network, we have no name, only awareness and imperceptible entity for most people.
restless you are and so worry as we have to meet and make a therapeutic work with you and with other like you my friend.
Interestingly, no idea you were at heart a good person and not a nosy jerk, as you usually look like.
Emiliano Now it’s your turn, you have to tell us something that interests us about yourself, which I think is going to be difficult.
Think about it, my life is not fun or varied precisely and I doubt that matters to anyone, but make an effort following your advice.
To begin and not well precisely, I have a terrible flu for about ten days, I have been coughing so much pain because of back pain that keeps me awake at night.
If I’m lying is like needles pricking me in the lower back while I cough, all I can not sleep in my bed. I have attached to a easy chair is in the room and that’s my bedroom for seven days or more.
Instead of being next to Cuca the Gatufo´s cat is on my side all night.
The poor cat is very puzzled when I feel cough, if he runs over and then sits back down on my legs or attached to my belly.
Gatufo is overnight at me without abandon or even a moment, and then say Cats are selfish, this at least looks like it hit me when I was born and it does not come off for a moment. The most loving thing in the world is my Gatufo.
About me want to tell you, I’m a retired man, usually indoors for days. There is nothing outside, on the street I’m interested too, so I can go weeks without leaving home.
Isabel takes care of everything now that he has returned from Peru. Does the purchase, go to the pharmacy, preparing food, take out the trash, do my errandsand finally has become essential.
I say that is the housekeeper, we laughed a lot at the jokes.
Right now I’m waiting, usually comes to new Cuca raise first and then prepares breakfast for three. We have our nice chat by the morning and points to the meeting.
Gatufo is always by my side or up on my legs.
A Isabel does not like Gatufo climb on me when we are eating and scolds him.
I want a lot but she have to check.
(My workplace, I started here, here met Cuca)
I am Retired Man now, my work before hiring Elizabeth, and after an infernal year in 2012 she arrived like fall from Heaven and now handle all my tasks that were previously done by me and by Cuca before me.
Life in Madrid is very hard for anyone who has to earn a wage, blessed if you work, it is almost a privilege to work in this country. And if you have normal is going to be an hour or more to get to the job every morning.
Distances are huge, traffic is hell, and the subway is crowded.
When I worked in the center of the capital got up at half past six to get to the office at eight o’clock.
Live within the city, with metro and bus coming and the office was in the middle of Madrid, Retiro park attached to. However I was almost an hour to get if I wanted to be five or ten minutes before eight.
I used to come early in the office, an empty office was waiting for me, aired by opening all windows and for a while I sank into the peace of starting a day quietly without anyone around me, slowly companions were arriving and I was sitting in my room with all the files on the table.
The first hours were the best, arrived with great enthusiasm because I had raised two or more hours .
I enjoyed working the last I had in the bank, foreign trade had incidents. Import and export credits, documentary remittances, guarantees, warranties, document review guaranteeing delivery of the goods.
Review of documents coming from other foreign banks, finally a job that I liked and that practically had to do all mornings writing and reading in English.
Good times for work and companionship, good times are gone now. Everything is competition inside the works, computer work, and infighting little creative to survive in the gigs.
A disgusted by what I see when I go to a bank or other sites and chat with employees.
Doing this work interesting, specialized in need to have a good knowledge foreign trade bank gave me the opportunity to prejubilarme with 52 years and certainly take the opportunity.
A waste without specialized workers at an age where they can go a long way and make a good work.
It was not my problem, the salary is charged at home without glue a stick to water, make ends meet and salary paid without going a single day in the office .
Freedom to read, walk, listen to music and learn computer. I wanted to write, ha ha, good. Write?, And that on that?. Easy to say, write a book, but as’. To whom would interest my wanderings through life and other issues I lacked imagination.
By now more than enough, I’ve told a lot of things I guess interest to very few friends of the blog.
Just another day a little more.
Thanks, (not know person) and greetings.
By the way, after four years of telling silly or not so silly subjects like above
I have now 3 millions three hundred thousand of visits in my page, what is
really incredible.
That´s the power of a blog and of course freedom to write which ever
thing I like to write about.
Along these years I have seen that people round over the world told me
something and read the blog.
Why?
I don´t really know but it makes me strong to continue doing it, and
telling which ever thing that I could have in mind.
Thanks a lot friends of the world
Thanks to you also Mari Carmen, you are doing well getting a good level
of English.
emiliano
jueves, 2 de abril de 2015
I WANT TO BELIEVE
Right now I want to believe that someone reads this, there is a student of Spanish who cares what I write?.
Or in English, that´s very odd.
And that belief stems from the fact testing whether US where most visitors get this thing we call Conjectures my blog.
Sometimes responsibility of writing comes from knowing that some people read you, and even assiduity face the blank
page is more than enough reward for the satisfaction that comes from knowing you’re going to be read.
Thanks to whoever you are, I am delighted to see visitors, again thanks and “there we go.”
+++
I’m in negotiations to hire a young born in Argentina which has no green card.
He needs to cast their green card here in Spain to legalize their status, access to work and even claim the rights that correspond resident.
I said that until the moment I agreed to hire her, filling the papers and even supply the documents you need to submit, no one had done before.
Each and every one of the people who had applied for the job and that is they refused.
affable people, trustworthy, honest, but none had taken the step to hire her.
Why? I wonder.
Afraid?
Prevention?
Do not get involved?
Frankly I do not understand, if you know the candidate to work in your home, it’s serious, honest, caring and responsible person, why reason you’re not going to take steps to have it with you as a worker ?.
It is seen that almost nobody does anything for others, it is easier to pass by and not stopping to think about the needs of our neighbor, our neighbor, our friend.
Best someone does not involve me, is the immediate thought, then the apology.
I stood on time and considered my position in principle unlikely to take the step of making the contract, like all before, then thought better and I said why not ?.
And in this we are, just now they’re gone about to complete all the requirements for residency and I think that will get it.
I am pleased to have put every effort on my part and is sure that this action will impact positively on it, so return action in someone else who needs it in the future.
What we receive is common in other subsequent return if we are grateful to the person who at some point was given to help.
The “pay it forward” is set and through it the human being is likely to be forgiven, for whom appropriate into other crimes that often make
without even being aware of them.
Today you did for me, thanks friend, tomorrow I will need another me.
That is the philosophy that should move at all.
(again from my blog, just to pass this night that I am alone at home, outside we could have 28 C degrees and it´s half past cero what makes
the act of dreaming very difficult here in Madrid)
Thank´s to all of you ESL blog´s friends. emiliano
AFTERNOON, THE DAYS, THE
DEATH
Evening is falling
prelude to another day being born
spend days and days without feeling
A child sudenly in silence
feels old too soon
die inadvertently if death touches him
Short life use to be
too short for being happy
soon passes, the years till old age
It is not short for the suffering
endless days when wanting to die
the years leading up to the desired end.
BE FOOLISH
Man, woman, foolish in search of pleasure
and death seek anxious nonstop
from birth
there is another world, another life to overcome
there prize then, punishment for such pleasure
who knows ?, will be your merit
if something we soon would change
our daily behavior, tireless, selfish would
change the evil for good?
regards.
Fidelity and suffering
If you think in dying with you I die
Together in the trip of not return
Tired of living without hopes
With this daily torture you feel
Wishing the end of that suffering
If you feel that life is your wish
Living with you day after day is my will
Watching the smile in your face
or the firm fight of your character
that strong wants a day more together
My partner´s life I´ll do mine your wishes
Prepared I am to make your trip each second
That life is discovering in fateful time
Of illness, suffering and hopelessness
till the moment you think it is the end.
this was for Cuca