My Day, a Tale in Ten Parts
Jun. 20th, 2011 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldnei1. Took a reluctant Zweeble to summer camp/school today. Met his new teacher. Got so involved in the transfer of sunblock, bug spray, and info on the pool schedule that I didn't say goodbye to the kid. D'oh! Luckily, Scott and I were tag-teaming it. As we left, Scott asked if I'd recognized any of the kids in the room, because he hadn't. Me, neither. Ack. A bit of mild, oh, man, I hope he has a good day today ensued as we headed back to the car. This was compounded by the fact that this week is Baseball Week, and today was Bring Baseball Items to School ... and the only baseball item we had was a padded bat.
Um. Well, we made him promise not to hit anyone with it.
2. Came home. Wrote some e-mail, looked at some stuff I needed to look at, did a bit of class prep, then got down to writing. Ah, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you realize you made a wrong turn two days ago and need to throw out 6-8 pages of story. On the other hand, I got notes for what should happen, and some dialogue figured out.
3. Went to pick up the kid. Since it's summer, we go into the room to get him. Z was super excited to see us, and the teacher assured us he had a great day. He colored a baseball player for us. I recognized some of the kids (whew!) and the teacher said Z. was fine once he saw some of his old classmates. Somehow I managed to take home some other kid's artwork, so I'll return that Weds.
4. Went to lunch. Uneventful.
5. Went to the post office to pick up a package. Used Scott's phone to figure out where we were going, discovered that this post office was not the main one. Used Google maps for directions, and they were super convoluted, but gave me enough info so I knew where we were going. Decided to test out the Baby Garmin program on the Droid. Baby Garmin was not pleased that we had decided not to follow her convoluted route.
Our route was drive to Street X, follow it to Street Y, turn, there we are! Hers involved backtracking, cross-country skiing, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. (Okay, just backtracking.) Except that, just as we got to Street X, we were detoured and wound up having to take Baby Garmin's route.
She tried not to gloat, but you know ... (and the cross-country skiing was rather nice, actually. The Valley of the Shadow of Death was about what you'd expect this time of year, though: all flies and Beelzebub and Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here, blah blah blah.)
(Actually, the program was pretty sweet, and I will probably use the version on my phone in future.)
6. Hit a comic store to kill time. Bought Magic cards, a Darkwing Duck comic, and a Green Lantern pin that will probably end up being mine.
7. Went to the doctor's office for Z's ear re-check. Z cracked up the kids in the waiting room when he declared the bathroom "STINK-y!" Ears are clear! Boy looks great! He also doesn't meet the parameters for tubes, which was apparently a concern of Scott's.
8. Came home. Read some Captain Underpants. Gagged. The Bionic Booger Boy is possibly the grossest thing I have ever read about, and I am a Stephen King fan. I have also read Clive Barker's Books of Blood, and Clive has nothing on Dav Pilkey.
9. The less said about post-naptime the better, but my husband is a very good dad.
10. Went outside to play. In my summertime routine of checking for wasps on the playset, I found what I thought was a brown widow's nest in a 1-2 inch crevice between the deck part of the set and the rock wall. I told Z. to stand back, got a sturdy stick, and went to squish the spider.
I do try to leave most spiders alone. I like a lot of the ones we have down here--we have really pretty spiders in Florida. But I do not truck with widows. Brown widows' venom can cause nerve damage, from what I have read, and we get them a lot. They're very timid, and tend to run rather than defend themselves, but I don't take chances with the kid and his tendency to focus on, say, his stick collection and not notice anything crawling on him, under him, or what have you. Happily, brown widows have a distinctive egg sac, so they tend to be easy to find.
So I poke at the nest with my handy stick ... and the spider attacks the stick. What the? I pull the stick back a little, and the spider hangs on. This dislodges the spider and brings it into better view: shiny black body, bright red hourglass ... Holy cats and kittens, black widow!
A big one, too, compared to the black widows we've had before. But not tarantula-sized or anything. Still, this angle is not a good one, and the spider is still pissed at the stick and hasn't noticed me, so I tell Z. to run and tell Dad that I need spider spray, if we have any. He takes off, and he and Dad report back that we do not, in fact, have toxic chemicals for this particular bug (probably better that way, anyway), so ... I take a breath, change my grip, and squish the spider like I'm Stuttering Bill Denbrough in It (except I used a stick, and the spider was a lot smaller, and there wasn't some giant rain storm that took out half of the town, and, okay, not actually that similar at all. Whatever, I felt triumphant)!
Plus, my son was super impressed with me.
Then I had to squish the egg sacs (like Ben Hanscomb! Okay, not at all like that) while Scott crawled all around and under the play set looking for further spider nests. We found nothing.
When we came in, my son had to call his arachnophobic grandmother and tell her about it. "Now, Grammie, Mom killed a black widow. Don't. Freak. Out."
And now my son and husband are watching Annoying Orange. Tomorrow is their movie outing. I sit here, typing away, Killer of Spiders, alone as all mercenary stick-slingers are in the end. It's a lonely life, riding from town to town with my trusty stick, helping the poor and the hopeless defend against small, venomous arachnids. But I do it. Because it needs doing. Because I am the lone force for ...
