Leapin' Lizard!

I'm having a bad lizard week here at Casa ParkHopper.  Monday I came home to a dead-ish lizard in the middle of my kitchen floor and two cats completely disinterested in assisting with its disposal.  As it turns out, the lizard was only "dead" until Elphie took a half-hearted swat at it and her claw hit it mid-back.  THEN it was miraculously cured and running right at me!  It's now dead (I assume) in front of the kitchen sink.  I won't touch it*, and haven't yet been motivated to pull out the vacuum to suck up the tiny carcass.

Today I kept thinking I was seeing motion out of the corner of my eye, but both cats were asleep on the couch.  Finally I realized there was another freaking lizard in the house, this one very much alive and on the move.  On the stairs.  And then the little effer JUMPED from one step to another.

Did you know they do that?

I guess Little Orphan Annie did!

Anyway, I took some video and uploaded it to Instagram.  I can't figure out how to embed it here, but here's the link.  For the record, once I made my new pet do its party trick for the camera, I did try to rescue it.  I grabbed a big plastic bowl with lid and actually managed to get the bowl over the lizard.  But the lid was pretty thick, and sliding it under the bowl gave the lizard a big enough opening to dart through... of course, straight toward me!  After I squealed and nearly lost my balance 7 steps up the stairs, I chased it down the steps.  It evaded capture and darted under the TV cabinet.

If I'm lucky, I won't see it again until the next time the furniture is moved.  Of course, my luck isn't actually that good...I bet I see that lizard again before bedtime.

*I can't touch dead things, even when they've been motionless for multiple days.  Blame this on an unfortunate fish tank incident when I was a kid.  I was carrying a dead swordtail to the bathroom for a burial at sea, and right when I got to the toilet, the thing resurrected and flopped out of my hand right into its watery grave.  NEVER AGAIN -- zombie creepy-crawlies are REAL!

UPDATE: not sure this is the same lizard, but I managed to catch & release this one! (Sorry for the blur - the phone didn't want to focus through the plastic bowl)

Another Hodge Podge Post

Prologue:
I don't think I've mentioned on the blog (though Facebook knows alllll about it!) that my work building has a... considerable challenge with German cockroaches.  I had one run across my desk last week, and I'm still a little emotionally scarred!  The pest control department even came out last week to spray the lockers in the hallway because it seemed like all of the guys were shaking roaches out of their clothes and shoes.

One of my trainers stopped by today to tell me had training forms for me, but they were in his locker.  I asked him to shake the roaches off before bringing them to me, and he laughed, telling me there are no roaches in the lockers on his end of the building but they are in the microwave in that workshop.  He told me that he was heating a frozen meal - 4 minutes on high heat - and when he opened the microwave a roach ran out from under the turntable.  That's right, you can kill a Gremlin in the microwave but you can't kill a cockroach that way.  They.  Are.  Monsters.


skip to 2:00 for gratuitous exploding Gremlin action

In other news, I barely slept last night.  (I'm fine, just letting someone live in my head rent-free.)  After laying there not sleeping until 10:30, I got up and came back downstairs.  I watched The Daily Show and Colbert Report before going back upstairs.  After falling asleep around 12:30, I woke up at 1:20 and 3:05 before my alarm finally went off at 4:15. 

Ordinarily, on tired days I wear my hair in a bun and wear comfy/frumpy clothes and keep a low profile.  And I hear "are you ok?" or "no sleep?" from the folks in the building all day long.  This time, I made a conscious effort to hide the bags under my eyes behind glasses, hair down, a dress, and heels.  And all day I heard variations of "you look pretty today."  You can judge for yourself whether that really meant "thank you for showing me your boobs," but I'll take it!  (btw, I had a cardigan on at work)

Though I still feel generally off and it's likely I'll be asleep long before 8:00 tonight, I left today with a solid self-confidence boost I desperately needed. My original plan for tonight was to bake chicken thighs and make mashed potatoes for my next few meals, but I didn't want to commit to that much manual labor.  Instead, I stopped for a sub - half for dinner, half for tomorrow's lunch - and will try that whole cooking thing again tomorrow night.

For now, I'm just hoping I've evicted my brain tenant enough to sleep for a really long time tonight.  And perhaps I'll try this dress-up thing again tomorrow.

