Caterpillar Confrontation - (I'm Getting Stronger Every Day!)

I must confess something.  I have an extremely weird phobia.  I am absolutely terrified of caterpillars.  My fear of caterpillars is HUGE and inescapable.  Like: squeal, shriek, run away, sometimes get dizzy, faint or even spontaneously vomit kind of fear (PS - you don't want the last two conditions to occur at the same time).  I have had this fear since I was a little girl growing up in New Orleans.  In New Orleans, we have massive live oak trees that line all the streets and sometimes even  grow over them to create a kind of arborous tunnel.  In the late Spring, the gypsy moth caterpillars hatch and squirm their insidious way up the oak tree trunks to the leaves where they munch away on the tasty oak leaves.  They also sometimes fall out of the trees onto unsuspecting youngsters heads and have been known to cover the sidewalks like a fuzzy moving, heaving mass of disgustingness.  Now, this description may be making you slightly more sympathetic to pathetic, crazy me.  BUT, everybody I know who grew up in New Orleans under the exact same circumstances does not have this fear.

 

Caterpillar phobia is so unique and bizarre that there is no Latin or medical word for it.  Part of the problem stems from the fact that caterpillars are actually the larval stage of moths and butterflies, so they don't have a specific genus or species name other than the moths and butterflies they eventually grow into.  And yet, caterpillars are an entity of their own, aren't they...?

 

Needless to say, I am incapable of removing or disposing of caterpillars should an errant one make the mistake of crawling onto my driveway, or OMG!, even into my garage.  I have always had to have a "Caterpillar Disposal Team" at the ready to save me from the evil creatures whenever I have encountered one.  For the last 8 years my "Caterpillar Disposal Team" consisted of Steven and Natalie (I think Joanne may have also saved my sorry ass once or twice).  So, imagine my horror and dismay at encountering a long, black wriggling specimen of terror-inducing woe inching himself across my garage floor this afternoon.   AAAAAAaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I, of course, ran screaming into the house and doubled over in the laundry room clutching my heaving stomach and hyperventilated for a while until I saw spots dancing before my eyes.  OK, time to get a grip and assess the situation.  I cannot and will not let said caterpillar make it across the garage and into my pile of possessions, or worse, Omigod, into the house!  My "Caterpillar Disposal Team" is now permanently lacking team-member Steven; Natalie is at school; Joanne had the audacity to move to Florida (stinker!).  That leaves me with two choices: I can go to my neighbors' house and exhibit myself as a totally insane fool; or, I can deal with the horrid creature myself.  NO.  No, no, no, no, no, no, no!  More heavy breathing and nausea.  But, I can feel him creeping towards me on the other side of that door.. he's out there and he's coming for me.  ("Psycho" shower scene music)... 

 

I gathered every bit of calm, self-assurance that I exhibit when confronted with a traffic cop who points out that I was going 20 miles over the speed limit.  Translated, that means I was perspiring like a lawn sprinkler and my hands were shaking like an alcoholic with the DTs.  Positive reinforcement is what I need.  "I can do this."  "I CAN do this."  "I can DO this."  "I can do THIS!"  "I can whup-ass that little caterpillar out there and FACE MY FEAR!"  So, I opened the door a crack and timidly peaked out.  He was still there!  And he was two feet farther into the garage than when I first made eye-contact with the little bastard!  OK, now I'm working up some righteous anger: what business does that skanky-butt little critter have doin' in my garage?  I whipped the door open (slammed it back after me just in case he developed super-natural powers and teleported his-bad-self into the house) and went out to confront HIM-whose-name-we-do-not-speak.  I got my wand (long, sturdy twig) and flipped the little bastard out into the driveway and then flung him into the nether-reaches of the shrubbery.  YAY!  I did it!  I confronted my fear and I tackled it.  I must be getting stronger every day.  ;-)

 

I then promptly went inside, washed my hands about 20 times, got a stiff drink (it was close to 5:00, OK?, and I certainly deserved it!), put my feet up and de-compressed.

 

But I DID IT, I DID IT, I DID IT!!!  I confronted that caterpillar and I took care of business.  I am getting stronger every day!

 

BTW - Please don't invite me to the Woolly Bear Caterpillar Festival in Boone this year.

 

Memories Dis-Assembled

Memories Dis-Assembled - An Essay on Handling Your Dead Spouses Possessions

 

How do you disassemble a life time's worth of memories and possessions?  How do you climb a cliff with no ropes and no nets, when you are already badly injured?

