ItsOnlyBob

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May 2013  I’m sitting in my sunroom on a warm afternoon, looking out across my newly green backyard and the ravine that cuts through our neighborhood. I’m awaiting, with a creeping sense of dread and resignation, a benign but loud invasion.  The 17-year periodical cicadas (Brood II) are due to crawl up from underground around these parts, as soon as the ground temperature hits and maintains 64 degrees.  Soon.  A few precocious cicadas emerged in the past couple of summers, much to the evil delight of our cats, who regarded them as toys to be brought inside and batted about.  I know many people look forward to the cicadas. And I know they’re essentially harmless. ( Even delicious , some say.)  I certainly don’t regard them the same way I regard, say, roaches or spiders or ants.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like them.  Cicadas are often mistakenly called  locusts   –  but really, they’re not even c...