I also stepped on a few bumblebees, but I always got stung for it.

Yesterday, I felt that I was done with flies and other insects as a writing topic. It seemed to me that I had properly exhausted the subject, and I was ready to move on. It turns out that the bugs were not quite finished with me.

I drove down to New London for a funeral/celebration of life for Leandra, who was my friend Will's stepmother. Several of the speakers at the event talked about Leandra's love for animals of all kinds.

One speaker told a story about helping Leandra open up her summer cabin, and how the two of them encountered 40 or 50 live houseflies buzzing around the kitchen. Leandra wouldn't let the speaker kill any of those flies. Instead, they had to very laboriously escort them out.

When they were finally finished clearing the place, the speaker stepped out of the house for some air, only to find herself suddenly encompassed by a whirling column of dozens and dozens of houseflies, all rotating around her in the same counterclockwise direction, in tight spirals.

Just as quickly as they'd arrived, the flies all suddenly flew straight up into the air and disappeared completely into the bright sky. I sat and listened to this story with my mouth agape. Fortunately, no flies flew in.



After the event, i stopped at Mohegan Sun for a quick slot sweep. I think I've already mentioned that Mohegan also appears to have an active Asian Slot Syndicate. It makes me wonder if they and the MGM gang are two branches from the same regional operation, but it's not something that I'm going to be particularly nosy about.

Mohegan Sun Slots: 2 hours
+$93.80

2024 Running Poker Total: 294 hours, +$4386.00
2024 Running Slot Total: 158 hours, +$6116.54

2024 Grand Total: 452 hours, +$10502.54

When I go do 10-20 day Vipassana retreats, we all must follow the Buddhist precepts, one of them being "I shall not kill", even God damn mosquitoes I do respect the precept though during my stay there, even if some mosquitoes in Argentina carry dengue. Disclaimer