suns along the Mohawk

……………… 

It took a John Deere backhoe under my bay window at 7 AM this morning to remind me that there are many things far more annoying than a noisy cricket behind the refrigerator.

My friends can tell you that I’ve been a bit obsessed this week about a perennial sign of summer’s end at my Stockade home: the arrival, and 24/7 chirping, of a love-starved, refuge-seeking cricket in the inaccessible (and sound-amplifying) kitchen space behind my refrigerator.  In recent years, I’ve memorialized this autumn invasion, and attempted to sublimate my frustration, in haiku poems posted at my other weblogs (collected today at dagosan’s haiku diary).  This year, despite being reminded by a few bleeding hearts that crickets bring luck, and in spite of empathy toward his plight, I’ve been feeling even less charitable than usual toward the raucous chirping of the female-seeking cricket in my kitchen (only the males can chirp).

After a night of teeth clenching that I blamed on that damnable cricket, I sat at my desk with a big mug of coffee first thing this morning, planning to follow Frasier’s example by finding a gecko to end my cricket misery.   All thoughts of cricket-hunting were immediately dispelled, however, when an intolerable racket began outside the window located just a couple feet from my desk (see the photo above).  I immediately knew the source of the audio assault — the return to Washington Ave. of the utility crew we told you about in June and July, in “my NiMo sunset” and “a different orange glow.”   More precisely, the return to the corner of Cucumber Alley and Washington Ave. — and thus directly under my bay window — of the gas-pipe-laying men and machines of National Grid.

– here are a few shots from early this summer at Cucumber Alley –

. .  . .

Yes, it does seem far-fetched that a mere two blocks of Washington Avenue here in the Stockade have required an entire season of digging and laying and ripping and pouring, but it’s true.  I cannot duplicate the sound of their “street maintenance” activities around 7 A.M. this morning, but I can show you the scene out my window and at the corner [also note the backhoe at the top of this posting; and click on each picture for a larger version, or scroll over it for a brief description]:

. . . .

– new asphalt being laid at Cucumber Alley and Washington Ave. –

The end may soon be near for this well-intentioned and overdue infrasture-improvement project.  The piles of brick removed for the project along the curb might even be restored to their original patterns before the Walkabout next weekend.  None too soon, and hallelujah.

But, I won’t set my expectations too high and will accept our fate as it unfolds along Washington Avenue.  What I want to do this evening — especially if the street repair noise is finally over at my corner — is to thank the men from National Grid for distracting me from my week-long thoughts of insecticide.  Indeed, I don’t want to jinx myself, but all that racket this morning might have persuaded my horny cricket friend to seek a setting more conducive to gryllidae courting and romance.  If I haven’t been that lucky, and my chirpy friend returns this evening, I’ll be complaining again with an Update in the morning.

update (9 AM Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009): No chirping for at least 15 hours.  Frankly, I almost miss the pesky little guy and really could use some good luck.  Something tells me he’s been playing Alley Cricket overnight looking to get lucky and he’ll soon return to my safe and warm kitchen.

afterthought (Sept. 20, 2009):  What do you do with an annoying pest? Swat it?  Put it outside? There’s a timely Sunday comic strip today from The Middletons.