When something in the pantry stares back at you...

  I opened the pantry yesterday morning to check and see if there was anything else we needed before we went shopping and found myself staring at a small beady pair of eyes.  

  There was a lizard in the pantry.

  We have no idea how long he'd been in there, but Nyala was chasing something in there the other day.  We figured, in hindsight, that it was the lizard.  That dude either made it from the porch, which was a hell of a run with two cats in the house, or from the garage, an equally perilous, but much shorter dash.

  My first try to catch him was unsuccessful as he darted in behind the spaghetti sauce and the mushrooms, so we left him to explore the pantry while we went shopping.  Most everything in there is in ziplocks and we didn't figure he could do much harm.  Besides the girls would keep him cornered.

  When we got back from shopping, Edward opened the pantry to the same pair of eyes, from the same place on the shelf as I discovered him.  Again he disappeared behind the condiments.

  As Edward started putting things away he jumped down a shelf.  I grabbed a tupperware container thinking I could perhaps get it to drop into that.  As I moved the container in he bolted forward and I snatched at him, first missing, then snagging his tail.  One quick move more and I had him in the tupperware, still holding his tail and covering the rest of the top with my other hand.  "Got him!  Um, a little help here.  Could you get the door?"

  I set him down outside the front door and he scurried away, looking back and looking confused.  It isn't the first time I've caught a lizard, but it was the first one I've ever seen in the pantry.  Maybe he'll tell his friends that we're a lizard friendly house.  Mostly.  I don't think he ever saw the girls.  Either way, I hope he tells his buddies that, friendly or not, it's not cool to hang out in the big guy's house, cause getting caught doesn't usually have such a happy ending.

Milestone

  I've had my Rav4 for more then 9 years.  I love it.  And if I can, I'd like to drive it for another 9 years. Maybe even longer.  But in the mean time, it crossed a milestone this month.  100,000 miles.  This is the second car I've driven over that milestone.  It's hard to believe I've had the Rav that long.  It's still going strong.  I still think of it as new-ish.

  Hopefully, it will will keep going strong.  I've never had a car that made 200,000 miles.  Maybe, if I'm really nice to it, this one will.

Two Snake Morning.

When we got back from our walk this morning and I was getting ready for work, I noticed this guy on the palm tree outside my bedroom window.

He looked like he'd been perched there all night and was quite comfortable. I got out the big camera and the tripod, cause it was overcast and the light was low. Got to play a little with the depth of field on the image and could use a nice slow shutter. He wasn't moving and the breeze hadn't picked up yet.

Then I finished getting ready for work. I cracked the door to the garage and hit the garage door opener, grabbed my bag and swung open the open for light, because the light in the laundry room was already out. Then I heard this "spat" sound and looked out to see another snake on the garage floor between the cars. Near as I can guess, this guy had been sleeping on one of the support struts of the garage door (on the inside) and had just been unceremoniously dumped. What a rude awakening. I yelled for Edward cause the last thing I wanted was for him to crawl under and up onto the Rav4. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think this guy was a little stunned. We chased him out of the garage with a couple of brooms, slowly as it turned out. He just wasn't moving very fast. My best guess is that he spent the night in the garage. Yesterday, after the bug man came we left the garage door open for about 20 minutes. It had been raining hard when I left for work and I'm guessing he crawled in then, and settled in the door struts where it was cool overnight.

He was a corn snake, about 4 feet long and really pretty. I didn't have the big camera so the picture isn't that good. He wandered off into the front yard with a little coaxing. Hope he was OK. Perhaps he should try sleeping on palm branches instead.

Into History....

As the Space Shuttle Atlantis rolled to a stop on the TV, the final, quiet sonic boom crossed the house and passed into history.

10 Inches...

10 inches. That's how much hair I had cut off the other night. It's a pretty big thing, actually, since 4 years ago I barely had a quarter of an inch of hair on my head.

Those of you who know me know my hair. It has a mind of it's own. See, my hair and I have an agreement: It does what it wants and I like it. It's worked out over the years. It's much less stressful to let wavy hair wave, rather then try to get it to curl, or not, in the style of the moment.

Mom always kept my hair short when I was growing up. What's cuter than a little girl with curly red hair? I always hated getting my hair cut. As I got older, I tried to convince Mom to let me grow it longer. Our first compromise was a shag cut, a mullet if you will, that makes me shudder now at the thought of it. Finally, some time between grade school and high school I started growing it out, and except for a few mid-length years in college it's been long ever since.

Until 2007.

In January 2007 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and after surgery came chemo. You all know what chemo means. Breast cancer is pretty traumatic, and anything you can do to feel like you have control over the situation is worth doing. So before I started chemo, I cut my hair short. Three inches short. I hadn't had hair that short since I was in 5th grade.

My wavy hair immediately coiled like a stretched spring that had been released. The waves turned into curls. Needless to say that didn't last long. Four weeks later, chemo did it's thing. I have to tell you, if I never see the shape of my own skull again, it will be too soon.

