Maybe, like they say, P. is just picking up on my emotions and reflecting them back to me. He's not the smartest pup in the litter, but he's definitely a sensitive one. You should see his sad puppy face, hang-down ears, deflated posture, when we load up to head back to the city. He is so bummed.
It's hard to describe/express the extreme-ness of the two places. I am less aware during the cold winter months, because of how much time I spend hunkered down inside. But it occurred to me this morning, when we were on our walk in the 'hood. I took a different route, down towards the water, which is also towards the power and sewage plants. Light industry turns to heavy industry the closer you get to the shore. Closer to our building, there are residents, buildings of modest size (and a tree!). Over there, in industrial land, things become mammoth and scary. Let's just say it's the land of emissions. And in the early morning hours, lots and lots of huge trucks, speeding by, delivering and dumping and hauling. Then there's me and P., trotting along - me scolding him for picking up sidewalk french fries like a psycho-mom.
Three days ago, P. and J. were wading in the river, watching eagles and fly-fishing.
This gal Majora Carter, Hunt's Point native, has been getting a lot of press lately. She founded an org called Sustainable South Bronx. Apparently they are trying to create a greenway - a jogger's and biker's path, along the water, which would come down near us. Boy, that would change everything.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Campaign Trail (2)
No TV here in the country, so we check in periodically to CNN and NY Times online for election results. A victory/non-victory for Hillary Clinton last night in Nevada, attendant media spin about which victory – Clinton’s popular victory, or Obama’s delegate victory – counts more.
Last week, a Times Week in Review article about the “firsts” of this Democratic race – first woman, first black man. It’s weird to be a woman of color at this particular moment in history; identity politics are interestingly, disorientingly scrambled. An article speaking to this on today’s op-ed page: Whitney Terrell writes about living on the fault line between blacks and whites in his Kansas City, MO district, where the white senator endorses Obama and the black Congressman endorses Hillary Clinton. Terrell writes: “With bad times brewing, black voters seem worried they can’t afford to vote for Mr. Obama’s optimism and lose. ‘I like him,’ said one of my longtime neighbors. ‘I just don’t think anybody’s going to let him be president.’”
I have been frustrated (though not surprised, really) in finding the prevalence of this sentiment among fellow people of color. My two most intense and ongoing conversations about Democratic politics right now are with two close friends, one a black woman, one an Asian American woman. F. is black, born and bred in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, loved/loves Bubba, and has been a Hillary supporter all along. She is cautiously glad to see Obama’s ascent as a viable candidate, but isn’t a supporter (yet). She’s expressed a conviction that he will be “eaten alive” by the white political establishment on the political level, along with worry for his basic safety, on the physical survival level. “It ain’t gonna happen,” she has said. “There’s just no way a white country is going to let a black man be president.” And if they do, (she implies), it ain’t gonna be pretty. She says it in a you silly girl kind of way, in a you don’t know what I know kind of way. I respect that – that I don’t know what she knows about being black in America; but I’m frustrated still, because who are “they” if not “us”? We are voters, and black people are voters, not to mention participants in a democracy that, it seems to me, is desperately trying to revive itself, make itself real again, via the Obama candidacy. Of course Obama won’t get elected if skeptical/fearful black people vote for the elite/perceived-powerful white woman! But this feeling, that Obama – that hope in an optimistic black candidacy cannot be “afforded” – this is what I think is hugely at stake in this election.
S. was the most radical idealist I knew back in our college days. And she wasn’t just talk either – she has worked in Palestinian refugee camps, Mother Teresa’s home in India, and has done death penalty defense work in Alabama (she’s an attorney). For years, she rejected the institution of marriage. Until… she met her current husband. They now have two little boys, and she’s frantic with child care and financial responsibility and sleep deprivation. I was shocked (and yet sort of not, because I now have so many friends with small children, I am learning the all-consumingness of it) – to hear her say that she was voting Hillary, and for this reason: “I don’t want any idealism or ideology, I just want someone who can manage the office, do the job.” In her voice, I could hear her exhaustion, her I’m-just-trying-to-get-through-the-day exasperation with “ideas” and “hope.” Again, Obama seemed an expensive luxury to her.
[Interesting that no one is worried about Hillary, as a woman, getting eaten alive. I suspect that having Bubba by her side as her bouncer is no small factor.]