Paranoia Justified

Preface: This story starts with a simple Christmas gift: a thermal cup for work that's got a built-in straw. The cup is important because it's established Jamie Fact that when I have a cup with a straw I drink more. Lots more.

At 11:30 this morning, I was on my third work pee of the day. I had washed my hands and was reaching for the paper towel dispenser when I noticed a small roach-ish (oval-shaped brown crunchy body, about 1" long) bug on the top edge of the trash can below. So I went to the far end of the bathroom and used the other towel dispenser and left the bathroom.

I called Scott and whined that I wasn't going to be able to pee for the rest of the day because of the bug. Of course, with all that free-flowing water, there was no way I'd make it another 5 hours without a pit stop or six.

On my fourth pee of the day, I was sitting on the toilet when I realized I hadn't done a full inspection of the stall first. Instantly, I started imagining the tickle of bug feet on my butt and thighs.

On pee #5, I abandoned my regular stall (too close to the last known location of the intruder), but still lifted up the seat and peeked around a little to make sure I was alone before closing the door. I felt silly, but I figured better safe than sorry.

On pee #6 (yes six!), I returned to my regular stall. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper, wiped the seat, and used the same wad to lift up the seat. And there it was. The roach. Under the very seat where I imagined it hiding all along. I tossed the TP into the toilet and went 3 stalls away. And then I went back to my office chanting, "heebie jeebie, heebie jeebie, HEEBIE JEEBIE!!!"

I hope it's gone completely by tomorrow. I love my new cup, and would hate to have to abandon it just because I have to go to another building just to use the bathroom!

The Birds and the WHAT?

Did you know that little blue herons have red necks? It's true...check it out! And if you don't believe my identification, here's my proof.

And here's another bird picture. The snake birds love when the fountain gets out of sync with local time!

Oh, and don't you just love it when you find photos on your camera that you don't remember taking? Nope...no drunk photos here! Apparently Scott is documenting the way I'm most likely to die...and reminding me to wear shoes in the garage!

Unpleasant, party of two, your table full of poison is waiting.

I just asked Scott if he killed the spiders after he took the pictures and he said no, "I was waiting for you to see them." And he claims they aren't scary. I think he's full of crap!

Death and Dismemberment

It's open hunting season here at Casa ParkHopper. As you can see, one of my little hunters is less into the swift and painless death than the Princess Bride "Pit of Despair" version.



Wait, no, that's the wrong Princess Bride reference:

Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death.
Westley: No. To the pain.
Prince Humperdinck: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
Westley: I'll explain and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.
Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.

That just about sums it up. I've got a dismembered cricket - yes cricket, and don't anyone dare try to tell me otherwise - under my dining room table and I'm too grossed out to touch it. If only my little hunters killed for food instead of sport...

Pop Quiz

Which is a worse answer to the question, "guess what I just killed in the garage?"

a) a small child who was hiding under my car. I need you to come home and help hide the body.

or

b) a black widow spider.

Of course "a" is the worse situation. So hey - on the bright side, Scott just found a black widow spider IN MY HOUSE. Nothing bad about that, right? I'm not nearly as freaked out as that last sentence would lead you to believe. The first thing I said was, "ooh...did you get a picture?" Of course, Scott and I are wired differently. Bloggers are a different sort. Those of you who have been around long enough to remember the tree-frog-in-the-garbage-can incident can attest to that!

We went out last night, and when we came home, he pointed into the corner and said "that's what's left." And of course, I immediately look at the dead black spider and questioned him on why he said it was on the bottom of his shoe. "That was her mate." He was already dead. So...looks like he caught the spider before our garage became a set from Arachnophobia II: Jamie Never Comes Home Again.

*shudder*

Cricket!

A tale of why it'll be a cold day in Hades before I order from a certain retailer's website again

I ordered 3 clearance items from a certain online department store who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are JCP. The package was shipped by UPS and arrived on Thursday. Since I work on Thursday, the package was conveniently delivered to the rental office.

I picked up my package yesterday on my way to work. The nice lady in the rental office (as opposed to Fatty McBigHair, whom I usually deal with) checked my photo ID and went into their storage room, returning with a large box that had been really beaten up. She said to me, "this is a squeaky package!"

