For quite a while, my phobia got worse. I once went to a Halloween party and saw a guy with a little bitty snake on him. It was part of his costume, but I bailed from the party the instant I saw the snake. I was totally irrational about it. I mean, the guy wasn’t a kid. He wasn’t going to stick a snake in my face when he knew I was afraid of it. Phobias are pretty irrational though, eh?

About ten years ago, I lived in a basement apartment for six months whilst my house was being built. Walking down the steps, I saw a snake. I screamed. My Labrador puppy wasn’t afraid though, and he introduced himself to the snake. That cost $75.00, because apparently Valor was allergic to whatever snake it was. His cheeks seemed to quadruple in size. After sufficient screaming a neighbor came over with a shovel and carefully removed the reptile to a non-trail area. I was so freaked that time, I failed to protect my buddies.

Irrational behavior isn’t so good when you’re on the side of a mountain. One day I went hiking with my dogs, a Great Dane and a Labrador. My buds were off leash. They pretty much stayed in sight and more or less came when called, so I didn’t worry too much about them not being right at my side. That is, I didn’t worry until I heard the Great Dane barking. She found a rattler. She “cornered” it and kept barking and barking. The rattler kept rattling and rattling. I called the dogs to me, and my Labrador came. The Great Dane wasn’t about to come because she had to bark at the snake. I leashed the Labrador and asked another hiker to hold him and skirted around behind the Great Dane. I managed to grab her, leash her, and move her away without the snake striking. (Which was a lot better than that time we encountered the skunk, and I didn’t successful remove her in time.)

For the most part my snake phobia isn’t a big deal. I’m a city girl, after all. If these legless critters insisted upon rattling in the hills and attending parties, I needed to get a slightly better grip on myself.

A few Discovery channel snake shows helped. A few trips to the zoo helped me a bit. Knowledge is power. Knowledge helps pout phobias in perspective, right? Besides, the zoo has glass cages. I could be in a room with snakes in glass cages without running away immediately, and that was progress.

My next encounter was, fortunately for me, with a dead snake. My husband and I were traveling from my grandparents house to ours. I was seven months pregnant, and well, let’s just say I made my husband find a side road and then pull over. I opened the door. I’m glad I looked down because there was a coiled rattler right now. I freaked a bit, but realized that the coiled snake was actually dead. I don’t know how that happened, but I’m glad I didn’t step on it anyway.

Whilst still pregnant, I took my little daughter on a mini hike around a lake. Toward the end of the trail, two-year-old Anna pointed and said “Snake, mommy!” Yes, sure enough, there was a snake. I couldn’t tell if it was a bull, gopher, garter, or rattlesnake. (Actually, I thought bull, gopher, and garter were different names for the same kind of snake.) The snake wanted to cross the trail. Despite the big rat-sized lump in the snake, I picked up the toddler and waddled my seven-month-pregnant body in reverse.

I had more snake encounters today. Fortunately, these snakes were in glass cages. Also fortunate for me, the volunteer at the Morrison Natural History Museum was not afraid of snakes, sympathetic toward me, and spent a ridiculous amount of time answering my inane questions.

The first thing I learned is that the gopher snake, garter snake, and bull snake are three different types of snakes. They do have some things in common, though. They all survived the ice age (and were thus housed in the “survived the ice age section of the museum”) and they are all non-poisonous. A milk snake was also in the ice age section.

I think I can now remember “If red’s next to black, you’re okay Jack. If red’s next to white or yellow, yer a dead fellow.” I might even remember it if I actually encountered a milk or coral snake. That was the first time I heard the rhyme and it actually stuck in my head.

The volunteer spent a lot of time telling me about the bull snake and the rattle snake. There were two bull snakes in the museum. She said the bull snakes have round pupils. Sure enough, I saw round eyes. She said the rattlers have vertical slits, but if you can see vertical slits you’re way too close. She said the rattlers have white on the outside of their brown spots and the bull snakes don’t. The rattlers have the “pits” on their heads and have boxier heads. I’m thinking that if I can tell the snake has pits on his head or a boxy head that I’m too close. The white rings or no white rings might be a method for me to distinguish bulls and rattlers. But, who am I kidding? I don’t want to differentiate the critters if I can avoid it.

The museum had two gopher snakes too. They have skinner heads than the bull snakes even. The male snake was dull and had glazed over eyes. She said he was shedding and couldn’t see until finished. She said that the male gopher snake had been in captivity for 40 years. They don’t know how old the gopher snake was when it was captured, but wow, I didn’t think snakes could live that long. Apparently, they aren’t hurt from not having their winter hibernation (due to the artificial lighting and warmth and winter feedings provided by the museum) because they are still living lengthy lives.

Well, I feel more educated regarding snakes. I think I can keep myself from screaming, and protect my buddies and progeny next time I encounter a non-caged slither-er. This is good.