Youthful idealism specialist Dave Eggers (author of (mark the ironic but not ironic youth-inspired title) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) writes, on that same op-ed page:
How can hope be false? the young idealist might ask. Hope is the only horse these young people have in the race. And wasn’t it the other Clinton who liked to quote from “The Cure at Troy,” Seamus Heaney’s version of Sophocles’ “Philoctetes,” which seems ludicrously apt right about now?
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Both tactically and substantively speaking, I think Obama would do well to invoke Dr. King, emphatically and often. There was nothing that seemed more unaffordable to black Americans in the ‘60’s than non-violence, forgiveness, conciliation; but, as only an effective leader can, he sold those impossible luxuries to his movement as both ideal and strategy: do this because your dignity and humanity are at stake; do this because it will work. Dr. King wasn’t perfect, but he was more right – and more leader – than any major American public figure in the last 40 years. He made world-changing activists out of raging, downtrodden citizens, made them to understand that what seemed most unaffordable was exactly what they could not afford to reject.
Last week, a Times Week in Review article about the “firsts” of this Democratic race – first woman, first black man. It’s weird to be a woman of color at this particular moment in history; identity politics are interestingly, disorientingly scrambled. An article speaking to this on today’s op-ed page: Whitney Terrell writes about living on the fault line between blacks and whites in his Kansas City, MO district, where the white senator endorses Obama and the black Congressman endorses Hillary Clinton. Terrell writes: “With bad times brewing, black voters seem worried they can’t afford to vote for Mr. Obama’s optimism and lose. ‘I like him,’ said one of my longtime neighbors. ‘I just don’t think anybody’s going to let him be president.’”
I have been frustrated (though not surprised, really) in finding the prevalence of this sentiment among fellow people of color. My two most intense and ongoing conversations about Democratic politics right now are with two close friends, one a black woman, one an Asian American woman. F. is black, born and bred in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, loved/loves Bubba, and has been a Hillary supporter all along. She is cautiously glad to see Obama’s ascent as a viable candidate, but isn’t a supporter (yet). She’s expressed a conviction that he will be “eaten alive” by the white political establishment on the political level, along with worry for his basic safety, on the physical survival level. “It ain’t gonna happen,” she has said. “There’s just no way a white country is going to let a black man be president.” And if they do, (she implies), it ain’t gonna be pretty. She says it in a you silly girl kind of way, in a you don’t know what I know kind of way. I respect that – that I don’t know what she knows about being black in America; but I’m frustrated still, because who are “they” if not “us”? We are voters, and black people are voters, not to mention participants in a democracy that, it seems to me, is desperately trying to revive itself, make itself real again, via the Obama candidacy. Of course Obama won’t get elected if skeptical/fearful black people vote for the elite/perceived-powerful white woman! But this feeling, that Obama – that hope in an optimistic black candidacy cannot be “afforded” – this is what I think is hugely at stake in this election.
S. was the most radical idealist I knew back in our college days. And she wasn’t just talk either – she has worked in Palestinian refugee camps, Mother Teresa’s home in India, and has done death penalty defense work in Alabama (she’s an attorney). For years, she rejected the institution of marriage. Until… she met her current husband. They now have two little boys, and she’s frantic with child care and financial responsibility and sleep deprivation. I was shocked (and yet sort of not, because I now have so many friends with small children, I am learning the all-consumingness of it) – to hear her say that she was voting Hillary, and for this reason: “I don’t want any idealism or ideology, I just want someone who can manage the office, do the job.” In her voice, I could hear her exhaustion, her I’m-just-trying-to-get-through-the-day exasperation with “ideas” and “hope.” Again, Obama seemed an expensive luxury to her.
[Interesting that no one is worried about Hillary, as a woman, getting eaten alive. I suspect that having Bubba by her side as her bouncer is no small factor.]
Youthful idealism specialist Dave Eggers (author of (mark the ironic but not ironic youth-inspired title) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) writes, on that same op-ed page:
How can hope be false? the young idealist might ask. Hope is the only horse these young people have in the race. And wasn’t it the other Clinton who liked to quote from “The Cure at Troy,” Seamus Heaney’s version of Sophocles’ “Philoctetes,” which seems ludicrously apt right about now?
