they're back

Last night we were at a friend's house for a backyard dinner. Someone told a story about a person they knew who had a job at the big air terminal operations here for a national delivery company.

The job is being part of a team that must make sure no japanese beetle gets on the company's planes or its packages that are going to the west coast. Evidently, there are not japanese beetles in California.

And then someone said that they had seen such a beetle earlier in the day.

And then, this morning, as Franklin and I wondered through the garden, I saw dark spots on the petals of my Queen Elizabeth rose, and upon closer inspection, I saw the dark green, hard-shelled monster eating away.