And today I found a dead body

Way back in the day when I had a one year old baby I used to write in this blog every single day.  Sometimes twice a day, as a matter of fact.

And now?  That baby turned 9 years old (last Friday) and I can’t seem to spare fifteen or twenty minutes to type 100 wpm which makes exactly, um, 1,500 words.  Right?  I mean, I ought to be able to sum up my life in a thousand words a day, more or less, as my blog header promises.  Or used to promise.  I can’t remember.

This morning after Grace woke me at 9:23 a.m. with the news that the fountain in our back yard was not working, I dragged myself from bed, threw on my bathrobe and went into the back yard to investigate.

The ground was squishy which was strange.  It rained last night which was even stranger.

The fountain had stopped flowing.  The water should have been cascading from three pools into the bottom reservoir, but nothing was happening, other than a faint humming sound.  I stood looking at the greenish water–apparently I need to add something to the water to prevent algae?–and decided to add some water.

I turned on the faucet and used the hose to fill up the bottom reservoir, but the fountain did not flow.

I puzzled over this.  The humming sound drew my attention again and I lifted up the pump and realized that the day before I must have caused it to come loose from the connection–so the water stopped pumping and partially drained out.

So I reconnected that.

Then the water began to flow into the upper pools and it was then that I saw the floppy dead body of a kind of large lizard bobbing in the left hand pool.

And to think that just the day before I swept my fingers through the murky fountain water in search of floating leaves and debris.

At some point, the scary dead lizard paused at the lip of the pool, ready to plunge into the main reservoir.  The idea freaked me out for no logical reason at all and I sprayed it back where it disappeared back into the murk.

I never saw it again.

But I know that somewhere in that fountain a dead lizard circulates. It’s as long as my hand, skinny and speckled from what I could tell.

A more grown up homeowner would have just . . . snatched it up with her bare hands and flung it over the fence where the dead-lizard-eating animals would eat it?

In other news, I survived the first five days of September.  This is noteworthy because I managed to stack up a bunch of things in the first part of the month.  I had a devotional writing assignment due on September 1.  Not a big deal, really, but I should have started writing long before I did so I wouldn’t have had to stay up until 2:30 a.m. completing that task.

Then my daughter’s birthday arrived on Friday . . . but not before we had a meeting with her charter-school teacher.  We went to the meeting, then to lunch, followed by C0ld Stone Creamery . . . followed by a really fast trip to Costco where we bought hamburger and buns and condiments and a birthday cake for the surprise birthday party that night.  (All that running around and I was at my desk ready for work at 1 p.m.)

We planned the party very last  minute because we are pathetic and also, over-scheduled and too busy and losers.  And when I say “we”, I mean “me.”

But it turned out fine and everyone had fun.  The stress of getting ready for the 6 p.m. party after I finished working at 5 p.m. was multiplied times 100 because as I was in the kitchen Grace said, “Hey, I see ants under the sink!’ and sure enough, I looked under the sink and found a convention of ants meeting in the trash cans with a column of ants leading to the corner of the cupboard.

Outside, I could see a scary swath of ants on a coordinated march into my kitchen trash.  I sprayed them all with pesticide and expect that we’ll be dead by next Tuesday from poisoning.  But what’s a girl to do?  Share the kitchen with ants?

So the party began and ended. And I survived even though my hair looked hideous.

Sunday we went to Legoland to continue the birthday celebration.

And now another week has started.  My calendar is filled with arrows and scrawled handwriting but at least I don’t have to think about any more birthdays until February.  I just wish I didn’t know that there’s a dead lizard in my fountain.

3 thoughts on “And today I found a dead body

  1. A worm in the apple that is southern California? Heaven is still ahead, and you’re still a pilgrim here…..:-) Maybe your husband can get the lizard. GROSS!!!!! 🙂

    Like

  2. I will wonder no more why I don’t hear from you more often! You are too busy for anything – I’m sorry, but know you are very capable and can handle everything – and everyone.

    As for ants in the house, I found a quick shot of Hot Shot – a can of which I keep on hand for those times when a spider dares invade my space – a quick spraying of that kills the ants before they have time to move another inch! Plus, there is a Hot Shot that comes in a clear bottle and has no terrible odor. Worth having on hand, for sure.

    Like

You know you want to comment here:

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s