The cicadas are landing on me. First one was on the head. Second one was on the shoulder. What makes a cicada landing so freaky, aside from their baby bat-like size is, you don’t know it’s coming. There’s no buzzing. There’s no warning. There’s not even a bite, or a sting, to let you know that it digs you like a tree limb. And it does not shake off easily, despite my shrill, piercing shriek, the girly up-and-down jumping, the arms flailing like rubber. And once shaken or flicked off – I suggest a stop, drop and roll, because their unwieldy and languorous flying can take them from your head or your shoulder – smack! – right into your face.
The few people with whom I’ve shared my cicada touchdowns, and resulting freak-outs, have all responded, across the board with,”Really? I haven’t seen that many.”
Really?
As Bob and the news media has informed us – we are in the midst of the cicada sojourn. The first one in 17 years. They don’t stay for long, but billions of them, for the next month or two, will be drilling up from the ground beneath us, where they’ve been getting in gear since 1996. They then hatch, climb, crawl, and the courting male fills the woods with its clangorous, rackety mating hum. I can now hear it when I’m inside.
But were it not for the errant flying and subsequent mountings (on me), I could embrace the cool-factor of the cicada, and the science class offered right outside my back door:
Underneath the lampost light:
Hanging on the corner:
In my dryer vent:
This one got inside:
But perhaps what is most freaky of all, is this cup that I found yesterday morning while cleaning out the outer reaches of my china hutch. I don’t know where it came from, or to whom it belonged, but it was the first time I’d reached back there in 15 (that’s almost 17) years:
The Write Side of 59 
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