A year and counting

Allison is back home this evening; well, she came home this morning. It has ended up being quite a day.

It all began this morning...I was going to meet my mom at the swimming pool this morning when she came up to bring Allison back. Playgroup meets at swimming pool in July and begins at 9:30. Mom said she wasn't sure she would be there by 9:30, but sometime around then. Okay, so it was like 9:10 or so, and I stopped by the radio station to cut a spot for Bruce. I walked up the ramp, and looked to the right of my foot as I was getting ready to open the door. There was this black thing laying there...thought it looked like a piece of black rubber or something. Upon closer look I discovered it was no other than a SNAKE!!!!! For anyone who may not be aware of this, I am deathly TERRIFIED of snakes. I H-A-T-E them!!! The only good snake is a dead snake in my book. I about knocked myself out by the front door trying to get in fast enough. Bruce, of course, was of no help to me other than telling me to calm down. While he won't admit it, he doesn't like snakes any better than I do. The next half an hour was spent by me in near-hysterics and full-blown hysterics...I won't go into second-by-second detail, but it wasn't pretty. I literally had a physical reaction to this...I was crying and shaking. It was horrible. Yes, I know, it was onlya black snake...they aren't bad...I'm told it was probably more scared of me...I doubt it, but still..... So meanwhile my mom is calling aorund looking for me because I'm not down at the pool where I"m supposed to be because I am NOT walking out the door to the radio station because, well heck, it might jump out at me!!! We finally are able to touch base, and she brought ALlison to the station. I followed her out to the car so that I could leave. I have to go back tomorrow to tutor, and I"m not sure how I will do it.... I'll be glad when the weather starts getting colder, and the snakes go into hibernation.

Oh, you know, we live in an area where I'm surprised I haven't seen more snakes in the 7 years we've lived here...we have a HUGE tree line behind the area, property butted up against the railroad yards, not far from the river, lots of brush and weeds not far away, Bruce tries to keep area mowed, but not well trimmed, so there are lots of places for the snakes to like to be. I have to admit, however, Mr. Bruce did go out tonight and mow very short the grass around the radio station, so hopefully any critters will be more easily to be seen.

In other news, the local National Guard unit deployed today to Egypt. My friend Carrie's husband Chris left today for about a year; someone said soemwhere it will be 400 days...wow! I went over to Carrie's house tonight for about an hour to visit, and so Allison could play with their son Clayton, who is 3. Chris was deployed to Iraq a few years ago, before Clayton was born, so Carrie has been through it before, but ... My thoughts are with them all, and I want to help in any way that I can throughout this event in their lives. There was a nice send off in town for them, and I was really glad to see that.