It’s tick season again, and if you’re like me, you hate those bloodthirsty little parasites (who doesn't?). Luckily for you, gentle reader, I’ve had quite a bit of experience in removing ticks, having grown up on a farm with lots of long grass around (we called it “hay”) and from living in the very state that holds the town for which Lyme disease was named. I have more ticks than dandelions in my back yard. When those vampiric goons dig in, here’s what you need to do to get rid of them:

1.     Get out the peanut butter. There’s a popular old wives’ tale that says if you put peanut butter over a tick, the peanut butter will start to smother the little bugger, and he’ll release his lockjaw bite on your flesh. This is a total lie. The peanut butter is for the snack you’ll want before this is over.

2.     Find a pair of needle-tip tweezers. Nothing but needle-tip will do. I can’t stress this enough. Regular tweezers will cause you to rip off the tick’s abdomen, leaving its filthy, diseased head still firmly burrowed under your skin. Tick heads are infinitely more difficult to remove than whole ticks.

3.     Place the tips of the tweezers as close to your skin and the tick’s hellspawn pincers as possible, squeeze, and gently start pulling. Slowly, slooowly . . . pop! What the—didn’t I TELL you not to use regular tweezers? Now you’ve got a tick belly leaking your freshly sucked blood all over the place, and a half a tick still stuck in you. What happens next is of your own making, pal!

4.     Start sharpening the filleting knife. You’ve got a tick head that’s got to come out, my friend, and the only way to do that is to cut it out. Regretting not splurging on the needle-tip tweezers now, aren’t you?

5.     Using your crappy regular tweezers, pull on the tick head hard enough to pull your skin away from your body. I know it’s gross. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

6.     Use the filleting knife to gently saw away at the two points where the tick pincers have a death-lock grip on your skin. Luckily, I’ve found that the person with the tick often passes out from the pain at some point during the process, which makes it easier to saw.

7.     The heck with it. When “gentle” fails to get you very far, just start hacking away. You’re going to wind up with a hole in your skin anyway, might as well gouge it out yourself. Continue to do this until the chunk of skin with the tick head still embedded separates from your body.

8.     Stuff the gaping, bleeding hole that remains with gauze. Don’t use cotton. Hey! You saw what happened when you ignored my tweezers advice, didn’t you? Put that cotton ball down!

9.     Collect the tick abdomen and tick head (with your flesh still attached) and bring it to the doctor. Put it in a safe container, like an old pill bottle. Don’t worry, you’ll get a new pill bottle when the doctor prescribes antibiotics for you.

10. Enjoy a spoonful of peanut butter. Go ahead. You’ve earned it, and you’ll have a battle scar for the rest of your life to show for it.

(Stacey's Note: While I often gripe about having too much on my plate, this week, I actually did. So I asked fellow writer and good friend John Valeri of Hartford Books Examiner fame to help out. Besides having a delightful sense of humor, John also has the endearing quality of not being able to say "No" when  you beg him for a blog post. I hope you enjoy John's reflections on the women in his life as much as I did.)


Women I Love (Besides My Wife) by John Valeri

“Your poor wife! She must be a saint ...”

Those words have become a familiar refrain in my life, and while most people tend to trail off at that point in some semblance of politeness, the “to put up with you” is clearly implied. Allow me to set the record straight: my wife is many things, but a saint is not one of them. Fortunately, she is good-humored. Quite beautiful, also. And impressively tolerant.

I, too, am many things. Obsessive. Compulsive. Fanatical.

I’d like to think that these traits make me the ideal life partner. After all, obsession and fanaticism are pretty much synonymous with loyalty. And who doesn’t want a loyal husband, right?

Of course, when you consider that this loyalty also applies to the women that came before my wife, you understand the potential for conflict. Fortunately, all of these prior relationships have been of a platonic nature.

And while some people might question this seemingly endless parade of lady friends, I firmly believe that I have the capacity to love them all … 

Gloria Estefan

I can’t tell you how many people have asked if, or assumed that, Gloria Estefan is my wife. That’s not to say they always recognize her as “the Conga Queen,” but the picture of us that adorns my desk at work—and the second one that serves as my computer’s backdrop—apparently creates the false impression that we’re a bit more intimately acquainted than is actually the case. Go figure. Having said that, I do maintain that Gloria is (and was, and always will be) the first lady of my life. Long before Chelsey became the music of my heart—hey! See what I did there?—Gloria turned my beat around, providing the soundtrack to my youth. Chelsey has made her peace with this, and we’ve since followed Gloria across the globe together (all the way to Canada!), incurred bucket-loads of debt, and done all kinds of shameless things in pursuit of the true G-spot.   

