Five People Who Make Me Sick

These are not in any particular order; in fact they are all equally instrumental in nauseating me.

Joe Lieberman

Sarah Palin

Rudy Giuliani

George W. Bush

John McCain



Crossposted at B3

A Crazy Day for Critters

This morning I went in bathroom #2 and saw a scorpion lurking beneath the baseboard. Finding scorpions in the house isn't unusual in warm weather; hell, a couple of years ago I had one in my pants and got stung.

Then after I got out of the shower this morning, I shaved, and did all my usual hair care ritual and left to go get dressed. No sooner than I had my underwear on I heard txrad screaming in bathroom #1 from whence I had just come.

There was a millipede on the rug where I had been standing a few seconds earlier. That's a first. For those of you unfamiliar with Texas millipedes, they are long. Six to eight inches at least. And not very pleasing to the eye. Somewhere I have a photograph of one I was going to post here but I can't find it. The bugger was attached to a wasp nest doing God only knows what.

This afternoon Sweet Pea (one of my two outdoor cats) had captured what I call a dirt snake. We have these things here. You dig into the soil and if you are lucky, you'll unearth a shiny snake-like critter that tries to slither back into the soil. I don't know what they are and they probably aren't snakes per se. But they sure look like snakes.

Anyway, I digress. Sweet Pea managed to stir up a nest of those this afternoon. He bit one in half and the other half was doing a happy dance around the patio. He caught the other half and ate that as well and then came over expecting me to give him some love. I ain't kissing no snake eating cat. Sorry.

A short time later he had another one on the patio. He bit half off and ate it and I noticed the severed half was slithering over to the patio table. This was just a bit too gross, even for konagod, so I came inside to retch.

A Lizard in My Pants

This was a strange way to end the afternoon. I walked outside and Sweet Pea was strolling down the path toward the patio with a lizard in his mouth. This is not uncommon on warmer days. I've rescued countless numbers of reptiles over the years.

I coaxed the lizard from his mouth and it hid under some leaves near a rock where I was standing. Sweet Pea isn't easily distracted at such times so I tried to lure him away. No luck. I went back to see if I could find the lizard and catch it so I could move it elsewhere. I heard it rustling through the leaves near my foot but I didn't see it.

As I backed away I felt something slightly scratchy in the leg of my pants. We have all kinds of scratchy grasses and weeds but I couldn't figure out how something like that could be nearly up to my knee in my jeans. I felt a lump and suspected it might be the lizard. I was correct. I had to drop my pants to retrieve it.

This was about the time txrad was coming home from work. I was having some difficulty holding a lizard with one hand and trying to button my jeans with one hand. It might have been awkward to try and explain to him why I was standing in the yard with my pants around my ankles holding a lizard.

I am indeed living in strange days.