Bunnies and Possums and Skunks, oh my.

And since we've had deer in the back yard more than once since we moved in, it's almost like a scene from Bambi (without the hunter....)  Quincy's come nose-to-nose with a skunk a few times now, and he broke his leash going after the rabbit, so now it doesn't retract like it should.  He sits at the back door staring out into the darkness, sniffing through the screen, and thinks we're dense enough to think he just wants out to do his business.  

The neighbors have a peach tree, and since they've been away most of the summer, the ground is littered with ripe fruit, making the shared boundary of our yards prime feeding grounds for small animals.  Turning on the 200-watt spotlights on the back of our house doesn't faze them, either.  They just keep munching away.  Not that I want to startle a skunk. 

And speaking of skunks, can someone explain to me the biological, ecological reason we haven't exterminated them all yet?  Mother nature overdid the defense mechanisms there.  Sure, they're cute-ish, but waking up at 3 am to a house filled with skunk musk, cute doesn't cut it.  They'd better be our next alternative fuel source or the cure for cancer if I have to put up with that.  I for one will NOT welcome our new skunk overlords, if it comes to that.

Next thing you know, our yard will be playing host to badgers.  And we don't need no stinkin' badgers.  Porcupines?  Why not?  Vernicious knids?  Sure.  I suspect we might even wind up with a flying monkey or two.

Ah, nature.

Number 4 - Crunchy Frog (updated)

A little one, yes. Not even sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose. Just a little frog, frozen to my pool deck yesterday morning.


And then when I got home from work and took the Dammit outside, there was another. Lori informs me that one has managed to move a whopping ten feet during the day. But the little one has entered a hibernatory (or dead) state right on my pool deck, where I found him yesterday morning.

I know that in my general state of 'All God's Creatures, Great and Small', that it's probably wrong of me to giggle with delight. But that hasn't stopped me. These are the same frogs that inhabit my patio umbrella all summer long, that keep me up all night with their croaking, that are covered in poisonous slime and coat my entire pool with their sticky, slimy black eggs.

Take that, nature.

*****UPDATE*****

Both frogs in question are dead, Jim. As is the third one, frozen mid-leap and stuck to the solar cover of the pool. I'll have to take on the unsavory task tonight of frog disposal, including likely removal of additional frogcicles from under the closed umbrella.

One miserable, murky Monday

Because cloudy is the weather. Both out there, and in my brain. I leave for Ohio shortly, and even though I've known about this trip for a month or more, I just booked my hotel this morning. I can only hope I get the scenic overlook of Lake Erie the city boasts.

However, the weekend was bliss. We had clear sunny days, cool crisp evenings, and a lot of fun. Thursday we started the Florida Wildlife Watch after picking up Bob and Diane at the airport and heading to dinner overlooking (and overhanging) Tampa Bay. The restaurant lights the water, and since I'm sure plenty of people feed the fish off the patio, it attracts swarms. Huge catfish and a little manta ray.

Friday started off a little slow, because the Dammit had to go to the vet for scratching a hole in the side of his head. Like he needs another one of those. "It stops the scratching of its skin, or else it gets the cone again!" We now have a cone for regular use, and he's also on antibiotics and got a cortizone shot. Dammit the high-maintenance doggy, and the reason we can't have nice things, apparently.

Saturday we wandered about Busch Gardens, and since Lori and I hadn't been there since 2008, there were lots of new things to see and do. I don't do roller coasters, since if given the choice, I don't even do elevators, but Lori and Bob got to ride them all to their hearts content. And I got to do the Land Rover Safari, though the river segment was 'closed'. I have always taken this to mean 'non-existent but it sounds cool', since the ride has been closed every time we've gone. Still fun, since I could almost pet the zebras we were so close. Even got to grill out, big juicy burgers and fresh sweet corn. It was just like summer!

Yesterday we spent the whole day driving along and shelling at the beaches along the Gulf. Growing up swimming in Lake Michigan, I'm still in awe that I can set foot in the ocean in mid-October and not lose a toe to frostbite. We were late, so all the retirees had hit the beaches and snapped up the best picks already, but everyone still found a few gems. We also got to watch the little baby clams feed along the shore and then bury themselves in the sand as the waves came in. Oooh, nature. Sweet, delicious nature.

It was great to have friends visit, especially since it seems we won't be in the Sunshine State much longer (and that's a good thing, it really is). It was nice to take advantage of it from an outsider's viewpoint again, because of course, being a tourist is the best part of Florida, and we could actually enjoy it for a change.

Nightmares. They come from somewhere.

