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I must smell like a flower

I drove Dave to the airport at 7am today, and instead of joining the herd on northbound 101 to go home, I headed to the nearby Burlingame pool for a wonderful sunrise swim. It was delightful. Much better than sitting in rush-hour traffic.

Then I hopped across the Peninsula for a six-mile run on the Sawyer Camp trail. At mile 2.5 (I know this because there are markers), I got an insect sting. Yes, another one. It got me in the back of the arm, which seemed like a weird place to get a sting, but whatever. After determining there was no stinger left behind, I continued to the 3-mile marker to turn around and ended up having a great run (on legs still pretty tired from two hard races in two weeks).

Back at home, as I got ready to shower, I reached up to pull my ponytail holder out of my still-wet hair and was greeted by a furiously buzzing yellowjacket*, stuck in the ponytail holder by its stinger, venom sac hanging out of its body. Uh. Nasty.

After being stung, I had run another 3.5 miles, driven half an hour, even stopped off at a sewing shop to buy thread for crying out loud, and didn't notice the pissed-off wasp stuck in my hair. (Nor did the lady at the shop; at least she didn't mention it. But maybe that's why the shop cat RAN AWAY from me when I walked in? It's usually pretty friendly.)

Of course, I took photos. Of course. I encourage you to click through to the bigger versions to get a good look at that stinger.

*I am pretty sure this is indeed a yellowjacket, and I hope critter expert Marissa will correct me if I'm mistaken.

September 28, 2007 1:07 PM