A couple of weeks ago, I walked out of my apartment in Alumni Village and spotted a partial rainbow on the eastern horizon. Other people were also standing outside gazing at it. One young toddler of Asian descent was so excited that he did not know what to do with himself. He ran around a swing set shouting "Rainbow! Rainbow!"
A slightly older girl ran up to him, and they both dashed across the lawn as he continued to shout, looking back over his shoulder at it.
I can remember the first time I saw a rainbow. It was in Wilmington, NC and I was three or four years old. I was in the backyard of our apartment and our neighbors were also outside playing in a plastic kiddie pool. The rainbow was not fully formed, but I was still fascinated at how the colors stood out distinctly in the blue sky.
I have only seen a perfect, completely formed rainbow once in my life. That was in Rochester, New York in June 2004. It appeared outside my room in the Strathallan Hotel, and I stepped out onto my balcony to watch it over downtown Rochester. That rainbow was one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in nature, and even the local news anchors mentioned it that evening on their 6pm broadcast...
After the Tallahassee rainbow disappeared, I went for a bike ride through Innovation Park. The cloud patterns that caused the rainbow moved in from the western horizon, and I found myself getting soaked with rain. Spying a large oak tree, I ducked under its branches and waited. In a minute, the rain stopped.
The clouds were unique. I could see patches of darkening blue sky where it was not raining, but then also there were grey clouds and lightening where I saw rain pouring.
I decided to play a game of cloud hopping. I took off on my bike for the engineering building, trying to make it there before the next rain cloud passed over my head. The first few drops began to hit my back just as I zipped into a covered entrance of the building. The rain was warm, so it did not bother me much. But I enjoyed playing this game.
The rain stopped again, and I rode my bike out from the engineering building, past the golf course and the small reservoir in the park. Some Canada geese were already flying in to rest for the night.
A colder, steadier downpour caught me before I could get to the next building and its covered entrance. The rain drops beat loudly on the thin plastic awning. But again, it did not last long.
I cloud hopped for about an hour, watching parts of the evening sky light up with electricity. Eventually, the clouds moved off and the rain stopped for good. I coasted back to my apartment on the downhill slopes from Innovation Park to Alumni Village.
...
A few days later, the natural surroundings of Tallahassee gave me another interesting experience.
While on one of my usual night time runs, I felt a tickle on the back of my neck which I thought to be a drop of sweat. When I tried to wipe it away, though, I suddenly discovered that I had palmed some sort of creature about the size of a golf ball.
In the span of half a second, I grabbed it from the back of my neck and tossed it to the ground. I heard its large exoskeleton clatter across the asphalt, but I did not stop my run to see what the thing looked like.
In the half second it was in my hand, I felt a pinch on my palm. I looked at my hand as I continued running, and through the glow of the street lamps I could see a pink mark on my palm where it had bitten or pinched me. Luckily, it did not break the skin and the mark faded quickly.
With this memory fresh in my mind, the next night I was doing laundry when I came back to my apartment to find a massive and fierce looking insect mounted on my door frame about chest high. This is what it looked like.
I had no idea what this creature was, but its face had what looked like fangs, and it appeared to be a predator of some intelligence.
I did not want to get attacked by this thing. For a few moments, I debated what I should do. Then I said to it, " Bug, I don't want any trouble, but you have parked yourself right at the entrance to my home. I have to go in- you understand?"
Holding my empty laundry basket as a shield, I carefully keyed into my apartment and slowly opened the door. The creature did not move, and I shut the door.
After half an hour, it was time for me to go back to the laundry facility to switch my clothes from the washers to the dryers. I hoped the thing would be gone when I opened the door.
I opened the door quickly, and then took a step back. The insect was still there, only now it was raised up and larger. I thought that perhaps I had startled it when I opened the door, and in response it had flared to attack position. This is what it looked like. The photos are pretty close to actual size.
Again, using my laundry basket as a shield, I stepped outside, shut the door, and took a closer look at the insect. It was then that I realized it was molting- breaking through its old shell.
Now is my chance to kill it, I thought.
But I do not enjoy squashing live things, and I only do it when I really have to. I decided to give this fierce but cool looking insect more time. Maybe when I came back from the laundry facility it would have finished molting and be gone.
Unfortunately, it was still there when I came back. Mounted on the back of its old shell, I now saw that the insect had wings. It moved slightly when I came close.
I managed to slip past it again into my apartment. After another half hour wait while my clothes dried, I opened the door again, hoping the bug had flown away.
But it was still there, and it flexed its wings when I opened the door.
Okay, that's it, I thought. This thing has wings and it is responding to my movements. It can fly up and sting me in the face if it wants to.
Using the door for protection, I took a broom and poked at it to get it off my door frame. I felt a tinge of sympathy when it tried to use its old shell for protection. It was not able to fly away, yet. But I poked it again and knocked it off the door frame, along with the shell. I heard it hit the ground.
Well, that's that, I thought, and I finished my laundry. The next day, I did some research at the library and discovered that the insect was actually a harmless cicada.
I felt badly that I had not allowed it to finish molting. Eventually it would have developed into something like this.
But given my experience from my run, I was not taking chances.
It was just bad luck for the cicada. I learned from this, though, and I now know what a molting cicada looks like.
The first image of the cicada is from http://www.earthlife.net/insects/images/hemipter/cicada3.JPG
The last three images in this blog entry come from http://www.insectidentification.org/process-of-molting.asp
Until Next Time,
Nathan Marshburn
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