Dragonfly From Hades

Anyone who knows me well knows I don't scare easily but last night at midnight I was screaming like a banshee running round and round the pool batting at my own head. Vanna White went out back for her nightly constitutional and didn't come back. She has apparently dug a hole to China in the garden bed that my 90 year old father spent hours leveling and raking and was curled up contentedly in said hole. What a bad doggie. When Popi finds this hole you are d-e-a-d. Ninety years ago there was no such thing as ADHD or Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. Throw in a large dose of Oppositional Defiant Personality and you have Popi in a nutshell. No pun intended. In 1918 my grandmothers intervention was to rig up a pulley system and hook his belt to the large farm clotheslines where he could run without doing damage. I learned this from my favorite uncle. Around the age of 15 I think the clothes line snapped and my dad kept running. He ran to the nearest naval recruiter, lied about his age and joined up. He did well in the Navy. Won a few medals at Pearl Harbor and with the exception of the time he stole a trolley in Sydney, Australia and terrorized gave the patrons the ride of their lives he made it over 20 years without any major incidents. The Navy negotiated his release but he was, of course, banned from Australia for life. This doesn't seem to bother him much these days. I'm sure it didn't bother hm much in those days either. While I'm dragging Vanna out of the hole last night informing her of the Popi trouble that lies ahead something dive bombed my head. The noise was deafening. It was like the hellish chopper scene from Apocalypse Now and I was the unsuspecting, innocent villager. I let go of Vanna's collar and took off running. It was a real save yourself moment.Turns out to be above dragon fly...or at least I think this is some kind of mutant variation of a dragonfly. This sucker measured approximately 6 inches long and was determined on nesting in my hair. Never in my many years in the tropics have I seen one this large. I mean look at this demon spawn. He's staring at me in the photo...waiting. Like Hannibal Lecter he's beckoning... "Closer, please. CLO-SER!" Every time I tried to photograph him he took off and buzzed me causing me to scream and run for the rice paddies.

I truly love dragon flies. They are probably one of my favorite critters. As a young child on the Santa Fe river I would watch them for hours marveling at their gossamer wings and gorgeous colors. This was not one of those moments. I'm sending this post to one of my favorite bloggers, Pure Florida, and asking him why? why? WHY?