It was May when my hair started to grow again. By the end of June chemo was over and it was definitely making a comeback. The ends, as they grew out, twisted into ring curls, the rest of it followed suit. It gave new meaning to the term "curly" and remains curlier then it was before chemo even as it got longer. Fortunately, it also remains it's brilliant red, something I am very happy about.

There was a day when I didn't like the color of my hair. Until junior high I didn't know any other redheads. I was called "carrot top" and "fire head" and all the other names kids think of when they want to pick on you. I hated my hair color. It made me different at an age when nobody wants to be different. My grandmother used to tell me that everyone was jealous of it, that's why they teased me. She said I would love the color of my hair one day. You know what, she was right. Today I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Friends kept asking if I was going to let it grow again or keep it short. Everyone said it was cute when it was short. My cute days are long gone. I'm too old for cute. So I let it grow out again, only cutting my bangs when they got in my eyes. It was just down to my waist. It had also gotten to the point where, curls and all, it was getting hard to manage.

I've donated hair to Locks of Love 3 times, the last time right before chemo started. This will make 4 donations. The minimum length to donate is 10 inches. They use it to make hair pieces for children who have no hair, and can't afford to buy a wig. I can't think of a better thing to do with it. Lord knows I have a lot of it. My ponytail is over an inch across. It seems like its only fair to share.

My hair now sits right at shoulder length. The ring curls haven't returned, but it's still curlier then it was before. It makes me feel good to know that my hair might make someone happy. Some of the kids that Locks of Love help have also lost their hair to chemo. I know how they feel. If my hair goes to someone who is going through chemo, and I can somehow make it easier for her (or him) to get through that tough time, then it's worth it to me. I'll do it again, too, and this time it isn't going to take four years to grow it long enough to give away.

Not a good sign....

Our ficus tree is definitely a tropical plant. So much so that it takes freezes hard. Really hard. Two years in a row may be more then it can take.

Last summer, after a particularly tough winter for it, we had it trimmed. The tree was more then 30 feet high and much more then we could handle, especially since part of it hung over the house. The tree had started growing back and looked like it was going to make it. The tree service cut it back to the level where the growing back. We hoped it would fill in over the next few years, shading the porch again as it has for much of the last decade.

This January brought another freeze, and the ficus took it hard again. And while didn't loose all it's leaves like it did the January before, it lost enough of the "new" growth to be concerning.

Fast forward a few months.

We noticed a woodpecker busily tapping away at one of the upper branches, back in April. Then we noticed that many of the big trunk-sized branches had loose bark and fungus growing them. Not just on one, but many of them, all over the tree.

I planted that "tree" when we first moved into the house 17 years ago. It was originally a houseplant consisting of many ficus saplings, all in one pot, I had bought for my apartment when I lived at the Willows. After we'd learned that the former owners had taken out an oak tree to put a pool in the back yard (something that never happened), we planted the ficus as a replacement, along with several other trees. Little did we realize how big it would get, or how we would come to appreciate the shade it provided for the house, the porch and the living room during the brilliant Florida summers.

The other day I noticed something white on one of the trunks. The next round of fungus attacks had begun. While the south part of the tree looks stronger, with it's bright green leaves shiny and looking strong, the north side appears to be struggling, the leaves dull and streaked yellow green.

The question now becomes will the tree as a whole survive? I don't know if what were once individual saplings, are now so merged and intertwined that they are truly one tree, and if so, can it survive half of it's trunk rotting and dying from within. One thing is certain, however, fungus growing on its trunks is not a good sign.

It's hard to say if the tree will survive. The base of this tree as about 3 feet across. It has, or at least it did have, a lot of reserves to survive a freeze. Most of those reserves are exhausted now. I've seen other types of trees survive being hollowed out from within. Maybe this one will also. Only time will tell. Time and no freezes for the next few winters.

Down...

I love clouds. There is something amazing about watching a thunderhead boil into the summer sky, knowing that rain is on the way. The contrast between the bright white and brilliant blue of the summer sky is beautiful, powerful and inspiring.

But every once and a while I get to see clouds in a different way.

Instead of the flat bottom of the point of view we all normally see, the clouds take on an entirely different character from above.

It's a landscape that changes in moments as you zoom by, with mountains ranges as transient and ephemeral as their earthly cousins are solid.

You can find yourself in the midst of a forest of cumulus towers punching holes through higher, thinner clouds,

... or looking down on rolling hills set among flat planes with only clear sky above, while you wonder that those clouds you thought were so high up now seem so low, their shadows playing gracefully across the surface, creating patterns and shapes as fascinating as the clouds themselves.

I'll always love flying amongst the clouds. They can look so solid...

...yet you could pass right through them.

So I'll keep my eyes looking skyward when I'm on the ground, looking for the play of nature in all her glory.

But when I'm flying, I'll be looking down instead of up. Because those are the times when I can see the clouds from an entirely different perspective. One that's as unique and ever changing as the days themselves.