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Both tactically and substantively speaking, I think Obama would do well to invoke Dr. King, emphatically and often. There was nothing that seemed more unaffordable to black Americans in the ‘60’s than non-violence, forgiveness, conciliation; but, as only an effective leader can, he sold those impossible luxuries to his movement as both ideal and strategy: do this because your dignity and humanity are at stake; do this because it will work. Dr. King wasn’t perfect, but he was more right – and more leader – than any major American public figure in the last 40 years. He made world-changing activists out of raging, downtrodden citizens, made them to understand that what seemed most unaffordable was exactly what they could not afford to reject.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Full
The thaw came last week, so we can turn into the driveway without switching into 4-wheel drive in J.’s truck or backing up for a running start. I could pay for snowplowing, buy a snow blower, or subject my back to shoveling, sure. But where’s the adventure in that?
But seriously, folks. I find that country survival (on a budget) becomes a game of chicken: how far can I push it, what is really necessary, how can I get by, within the limits of safety and prudence? So far I haven’t hired someone to mow my lawn (except once, in April, when it was getting out of hand and my lawnmower was in the shop) and have managed the snow without a trip to Home Depot. Instead of spending money on insulation, I drain my pipes and turn off the water when I leave for the city, which seems to work fine in avoiding a freezing-bursting pipes situation. I did pay for firewood delivery and a new furnace (still making payments, actually). As we drove in the other day, I noticed cracking paint and areas of wood rot in the siding. Hmm… You pick and choose your battles. Like life, kinda. Tonight we expect 7 new inches of the white stuff (although Rocky at the general store says bah!, probably no more than 3 or 4). The pantry, and the wood pile, are stocked.
Depletion and replenishment.
Laundry day today, I love a clean, warm batch of socks and undies, towels and t-shirts; like a new beginning. Or vegetables filling the crisper drawer. A full tank of gas, or the wood pile freshly stacked by the stove. Enough and not too much. The little things. Had to replace my laptop battery this week, the spunky gal at The Apple Store reminded me that the best thing for battery life is to fully charge, fully deplete, fully charge, fully deplete; none of this half-use/half-charge business. Spend it; spend it all.
I have enough of everything, there is no need for need. God, look at that coat rack, vests and jackets and parkas falling off the hooks. 10 pairs of socks, the same for underwear. Four pairs of jeans/cords. A quart and a half of milk in the fridge, three kinds of sausages in the freezer. What else do I need?
Fire is dying down, white embers burning red. No, not all. Of course don’t spend it all. But almost. Almost all. While they’re still burning, while the heat is still burning red. Time to throw on another log.
But seriously, folks. I find that country survival (on a budget) becomes a game of chicken: how far can I push it, what is really necessary, how can I get by, within the limits of safety and prudence? So far I haven’t hired someone to mow my lawn (except once, in April, when it was getting out of hand and my lawnmower was in the shop) and have managed the snow without a trip to Home Depot. Instead of spending money on insulation, I drain my pipes and turn off the water when I leave for the city, which seems to work fine in avoiding a freezing-bursting pipes situation. I did pay for firewood delivery and a new furnace (still making payments, actually). As we drove in the other day, I noticed cracking paint and areas of wood rot in the siding. Hmm… You pick and choose your battles. Like life, kinda. Tonight we expect 7 new inches of the white stuff (although Rocky at the general store says bah!, probably no more than 3 or 4). The pantry, and the wood pile, are stocked.
Depletion and replenishment.
Laundry day today, I love a clean, warm batch of socks and undies, towels and t-shirts; like a new beginning. Or vegetables filling the crisper drawer. A full tank of gas, or the wood pile freshly stacked by the stove. Enough and not too much. The little things. Had to replace my laptop battery this week, the spunky gal at The Apple Store reminded me that the best thing for battery life is to fully charge, fully deplete, fully charge, fully deplete; none of this half-use/half-charge business. Spend it; spend it all.
I have enough of everything, there is no need for need. God, look at that coat rack, vests and jackets and parkas falling off the hooks. 10 pairs of socks, the same for underwear. Four pairs of jeans/cords. A quart and a half of milk in the fridge, three kinds of sausages in the freezer. What else do I need?
