First, I have to blow my own horn. Before I moved out to Wyoming, the very thought of snakes terrified me. My only experience with them was at the “World of Darkness” exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. Then I came west for a one-month writer’s residency program. I immediately resolved not to hike up in the 80+ acre wilds behind the grounds when I found out that snakes lived there. But I’ve toughened up in the past five years. Snakes don’t scare me anymore.

What scares me is having a casual conversation with my husband, who interrupted our musings about what to do on Friday night with: “Oh. There’s a snake in the house.”

Oh.

Aaaaaaa!!

First of all. It’s been -10 degrees or colder almost all week. Shouldn’t the little guy (or gal) be dead by now? Second: where on earth do we have a hole in our house BIG ENOUGH FOR A SNAKE TO FIT THROUGH? “It’s just a baby,” my husband reassured me. And then he followed up with: “I wonder if there’s a nest.”

I repeat: Aaaaaaa!!

He’s got a good point, actually. It’s very possible that the little venom machine just crawled out of his egg. (BTW, some snakes are born live–but they still come from eggs. The eggs hatch inside the mother’s body.) (Gag.)

Worse: now that baby slither has been captured, my husband is reluctant to release him out of doors. “He’ll die!” mourns the suddenly-animal-rights-activist. Hold on a minute: I’ve been eating strictly vegan meals since August. Can’t I trade in four-months-worth of mammals I never ate for the justified homicide of a reptile? In all seriousness: if the animal who wandered into our home was human, we could legally shoot it. But we can’t let a snake fend for itself because there’s snow on the ground?

It’s been an hour now since I spoke with my husband/zookeeper. He’s not picking up his phone. I fear that we will have a new pet by the time I get home.

Just wait ’til I get my hands on a mongoose.

We got over an inch of snow last night– September 30th. I was more angry at the fact that it couldn’t wait a night.  Snow in October just doesn’t sound so bad!

The last time it snowed was June 7th, the day after my wedding. I had a house full of family and friends, every last one commenting on the unseasonal weather. All I can say is, it doesn’t feel so damn unseasonal to me. Not when we’ve gone a mere 17 weeks without the white stuff.

Earlier this week, we hit the mid-eighties. And now, obviously, it’s below freezing. Between the super-hyped H1N1 going around and the fact that I can’t possibly figure out what to wear from one day to the next, it’s amazing that the entire state of Wyoming isn’t quarantined until, oh, say, next July, when it decides to warm up for a whole week at a time.

(Actually, it should be easy to get dressed, going forward. I’ll just wear everything in my closet at once. A dozen or so wool sweaters, skirts, pants, boots–oughta do the trick.)

Ah, summer. We came so late to your party, and left so early. Can you please issue an extended invitation to your brother, Indian Summer? I’d really, really, like to see him this year….

It’s been two weeks since the man turned his right hand into Frankenstein.

His injury is definitely making me appreciate the use I have of both hands–especially for writing. I instantly lose 100+ points off my IQ when I try to scribble with my left. My print looks like the specialest of the special ed kids got hold of a crayon and a piece of papyrus.

In fact, there are all sorts of fun things I use my hands for that I automatically take for granted. Like pulling my hair back into a ponytail. Or getting dressed. Eating meals, too. If I had to shovel in my calories lefthanded, I would have to wear clothes to match whatever color food I’m eating. Half of it would, inevitably, end up in my lap.

Watching the man do his hand exercises, such as “try to get the ring finger to touch within five inches of the thumb” is excruciating. As is the game we play where I touch his pinky with increasing amounts of strength and ask if he can feel it. He can’t. His nerves aren’t repaired, yet.

At least it looks better:

One odd thing, though: no amount of scrubbing seems to get the blood off. Perhaps Lady MacBeth wasn’t being metaphorical.  Out, damned spot, indeed!  Blood on your hands tends to linger….

The wedding day came off without a hitch (well… without any major incidents). You can tell it was successful by our overjoyed expressions:

Thanks to everyone who came all this way to make our celebration so wonderful.

If there was a doubt that The Man is a suitable lifetime mate for yours truly, I have photographic evidence that should put any remaining fears to rest:

The Lord and Lady will be legally wed on 6/6/9. Hopefully the ground cover will be a bit less snowy…so the ice king and queen can look a bit less frigid!

My house was built in the 60’s. We tiled the bathroom and kitchen with vintage British tile from, yes you guessed it. Now meet the latest addition to the retro family:

As you can see, furniture makers were producing some pretty sweet designs with barrels and Naugahyde back in the Summer of Love.

In addition to cracking me up whenever I walk into the room, I have to say that my house is utterly transformed by the addition of…seating. We didn’t have a single chair in the house, before. Diner booths, we have. But being able to SIT and TALK without feeling like we’re supposed to drop a quarter in the juke box–now that’s just so civilized!

Give me a week and the couch’ll turn into yet another place to store discarded clothing. But for now, I’m all about the conversation nook. Even if the conversation is all about how ridiculous the furniture is.

The revelation came in stages.

First I was forced to admit that, in the age-old “dog person” vs “cat person” dichotomy, I was solidly coming down on the side of the felines. Much to my dismay. Members of the cat camp seem way too emo/cardigan sweater/no muscle tone/Lifetime TV for me to want to join their ranks. Dog people, at least, play frisbee. Which is tough to do indoors. In my mind, dog people are out all the time getting exercise and Vitamin D with their best animal friends, while cat people sit at home, listening to Billie Holliday, drinking herbal tea and crying into their Siamese’s fur over an offhand comment that the Starbucks barista made two weeks ago.