She went on to tell me that the UPS guy mentioned that the box was squeaking in his truck and thinks "it's alive." It sat in their office all day, chirp-chirping away, until she finally went in to investigate. Since the box was already beaten up, she opened the flap a tiny bit and a cricket popped right out of the box! "And then I think it went back in. But we haven't heard it all today, so it's probably dead."

Well, you know me: "I don't want that in my car!!!" So she was very nice and opened the box for me, pulled out my three articles of clothing, which, as warehouse purchases are usually, were wrapped in plastic and had no cricket cooties inside them. There, in the bottom of the box, were not one or two, but three dead crickets! OK, two dead crickets and one that was belly-up, legs curled, but still wiggling its antennae. She even dumped the crickets outside and disposed of the box for me.

Eventually I'm going to get around to calling JCP's customer service to tell them that they sent me live bugs. I doubt they'll care. If they do care, I may shop there again, because I really like the stuff that I bought. But I'm doubtful. Besides, I just keep thinking about what would have happened if we had been home and those nasty hopping, squeaking roaches got loose in my apartment... or if the rental office hadn't warned me and I had gotten them in my car.

**shudder**

I need to send a thank-you note to that girl in the office!

Incredible Stories

Yesterday, a horrible thing happened here in Central Florida. The skies darkened, and a horrific image appeared.

Giant bugs the size of cars descended from above and overtook our apartment complex. They tried to enslave me, but I got away. I fled toward the one place I thought would be safe... the "Happiest Place on Earth."

But it was too late. The giant prehistoric insect monsters were landing there, too. In just a few short hours, all human life here in Central Florida was exterminated.

* * * * * * * * * *

So what is more frightening? The fictional story above, or the fact that this nasty prehistoric insect was on my windshield for more than 10 miles - some at highway speeds.

I'm glad the bug's sticky foot pads didn't last much longer. I was starting to panic about having to get out of my car at work, knowing that the bug would be traumatized and possibly angry!

What a nightmare!

Wasp Mafia

A few days back, Scott took on the ultimate opponent: a nest of wasps that had set up shop in the top corner of our stairwell. He used the super long-range insta-kill bug spray, and knocked out the whole family (well, what was there at the time). And yes, he did wash his hands. I made sure of it!

Thanks to the stellar efforts of our local maintenance and pest control staff, there is still a scattering of dead wasps (hornets? killer bees? your guess is as good as mine!) on the stairwell. No biggie - unlike dead roaches, dead wasps don't skeeve me out the same way.

Correction: didn't skeeve me out.

This morning, when I left for work, there was a dead wasp on the roof of my car. It was obviously not road kill - the position was off, and the body was pristine. The wasp either died on top of my car while my car was parked, or was placed there after it died. Instantly, my mind went to that scene in whichever Godfather movie that had the horse head in the guy's bed.

Are the wasps sending us a message? "Stop killing us, or we'll kill you?"

That's it - it's time to move!

Dead Roach Walking

WHY do they do that?? I empty 3/4 of a can of bug spray in its general direction, it falls from 8 feet up the wall with a satisfying splat into the bathtub below, and then when Scott gets home, it has disappeared.

Why won't someone invent a bug spray that paralyzes roaches until the poison does its job? Then there would be no post-mortem leg twitching AND they would certainly hold the hell still and wait patiently for disposal!

And now, a special feature:

Jamie's eye safety tip of the day: Wash your hands immediately after handling the industrial-size aerosol death-in-a-can. Also, don't stay in the bathroom to do your normal nighttime routine after spraying death-in-a-can. I'm not sure which, but I'm pretty sure one or both of these errors in judgement lead to me waking up this morning with my eyes practically welded shut with green goo. On the bright side, having red eyes really makes the blue stand out!

Flower & Garden

It's that time of year, when I take off to Epcot armed with my camera and take a ton of pictures during the Flower & Garden Festival. I'm quite excited about some of the pictures I took - mostly of the new topiaries this year, but of course with some butterflies and orange flowers thrown in!

Learned Yesterday:

The sticky pads on a wasp's feet will adhere to windshield glass at speeds above 60 mph.

