They’re heeerrrrreeee! Saw my first hatched adult Brood X cicada on the sidewalk today while going out for my daily roll on the knee scooter. There is no mistaking their large red eyes. I thought it was dead because it wasn’t moving. I stopped, sat on my scooter, and nudged it with my finger. It buzzed, probably only just having descended from a tree and was drying out—and annoyed to be bothered by some finger, which, by the way, was about the same length of this behemoth insect. I’ll try to get some better pictures of them. As I rolled along, I saw dozens more. Soon we won’t be able to avoid stepping on them all over the sidewalks. Casualties under foot—and under knee scooter wheels—await. Hubby says he’s already started hearing them in the trees while working outside. Earplugs also at the ready; these things sound like hundreds of car alarms times ten.

This morning our globally distributed team gathered online for a cooking demonstration as part of a workplace culture activity. An Italian chef, who works in London for my company, showed us how to make flatbread pizza from scratch. Despite that I used gluten-free flour, mine turned out pretty good. These cultural activities are a bit like what zookeepers call “enrichment,” a fancy word for giving the animals things like fruit frozen inside balls of ice, or hiding bananas in their outdoor play space, to keep them occupied for a few hours and make them forget they are captive in a much smaller space than their native habitat. And I mean that in the best possible way—sort of. Yes, working from my home office every day feels a bit like being captive, especially while watching free-range construction workers outside my window who get to be outside while I often feel chained to my computer.

Mind you, having a desk job these days doesn’t sound so bad when you consider these guys bust nuts sledgehammering through slabs of concrete that used to be my basement wall and shift wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of heavy red clay from one part of the yard to the other. If I did manual labor, at least I’d probably sleep better at night. If I did manual labor, I’d also be out of work right now with this bum ankle (the colors are now spreading to the tips of my toes and up my leg). Never mind. What’s not to like about getting paid to make pizza during the workday, even if it does sometimes feel like being a gorilla at the zoo hunting for hidden bananas? And besides, it was too stonking hot to be working outside today, although the humidity was low Speaking of which, it’s National May Ray Day (I hadn’t a clue either until I looked up what that meant). Supposedly, it’s the day we celebrate sunshine, ushering out spring and welcoming the coming summer.