Poor Clickbait has finally passed on to the greenbean fields in the sky.



He was the first katydid Alex caught last summer. August 6th was the first day I heard a katydid clicking in the trees, and Alex caught him later that same night.

He was the smallest of the three that we had last year, and the "fussiest." He would make little tiny territorial clicks at just about everything; water running in the sink and cereal bags crinkling were big for him, haha. He acted like he wanted to make sure everyone knew that he was the toughest katydid in the room!

And it turns out he was! Typically broad-winged katydids like ours only live a couple months as adults; the two from last year both died in October, I think, and the two others from this year died in late October/early November. When Clickbait was still going strong, I thought it would be really cool if he made it all the way to December, but I didn't expect it. Then he did. Then I thought "Christmas? Christmas katydid?" And he was here at Christmas! "All the way to the new year??" And he made it to the new year!

I was very sad he finally passed, though a little glad he waited until I was home from the hospital. (I returned late on Thursday; he passed on Saturday morning.) He clicked all the way up through the end, with plenty to say even on Friday night! But he didn't eat his Friday night beans, and then he went down to the bottom of the cage, which is always how it goes at the end. :(

It's hard to even say "aw, poor guy" because he lived more than twice, approaching three times as long as expected! He was just about two weeks shy of hitting six months, which is wild!

I'll miss him. He was a fun little guy to have, and the overnights are just a little too quiet without him click-click-clicking like mad. I hope that some of our katydid eggs (most of which were probably sired by Three, but some of which were sired by Clickbait) will hatch, and we might have some of his progeny roaming around.


(Eating green beans, his truest love.)

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For me: I am recovering! The process of trying to gather everything required for the leave application has been the biggest frustration and time sink and stress of the last week. (There will probably be a bigger post about how much I hate government paperwork later.) For now, it at least feels like things are improving. Food has mostly been sitting well, though I'm still trying to be really cautious. (Lots of soup. Lots of yogurt. Some toast.) I would commit minor crime for a pizza or something, but I think that'll have to be a few days out, still. My guts are still not right, but seem to be slightly better than they were. My incision sites still look pretty gross, but are healing well. Trying to walk more, as advised, to deal with the fact that I am still just bonkers bloated.

Thank you so, so much for all the kind thoughts and comments. I'm going to try to respond to at least the most recent ones. I am also going to try to get caught up on the weeks of stuff I've missed here, but it'll take me a while. I hope everyone else has had a better few weeks than I have!