After we got home, Anna asked Leon why milk snakes were called milk snakes. “I don’t know,” said Leon. “Will you google it, Daddy?” As it turns out, there are legends of milk snakes milking cows. Now, that’s a disturbing image and I’m really glad my kids eat solid food.

I like that the kids can take these enrichment classes. There sure wouldn’t be time for those classes, however, if they were in a brick-and-mortar school.

I like homeschooling.

I arranged a play date for my mom. I called my Great Aunt Myrtle on the phone and asked if she wanted to come up for a visit. Myrtle, in turn, tracked down Becky (another great aunt of mine), her daughter Bea (my mom’s cousin), and Millie (another great aunt). Bea is probably less than 60 years old, and Millie is the oldest at 90. All of these ladies are in good health and have all their cognitive functions in tact. The visit was a hoot. Those four ol‘ gals are full of animated, funny stories. My dad spins a good yarn and he had a captive audience too. My three aunts, cousin, dad, and my two kids laughed and giggled, took pictures, and had fun. Everyone seemed to like our ferrets too. (It’s a good thing the sniffer works less well as you age, because no one complained about odor of weasel.)

Aunt Myrtle showed me a picture taken of my grandma (her sister) and her when Myrtle was about 16. My grandma sure was beautiful. The picture was tiny, about 1.5 inches square. I scanned it in at 9600 dpi and got a giant picture out of it. Myrtle specifically said “I’d like to see what this picture looks like bigger. You can do that, right Gwen?” I’m going to mail her an 8×10.

Everyone had fun, except my mom. This was a bummer because our relatives came to see her, and she was a no-fun lump of clay. She kept complaining about being cold and passed in and out of consciousness. Aunt Myrtle made an effort to pull mom into the world of the living for a while, and she did get a few sentences out of her. Mom fell asleep after each question and answer posed by Aunt Myrtle.

After nine blankets and a heater directed at her, Dad called my youngest sister, Sara. Sara’s a pharmacist and she seems to know things we don’t. Sara asked us right away, “What’s her temperature?” Dad and I felt like morons and decided a trip to ER would be a good thing when the thermometer bleeped 103F.

“Why would you go to ER for a fever?” you might be thinking. Well, my mom is a medical marvel. She’s had three strokes in the last two years, quite a few near misses, a boatload of surgeries, and several nasty infections. We had enough history with mom to think this wasn’t just a case of food poisoning.

My parents are used to hospitals and ERs in Los Angeles County. Those tend to be crowded and cater to an entirely different demographics than the hospital by my house. We went at midnight. There was no wait. Toward the end of the visit dad had to ask the nurse, “What about insurance information, the copay, and the like?” Everyone listened and helped.

My dad is an organized fellow, and he handed the triage nurse a list of surgeries and dates. He also handed them a list of all of mom’s medicines and dosing schedule. The doctor took the hint and didn’t just say “wait it out.” He ordered a chest X-ray, to rule out the possibility of pneumonia. He had a bunch of blood taken for various tests, and a urine sample.

Mom had a bladder infection that had spread into her kidneys. She’s one of those rare people that doesn’t feel it when she has a bladder infection. Mom was dosed with powerful drugs and hydrated with an IV. Dad and I were very happy that this was “just” a bladder infection.

The next day mom was warm, talkative, and in a good mood.

My parents just left. It was a good visit. My kids now refer to my dad as “the fun grandpa.”

Why?

I still like Christmas. I still like filling the house with baking smells, making Christmas dinner, and tracking Santa via NORAD.

However, I’m pretty cheap at Christmas time. I remember growing up with a mother that went nuts at Christmas time. She’d spend so much money, Dad would talk about hoping he could pay it off before the next Christmas. As a puppy, I didn’t even think it was fun getting all those presents because something seemed wrong.

So, I made a decision and talked my husband into it. We get the kids a couple of presents, Santa fills their stockings, and Santa gives them a gift to share. With the notable exception of Christmas food, Christmas costs about $200. (Okay, Leon and I get ourselves a present, but Christmas is just the excuse, not the reason. I mean, doesn’t every family need a 1.5T NAS?)

So far the kids haven’t squawked the “lack” of Christmas presents, and I don’t get mopey.

Now Birthdays… Birthdays are another story all together.

Leon and I occasionally go to science fiction conventions. I admire the costuming and Leon admires the makeup (prosthetics and the like). We like to wonder around for a day or so, look at stuff that we can’t easily obtain elsewhere, and then go back to our normal lives.

About a year ago we decided to brave it and take the kids to StarCon. I think Anna was five and Quinn was three, or maybe they were four and two. Anyway, we left the con mortified. Anna had loudly proclaimed that she was bored. Quinn displayed fear of Darth Vader. We grabbed the kids and left the con with our tails between our legs.

