Moth(s)

The last few days, we've been conducting a determined cleaning assault on Moths - both the clothes kind (this time, the culprits were some old kitty toys - including feather-ended wands - that were in a large pot in the living room, and, close to them, a rug in the front hall), and the pantry kind (who knew that they liked rose fertilizer?).  This has meant much dusting and scrubbing with vinegar and wiping down the insides of baskets.  Here, however, one of the baskets has filled up again, with a different kind of Moth.  To be sure, she was named after the Miller Moths, who were having one of their sporadic emergences in Santa Fe the summer that we adopted her/she adopted us - but she does, on occasion, take the name very literally.  Also, it's confusing.

In fact, I still think the real moth culprit is my parents' house, where, these days, you can almost hear the munching sound of tiny caterpillar teeth working their way through the cashmere sweaters that I buy them at Christmas.  At least my mother keeps hers in plastic bags - my father goes around wearing what looks, by now, like camel-colored netting.  Yes, of course we bought them a stack of pheromene-laden gummy moth traps (Green Way brand, for what it's worth, which we find really works).  They remain unopened.  These days, when I'm there, I keep my clothes zipped up in a hard-shell suitcase ...