So I liked PSP9, and I bought it, and voila, my first ever delivery to the new house has occurred! PSP is great. I hope 9 turns out as great as before, but I really liked the improvements to the vector tools (and yes, the interface is notably worse than it was - simple is good, people!). Here's something else new: a new Nature Note!
Last night, Zazzy kept poking away and playing with the edge of a pillow, and I thought it was funny - it looked like she was just reacting to seeing her own foot underneath the pillow moving it around. Then a little while later, she went chasing off a little ways, and suddenly I saw it. A centipede about 4 inches long, squirming at light speed across the carpet. Yeek. It was scary! We stopped her from eating it and got set up to capture it, but it dove into the wall, squeezing in between the baseboards. It's amazing how much it could compress itself. A very creepy monster.
So I of course googled info on California centipedes, and learned that we have a house centipede. There was also a handy chart on the differences between millipedes and centipedes. It went something like this (paraphrasing slightly):
| Millipede | Centipede |
Legs per segment | Two to three | One |
Moves faster than a greased-up polecat | No | Oh yes |
Enjoys consuming human flesh | No | Thoroughly |
Is utterly harmless and good fun at parties | Yes | Not in the least |
Stays outside | Certainly | Will burrow through your skull |
I think that's not precisely what was on the chart, but that's the gist of it - for every question (other than leg count), it came down to "Millipede: harmless, Centipede: whirling death machine". But in the end, in truth, I actually felt better after my googling - another rather harmless beast, but really the creepiest of the lot. And far and away the biggest! I had a very hard time sleeping, knowing he was lurking in the wall a couple feet away. But at least if one of the kitties munches on him, they won't die or anything.
PS - We just bought a thermometer. It's 104 degrees and 25% humidity. No wonder the bugs are all coming inside!