At the car, Leon and I made a decision. We decided to not protect them quite as much and started introducing them to science fiction. Their first sci fi movie, I think, was The Cat From Outer Space. After that we let them watch E.T. Eventually we got brave enough and let them watch Star Wars and Harry Potter.

We haven’t seen any negative behaviors from the kids since then. We haven’t been to a science fiction convention since then either.

Well, I missed out on the Saturday Night Live lingo, but my husband and I share some lingo that my sisters’ don’t know about. Both my husband and I played a lot of ASCII based games in high school and college. I played a lot of rogue, and he played a lot of Nethack. Conquer was another favorite of mine, and as silly as it was, I really liked worm. We still play games; although, our favorites are different. (We do play with each other, though.) My favorite is Settlers of Catan. Leon’s favorite is Kingdom of Loathing. When it comes to board games, we actually indoctrinated both sisters and their spouses into Ticket To Ride. Leon and I understand each other’s game vernacular.

Game vernacular sometimes invades everyday life. I mean, how often do you get meat and money confused? (Meat is the currency in Kingdom of Loathing.)

In NetHack, originally an ASCII-based Unix game, you battle monsters. You can pick up wands. You can use each wand a specific amount of times. Sometimes, you might get lucky and get an extra use out of a wand, and this is called “wresting the last charge.”

I was very amused the first time I saw my husband squeezing the toothpaste tube to get more toothpaste out. I had opened a new tube three days earlier, thinking the first one was way past empty. Leon managed to keep squeezing more toothpaste out of the tube, and to this day I have no idea how he manages that. Leon told me he was wresting the last charge from the toothpaste.

Wresting charges makes good sense, both environmentally and financially. Here are some other ways to wrest charges. What additional items do you have for me?

• Laundry Soap/Color Bleach: After I’ve drained the container, I add a couple of capfuls of water and shake really hard. I can usually get one or two more loads.

• Toothpaste: I still don’t know. I open the new one and Leon prides himself on how long he can go before using the new tube.
• Lotion: When one bottle is “empty,” we take the top off of it and another lotion bottle. The “empty” one is then turned upside down and placed carefully on top of the non-empty lotion bottle. They stay like this overnight while gravity saves us money.
• Fabric: I save even small scraps of fleece, because fleece doesn’t unravel. You’ll never know when you need a few square inches of orange fleece. I just used my scrap fleece last night as “ornaments” on my Christmas tree Advent calendar.

The whole family likes the ferrets. My husband, Leon, still gets a goofy look on his face when he plays with the ferrets. He laughed for a spell when I lost my wallet and he found it in the ferrets’ stash. He doesn’t seem to mind that they are de-stuffing our leather couch, and he doesn’t seem to notice the weasel smell. Both children love the ferrets. Quinn likes Mimzy the best, and Anna likes Simon the best. Being young children, they inadvertently torture the boys by holding them and not letting the ferrets ferret, but they’re learning.

Since the kids do play hard with the ferrets during the day, I frequently feel obliged to let the boys out after the kids have gone to bed. That way, the ferrets can ferret and Leon and I can be amused watching ferret antics. Mimzy, who is a pound lighter than Simon, likes to jump on Simon’s back and try to pin him. They both like to chase each other around the house, and they both like to crawl up pant legs. (Why does a wet dog nose bother my husband, but weasels crawling up his pants don’t? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.)

I don’t recommend ferrets for all households. Ferrets are ferrets and they ferret. They tip over anything they can, including trash cans and beverage glasses. They “steal” things, like my wallet, and put them in their stash. They “do business” in corners, so you either have to have litter boxes all over, or you have to only let them out for an hour at a time after you’ve witnessed a successful litter box operation. Mostly, ferrets like tunnels. A friend of mine told me ferrets were used to hunt rats in sewer tunnels in England once. Wikipedia says that they were used by the Romans to hunt rabbits. They can get into holes you wouldn’t believe. My husband refers to them as two-dimensional creatures.

Simon and Mimzy, our boys, have found ways to crawl into our kitchen cabinets. We had to try about four different instances of ferret proofing to keep them out of the upstairs. We are still working on proofing the stairs to keep them from going downstairs. The current mechanism works, if you remember to block the cat’s door to the basement AND remember that ferrets are two dimensional critters.

Two nights ago, I let the ferrets out after the kids had gone to bed. I failed to remember the cardinal rule and left about an inch of clearance by the cat’s door to the basement. After an hour of playtime, we put Mimzy back in his cage. Simon, on the other hand, we could not find. It was late, and Leon wanted to go to bed. I told him we couldn’t go to bed until all weasels were accounted for and safely tucked away in their cage. We searched.

I pulled apart the coat closet. We tipped over the couches. We searched the nooks and crannies, and eventually Leon saw the cat door. He went into the basement, and he heard Simon scratching.

