Seasonal guests

"Palmetto" is such a pretty word--"palm" so tropical, "etto" so diminutive. Surely it's a lovely thing to sit under the fan-shaped leaves of a palmetto on a warm summer's eve, sipping an ice-cold freshly-squeezed limeade.

By extension, "palmetto bug" sounds pretty too. So genteel, so southern. Nowhere near as disgusting as, say, "common American cockroach." No one would mind a palmetto bug or two dropping by during limeade time, whereas the common American cockroach would be most unwelcome.

In North Carolina, after temps have been in the humid upper 90s for a few weeks, the palmetto bugs come out from wherever they hide during the rest of the year. They come out at night with their friends--the hideously ugly, high-jumping, brown-gray camel crickets, who have proliferated so extensively that their population no longer fits in the crawl space under the house--and they hang out, uninvited, all over the expansive southern front porch, enjoying the relative coolth.

Because we call them "palmetto bugs" and not "foot-long common American cockroaches," when we cross paths outside I stoically sigh, avert my eyes, and pretend they aren't there. But when they come inside and rummage around in our silverware drawer--well, that's just rude. That's when I call for backup.

It turns out palmetto bugs hold the record for "Fastest Running Insect on the Planet," so about half the time, they get away (usually with no more than a spoon or two) before the sole of S's shoe can squash their guts out. When they escape under the microwave oven or clothes dryer, there is little we can do other than move on and hope they close the door behind them when they return to their native habitat. (North Carolinians will tell you palmetto bugs live alone outside, rather than between the walls with hundreds of cousins. Thank goodness.)

Southern living in a cold snap

We live in a modest two-story Victorian farmhouse with a big front porch, very Southern. The house is quite old by local standards, dating to no later than 1889. The first confirmed occupants were a prominent Durham dentist and his wife (a farmer's daughter from Orange County), and our street is named after them. Although they seem to have purchased the house from a farmer, as far as we can tell, they didn't farm the land themselves. 1891 tax records indicate they owned "1 cattle" valued at $15, kitchen and household furniture at $300, and scientific instruments at $500.

In 1889, the house was out in the boonies north of town. By the early 1890s, all of the surrounding land, with the exception of three other parcels, had been bought up by Brodie Leonidas Duke, eldest son of tobacco and cigarette magnate Washington Duke. Brodie may have been a bit of a lush, an embarrassment to the rest of his family, but he certainly had vision when it came to real estate.

In the early 1900s, a street car line shrank distances and the north Durham boonies became a fashionable, flourishing suburb. Today, the street car is gone, its tracks paved over, and Durham has expanded so much that our one-time suburb is now considered a downtown neighborhood.

One of the disadvantages of living in an old Victorian farmhouse is that it's drafty. When there's a cold snap, you have to remember to leave the pantry door open overnight to prevent the washing machine plumbing from freezing. When you forget, the washing machine valves freeze. (In our house, whenever something stops working, "it's the valves"). Water leaks onto the floor, where it runs under the wicker laundry basket and behind the 2-gallon jug of cat-pee-odor-be-gone before puddling against the wood molding along the outside wall. Then it freezes into a nice little skating rink for the mice, who don't take advantage of it because they're bundled up inside the wall of the study, trying to stay warm.

This morning, long after S had finished cursing in Bairisch about the broken valves and the frozen puddle, I received an email message--too late, alas--from the City of Durham entitled "Durham Offers Advice To Help Residents’ [sic] Protect Their Pipes From Freezing This Winter: Quick Tips to Prevent Extensive Water Waste and Property Damage." One of the many linguistically interesting things about the message was that it mentioned "busted water pipes in the home." It has been a long time since I've read about "busted" anything. "Busted" is an American colloquialism that the OED dates to the early 1800s. By definition, colloquialisms are informal, but here in the southern U.S., folks are pretty laid back. When the city writes to you about busted pipes, you know they have only your best interest at heart.