Ladybug: Friend or Foe? (and cute footwear)

Exhibit A:  Ladybugs as friends.

Here is Belvedere covered head to toe in innocuous hot pink ladybugs.  Even the feet of her pj's are in the shape of ladybugs.  Anyone who saw this would say, "Awwwww."

But the ladybugs are merely masters of public relations.

Exhibit B:  Well, I have no picture, but just imagine, if you will, you are seated at your kitchen table on a lovely October afternoon in Missouri.  The sun is shining brightly on the western, light colored wall of your house when you hear thwaaaap thwaaap thwaaaap.  And then you think, "Oh no, it is a lovely October afternoon in Missouri  and the sun is shining brightly on the western, light colored wall of my house.  Dang." (and yes, I know it's November but this post was a bit delayed due to the computer cord issue...)

You say dang because you know that the thwaaaap-ing noise is the sound of a ladybug hurling its crunchy little body repeatedly against your kitchen light.  And you know that about 1000 of its best ladybug friends are on their way to hibernate in your western-facing light colored wall.  Technically these little beasts aren't ladybugs, they are some sort of Japanese Lady Beetle.  Like they should be wearing kimonos or something.  Or have a movie "Memoirs of a Lady Beetle".  But they are little, round, reddish with spots.  They're ladybugs people.  Only people with too much time on their hands to watch Animal Planet would say differently.  And they come in droves.  I think when they are out in force, if I were to look outside my kitchen window, I would see an enthusiastic crowd of ladybugs lined up waiting to squeeze through the little hole at the corner of the screen and throw themselves against my kitchen light.  Like twelve-year-olds waiting to get into a Hannah Montana concert.

There must be some sort of burly ladybug bouncer that stays at the screen hole and paces the bugs because there are only about a dozen at a time in the house.  But if you kill those, fifteen minutes later there are a dozen more.  And even left to themselves they only live a couple hours in the house that is too dry for them.  Then they expire and plummet to the floor tp lay there all crunchy under your feet when you walk. 

And this is how we really feel about ladybugs:

On a different note, without a computer last week I did get boots made for Belvedere.  They came out cute, if  I do say so myself.  The brown and pink ones were for her.  Then I made another pair in the hopes of selling them at a craft fair this weekend, but they had several ugly flaws.  So Bel's little buddy Stella is now the owner of cute-but-not-perfect grey boots...