We have two sump pumps in our basement, and Simon had managed to get into the sump pump pipes. Leon came and got me. He wasn’t able to get Simon out, but he did see him. I came down with him, and we spent a half hour trying to get our boy back. At one point, I told Leon to get the jigsaw and I covered my hand in yummy ferret vitamins. Leon sawed on one of the sump pump pipes, very close to my hand, while I kept my hand by Simon so he could lick ferret vitamins.

We “rescued” Simon. We were covered in basement gunk, and we thought Simon had to be traumatized. Traumatized or not, midnight or not, Simon earned a bath. I think the bath was scarier for him than being stuck all alone in sump pump piping for an hour.

As we put Simon to bed, we both agreed that we had to ferret proof the sump pumps, because while Simon had just scared us, he clearly had fun. Basement plumbing pipes are just too fun a playground for stinky weasels.

After his first day of school, I asked him if he liked school. He said “No.” I immediately thought “tough, I paid for a month so you are going to have to go for a month.” I told him that he wouldn’t be able to tell if he liked preschool from just one day, and that he had to go at least five times before he would be able to decide if he liked school or not.

After the second day of school, I asked Quinn if he liked school. He said “No.” I then asked him if he wanted to go back to school, and he said “Yes.” The third and fourth days were a repeat of the second day. He didn’t like school, but he wanted to go back.

After Quinn’s fifth day of school he came out smiling and said “Mommy, I liked school today. No one hit me!”

“What?” I thought. I queried him more and found out that two boys had been hitting him. Well, I didn’t think much of that to tell you the truth. My kids are sensitive and “hit” could mean “touch” or “accidentally ran into.” But, I kept thinking about it.

After the next day of school, I stayed a little bit later until most of the kids had gone. There were still two boys in the classroom. I told the teacher about Quinn getting hit and asked her if it was possible he was hit or if he was just being sensitive. The teacher turned her head, stared at the two boys in the room for a noticeable few seconds, and said that there were a couple of kids she was working with about hitting.

Okay, so I deduced that my son had probably been hit a few times from the boys still in the classroom.

Now, here’s the odd thing. A few minutes later the teacher told me that the only thing she worries about with Quinn is that he doesn’t play very much with the other boys.

Hmm

I have a cat. My husband doesn’t like my cat. Tonka’s biggest flaw, in my opinion, is just that he’s a cat. Other than the cat-thing, he’s pretty good. He doesn’t hide from people when company’s over. In fact, he demands pets. He’s friendly. He doesn’t do business in incorrect places. He’s a decent cat. My husband describes his interactions with him as “annoying.” Fortunately for me, my daughter considers Tonka her cat, and so she helps out petting, and loving, the cat.

I had a dwarf hamster. The kids named her Peanut, and she was technically my daughters hamster. However, Anna was afraid of Peanut. Peanut bit her too many times. I was the only family member that held and pet the hamster. I actually had that rodent trained. She got to where she liked me holding her and she stopped biting me. It took a lot of work and patience, especially since I was the only one that took care of, and loved, the gal. She recently had a stroke, spent a day running in circles in one direction, and died. We had a funeral for Peanut, and my work load decreased.

Well, the only time my husband actually smiled when being around an animal was at the pet store holding ferrets. I made him a deal. I told him I’d take care of the ferrets physically, such as cleaning their cage, taking them to the vet, trimming their nails, and the like; however, I told him I wold not be solely responsible for loving them. Ferret love would have to be a whole-family affair.

Leon thought about it for six months. We made many trips to the pet stores and held a lot of ferrets. The kids really wanted ferrets and they got over their fears and held them.

So, last week we left the pet store with Mimzy and Simon. Mimzy is about ten weeks old and Simon is about 20 weeks old. Mimzy weighs a whopping pound and Simon is 2 pounds. They are both cute, frisky, smart, and stinky.

A friend at work doesn’t understand why Leon doesn’t like cats and dogs, but does like stinky weasels. I’m not exactly sure either, but he’s had a lot of smiles on his face, as have the children.

I don’t have time to goof off writing in my blog. Yet here I am, writing in my blog.

I was working on a project for one of my clients. I’ve been playing in Excel and wondering how I’m going to do three hours of work in one hour so I can go to bed and get some sleep. It’s impossible, of course, so it occurred to me “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could stop time around me?” I’ve come to the conclusion that the stopping-time superpower wouldn’t be as cool as I think.

If time stopped, would I actually work on something productive? Nah, I think I would play more games and just play with robots. Or I might read a trashy novel. I think I’d have to play several hours of games and read a novel before I’d get around to actually doing something useful.

I’ve learned several things from this. Firstly, I like my break time. Secondly, a fantasy super power isn’t going to help me, so I better get cracking on that spreadsheet and stop writing in my silly blog.