Even the nightmares I have with Norm MacDonald and a septugenarian lesbian couple come from somewhere. But those are nothing compared to the really creepy, wake-up-screaming nightmares, the ones you can't believe aren't real.

If you heeded my advice, you didn't read my post a few weeks ago. If you actually made it to the pictures at the bottom, you know what I'm talking about. Since some of you are arachnophobic, be aware that I am going to talk about spiders here.

Spiders.

Big, hairy, forking spiders.







In. My. Nightstand.

Yes, I went to get my belt this morning, and one of the damn things jumped out of the drawer at me. The Dammit just laid there as if nothing was going on while I pounded the floor with one of my shoes.

It's bad enough I tried to get one in the garage last night and missed him, now I'll be lucky if I can even sleep tonight. Those little bastards are fast.

Terminix is coming tomorrow. As if you had to ask.

Elliott and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

***note, I apologize now for the negative tone and self-centered nature of this post. Save yourself. Go Google cute bunnies or surf porn now, avoid the whole mess.
I had a fantastic weekend. Should I, therefore, be punished? Apparently so.

My phone died Sunday night, and apparently that means that the phone itself decides to go into paperweight mode after recharging. No calls, no email, nothing. Therefore, I never got the calls from the mechanic about the Buick, so even though I dropped the car for service yesterday morning, it didn't get fixed. I was able to bum a ride home, but now I have two vehicles in south Tampa and none at home, on a night I work until 8 pm. I'll be going to get Lori tonight, then driving back down here to get my car, then driving back home. That's not inconvenient. Not at all.


And the Packers lost. To He-who-shall-not-be-named. But we won't discuss that.

When I got to my desk this morning, my computer was off. I didn’t shut it off, but powering it back on confirmed a ‘thermal event’ transpired overnight. That’s a weather condition, not a PC issue. It’s like the Alli people referring to uncontrollable anal seepage as a ‘Treatment Effect’.
***artist's depiction. If only our closet was actually this big!

When the computer finally booted up again, I got the email from Lori that the new double-poled, double-shelved, beautifully organized closet that we put together last month suffered a meltdown this morning. The top shelf collapsed, and since it landed on the bottom pole, I’m sure that one’s worse for wear, too. Lori can’t tell for sure because the whole closet is just a jumble of wire shelving, clothes, hangers and boxes.
***not the Dammit, but the markings are strangely familiar


Now I just got another email from her, indicating that the Dammit Dog decided he wanted to roll in poo, and is now encrusted in it. He never does this, but it’s my fault, I haven’t picked up the yard lately because in rainy season, it disintegrates before I can get to it.
Meanwhile, our systems have been experiencing outages all day, so clients can’t access our system. And their clients can’t access our system.

And, thanks to stress, the nightmares are better than ever. Lori woke me up because I was whimpering in my sleep, apparently. That’s better than snoring, I would think, but she doesn’t agree. As I was trying to go back to sleep, the medivac helicopter was suddenly hovering and circling above our house until traffic wherever they were headed could clear. That’s not disconcerting when you’ve just been woken from a bad dream. Not at all. When I came back from lunch, my desk fan wouldn’t turn. After a few minutes disassembling, turning, flipping switches and banging it on my desk, it’s finally running again.
And I just read that my favorite magazine, Gourmet, is stopping publication after 68 years.
Can I get a do-over on my week? Because this one just isn’t working for me.

And it’s only Tuesday.

Don't say I didn't warn you

Reason Not To Live In Florida #1756: Saturday Mornings

Aw, isn't he cute? Fuzzy, adorable little hamster. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't he make you want to say 'awww, who's a cute widdle hamster. You are!', while rubbing his little hamster tummy? Problem is, he's only there so you can get the warning. If you are squeamish, arachnophobic, or have small children in the room, do not scroll down.

I repeat: DO NOT SCROLL DOWN. Get the kids out of the room. If you're reading this right before bedtime, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN.

You have been warned.

Today was the first morning I could actually tell we're heading into fall. It wasn't oppressively humid out, just a bright warm sunshiny day. After I came back in, Lori and I were admiring the rose bushes in our courtyard, and I'm excited that they're going to bloom en masse any day now. Never mind that they're called Golden Showers, get your mind out of the gutter now.

Lori then turned around, and on our patio door, there were a number of unidentified little lizards cavorting about, and the dammit dog was not amused, rather he was confused. Then, when the mommy lizard and the daddy lizard are really in love AND they're married (because we'll have none of that in this house...)

(re-enactment, cleaned up for our younger viewers.)