...but they will fail the moment I reach for my camera phone.

Taking Down the Terrorist*

* Terrorist in this case is defined as anything that terrifies me

Last Monday night, Cat came over to drink crappy wine. Oh - did I say crappy? I meant Crapple (which for some reason isn't listed on the website for the "winery" that makes it). We watched Saved! (oh how I love that movie) and caught up on old gossip topics.

While Cat was here, I visited the bathroom and was about to leave when I discovered the world's largest roach (actual length: somewhere between 1 inch and 3 feet) chilling out on the wall right next to the door frame, waiting to fly at me as I exited. I was trapped! So I did what any clear-thinking person would do: I grabbed my can of spray deodorant, stood up on the edge of the bathtub, and grabbed the mop that lives in the bathroom. Well, after I sprayed the terrorist, he started to run towards the corner. That's when I started in with the mop. I jousted with the terrorist until he fell off the wall and into a canvas bag. Then I banged on the bag a few more times, despite losing visual contact with the target. I knew that I had hit it with the deodorant, and at least made contact with the mop, so even if it wasn't dead I was pretty sure it was fatally wounded.

The roach never reappeared that night. Scott looked for it when he got home from work (a 16 hour shift, mind you) and didn't find it. For the last few days, the giant industrial size can of RAID has lived on my nightstand, just in case I got attacked in the night.

Fast-forward to last night. I got home from work and headed straight to the bathroom (as is my custom - I loathe employee bathrooms). After peeing and changing into my pajamas, I was standing in front of the sink brushing my hair when I spotted something behind me. Now, since I've been seeing phantom roaches in every shadow ever since Monday, I didn't immediately panic. I turned around and there he was - my nemesis - at the top of the wall in the corner of the shower - the opposite corner from where I had last seen him. And then I panicked.

The plan came to me almost immediately. I closed the shower curtain, ran to the bedroom to get the RAID ("why oh why did I ever take it out of the bathroom???") and ran back to the bathroom. I sprayed the RAID up into the corner for a good 15-30 seconds until the roach started twitching and fell from the wall. He landed on the top shelf of the corner unit in our bathtub and I could hear buzzing and twitching as he bounced around between Scott's bottles of face wash. And then I closed the bathroom door and waited for Scott to get home.

And this time, the damn roach stayed where I left him. He had wedged himself between the shelf and the wall, and was still twitching when Scott flushed him down the toilet (apparently it flipped off Scott and yelled something along the lines of "I'll be back..." as it was swirling towards the sewage treatment plant). Then I felt bad because Scott had to wash the RAID off of all of his various containers. But at least I warned him that he would need to do it.

I still did a full bathroom inspection this morning before I got in the shower. It seemed the sensible thing to do. And I probably will continue to do so for the next few days. Because that's how you stop terrorists: vigilance and 1/2 can of RAID.

Of Windshields and Bugs

The Obligatory May Love Bug Post

Yes, it is May, the first - and lesser - of two months of love bugs here in Florida. These things fascinate me like almost nothing else on Earth. They appear like clockwork on the first of May and disappear on June 1 (yes, there are stragglers, hush!) and then reappear for an encore in September.

This morning I had occasion to laugh out loud at the poor schmuck in front of me on my way to work. We were stopped at a portion of the road restricted to one-lane traffic (darn road construction) and he had his windows down. All of a sudden, I saw him swatting in a dozen directions at once, trying to shoo the love bugs back out the windows on both sides of the car. I didn't feel too bad for him, since the hard hat and illegal U-turn made it obvious he was working at the construction site and therefore wouldn't be in the car for too long.

During this stop, I had a pair of "loving" bugs land on my windshield. And it took a good 2 or 3 miles at 55 mph before they finally departed. It was so impressive to me I was having trouble splitting my focus between the bugs and the road. Really! The female was anchored on the glass, but the poor male was flapping in the wind like a kite with a tiny penis for a string.

