Wasps and Shadow Puppets

There is a line in the kids movie Shrek whereby Shrek and Donkey are talking about being layered. Shrek maintains he is an onion and Donkey thinks he should describe himself as more like parfait, because everyone likes parfait. I am sure we are all multi layered, I’m just trying to figure out if I’m an onion or a parfait. I feel like I might be more like the English Trifle the character Rachel Green makes in an episode of Friends. Everyone might believe I taste like feet but hopefully there are still some people out in the world who think I’m ‘good’, yuck and all.

Last summer I discovered we had a wasp nest in the lawn of our garden. I decided to try and kill them. The first time I tried with cold water and I got stung 6 or 7 times and also once from a bee (I know it was a bee because he left his bloody stinger in me, he may have died). The next time I tried to kill the wasps, I used boiling water and I got stung about 3 or 4 times. I still hadn’t killed them, mostly they got angry and there was not even any indication of any kind of success. Then I googled what might work. Apparently vinegar would work, so I took the vinegar out and bombed the nest. The wasps were angry, unaffected by the vinegar and I gave up. I feel like I could have kept going, there’s still a part of me that won’t let it go and I still really want to kill the nest. That said, I’m pretty sure I would probably still be going at it unsuccessfully and get stung many times over. Sometimes you have to tackle things and sometimes it’s clear that you’ve just got to move on.

When I was a kid we used to make sock puppets and last thing at night we would shine a light and create shadow puppets with our hands; bunnies and dogs and birds. When I do this with my kids, or think back to my own childhood, I remember the importance of these simple and innocent little parts of my life. A special, sweet moment, the calm before my sleep. It is that which reminds us to step back into the dark and shine the lights, only then can we see the animals on the wall. I could go back into the garden and assess the wasps nest or bring in the professionals. In the spring I will look to see if they’re still in the ground, if I need to I can fight for the freedom to enjoy my garden, wasp free and pain free.

Maybe I’m parfait or maybe an onion. Either way it’s pretty good, there’s onion in everything I cook and it is very tasty.  In fact, I put garlic in nearly everything too, so maybe that wouldn’t go amiss either (keep the vampires away). I guess I’ll be assessing the garden soon.