Okay now, this is your last chance. Final warning. One last opportunity to abandon this post now, before you're permanently scarred. Because you can't unsee something once you've seen it.

He's begging you.

I went outside to move the screen a bit, since it seemed to be trapping one of the lizards where dammit dog had RUN THROUGH THE SCREEN DOOR one night. Dammit.

It was then that I discovered we had more than lizards hiding behind the screen.

Aw, he's not so bad, he's just a cute little spider. No problem, right?

Wrong.

Pardon my dirty window, but if you had these types of creatures crawling around willy nilly, would you be standing outside in shorts, armed only with Windex? I think not.

You can't necessarily read it at this scale, but the red line equals one inch. And Lori's killed more than one of these little f*@kers IN OUR BATHROOM. She adds that she did that blind, in the middle of the night, without the benefit of her eyeglasses.

Ugh.
So that's Saturday in the Sunshine state. Fun stuff, right? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Oh, and for our friends and family who will be visiting over the next few months, they WILL be gone. Terminix does wonderful things.

The Week In Review (so far...)

Sure, it may seem premature to blog about the week in review on Thursday morning, but the last few days have been somewhat eventful, so I figured I'd get my random nerdiness out of the way so I can bring you officially single-minded nerdiness tomorrow.
Maryland, or at least Germantown, Maryland, is quite a peaceful town. So relaxing. Really...is there something politcally incorrect to just say 'Speed Bumps'? The best part is, you can see how far apart they are, and there was a sign before EVERY ONE.

I thought I'd share my restaurant experiences with all of you, in the event that you wind up in this little corner of the planet some day.

Old Shanghai is an all-purpose Asian bistro, as is the trend these days. Pan-Asian, I think is the term. Great service, too many good choices to pick from. Read Sunday's post for details on my meal.

The next night, I ventured across the strip mall courtyard to Agradolce. I was actually headed to Old Shanghai for a repeat of the dumplings, but they had seafood risotto on the specials board and a bar in front of the wood-fired brick oven, so I was sold. Ah, memories of Rome. I actually wound up with the duck confit risotto, though what I got was more of a melange of every risotto they had on their menu, with wild mushrooms and an assortment of other vegetables. Excellent texture, great flavor, though I could have done without the frozen corn. Did a comparison between an older Montepulciano d'Abbruzzo, one of my favorite varietals out of Piedmont, and a younger Sicilian red. Both delicious, though the Sicilian would have worked better if my dinner had a little spice to it.

Tuesday I ventured the opposite direction, and saw Bailey's Pub and Grille. Beautiful stone and copper building, I was expecting something like a Ruby Tuesday's, only not so generic. What I walked into was what I can only imagine is a Hooter's where they stopped caring about anything except the wait staff. The place stank of stale beer and vomit, a smell that only got worse as I pried open the drink menu. This was a dime-a-dozen place, a restaurant that probably renames itself every time the health department shuts it down - the menus didn't even bear the restaurant name, just a myriad of generic TGI-McFunsters fare. I walked out without ordering, and even then I felt as though I needed a shower.

Yesterday's lunch, however, was a highlight not only in the trip, but possibly in my life of casual dining experiences. EN Asian Bistro was clean and simple, the staff friendly and outgoing. I could eat their crab fried rice every week and never tire of it. Real crab, not the pink stuff spelled with a 'K'.

Glad to have carbs for my long journey ahead, I raced to the airport yesterday afternoon to make sure I was checked in on time. I needn't have worried, as we finally took off almost two hours late on the following plane:

As if crying children aren't bad enough on a plane, try keeping them up a few hours past their already generous bedtime. And then, let's cram a fidgetty 10-year-old named after a damn dirty hippie in the seat next to me. "Where do you live? Were you on vacation? There's some good articles in there. Mom, what book are you reading? Have you been here? I need to go to the bathroom. Do you still subscribe to this magazine?" All the while popping hard candy like it was Ritalin. The worst part of these experiences is when I worry that people think these rude kids belong to me. My children are not rude in public, talk to the crazy woman in printed socks and orange shoes behind me. It was a blessing to finally get back to the truck that Lori left for me in long-term parking when she left for Ohio, get in peaceful air conditioning, hit the Taco Bell drive-through so I didn't pass out (since I last ate 12 hours earlier), and come home to an equally silent house.

