{"id":3037,"date":"2021-06-29T20:18:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T01:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=3037"},"modified":"2021-06-29T20:19:17","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T01:19:17","slug":"the-nature-of-the-mundane-part-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/the-nature-of-the-mundane-part-1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of the Mundane Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/strong>The clicking sound on my windshield sounds like a brittle cascade of sleet, but this being June, and this being a bluebird sunny day, I consider other sources.\u00a0 I am driving along the north shore of Lake Michigan just past the Mackinac Bridge.\u00a0 Perhaps sand is pelting my windshield, but I reject this option when I spot a limp, windless American Flag at a gas station proudly announcing its patriotic support of twice-impeached Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My vision blurs as the clicking persists,\nand now I look at the road through a dangerously smudged windshield.  This is Memorial Day weekend, the cusp of the\nmosquito season in these northern woods, and now I am certain that I am\nresponsible for the wanton destruction of a suffocating swarm of mosquitos, arising\nen masse from their watery origins, reveling  in their brief foray under a welcoming sun.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the corpses smear my windshield, I wonder\nif mosquitos have any concept that their evolutionary strategy focuses on quantity\nover quality, that vast numbers will die a futile, unfulfilled and potentially\nviolent death, either vehicular insecticide, a provoked slap from a bipedal victim,\nor sharp swish of a tail.  Only a few of\nthe lucky males will mate, a remarkable feat as it is done in flight.  A smaller proportion of the females will score\nthe blood meal necessary to provide the proteins required to nurture and then lay\neggs.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clicking intensifies as I accelerate to\npass an oversized RV rhythmically swaying across the median strip. More roadkill\nclutters my windshield.  Mosquitos, so\neasily sacrificed, still must have a collection of neurons that passes for a\nbrain, allowing them to see, move, taste and detect heat.  In fact, mosquitos make life and death decisions.  Females must detect and chase down a\nwarm-blooded target and then select the most succulent bit of flesh to bite.  Their attraction to carbon dioxide is well-known,\nbut beyond that they have poorly understood preferences for certain odors, an\nalluring combination of some 340 scents that dot our skin.  My own experience is that mosquitoes much\nprefer my husband\u2019s BO compared to my mine, for which I am grateful.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few miles further, a hint of red appears\nin the upper left hand corner, a mosquito distended with blood has died.  Normally, I would have no qualms about\nkilling a mosquito, in fact their easy dispatch may be their only redeeming\nfeature.   And I may express vindictive anger\nwhen I see a blood smear, wondering if the blood belongs to me or whether, on\nthis muggy day, I have been anointed with the blood of the hairy guy ahead of\nme at the Piggly Wiggly.  Improbably, I feel\na tinge of remorse.  This heavily laden female\nwas one small step from completing her reproductive mandate, really the only\ngoal in her short life, and has been cut down at random.  I imagine a lucky lottery player clutching\nher winning ticket, only to get run over as she crosses the street to collect\nher winnings.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I am deep into the plight of the mosquito.  (It\u2019s been a long drive.)  In my world, mosquitos are managed with bug\nspray and protective clothing, but worldwide there has been an all-out assault\non the mosquito, the entirely innocent carrier of a variety of wily parasites (e.g.\nmalaria) and viral diseases, including yellow and dengue fever and West Nile\nvirus.  Mosquitos remain one of the\ngreatest public health challenges.  As a result,\nresearch into mosquito biology continues to be well-funded, searching for a\nchink in its reproductive system that can be exploited.  A release of a swarm of sterile males is one straightforward\nstrategy.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I delve into this research on my cell\nphone at the gas station.  I quickly\nlearn that when I swat a mosquito, I am squishing a pair of the female\u2019s oviducts\nand ovaries, and the male\u2019s testicles and seminal vesicles, anatomies that have\nbeen retained throughout the animal kingdom. \nI see articles titled, \u201cA Mosquito Sperm\u2019s Journey From Male Ejaculate\nto Egg,\u201d or the discovery of a genetic switch that can turn females into males.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tempting rabbit holes of information string\nme along as I scroll my screen.  I feel\nthe danger of elevating mosquitos to one of the eight wonders of the modern\nworld, boring dinner companions with descriptions of the exquisite choreography\nof a multi-pronged mosquito proboscis sinking into warm flesh.  I get back in the car and buckle up.  A brief scan of this information is enough,\nan exhilarating testament to the never-ending, ever-moving human imagination\nand curiosity that helps me appreciate beauty and wonder beyond a bloody smear\non a car windshield. <\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TThe clicking sound on my windshield sounds like a brittle cascade of sleet, but this being June, and this being a bluebird sunny day, I consider other sources.\u00a0 I am driving along the north shore of Lake Michigan just past … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-MZ","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}