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A real snake appeared on my living room floor last night. (I don't know how it got in there, and I sort of feel like it was wizard ghost fucking with me.) Of course the cats immediately decided they wanted to play with it. So I looked up from my book, and wondered why they are playing with a bell pepper slice and just where the hell did they get a bell pepper, did mentioning the bell paper lady from the theater conjure it up from thin air? Then it fucking moved and I realized it is a snake that our cat seems to think is a new noisy toy and I yelled in a most undignified way. (And then Mike carried the snake away.)
Normally I am less concerned by snakes than say, giant spiders. But it was late and the surprise of an inanimate thing becoming animate and the worry that our cats might either be bitten by a snake I couldn't identify from across the room or that they might create a bloody mess on a floor I just cleaned the other day... I'm still not entirely sure how it came inside, though Mike thinks it came through a gap in the weatherstripping on the screen door while he paid a neighborhood kid to mow our lawn. (Yes, our tiny lawn! But the kid also trimmed the shrubbery and hauled the clippings back to the mulch pile. And honestly if it was worth the cash for Mike to be lazy and we help some teenager acquire some cash, it can't be a bad thing.)
It is worth noting that I don't mow the yard ever, because of a childhood incident involving a snake. It was a rather large garden snake, easily a few feet long, and my father hit it with the weed whacker. The bloody mess and the idea of large unseen reptiles lurking in the lawn, combined with the loud noise of our gasoline powered mower kept me from ever wanting to do that chore. During one of my AP exams in high school, we were ordered to analyze a poem about a frog hit by a lawn mower and crawling off to die. (I wish I was making this up, but it was real.) That was just another nail in the coffin for me.
This morning involves fewer snakes so far, thankfully. I managed to make a decent cup of coffee in my tiny coffee maker, which is always a victory. I might have strawberry pie for breakfast.
Yesterday I finished reading Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser. It was surprising, deep and exciting. It was heads and tails over Rick Moody's ennui and darker than Francine Prose's words. It felt like a cold pool in summer. There's a peculiar story about a painter that seems as if it would be at home next to Lovecraft and Kiernan. Several stories capture the weird feeling of young summers, with their uneasy fears and their balance of light and dark. Anyhow, I highly recommend it. I found the stories so captivating that I must seek out his other works now. I feel so behind in my reading.
Normally I am less concerned by snakes than say, giant spiders. But it was late and the surprise of an inanimate thing becoming animate and the worry that our cats might either be bitten by a snake I couldn't identify from across the room or that they might create a bloody mess on a floor I just cleaned the other day... I'm still not entirely sure how it came inside, though Mike thinks it came through a gap in the weatherstripping on the screen door while he paid a neighborhood kid to mow our lawn. (Yes, our tiny lawn! But the kid also trimmed the shrubbery and hauled the clippings back to the mulch pile. And honestly if it was worth the cash for Mike to be lazy and we help some teenager acquire some cash, it can't be a bad thing.)
It is worth noting that I don't mow the yard ever, because of a childhood incident involving a snake. It was a rather large garden snake, easily a few feet long, and my father hit it with the weed whacker. The bloody mess and the idea of large unseen reptiles lurking in the lawn, combined with the loud noise of our gasoline powered mower kept me from ever wanting to do that chore. During one of my AP exams in high school, we were ordered to analyze a poem about a frog hit by a lawn mower and crawling off to die. (I wish I was making this up, but it was real.) That was just another nail in the coffin for me.
This morning involves fewer snakes so far, thankfully. I managed to make a decent cup of coffee in my tiny coffee maker, which is always a victory. I might have strawberry pie for breakfast.
Yesterday I finished reading Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser. It was surprising, deep and exciting. It was heads and tails over Rick Moody's ennui and darker than Francine Prose's words. It felt like a cold pool in summer. There's a peculiar story about a painter that seems as if it would be at home next to Lovecraft and Kiernan. Several stories capture the weird feeling of young summers, with their uneasy fears and their balance of light and dark. Anyhow, I highly recommend it. I found the stories so captivating that I must seek out his other works now. I feel so behind in my reading.