A Serpent's Story

Welcome, oh new followers, to Orangehouse, may your time continue to be wasted. Dan and Aunt Peepee, and Nicole, peace and amusement to you. Since I have added the "Followers" feature to the blog, there has been a slow and steady stream of tiny new icons appearing as if by magic, and so it nearly is. I am cyber Micky Mouse wielding the Google magician's hat and reading from his esoteric book of blogging secrets. I neither know nor care how it works. Let's hope I don't unleash an proverbial army of walking brooms, or if I do, that they will at least clean my garage.

I have several thoughts tonight. I will set them apart with bold type for your ease of viewing and to erect mental delineations with which to help you digest my otherwise unintelligible communications. (If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm in a weird mood tonight.)

Stories from Houston

Mom stayed with us for twelve days after her Houston house lost power in Hurricane Ike. She and her three cats temporarily moved into the boys room while they "camped" in sleeping bags in the living room. It was a pleasant and easy visit, thanks Mom. She heard from both a neighbor and my stepmother on Thursday: the power was finally back on! So today she packed up and went home. When she got home everything was fine, except for one strange visitor.

When I was with her the day before Ike made landfall, we secured a supply of emergency water by filling up the bathtub and lots of pots and pans. When she got home, there was a snake in the bathtub, swimming around, presumably waiting for a stray water buffalo to get too close to the edge. I have illustrated this for those of you with a lack of imagination. I may have taken a few artistic liberties.

I don't know how it got there. Could it have come up from the drain? This seems unlikely, especially since there was a rubber stopper over the drain. Could it have been in the house and found the bathtub in an attempt to find moisture or to wash its hands? This too seems unlikely. I suspect telekinesis was involved, but I can't prove it just yet.

So Mom got one of those arm extenders for short people to get cans of chili-mac off of the top shelf. She put on a face shield in case it was a poison spitting viper and then picked it up and took it out to the storm drain where it began a new life in the sewers of Houston feeding off of raw humidity.

Two blocks away is my father's house. He and my stepmother also left Houston to stay with my brother Chris and his family out in the Texas hill country - a beautiful part of the world, by the way. They received a scary call from a neighbor that someone had tried to break into their house. So they drove home earlier this week, even though there was still no electricity. I have not been able to reach them since I got their message, telling me of the situation. When I call their cell, service is still unavailable. And when I call the land line, something else that I can't remember happens. I am considering smoke signals.

Stories From The Boys
In the evenings, the boys and I have a prayer routine. I ask them what they are thankful for this day, and they spend a short while praying and telling God thanks for the little blessings of their days. It's really quite cute and can offer insight into their minds that I often find priceless. Tonight, Jono prayed something like this: "Dear Lord, thank you that Gahma had a snake in her bathtub, even though it wasn't poisonous, and she probably was glad it wasn't poisonous, but it was cool anyway. Amen." There you go.