Fire is dying down, white embers burning red. No, not all. Of course don’t spend it all. But almost. Almost all. While they’re still burning, while the heat is still burning red. Time to throw on another log.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Green, green, and more green
Another sign of capitalism going green, i.e. an article in The Times about Clorox's acquisition of Burt's Bee's. A pretty amazing, and illustrative, story - the journey from hippie Maine beekeeper & hitchhiker, to corporate millionaires. The question, of course, is which force will win out - corporate environmental responsibility, or corporate profit-motive. The hope, and the argument, of course, is that they work hand in hand, and increasingly so as today's consumer becomes more environmentally and globally conscious. (Again, we "vote" with our dollars.) We'll see.
Also a sign of the ways in which city and country converge. Burt's is wildly popular here in NYC. The guy on the label is Burt (Shavitz) himself, who still lives in Maine in a turkey coop with no running water or electricity. City-dwellers love this -- they (we) love the vicarious live-off-the-land Thoreauvian experience. They want a "natural" life in the most man-made environment on the planet. A little beeswax lip balm goes a long way here in the concrete jungle.
This may seem like a superficial convergence, but in my (momentary) optimism, I'm curious to see where this goes; how the powerful forces of business/consumerism can get under the skin of a society, for good. "Social entrepreneurs" have been preaching this for decades. I am still a great skeptic about big business, about the catastrophic human and environmental casualties; which is why this presidential election is such a defining moment, I think. Obama is a capitalist, without apology; the question is about attention to the costs of economic growth and concrete measures to address them. Who is winning, who is losing, and how do we as a democratic nation, supposedly engaged and empowered to participate in our country's policy-making via our representatives - how do we mitigate the negative affects of largescale economic growth and design bottom-up infusions (financial, educational, spiritual, etc.), to build a world that is as healthy as it is prosperous (i.e. likely less prosperous but more healthy)?
Also a sign of the ways in which city and country converge. Burt's is wildly popular here in NYC. The guy on the label is Burt (Shavitz) himself, who still lives in Maine in a turkey coop with no running water or electricity. City-dwellers love this -- they (we) love the vicarious live-off-the-land Thoreauvian experience. They want a "natural" life in the most man-made environment on the planet. A little beeswax lip balm goes a long way here in the concrete jungle.
This may seem like a superficial convergence, but in my (momentary) optimism, I'm curious to see where this goes; how the powerful forces of business/consumerism can get under the skin of a society, for good. "Social entrepreneurs" have been preaching this for decades. I am still a great skeptic about big business, about the catastrophic human and environmental casualties; which is why this presidential election is such a defining moment, I think. Obama is a capitalist, without apology; the question is about attention to the costs of economic growth and concrete measures to address them. Who is winning, who is losing, and how do we as a democratic nation, supposedly engaged and empowered to participate in our country's policy-making via our representatives - how do we mitigate the negative affects of largescale economic growth and design bottom-up infusions (financial, educational, spiritual, etc.), to build a world that is as healthy as it is prosperous (i.e. likely less prosperous but more healthy)?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Change Is A-Comin' / Change Done Already Came
"So does that make the father in the ad less an agent of change, or even more of a revolutionary by saying that hybrids and the environment are now no longer something we even need to talk about?" --Kirk Johnson, The New York Times, 1/6/08
The article is about the new buzzword in the race for the Democratic presidential nominee: change. Kirk Johnson describes a new TV ad for the Ford Escape Hybrid: a young girl and her father, presumably in a typical Midwestern conservative town, are getting into their Ford Escape, and the girl is complaining that she's embarrassed to be seen in a gas-guzzling SUV. Where they're going (a metaphor for progressive communities), people drive hybrids and care about the environment, she says. The father tells the daughter that the Escape is in fact a hybrid. Well why didn't you say that, she asks. "I never thought I needed to," the father replies.
Something strange is happening. Obama won Iowa, a mostly white state. People are talking about his racial identity, but not that much - it's not "the main thing." People are talking about Hillary's gender, but it's also not "the main thing." (Change vs experience has become the main thing.) These two individuals are vying for the most powerful political office in the world. The tipping point (a la Malcolm Gladwell) has come and gone.
The father is not grandstanding about the fact that the Escape is a hybrid, it's sort of just a given.
