Ticks!

 Apparently, ticks used only to be much of an issue in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but they have been migrating southward (presumably they'll meet the chiggers/noseeums migrating Northward and with luck, they'll fight each other) for the past decade or so, and this year is particularly bad for them.  I can confirm, because I have never seen one in Michigan before this year, but a week or so ago I found one on my leg when walking in Indian Springs Metropark (which, oddly enough, has a gravel path with no long grass) and then, even more disturbingly, I was woken up on Saturday and Sunday morning by one of the little buggers running around on me in bed.  Or at least I think that's what happened.  I took both of them and flushed them down the toilet, and now nobody will believe that I didn't dream it.  I remember Basil getting ticks from running around at Arne, and he seemed none the worse for it, but what's threatening about the ones in Michigan is that they can give you Lyme Disease, which is no fun.  Now I'm super paranoid all the time about things crawling on me...  Fortunately both Frederick and I are (a) not particularly hirsute, and (b) have fair hair, so it's harder for the things to hide on us.  But I'm probably going to give myself a buzzcut just in case.