I know Passover has receded quickly in your rearview mirror, but I’m living through a series of personal plagues.
They’re not biblical in proportion, but for mere mortal me, they’re epic and loathsome.
Of course, the good Jewish wife that I am, I blame my suffering not on God, but on my spouse. You can appreciate my faultless logic. He (my spouse, not God) dragged me away from civilization — Berkeley — and moved me to the godless wilderness of Reno, Nevada.
At first I didn’t recognize the pattern of plagues, but now it’s all as clear as a day in the Sinai.
Plague No. 1
First were the wildfires. This is not only sad, but also ironic. We moved to Reno four years ago in part to escape the threat of California wildfires. Yet, immediately upon moving, I learned that — thanks to climate change and reduced snowpack levels in the Sierra Nevada — Reno now, too, faces frequent wildfire threats.
In fact, our neighborhood had been evacuated the year before when a fire came perilously close. I learned all this while squinting out the window at an obscured orange sky.
I faced one particularly frightening alert last summer in which I loaded up the car with prized possessions and sat staring at the phone for hours, waiting for a “red flag” evacuation notice, which thankfully did not come when the winds shifted. My husband was out of town and missed all the fun.
Plague No. 2: Gnats
During my first summer here, bug-phobic me found that a cloud of gnats had descended upon my beloved houseplants. The gnats multiplied in alarming and disgusting proportions.
Now, I am, in general, a woman with a green thumb. I’m not so good at raising children — ask my children. Wait, better you don’t. But when it comes to indoor plants, I’m all (green) thumbs. Blossoms and blooms everywhere. That is, until we moved and the gnats took up residence.
I tried every trick the internet offered. I tried “natural” remedies, including a multi-week watering drought, yellow sticky traps for adults, “treating” larvae with hydrogen peroxide and adding neem oil to the soil. I also tried “unnatural” remedies, which meant toxic chemicals. I removed soil. I added soil.
Nothing worked.
Finally, I tearfully tossed all of my plants into the trash and eventually bought new ones
Plague No. 3: Snakes
More precisely, rattlesnakes. Our neighborhood became ground zero for a rhumba of rattlesnakes. “Rhumba” isn’t just alliteration. It’s the actual term for a group of rattlesnakes. Trust me, I’m now an uncertified snake-ologist, I mean, herpetologist.
Of course, that’s what you get for leaving the verdant San Francisco Bay Area and moving to the dusty Wild West: rattlers and a new vocabulary.
The poison-packing serpents bit a couple of neighborhood dogs, which ended up at the vet but survived. A couple of big snakes were corralled, but more were sighted.
I never saw one myself, but the mere thought of a rhumba of rambling rattlers ruins my repose.
Plague No. 4: Caterpillars
Not cute, little wiggly ones. Massive monstrosities appeared everywhere … on streets, on driveways, up walls and in garages.
It was an infestation of yes, I’ll say it, biblical proportions. It lasted weeks, driving neighbors and exterminators crazy.
The marauders were as big as my index finger and audibly crunched when scrunched under car wheels. It made me want to run for the hills (past the rattlesnakes) back to Berkeley, or better still, back to my true home country: NYC.
Plagues No. 5, 6 and 7: Floods
Not outside, but inside. We have a sump pump downstairs. That’s not uncommon, but our downstairs isn’t some sad, moldy, uncarpeted area. It’s a pretty swanky space — if I do say so myself — complete with a carpeted office, guest room and den and a tiled bathroom.
But oh, that sump pump. Oh, any sump pump. Always a recipe for disaster. Ours malfunctioned. Not once, not twice, but three times. Thanks to a faulty something or other, ours leaked sewage onto the hall and den carpet. Three times.
The damage was so extensive that our insurance company canceled our policy. (A plague upon the company.)
The only grace I can manage here is that, thankfully, we didn’t contract a bona fide plague from the sewage.
Plague No. 8: Flies
For two months this past winter, in one cozy corner with two large, sun-filled windows, we had swarms of flies. They were not the usual buzzy, fast-moving flies, but slow-moving, thundering beasts.
They made their first appearance on a day when my husband was, you guessed it, out of town. Berserk and bug phobic, I swatted 14 of them. Combat vets would have been awed by my kill numbers. I was nauseous.
An exterminator took pity on hysterical me and came right over. He surveyed the filthy carnage and diagnosed the problem as “corpse flies.”
The bug man said the big bugs are attracted when “something dies.” Like a bat. A rat. A mouse. A raccoon.
With that diagnosis, he crawled into the attic and crawl space but failed to find a decomposing “feeder source.” He shrugged and left.
The flies remained until spring and then thankfully disappeared. The reason for their appearance in my otherwise balabusta-perfect home was never solved.
Plague No. 9: Gnats redux
I cannot win. The gnats have returned in full force, and I surrender. I’m throwing out the last of my plants and going artificial. I’m now anti-green, pro-plastic. Sorry, Mom Nature.
Plague No. 10: Pending
What’s next? I know not. Is there an anti-Dayenu? If so, let me know because the promised land seems very far away.