Oh, and in my defense: my wife’s picture also holds a place of honor on my desk—it’s just a tad less prominently placed than Gloria’s ...

Marcia Clark

Yes, that Marcia Clark. She may have come out on the losing side of the “Trial of the Century” but she won in the court of public opinion—and in the recesses of my teenaged heart. I’ve been told I have a thing for older women who possess, ahem, strong opinions and colorful vocabularies. Perhaps this little infatuation is the proof? Anyway … seventeen years after my twelve-year-old self took up the Marcia mantle I met her while she was traveling on a book tour. (Did you know she’s a brilliantly accomplished crime novelist now? No? For shame!) I knew we were destined for BFF’dom from the very moment that I asked her not to take out a restraining order on me and she replied: “Everybody knows those only make you try harder.” And then she laughed—she does that often, and infectiously—and we’ve been compadres ever since. Bonus points: the rhythm dun got her, as Marcia is a fellow Glo-head.

Neve Campbell

What can I say? As a neurotic and perpetually anxious child, I avoided horror movies like the proverbial plague. And then one night I made the fateful decision to watch Scream alone in the dark. The only thing that tempered my absolute terror was the hot, frightened girl-next-door who had the moxy to drop a TV on her would-be killer’s head. Snap! Nobody does the strong-yet-vulnerable thing better than Neve Campbell, and I’m a sucker for a woman in need of saving. (That’s no reflection on you, Chelsey—I swear!) Which is probably why, when writing my own obituary for a high school Journalism class, I fancied myself transitioning to the great beyond during a moment of coital bliss in Ms. Campbell’s trailer. And yes, she was screaming—but the good kind. For that reason alone, I forgave her when she dropped out of the TV pilot based on Marcia’s books.

Are there more women? Of course there are! But I don’t want to brag. Besides, I’ve got packing to do. Gloria’s expecting me in Chicago. Don’t get the wrong idea, though—I invited my wife to join us …

(Stacey here again. If you enjoyed John's post, please take a moment to go visit his Hartford Books Examiner page at http://www.examiner.com/books-in-hartford/john-valeri. Because John is not only awesome, but he really saved my neck this week. Thank you!)

If you’d known me, say, back in fifth grade, you probably wouldn’t have thought I’d be writing horror these days. My main interests were Duran Duran and cats. So how did I wind up utterly fascinated with people who do really bad things?

My Geraldo moment came in 1988. Literally. This was the year Geraldo interviewed Charles Manson, and my passion for the macabre was born. I’ll admit that prior to this, I was primed for an interest in all things dark and dreary. I loved reading Edgar Allan Poe. And then there was my overactive imagination. It’s always been a bit warped. When the windows would rattle during a storm, for instance, my first thought wasn’t “wind.” It was “poltergeist.” So when I learned that the things that go bump in the night might not just be the creaks of an old house settling, but in fact Manson family members, my twisted imagination felt validated. I self-righteously picked up a copy of Helter Skelter, thinking See? Crazy things really do happen. I’m not so nuts for thinking the tree branch outside my window was a giant anaconda. The downside to this revelation, of course, was that after reading Helter Skelter, I slept in the closet for a week. I lived in real terror that Manson would get paroled.

I began consuming nothing but true crime books and Double Stuf™ Oreos. I read about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Ed Gein with the same voracity that my friends were reading about the Sweet Valley High twins. I’m not knocking them, though. I’m pretty sure those books didn’t leave my friends with a lifelong fear of gold VW Beetles, clowns, and men who live with their mothers, respectively. I saw madmen wherever I looked. It was unfortunate for Mike K. that he owned a yellow Volkswagen bug, because when he asked me to the prom, I kneed him in the apple bag and ran away screaming. (You could argue that I was not the only one traumatized for life by my true crime reading habits.)