Quincy seems to be happy to be home as well, after I sprung him from the pokey this morning. He's already fallen back into being his lazy, smelly self. And he seems to have a new little brother or sister.
Brody (after Adrian) has apparently taken up residence in the pool. Lori fished him (or her, how do you tell?) out of the pool earlier this week, and when I went to check this morning, he/she/it was happily doing laps again. I put him/her/it back after this picture, since it seems he (enough already) likes it there, and I won't have a terrapin fritter on my deck when I get home tonight after a day of brutal sun.

Just one of those days

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Not that vacation days shouldn't be, but this was a rare, nearly exquisite summer day in Florida. The sun was shining, it wasn't deathly humid, and it didn't decide to rain until we were finally in the house for the night. Took a nice drive and had lunch with a friend's parents, in town to pick up a pristine car they got off of eBay.

Today, there were stray dogs in the conservancy with unknown intentions, which really upset the Dammit Dog. I did tell him that if he really wanted to be stray, it could be arranged. It is pouring ouside, and the ceiling next to my cubicle is dripping into the trash can that's been collecting the drips for weeks now, each drop making that quaint 'ploop' sound. There is no excitement, no anticipation, that the day could still get better, and I still have eight hours left.

Ah, vacation days. What would we do without them?

(Am I being a downer? Maybe you should stop reading this and go venture a guess at the movie quote contest. Just sayin.)

Jim Stafford said it best

So I'm no mighty outdoorsman. Anyone who knows me knows that already, and loves me just the same. No, really. I can camp with the best of them, fend off invading raccoons while Dammit Dog sleeps peacefully, cook over the fire in the pouring rain (Coleman fuel rocks), and trudge through swamps and ravines without ever getting poison ivy. I can let the woodsmoke build on my skin until the skeeters can't break through, and I can climb out of the tent while putting shoes on while not tracking any sand back inside.

However, there are limits to my manliness. Limits to how much nature I want in my nature. And as far as I'm concerned, nature should stay where nature knows best and not in my air-conditioned, sterile non-natural cocoon of a house.

Anyhow, Friday night, we were enjoying the Deadliest Catch marathon from the sterile, non-natural cocoon of our house when Dammit Dog (officially known as Quincy to everyone else), who normally only barks at inopportune times and NOT at impending doom, wigged out behind the couch. We got up in time to see the tail end of a snake creeping behind his food bin.

I should take a moment to mention that the vet recommended some sort of VegiDent chews for Dammit Dog to take the hassle out of his annual cleaning, and the dog has subsequently become addicted to them. Addicted, as in "I'm going to stare at my food bin until you give me a bone, even if that's six hours from now" addicted. So I'm sure the issue was not that a two-foot snake had somehow found its way into our home, but that it was potentially going after his treats.

I should also mention that I'm allergic to snakes, and I break out in screaming and swearing fits. Not pretty at all.

The snake found his way around the food bin and under the curio cabinet, which is laden with all things glass and fragile. While Lori hunted for the number for Animal Control, I took the collection of vases off the top of the cabinet and pulled one side away from the wall enough to get a clear view of a potentially striped, maybe ringed, possibly spotted snake. All the identification guides online somehow expect me to perform an intense, up-close inspection of the snake, take down its vitals, see how hard it bites, etc.

So after determining that it was NOT a coral snake (which, per the AC guy, would actually need to chew on me to inject poison - BIG comfort), he decided from my non-herpetological descripton, that it must be a scarlet king snake.

This left me with two options from the AC guy, my way of snake removal or his way of snake removal. I opted initially for his way, until he informed me that his way cost $250. Suddenly, my way seemed okay. Armored with oven mitts, and armed with the longest barbecue tongs we could find, I pulled the cabinet further from the wall and went in. And panicked, dropping him again once he thrashed about the first time. Two for the show, I got a firm grip, Lori threw the patio door aside and I dropped him as animally friendly as I could muster. He seemed slightly offended, beyond him hissing at me the whole time I was shining the flashlight in his eyes. Not that snakes have shoulders but I think he shrugged at me before slithering off in a huff.

Yesterday's perusal of the Florida Snake Guide tells me it was NOT a scarlet king snake, after all. Don't know what it was for sure, possibly some sort of water snake, or anaconda, or pit viper, or who knows what. Time to get the 'Great Stuff' out again.

Yesterday, while cleaning house, we had another visit, this time from one of the happy, bouncing, non-threatening hand-sized wolf spiders that somehow get in from time to time. Unlike my normal reaction of screaming like a little girl while swearing like the lummox that I am and unloading half a can of insect killer on it, I took matters more directly and put the smackdown on him with one of Lori's sneakers. Once I was sure he was dead, I smacked him eight or nine more times, to make sure.

I really don't like spiders and snakes. Period.