Cat people are culturally not as “cool” as dog people, either. Take, for example, the expression “crazy old cat lady.” There is no canine equivalent. Take, as a second example, “crazy old cat lady in Brooklyn.” The next stop on the mental health train is disgruntled postal employee with access to an automatic weapon.

In reality, I think the personality types are less acurrately represented by ”dog” or “cat,” but by “people who enjoy the company of creatures they can’t discuss politics with” and “people for whom a non-response to a pointed question can be viewed as a threat.” When my dog doesn’t poop on command, it’s not that he doesn’t understand me; it’s that he’s purposefully holding out, waiting until I put him back in his room to empty his bowels.

I want to want to be a dog person. I really do. It’s just that a fifty pound, four-legged mealtime terrorist who still can’t grasp the command “SIT!” (let alone “heel,” “stay,” or “get the @!# out of the trashcan” isn’t my idea of a perfect house pet. Not that cats listen. Or learn. But they don’t weigh as much, so they’re easier to pluck off a countertop and fling across the room.

Cats also sit in your lap, purr, pretend they like you to get a belly rub. I can appreciate that. It’s basically what I did throughout my twenties. They’re full of attitude. The goofball, make-no-attempt-to-hide-their-curiosity, “hey, where’s the party? Oh! In the mud puddle!” dog approach to life is a bit more like the kid in junior high you never wanted to sit next to for fear that it would rub off.

Until I can lift more than ten-pound handweights, however, I guess I won’t be tossing the pooch out anytime soon…..

It was still dark at 5:00 this morning, which suprised me. In memory, the sky brightens well before five–all the way from May through September. Here we are at the end of July, though, and the sky was barely light enough to make my way downstairs. Damn. I hate to give up the long days of summer so soon.

I also hate to admit that my memory is falliable.

How many decisions do I make based on experience? Almost all of them. Yet if I am misremembering something as easily verified as the sunrise, can I really trust myself to recall other events accurately? If so, how can I really base anything on such a flexible membrane as my memory?

Subjectively, I believe that I have a firm grasp on reality. Objectively, though, I wonder: If I don’t recall what really happened, does that mean I’m making it up? How will I know what’s true?

Is there even such a thing as truth?

With any luck, I’ll stop worrying about a simple hour or two of daylight. I’ll try not to get too wrapped up in the fact that there were long shadows outside when I thought birds would be singing. After all, if I’m making it all up, why would I have invented a day job? Or a world in which food has calories?

As a whole, I see the world for what it is: a beautiful mess.

And I swear that’s a true statement.

I swear the silent lightning woke me up, though I’d be hard pressed to explain how, scientifically, that could have happened. Maybe a magnetic force drew me to the window? Or else my eyelids are unusually thin. Whatever the reason, I woke to see whole sections of the sky lit up with fabulous flashes of silent, white light. It was strange enough to get me out of bed. I hovered for several minutes, watching the aerial pyrotechnics, until I realized I really wasn’t awake enough to stand so close to the head of the stairs.

Hours later, the thunder rolled through. Then the rains came.

But that lightning was the most amazing thing! I’ve never seen heat lightning like that back east (In NYC, that kind of quiet brightness would’ve indicated a store opening, or a film being made). It was a good reason to miss some sleep last night…and an even better excuse to employ yet another glorious head cave, where my racing dreams mixed with the roar of the thunder until the alarm clock finally shattered my sleep.

Today I can barely hold my head up at work. The obvious solution, I thought, was to relocate the phone to the floor and stretch out beneath my desk. The ringing phone would serve as an adequate alarm clock and, even sleepy, I’m reasonably certain I could operate the voicemail transfer buttons.  A good plan, but flawed; the window is right above my desk. Apparently, this maple wood monstrosity fails to provide the shade I would expect from an average umbrella.

My house, too, has a lot of light. Even with the spiffy dark shades we chose for the walls (my contribution had nothing to with paint brushes or rollers) and lined curtains, our bedroom loft is glaringly bright from the very first cockadoodledoo until almost ten at night. I’m not someone who can sleep in those conditions. And as the human body requires sleep in all four seasons, I was forced to mastermind yet another scheme to catch a few winks during daylight savings.

Enter the head cave.

Head caves are completely portable, made up of a cushy, pliable combination of sheet, quilt, and comforter. The size of the cave depends on the amount of fresh air you want to let in versus sunlight. Side effects include tangled hair and bad breath. But if anyone can figure out how wake up without looking like Medusa’s fire-breathing cousin, please drop a line. My fiance would probably pay you for that kind of assistance.

This past weekend, while other people my age were no doubt meeting exciting new people or (yawn) spending time with their families, I had yet another stroke of, oh, let’s just call it genius. The air-to-darkness ratio in head caves, see, is increasingly difficult to negotiate around the solstice. (More light+more heat=more engineering difficulties). Unwilling to compromise, I constructed a head cave with higher blanket walls with a wider circumference. Voila! The head coliseum.

On a cautionary note, the coliseum requires a good deal of quilt to build, which may leave your partner without. But it’s summer, eh? There’s no real chance of frostbite. You can always tell your bedmate to quit complaining or you’ll drag him/her into the coliseum with you, then loose the ravenous lions.