... okay, I can't keep that up. I'm signing off before I get any sillier. Night, y'all.
Um. Well, we made him promise not to hit anyone with it.
2. Came home. Wrote some e-mail, looked at some stuff I needed to look at, did a bit of class prep, then got down to writing. Ah, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you realize you made a wrong turn two days ago and need to throw out 6-8 pages of story. On the other hand, I got notes for what should happen, and some dialogue figured out.
3. Went to pick up the kid. Since it's summer, we go into the room to get him. Z was super excited to see us, and the teacher assured us he had a great day. He colored a baseball player for us. I recognized some of the kids (whew!) and the teacher said Z. was fine once he saw some of his old classmates. Somehow I managed to take home some other kid's artwork, so I'll return that Weds.
4. Went to lunch. Uneventful.
5. Went to the post office to pick up a package. Used Scott's phone to figure out where we were going, discovered that this post office was not the main one. Used Google maps for directions, and they were super convoluted, but gave me enough info so I knew where we were going. Decided to test out the Baby Garmin program on the Droid. Baby Garmin was not pleased that we had decided not to follow her convoluted route.
Our route was drive to Street X, follow it to Street Y, turn, there we are! Hers involved backtracking, cross-country skiing, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. (Okay, just backtracking.) Except that, just as we got to Street X, we were detoured and wound up having to take Baby Garmin's route.
She tried not to gloat, but you know ... (and the cross-country skiing was rather nice, actually. The Valley of the Shadow of Death was about what you'd expect this time of year, though: all flies and Beelzebub and Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here, blah blah blah.)
(Actually, the program was pretty sweet, and I will probably use the version on my phone in future.)
6. Hit a comic store to kill time. Bought Magic cards, a Darkwing Duck comic, and a Green Lantern pin that will probably end up being mine.
7. Went to the doctor's office for Z's ear re-check. Z cracked up the kids in the waiting room when he declared the bathroom "STINK-y!" Ears are clear! Boy looks great! He also doesn't meet the parameters for tubes, which was apparently a concern of Scott's.
8. Came home. Read some Captain Underpants. Gagged. The Bionic Booger Boy is possibly the grossest thing I have ever read about, and I am a Stephen King fan. I have also read Clive Barker's Books of Blood, and Clive has nothing on Dav Pilkey.
9. The less said about post-naptime the better, but my husband is a very good dad.
10. Went outside to play. In my summertime routine of checking for wasps on the playset, I found what I thought was a brown widow's nest in a 1-2 inch crevice between the deck part of the set and the rock wall. I told Z. to stand back, got a sturdy stick, and went to squish the spider.
I do try to leave most spiders alone. I like a lot of the ones we have down here--we have really pretty spiders in Florida. But I do not truck with widows. Brown widows' venom can cause nerve damage, from what I have read, and we get them a lot. They're very timid, and tend to run rather than defend themselves, but I don't take chances with the kid and his tendency to focus on, say, his stick collection and not notice anything crawling on him, under him, or what have you. Happily, brown widows have a distinctive egg sac, so they tend to be easy to find.
So I poke at the nest with my handy stick ... and the spider attacks the stick. What the? I pull the stick back a little, and the spider hangs on. This dislodges the spider and brings it into better view: shiny black body, bright red hourglass ... Holy cats and kittens, black widow!
A big one, too, compared to the black widows we've had before. But not tarantula-sized or anything. Still, this angle is not a good one, and the spider is still pissed at the stick and hasn't noticed me, so I tell Z. to run and tell Dad that I need spider spray, if we have any. He takes off, and he and Dad report back that we do not, in fact, have toxic chemicals for this particular bug (probably better that way, anyway), so ... I take a breath, change my grip, and squish the spider like I'm Stuttering Bill Denbrough in It (except I used a stick, and the spider was a lot smaller, and there wasn't some giant rain storm that took out half of the town, and, okay, not actually that similar at all. Whatever, I felt triumphant)!
Plus, my son was super impressed with me.
Then I had to squish the egg sacs (like Ben Hanscomb! Okay, not at all like that) while Scott crawled all around and under the play set looking for further spider nests. We found nothing.
When we came in, my son had to call his arachnophobic grandmother and tell her about it. "Now, Grammie, Mom killed a black widow. Don't. Freak. Out."
And now my son and husband are watching Annoying Orange. Tomorrow is their movie outing. I sit here, typing away, Killer of Spiders, alone as all mercenary stick-slingers are in the end. It's a lonely life, riding from town to town with my trusty stick, helping the poor and the hopeless defend against small, venomous arachnids. But I do it. Because it needs doing. Because I am the lone force for ...
... okay, I can't keep that up. I'm signing off before I get any sillier. Night, y'all.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 12:53 am (UTC)I didn't know there was such a thing as a brown widow. I'd heard of blacks, but I m now educated about the browns. Good job on squishing the spider!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 01:02 pm (UTC)I am mighty, what can I say? :)