Ants, Mice and Water

I am in the middle of reading Diet for a New America and am therefore about to be a vegan (I defy anyone to read Fast Food Nation followed by Diet for a New America and not resolve to be a vegan), and therefore I have stopped killing ants in my apartment.

Once upon a time, I lovingly carried outside any ant I encountered and gently deposited it in a safe location. Soon I was up to my ears in ants. On retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, I asked one of the cooks in their spotless kitchen how they dealt with ants. A Buddhist precept forbids causing harm, yet I saw no ants in that Buddhist kitchen. The cook said, “Sometimes you have to defend your territory.” I loosely interpreted that to mean, “Go ahead and kill ants any time you feel like it,” and proceeded accordingly.

Now I’ve decided there’s enough room for them and me, though if one gets in the way of whatever I’m doing and happens to perish, I’m considering that to be a natural event. I won’t deliberately kill them, and their numbers don’t seem to have risen since I stopped doing so.

My mother’s theory of ant control is to squish one and leave it on a well-traveled path, so that the next ant comes along and clutches its chest, wailing, “Oh, my god! Something terrible has happened here!” after which it tells all its friends to stay away.

If she’s actually done this, the karmic balance may have been righted by her putting dried corn in her attic for any mice that might come along. She said she liked to think of her heart beating and my father’s heart beating and all the little mouse hearts beating under the same roof.

One thing I have seen a lot more of since I stopped killing ants is ants carrying other dead ants around, which I always find rather touching. I guess there are more ants dying natural deaths in my apartment these days and needing to be carried to the final resting place.

One time in the desert near Joshua Tree, I saw one ant obviously remonstrating with another. I figured the bad ant might have spent the night in a bar, neglecting his wife and children, and come home the next day still drunk. Finally, the good ant tired of preaching and simply seized hold of the ne’er-do-well and hauled him off. I’m sure the good ant was exasperated, but it struck me as a caring act.

I heard a guilt-inducing thing on KQED last night. I didn’t catch the very beginning, but I believe it was a moderated exchange between a woman in England and one in India, about indoor plumbing. The English woman said that the water is on all the time; if she turns the tap, water comes out. The Indian woman said that the water where she lives is on about half the time. Then the Indian woman asked the English woman directly, “Can you drink the water that comes out of the tap?” It was heartrending, the kid outside the candy store saying to the one inside, “Is all that candy yours? Can you eat it whenever you want?” The English woman said that in most places, the water that comes out of the tap is fine to drink. She asked the same question of the Indian woman, who said that they must purify their tap water with chemicals before they can drink it. Twenty percent of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water.

At some event on Peak Oil I attended with Sir Dave, one of the speakers asked how we thought countries who had run out of oil or other resources were likely to feel about the country that will be hogging the last bit of everything, namely us. Probably not too friendly.

I took a stroll with Sir Dave yesterday and he said, “I don’t know what to think about such-and-such,” and then he screwed up his face and visibly thought. It was very cute.

Letter to the Tube Times (the publication of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition) written after this morning’s ride to work:

To the cyclist who passed me on the right on Valencia this morning and then waved his hand airily as if to say, “What’s the diff?” when I called after him, “Please not on the right.”

For starters, you passed with about two inches to spare and no warning. A simple “On your right” would amply suffice, but I’d rather hear “On your left” (and not have you pass so close) because when you pass on the right, you may be placing yourself squarely in the door zone, where you were this morning. (Did you notice the person in the driver's seat of that car?)

And if you get doored at that moment, likely I’m going down, too, possibly into the path of a moving car. Jeopardizing your own safety is one thing; jeopardizing mine is quite another.