 

Here I sit, in the middle of my bathroom floor amongst all of our collected bathroom stuff.  I need to sort it out, and throw a lot away because it won't fit in the smaller bathroom of the home I've moved to since my husband died.  Some things are easy decisions: keep, garbage or donate.  But then, I got to the box with his personal things and the small travel bag he took with him on the day he died.  What does a nail clipper mean?  To most, it means nothing, but in this context it was actually one of his most personal possessions that he had taken with him and used for 30 years as a travelling salesman.  How can I throw that away?  What of the new ab-fab razor he had just gotten that he crowed about as really a great new thing?  There is an almost new deodorant that I know he only used twice.  But I sniff, and it does not smell of him - just a slight perfumed scent that I had become so very used to.  This is the crux of the delima: I cannot give it away - it is used!; I cannot throw it away - it was his...; and it seems so useless to keep it.  Our cat sleeps in the middle of the ruins of what used to be our life.

 

Steven used to say that that "Opportunity" was a funny looking man with lots of hair on the front of his head and bald in the back.  If you approached him, you could grab hold of your opportunity, but if he passed you by and you had second thoughts, it was too late.  I wonder what he would have said about my current situation? 

 

The Widow Eve

Nothing says "I love you" like scooping poop...

Last week I had some minor surgery, but knew in advance that I would have to stay home and indoors for a week after.  Sooo, my lovely daughter Natalie and I decided to have some special one-on-one fun time together before-hand.

We started the day with a back-to-school shopping trip to Target.  I have to admit, but both of us (me & the Nat-meister) think Target is the greatest store on the planet.  One time, after a several month trip to our home in Costa Rica, we were jones-ing so bad for Target that we both leaped out of bed and were waiting with baited breath when they unlocked the doors that Saturday morning.  We rushed in, grabbed a cart and gulped in big lung-fulls of Target scented air.  No actual shopping necessary, we just needed the Target experience...  (you can make up your own mind about the sanity level here).

OK. Back to the current story: we went shopping at Target for school supplies.  Ms. Nat has excellent taste and I am not kidding.  She fell in love with a backpack that was $10 more than all the others and tried her best to convince me that I should get it for her.  No dice.  In the end, she offered to pony up the extra $10 out of her piggy bank.  OK, fine.  A couple of cow notebooks later and we were done.

We went out to lunch together at a non-fast-food restaurant, then on to Sally's for some semi-permanent hair color (burgundy red, if you must know) for her beautiful auburn tresses.  After that, we got a Mommy-daughter pedicure and the little Vietnamese lady thought that was so sweet that she gave Natalie hand-painted flower embellishments of her big toes.  **Adorable!**

On the way home, Natalie said to me: "Mom, you are so awesome and nice to me!  You get me special treats and we do fun things together and I really, really appreciate it!  I wish there was some gift, or something I could do for you in return to let you know how much you mean to me and what a special person you are..."

Of course, I told her that her sentiment was sweet, and yadda, yadda, yadda, that's what Mommies do, especially when they really love and like their children.  Then, as we passed through the garage with our Target booty, I spotted the two litter boxes in the corner just full of cat poop.

When we entered the kitchen, I said to her (with a sparkly, wicked glint in my eyes): "You know what you just told me in the car about wanting to do something special for me?  Well, honey, nothing says 'I love you' like scooping poop!"

"Really, Mom?"

"Really."

"Mom..."

"Babe."

So, how exactly DID you get the nick-name "EveL?"

First off, please note the word is "EveL" and not "evil."

Well, you see, it all began in 3rd grade...  I grew up in New Orleans and we were taught French as a secondary language in elementary school.  We had a French teacher named Madame Feraud who was so intimidating that we called her Madame "Ferocious" behind her back.  She was from France and had zee most outraaageous French aczent you can poossibly imageen.  (you are hearing the accent in your head, right?)

Now, if you recall back to your hazy memories of grade school, you usually turned in papers with your first name and last initial: like "Suzy Q." or "John D."  My last name started with an "L."  One Tuesday morning we had a pop-quiz in French class and Madame graded the quizzes and handed them all back to each student.  All except mine.  Ruh-roh!!!  What did I do?  Did I fail so miserably that she is going to make me stand on my desk in ridicule for the rest of the class period, like she did to Quinn H. last week?  Oh, nooo!!!

So, Madame turns to the class with a quiz paper clutched in her hand waving it at us and (almost shouting) says: "And who ees zis, who signs zeir papair with 'evil?!!!'" 

OMG - can I please die now and just ooze under the desk?   Very, very hesitantly and timidly, I raised my hand and said: "Umm, Madame, that is my paper and it is "Eve L."  Madame turned purple with embarrassment, handed me the paper and turned back to the chalkboard amid sniggers and giggles from all my classmates. 

My friends have called me EveL ever since.