Change is funny that way. There are certainly moments of drastic upheaval and event: the Civil Rights Movement, Rodney King, OJ Simpson, Clarence Thomas. Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Nancy Pelosi. The release of scientific reports substantiating global warming. Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. But now, here we are. Barack Obama may become the President of the United States. Hillary Clinton may become the President of the Unites States. Bill Richardson may become the next Vice President of the United States. Homosexuality is further and further from "deviant" for the majority of Americans. Organic foods are now sold at Walmart, and "carbon footprint" and "global warming" are part of the vernacular. In the process, change feels excruciatingly slow and uphill and costly; but then, weirdly, all of a sudden, there it is. Here we are. How about that. And we barely need to talk about it.
Could it be that capitalism is in fact now in check? That corporate decisions are truly being influenced by greater social values, as expressed through political rhetoric, actual policymaking, grassroots activism, and the media? You are what you buy, you are who you vote for - meaning, the trickle down of cultural values in a democratic capitalist society becomes most clearly manifest via your checkbook/credit card bill, and your ballot.
It's early, but look, people came out in Iowa (the way people were supposed to come out for Howard Dean, but didn't). The numbers themselves are a huge indication of change. Is democracy back??!!
Some people might say that this is what you'd call "self-correction." The American Empire is either going to crash and burn, or pull itself back together. The average society has an intuition about itself and acts accordingly when things get way off track.
I buy that. But I also think that this pulling back together requires leadership and commitment and grit in every sector at every level. Perhaps now's the moment to humbly thank the generations of grassroots warriors, the ground-up soldiers, the visionaries - who've understood all along that change is both slow and fast, and who've persisted on behalf of the greater good - at great cost, and with patience. Here we are. This moment may not last long (and who knows which way the election will turn), but I'm going to enjoy it - a moment of optimism, of feeling proud and grateful for my country and its commitment to real progress. And I'll be showing my gratitude, at the very least, via my checkbook/credit card bill and my ballot.
The article is about the new buzzword in the race for the Democratic presidential nominee: change. Kirk Johnson describes a new TV ad for the Ford Escape Hybrid: a young girl and her father, presumably in a typical Midwestern conservative town, are getting into their Ford Escape, and the girl is complaining that she's embarrassed to be seen in a gas-guzzling SUV. Where they're going (a metaphor for progressive communities), people drive hybrids and care about the environment, she says. The father tells the daughter that the Escape is in fact a hybrid. Well why didn't you say that, she asks. "I never thought I needed to," the father replies.
Something strange is happening. Obama won Iowa, a mostly white state. People are talking about his racial identity, but not that much - it's not "the main thing." People are talking about Hillary's gender, but it's also not "the main thing." (Change vs experience has become the main thing.) These two individuals are vying for the most powerful political office in the world. The tipping point (a la Malcolm Gladwell) has come and gone.
The father is not grandstanding about the fact that the Escape is a hybrid, it's sort of just a given.
Change is funny that way. There are certainly moments of drastic upheaval and event: the Civil Rights Movement, Rodney King, OJ Simpson, Clarence Thomas. Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Nancy Pelosi. The release of scientific reports substantiating global warming. Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. But now, here we are. Barack Obama may become the President of the United States. Hillary Clinton may become the President of the Unites States. Bill Richardson may become the next Vice President of the United States. Homosexuality is further and further from "deviant" for the majority of Americans. Organic foods are now sold at Walmart, and "carbon footprint" and "global warming" are part of the vernacular. In the process, change feels excruciatingly slow and uphill and costly; but then, weirdly, all of a sudden, there it is. Here we are. How about that. And we barely need to talk about it.
Could it be that capitalism is in fact now in check? That corporate decisions are truly being influenced by greater social values, as expressed through political rhetoric, actual policymaking, grassroots activism, and the media? You are what you buy, you are who you vote for - meaning, the trickle down of cultural values in a democratic capitalist society becomes most clearly manifest via your checkbook/credit card bill, and your ballot.
It's early, but look, people came out in Iowa (the way people were supposed to come out for Howard Dean, but didn't). The numbers themselves are a huge indication of change. Is democracy back??!!
Some people might say that this is what you'd call "self-correction." The American Empire is either going to crash and burn, or pull itself back together. The average society has an intuition about itself and acts accordingly when things get way off track.
