From the Sky

Katie was feeling pretty good about her choice to move here because we'd just finished picking a gallon and a half of plump, delicious blueberries.  We came home and she decided to grill herself some chicken while I made a salad. 

About two minutes later, I heard a blood-curdling scream.  I went tearing down the stairs in Mother-mode and calculated how long she'd been on the deck, thinking up worst-case scenarios - like the propane tank exploding for example.

As I rounded the corner and stepped onto the deck, I fully expected to see part of the house engulfed in flames, or something equally as dramatic.  What I saw instead was a very animated Kate dancing around and waving her arms.  The look on her face was sheer horror. 

"A giant slug fell from the sky right onto the grill." she explained.  "Now I am teetering on the edge of whether or not I can live here."

I've decided to add a fresh fruit salad for supper too - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, and throw in a little bit of watermelon from Florida, too.  Maybe that will tilt the teeter totter back in our direction.  If not, maybe a shopping trip would do the trick...

First-of-season blueberries

What I'm not going to tell her about are the skinks, Palmetto bugs, chameleons, black widow spiders, brown recluses or even about the various assorted flavors of poisonous snakes we have here. 

It's taken me a lifetime to arrive at this conclusion: some things are better left unsaid.

Daytime Nightmares

The cable installer guy said, "You have a lot of black widow spiders in your yard. Your cable box was full of 'em."

The meter reader said, "Don't worry about the black widows, worry about these brown recluse spiders. They're nasty."

The concrete repairman said, "Did you see the big snake in your driveway?"

The utilities man said, "The snakes don't bother me nearly as much as when a lizard drops out of the trees onto my head."

Turns out we've moved to phobia heaven.