BBC America update

Back in January, I blogged about how Comcast was changing our channel lineup and we were going to lose BBC America if we didn't pay significantly more each month, which I didn't want to do. I mentioned at the time that we had had the experience with Comcast that they don't always follow through right away with their threatened changes. True to form, four and a half months later there have been no changes as far as Comcast is concerned. BBC America, however, has moved Graham Norton an hour later on a Saturday night - too late for me to bothered staying up anyway :-(

Feeding the (rabid?) vermin

Deprived of a pet since both the gerbils died within the last few months, DH and DD have taken to feeding the local vermin. Not content with leaving food out for them, they have been determined to make friends with them.  Much patience last weekend led to Mamma Chipmunk actually coming up on the front porch and eating out of their hands. (DH swears that chipmunks and squirrels don't carry rabies, though the CDC says that any mammal is susceptible.)

This afternoon when DH came home from work, Mamma Chipmunk was waiting for him - she raced over and stood on his foot, looking up as if to say: "Where's my dinner?" A lot like me really, except I don't stand on DH's foot ;-)

Rabies

Rabies is not something I had to think about about when I was growing up in the UK. With the UK being an island with very strict quarantine laws, rabies was something that was basically non-existent. Although I was aware that rabies exists in North America, I hadn't particularly thought about it much here either. However, twice this spring my son has brought warnings home from school about rabies. Despite the fact that the warnings admit that it is very rare for anyone to die from rabies, we have been encouraged to put the following notice on our fridges:

Serious as rabies can be, with the very mild winter we have had this year, I think they are sending notices home about the wrong thing. The local media has been full of information about how it is likely to be a record tick season because the warm winter didn't kill off the ticks the way it usually does. Ticks carry Lyme disease, which is really quite unpleasant if not treated promptly. Another pest that is more likely to affect people this year is the tiger mosquito. Native to Asia, the tiger mosquito was first found in the USA in 1985.  It's smaller than most mosquitoes, but its bite causes more irritation than most and, unlike the mosquitoes we are used to around here, it dines throughout the day, not just at night. The tiger mosquito is capable of transmitting a variety of diseases including the potentially fatal West Nile virus.

Somehow, I think people are far more likely to be bitten by a mosquito or a tick than by a rabid bat or raccoon! It's also more likely that you would seek medical help if bitten by a raccoon or a bat, so, nasty as rabies is, to my mind the tick and the mosquito are significantly more dangerous.