All of this murder-reading, naturally, kind of bummed me out after a while. There are some real sickos out there. Around this time, I discovered one of the most delightful things about growing up in the ’80s: cheesy horror movies. After reading horrific stories about the worst of humanity, I found that nothing cheered me up quite like watching Freddy Krueger crack jokes as he sliced at people in their dreams. Bad day? Throw on They Live, a fabulous B-horror romp starring Rowdy Roddy Piper cracking jokes, kicking butt, and chewing bubble gum. It felt good to laugh with these guys. Heck, it was a relief.

So when I finally turned my pen to horror back in 2010, the words came easily. I’d read a library’s worth of accounts of people doing bad things. I was primed to write scary stories. Except . . . sometimes, when we think that scratching at the window is a giant anaconda, or Squeaky Fromme, and we snap on the lights and it turns out to be a tree branch, what’s our first reaction? After the danger of a serious cardiac incident has passed? 

We laugh at ourselves, don’t we?

When people dare to complain to me about my stories, the thing I hear most often is that the tone was too light. In the midst of the terrifying chaos, I made them laugh.

It’s a criticism I’m happy to take. Life is short. Life can be scary. You’ve gotta laugh.

My mother has taught me many things over the years. Maybe not how to properly apply makeup (and as a result, neither she or I wear any . . . and we look at my sister in amazement, wondering where on earth she learned how to brush on just the right hint of blush without looking like a circus clown). It’s okay—I don’t feel my life is lacking due to my inability to use a mascara wand without poking myself in the eye. She taught me more important stuff, like:

People will judge you by the company you keep. 
I wish this wasn’t true, but it is. This is why I had to stop hanging out with trolls. They’re not good for my karma. And pimps. I’m sorry, if you’re a pimp, we can’t be friends. Mom says no.

If you don’t like how something tastes, you don’t have to eat it. But taste it first. 
This was quite a change from my youth, when Mom’s general rule was “You’ll choke down what I cooked, and I'd better hear a 'thank you' for it!” (Also a rule in my house to this day.) Believe me, it was quite a revelation when I discovered that my mother had stopped eating black jellybeans. “I don’t like them,” she said. (Neither do I, but the genetics behind why my mother and I have the exact same preferences in both food and shoes is a conversation for another time.)
I parroted back her mantra from long ago. “But—but—that’s wasteful!”
 “Jellybeans are cheap enough. Try every flavor, of course. But if you don’t like  ’em, toss ’em. Or leave them for your father.” 
Wise words.

Stop complaining that you’re turning into your mother. 
It’s when you look in the mirror and see Grandma looking back that panic is warranted.

If you want something done, learn how to do it. 
I should point out that this is something both Mom and Dad have advocated all my life. Because of their guidance, I have in my lifetime: soldered a pipe to fix a leak; changed a car battery; applied for, cut through red tape for, and received a waiver to both install a septic system and drill a well on a 1200-square-foot piece of property in an ecologically protected area; sewn pillows, made my own pants, and patched a couch; and laid down new flooring. Piece of cake!

If you can’t do it yourself, ask your father. 
But only if you’re really, really sure you can’t do it yourself. I had to turn to Dad when my water heater gave up the ghost (all over my basement). But I was able to watch and help him install the new one, so I still learned a little bit.

Express yourself with words. 
Mom says she’s not a writer, but she sure does have a fabulous way with words. One of my favorite family expressions comes right from Mom: “Move your face closer so I can slap you.” It’s a joke in our family, but when I want to express my displeasure with someone, these are exactly the right words to use. Complaining because you’ve lost ten pounds and now you’re too thin? Sad that the BMW you just bought doesn’t have butt massagers installed in the seats? Is life just too darn good to you? Move your face closer.

Don’t feed the mogwai after midnight. 
I think Mom taught me this. Nope, wait, that was Gremlins. Mom said, “Don’t talk to that scruffy guy in the trench coat—he's a flasher.” Also a good rule to follow.

Speak softly, and in Connecticut, you know you can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, right, dear? Ah, Mom. You don’t mess around with her.

There are other women, of course, who have also had a part in raising me: my Aunt Joanne (“The company of cats is often preferable to the company of people”), my Aunt Bea (“Why have one cat when seven will do?”) and my Aunt Joan (“Don’t look at me like that—all of your aunts are cat people, apparently”), for instance. Even my sister (“You’re putting on too much blush! Stop! Sto—fine, if you want to go out looking like a clown, go ahead.”) Happy Mother’s Day to all of the wise women in my life.