{"id":573899265,"date":"2026-08-14T20:09:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T00:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573899265"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:53:30","slug":"do-you-know-praying-mantis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2026\/08\/14\/do-you-know-praying-mantis\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you know praying mantis?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes strategies that you develop turn out to be accurate. There’s always the possibility you’re wrong, or you misread a situation or a third alternative arises. But sometimes you get it right. In this deliberately obscure case a time management strategy I’ve been employing has worked in my favor. So, go me? The thing about patting yourself on the back about barely referenced strategies is that you can’t count on the next one just because you were right on the last one. That’s just hubris and it will eventually catch up to you. Or me, in this case. And where will you\/I be with the much ballyhooed time management choices then, huh? <\/p>\n

You’ll spend all of your time searching and stretching for a metaphor that explains the thing without explaining the thing, thinking that one day, some seven or eight years from now, you’ll come across this post again and recall and know exactly what was going on here. You will not. I will not, in this case. I think exactly one time in the decades-long history of the site is there an allusion to something unsaid that I can recall and regard as important. And it was! And you’ll never find it, because I’m not telling. <\/p>\n

(I wrote three paragraphs of a personal anecdote I like, one of those recollections-of-a-life-lesson I taught myself in 2003 or so, and I included the phrase “lightning bolt and thunderclap of clarity,” because I’m proud of that realization. It was an important story and a great lesson, but doesn’t fit here, so I deleted it and you are welcome.)<\/p>\n

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I woke up roughly on time this morning and made my way downstairs and outside. Parts of the southern side of the house and the gardens there are still shaded a bit, and I needed the shade to crawl around on hands and knees and do more weeding. I plucked at grasses and mints for about two hours. <\/p>\n

I made a friend. <\/p>\n

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For a few moments, we did a bob-and-weave dance together. The insect craned its neck this way and that. I did it in response, then the mantis did it again. Then I did it again. Mid-way through the third round the insect got bored of it. But, I felt, we’d bonded in that time. <\/p>\n

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Then I felt bad about ripping up all of the green things upon which it had been living its best life. But it scurried off, headed for another patch of growth I wasn’t going to pull up. Other insects and greener pastures and all of that.<\/p>\n

One year and one day ago<\/a> I met this guy on the northern side of the house. I wonder if they are related. <\/p>\n

How often do various insect groups have family reunions? I only took one entomology course in college and, I must confess, that did not come up. If I had undergrad to do over again, I definitely would not ask about that.<\/p>\n

Late this afternoon, after pretending to do some computer work, I took all of the fruits of my weeding, five giant bags over four sweaty hours, and loaded them into the car to take them to the county’s drop off site. I drove there, smelling of decaying green things, and dropped them off. Usually there is a crowd, maybe even a line, but there was only one other vehicle there as the Friday closing hour loomed. I gave the bags the ol’ heave-ho without making a mess of things and then climbed back in the car. <\/p>\n

This is my favorite part of the recycling and waste run. There is a little building that sits in the lot and the man that runs the place, when he’s not outside moving stuff around or doing the other things he does, sits in there. You can’t see into the building because of the light and glare, but I also give it a little wave. Here I’ve been working on my uninterested-but-thankful expression. A fixed lip, a nod, a casual wave, and then down the gravel drive, onto the road and that chore is done. Until the next time the chore must be done, and I will try another version of that wave. Maybe three fingers next time.<\/p>\n

I went over to one of the local grocery stores, picked up a few things, and then pointed toward home, where I almost got in a tangle with the driver of this vehicle. <\/p>\n

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It’s a company car, and the driver was rather aggressive. I followed him a bit as he weaved through town and near a school zone at high rates of speed. Soon, I caught him at a light where the road allowed me to go past him and better see the company logo. And don’t you know I looked them up. It’s a local concern. They work on restaurants and businesses and commercial remodels. I sent the family-owned business an email, sharing the license plate, telling them the driver was erratic and dangerous on their insurance and, what’s more, with a great big company log on the side of the van. “That’s probably not the word of mouth you want,” I concluded. “Certainly it isn’t the risk the rest of us should accept from your company.”<\/p>\n

That felt like a good way to end a Friday. I hope it is an issue for someone in their office on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes strategies that you develop turn out to be accurate. There’s always the possibility you’re wrong, or you misread a situation or a third alternative arises. But sometimes you get it right. In this deliberately obscure case a time management strategy I’ve been employing has worked in my favor. So, go me? The thing about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573899265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-errands","category-friday","category-photo","category-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573899265"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573899269,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899265\/revisions\/573899269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573899265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573899265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573899265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}