And then I had a similar experience on my way home tonight. As I was getting into my car, I noticed some Jurassic-looking roach ancestor on my windshield almost exactly where the love bugs had been. I wanted to just turn on my windshield wipers, but didn't want to smear guts all over the place, so I decided to just let it ride (ha! let it ride!). This mega bug lasted much longer than I had hoped, and was actually able to walk a few steps to stop its antennae (you know, the ones the same length as its body) from flapping around. THAT creeped me out! Finally, it disengaged from the glass, and I heard a distinctive crunch as it made contact with some other part of my car. Yes. I heard it crunch. While driving. With the CD player on. I told you it was a mega bug!

Anyway, back to love bugs. According to that Wikipedia article I linked to up top, they are not the result of a UF science experiment gone wrong. Huh. You learn something new every day!

After School Special?

I only hope they are showing this to the little spiders in classrooms at an early enough age!




(thanks, Scott, for the link)

Bite Me

...on second thought, please don't!

I have five giant mosquito bites. On my butt. I was outside for less than 10 minutes, and will probably be scratching for a week. Why was I outside? Well, that was supposed to be the subject of this blog before the bites consumed my conscious thought. Let's start again, shall we?

Don't Say I Never Give You Anything

I got some table scraps tonight. Well, I got a plate of food that for some reason wasn't going out into the restaurant. (God Bless my favorite Sous Chef!!) And I, good wife that I am, remembered that I had promised Mr. ParkHopper half of the next thing they fed me. So I called him and asked if he wanted me to save him half of a tempura crab stuffed squash blossom with violette moustarde. Of course, he said yes.

Not only did he say yes, but he said he'd come over and get it. This was probably a better idea than mine - stick it in the fridge until he got home from work. Since my shift ended 15 minutes later, we decided to just meet up by my parking lot.

...and then he got involved in actual work and was 10 minutes later than I was (this would be the point that my @$$ turned into the All You Can Eat Flesh Buffet). When he arrived, he performed some sort of weird culinary ritual with his three-bite-size morsel:

He smelled it in the little plastic container I had put it in. Then he picked it up and studied it. Then he smelled it in his hand. Then he took a bite and closed his eyes while he chewed. I've never seen him chew more slowly! When I tried to ask him how it was, he shushed me. He actually shushed me! Pah! And when it was all over, he actually lip-smacked. I can't recall the last time I saw him savor food more.

I guess that makes it official - he should have my job. Actually, he couldn't handle my job. It involves being nice to people. He doesn't do nice. But he would certainly enjoy the little perks of my job even more than I do.

As for the squash blossom, it was good. I really think I'm just not a huge fan of shellfish. To me, crab (minced, as in crab cakes) looks and tastes a lot like canned tuna. Don't get me wrong, I like tuna. But it's more of a lunchtime staple than a culinary delight. I guess this once again proves that I'm just not a food snob.

"Will This Make Me Gay?"

Scott and I went out yesterday for pedicures (and a manicure for me). He asked, "does this make me gay?" I told him no.

...of course, the DVD of all of Whitney Houston's music videos playing in the nail salon might.

I still can't get a good read on the whole Scott-gets-his-feet-rubbed thing. I think he liked it. But he wasn't gushing about the experience either. I can't imagine anyone being neutral about a pedicure. Seems like a "love it or hate it" thing to me.

By the way, the title of this picture is "Four Happy Feet on the Man Chair."

You can't really see the color of my toe nails very well in the pic, but my fingernails are the same color. It's totally illegal for work, but I work for two men. I bet I could wear pajama bottoms to work (perhaps not the ones I'm wearing in the picture... they're a little extreme) and they wouldn't say anything. Anyway, it's darker than I generally wear on my fingers, and has a little bit of sparkle to it (like car paint. in fact, I was just thinking I'd love to paint my car this color!). I also got my nails trimmed short, to make the broken one less noticeable.

So that's the story of our "girls day out" or "Scott and Jamie's day of beauty." Which sounds less gay?

On a completely unrelated note, I had a roach dive-bomb my face while I was laying in bed the other night. My immediate response was to jump up, slapping the shit out of my own head, landing on Scott, and then wondering why he wasn't getting up to kill the thing (I had him pinned). We had to trade sides of the bed because I was so freaked out that it had escaped. And then five minutes later, it was crawling up the wall a few feet away from the side I had moved to. But Scott killed it (without a shoe) and I was able to sleep a creepy-crawly-less sleep.

Yep, he's my hero.