Not exactly a lazy Monday.......

After a few days of putting off going to the supermarket for groceries, today was going to be the day. We've had some weird combinations for lunch and dinner these last couple of days as I chose things from the pantry shelves and the freezer. Going to the supermarket on a weekend is not my favorite thing to do. (Going on a weekday isn't my favorite thing to do either, but husbands and cats and the dog... they all want to eat.)

So there I was this morning, my grocery list in one hand, my purse and keys in the other hand, standing under the breezeway between the house and the garage. So quiet outside you could hear the cats yawning on the porch, I swear. And then I heard it..... all this rustling noise in the pine mulch around the house.... and right after the rustling noise, I heard Mickey and Gatsby jumping down from the porch and landing in the mulch.... two thuds and still more rustling.

As soon as I turned around, there it was on the quarry stones of the breezeway..... a long green snake. Not one of those itty-bitty ones that I've seen so many times around the property. This one was the size of the snakes I've seen in the road, and it was moving fast on the stones, with Mickey and Gatsby right behind it. I screamed. I don't know what words came out of my mouth, but I screamed out something.

I also froze. I couldn't move. My hands didn't drop the purse or the grocery list or the car keys, but I know I was just frozen there on the spot as I watched the fast green blur of the snake darting underneath the back porch steps, and there was Mickey, right behind the snake and going under the steps, followed by Gatsby. Sweet Pea was in the house.... for the past two days, that cat has not wanted to go outside and I haven't forced him. Gracie was in the house, sleeping in the kitchen, and my husband was upstairs at his computer. And there I was, frozen in that spot with a snake under the steps and two cats trying to catch it.

I was not going to walk up those steps. I went around to the back deck and ran up those steps and ran all the way to the kitchen door. One look over the porch railing, and there were Mickey and Gatsby, their tails smacking the quarry stones and their noses pointed towards the steps. Into the kitchen I went, slamming the door and nearly tripping over the dog, throwing my purse and keys on the counter and up the stairs I ran. I don't think I took a breath till I got nearly to the top, then I told my husband that maybe the house was insulated better than we thought because he couldn't hear me screaming from the breezeway by the garage.

A snake! Big green one! The cats! Trying to catch it! Snake! "How big?" my husband wanted to know. (He asked this question because I call anything longer than an inch-worm a snake.) I told him it's as long as one of these stairs! Mickey is trying to get it! Down the stairs and out the back door..... and the two cats are still keeping guard at the base of the porch steps. My husband got out the broom, the rake, the garden hoe..... the only thing coming out from under the steps were leaves and bits of pine mulch. Into the garage he went, and out he came with the shop-vac and the orange extension cord.

So there we were.... my husband laying on the ground (Are you out of your mind?!) by the porch steps, and me on the porch refusing to get anywhere near those steps. After nearly an hour of vacuuming every last leaf out from under those steps, my husband jumped back because he felt the shop-vac grab hold of the snake. By the time he pulled out the vacuum hose, the snake had managed to wriggle itself free. We didn't see where it went, and the cats weren't near the steps at that point-- as soon as the shop-vac was turned on, they went to hide under the bushes near the garage. The snake didn't scare them, but the shop-vac did. Go figure.

After checking under the steps with a flashlight and a mirror (so he could see into the corners) my husband said that the snake was no longer there. I watched him cleaning out all those leaves and checking the base of the shop-vac every few minutes, so I know he was very thorough about it. By the time all of that was done, I was in no mood for grocery shopping, nor much of anything else.

I had no idea that snakes could move so blessed fast. And I froze. On the spot, I just froze. I think that scared me more than anything else. That and the fact that if the snake had bitten Mickey, I couldn't have even moved to save my cat. And if the snake had moved towards me, would I have just stood there? My husband said that the snake is more afraid of me than I'm afraid of it. I had two words for him: Wanna bet?

In the middle of all that snake-hunting and shop-vac noise, one of our neighbors drove down our driveway with a friend of his who is going to mow the hay for us. We told them about the snake, and his first question was "How big?" When we explained the color and the size, the hay-mowing guy told us about a snake he had on his property last week that was as big around as his arm. He said he ran into the house to get his shotgun and couldn't find the key to the gun-case. I don't know what he said after that because my brain couldn't get past the "big as my old arm right here" description.

I thought I was being brave after we had lunch. I went out the kitchen door with Gracie and let her go down the back steps first. I ran down the steps and walked out to the road to check the mailbox. On my way down the driveway, one of those super-sized yellow crickets jumped up from the hot concrete and landed on my arm. I screamed and started swinging my arms in the air, but the cricket jumped off of me just seconds after it landed. As I stood there in the driveway, I looked up at the beautiful sky and the puffy white clouds and yelled out "This is not a good day so far!!!"

We had the last can of tuna fish and a couple of hard-boiled eggs for lunch today. I am out of lettuce, out of avocados. Out of orange juice, out of fresh fruit (except for the plums from our trees). I am nearly out of milk, all out of cheese, all out of fresh vegetables. I really have to do the grocery shopping today. My husband has an appointment to get his hair cut this afternoon. I'm just going to drive into town with him..... he can drop me off at the store and I'll get the groceries while he gets his hair cut.

I know my limitations. There is no way I am going to get behind the wheel of my car and drive it after this kind of a morning. I'm lucky I can type after the snake and the cricket.... and if it weren't for the spell-checker thing here, this would most likely be un-readable.