I buy that. But I also think that this pulling back together requires leadership and commitment and grit in every sector at every level. Perhaps now's the moment to humbly thank the generations of grassroots warriors, the ground-up soldiers, the visionaries - who've understood all along that change is both slow and fast, and who've persisted on behalf of the greater good - at great cost, and with patience. Here we are. This moment may not last long (and who knows which way the election will turn), but I'm going to enjoy it - a moment of optimism, of feeling proud and grateful for my country and its commitment to real progress. And I'll be showing my gratitude, at the very least, via my checkbook/credit card bill and my ballot.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Ladies of the House
For a while I've been meaning to learn more about ladybugs. People always say that it's "good" to have ladybugs around, especially in the garden. But I have them in my house - all over the house - tons of them. Usually around the windows. And often dead in big groups, like some kind of bizarre Jim Jones mass suicide. (Yeah, that's pretty dark.)
So I should find out what's going on, right? Why do they come to my house to die?
First of all, whoa there, let's not be so dramatic. Here's what I learned from ladybuglady.com.
Q. Why do ladybugs come into my house in the winter time?
A. Ladybugs are attracted to the light colored houses. Especially, homes that have a clear southwestern sun exposure. Older homes tend to experience more problem with aggregations due to lack of adequate insulation. The ladybugs come in through small cracks around windows, door ways and under clap boards. They want to hibernate in a warm, comfortable spot over the cold months of winter. Ladybugs gather in groups when they hibernate, so if you see one, you can be sure more will follow. The best way to keep them out is to repair damaged clap boards, window and door trim and to caulk small cracks.
Q. Once the ladybugs are in my house, will they eat anything?
A. No. Ladybugs don't eat fabric, plants, paper or any other household items. They like to eat APHIDS. Aphids are very small, but very destructive pest that feed on plants. (If you have rose bushes, you have probably seen aphids.) Ladybugs, while trying to hibernate in your house, live off of their own body fats. They, also, prefer a little humidity. But our homes are usually not very humid during the winter. In fact, they are rather dry causing most of your ladybug guests to die from dehydration. Occasionally, you might witness a ladybug in your bathroom getting a drink of water. Now, that's a smart lady!
So they're dehydrating, poor gals. I also learned that when ladybugs are "stressed," i.e. when they sense danger, they play dead, releasing a bit of blood so that predators will leave them alone. A ladybug's blood is yellow and has an unpleasant odor, so, in other words, best to just let them be. Or, if I want to save them, collect them up and then release them... where? They need warmth and moisture. Basement ladybug colony?
It's 18-degrees F in the country today. Hang in there, ladies; believe it or not, spring really is just around the corner.
So I should find out what's going on, right? Why do they come to my house to die?
First of all, whoa there, let's not be so dramatic. Here's what I learned from ladybuglady.com.
Q. Why do ladybugs come into my house in the winter time?
A. Ladybugs are attracted to the light colored houses. Especially, homes that have a clear southwestern sun exposure. Older homes tend to experience more problem with aggregations due to lack of adequate insulation. The ladybugs come in through small cracks around windows, door ways and under clap boards. They want to hibernate in a warm, comfortable spot over the cold months of winter. Ladybugs gather in groups when they hibernate, so if you see one, you can be sure more will follow. The best way to keep them out is to repair damaged clap boards, window and door trim and to caulk small cracks.
Q. Once the ladybugs are in my house, will they eat anything?
A. No. Ladybugs don't eat fabric, plants, paper or any other household items. They like to eat APHIDS. Aphids are very small, but very destructive pest that feed on plants. (If you have rose bushes, you have probably seen aphids.) Ladybugs, while trying to hibernate in your house, live off of their own body fats. They, also, prefer a little humidity. But our homes are usually not very humid during the winter. In fact, they are rather dry causing most of your ladybug guests to die from dehydration. Occasionally, you might witness a ladybug in your bathroom getting a drink of water. Now, that's a smart lady!
So they're dehydrating, poor gals. I also learned that when ladybugs are "stressed," i.e. when they sense danger, they play dead, releasing a bit of blood so that predators will leave them alone. A ladybug's blood is yellow and has an unpleasant odor, so, in other words, best to just let them be. Or, if I want to save them, collect them up and then release them... where? They need warmth and moisture. Basement ladybug colony?
It's 18-degrees F in the country today. Hang in there, ladies; believe it or not, spring really is just around the corner.
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