Snake Hunting

Spring has sprung (finally) in Columbus and that means snakes aplenty. We've had several recent expeditions to Whetstone Park in search of snakes. The one captured on this video was a success.

We've brought Snaky home for observation and will be releasing him back into the Whetstone Creek habitat in a few days.

Ahhhhhh.... Spring!

Dude, that's my car.

So, a funny little story.

I was fixing dinner the other night while Dave and Micah were sitting in the living room. Micah called me into the room for some reason, I don't remember why, and I just happened to look out the front window. I saw a tow truck in front of our house. As I looked a little more closely (it was dusk and nearly dark) I realized that the bed of the truck was being lowered down. And then I realize that the truck appeared to be getting in position to tow my car.

"There's a tow truck out there and it looks like he's about to hook my car up," I turned and said to Dave.

Dave looked up, half-listening, and said something akin to "hmmm."

I looked back out the window and saw that the driver was now out of the truck and starting to get the chain out. I knocked on the window, "DUDE! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY CAR?"

I turned to Dave again, panicked, "honey, seriously, it looks like he's about to take my car!"

Dave got up, looked out the window, then moved briskly (for Dave) out the front door where he confronted the tow truck driver. I saw them talk for about 30 seconds, then the neighbor from a few doors down entered the conversation, pointed, everybody's shoulders kind of shrugged in a laughing gesture, and Dave came back in the house.

"Um, apparently he was here to tow the neighbor's car and got a little mixed up."

The neighbor has a BMW station wagon. We don't.

Isn't there some sort of system in place with tow trucks where they either a) verify a license plate number or, b) knock on the alleged owner's door or, c) somehow verify that they are actually towing the correct car? It's not like we had parked illegally and were being towed for naughty reasons, after all. The neighbor had actually called for a tow truck so it could be taken to the repair shop.

I'm just glad I decided to look out the window at the moment I did or we would have found ourselves strangely without a car.

Fantasy Island re-lived

To honor the late Mr. Roarke, known off the island as Ricardo Montalban, I decided to expose my kids to Fantasy Island. Did you know you can watch episodes online at hulu.com?


We watched this episode and I'm pretty sure I haven't laughed so hard in a really, really long time. The whole thing is completely nuts and the political incorrectness is a true testament to how far we've come since the early 80s.

But back when it was airing, I loved Fantasy Island. On Saturday night, after Love Boat, I would cuddle under a blanket and watch the show while imagining what fantasy I would have requested from Mr. Roarke.

Micah and I spent 45 minutes in front of the computer screen watching this episode which featured two ladies who wanted to be cheerleaders for a pro football team and another storyline with Mel the short order cook (Vic Tayback, remember the show Alice with Linda Lavin?) Micah has asked to watch another episode every day since then.

Uh oh.

Micah's haircut

Just when I had grown to love Micah's ultra-unruly hair, he decided he wanted to have it all cut off. I captured the event on video.

Snowball fight!

We've had just enough snow in the last few days for the kids to have a great snowball fight. Unfortunately, toward the end, they started taking refuge inside the back door. Lots of melted snow to mop up.

Micah was home sick today

Micah was sick today. He sure does ask a lot of questions when he's lying on the couch and I'm trying to get work done. Here's a sampling of the questions he asked today (a mere fraction of the actual quantity asked):

What does distribute mean?
Why do they call it leap year anyway, shouldn't it be skip-day-year?
Guess how many yards Randy Moss has gained in his career?
Will I throw up if I have the hiccups?
How do they make movies?
How could they ever make the movie The Water Horse? Where would they ever find something that looks like that and grows that fast? (You'd have to see this movie to understand the purity of his question.)
I think the cats would do well in the car.
Guess where my favorite place to visit is? Second favorite? Third favorite? Fourth? Fifth?
Is it possible for three people to talk on the phone at the same time? Four? Five? Six???
Would you rather have a perfect offense or defense? (He's obsessed with football.)
Guess which cat purrs the loudest?
This couch must be super hard to make! You have to tie each one of these little things.
Can you take me somewhere? Like to the zoo? (The kid threw up this morning IN MY CAR!)
Do you think the University of Florida could beat the Green Bay Packers?
Do you think Sam Bradford should have won the Heisman?
Mom, how much longer until you’re done?

Tonight I had a glass of wine (okay, two!)