linen, FBI guys, snakes, and termites

Today I learned that you can't buy actual flax linen at regular fabric stores. They sell poly-rayon blends people call linen. If you want real linen, you have to mail-order it from big stores that do things like cater to the international reenactor community.

In other news, here's a story about a real undercover FBI guy who retired, so now he can tell interesting stories, and here's a snake that looks like a worm and eats termites.

As to our personal termites, I mentioned that the termite guy was going to use dilute nicotine on them. I'm pleased to report that I did fine afterward. However, the diatomaceous earth (food grade, not pool grade) that we put down apparently sent the termites scurrying over to the neighbors' house, so they had a termite guy visit, too. He used scary chemicals, but I didn't have any trouble with those, either, not that I went next door.

Update: there is now a link to the FBI guy article. The proofreader has been fired.