Photographic Evidence...

SNAKE!

Our neighbor across the street is Dr. Sean Bush from Discovery Channel's shows Venom ER and I Was Bitten. He is an envenomation specialist, and an ER doctor at Loma Linda University. He is also an incredibly nice guy!

Last night was a fundraising gala for Loma Linda and "A day with Dr. Bush" was auctioned off to help raise money for the University. He took this albino Burmese Python named Popcorn with him to the gala. The snake belongs to a friend of his and he is returning it tomorrow. He invited us over to see it before he takes it back. It was awesome! Abbey and Megan kept their distance except for a quick touch. Emily wouldn't even consider touching it. She stood about 5 feet away the whole time.

I told him my snake stories... I think he was impressed! :)

Snake Story #1

First of all, my dad and my Uncle Steve, have always been "snakey, wild animal-ly, outdoorsy" kind of guys. Well, one Easter, (I think I was about 11 or 12) we were at my grandparents' house for Easter dinner. My Uncle Steve had caught a baby rattlesnake and was keeping it in a terrarium. While we were there, he found a California King Snake in the front yard. King snakes are a constrictor, and they can tolerate the venom of rattlesnakes. My uncle thought it would be cool to put the two snakes together to see what would happen.

Well, the two snakes fought. They both would coil up, the rattler would strike. The king snake just kind of waved back and forth. The rattler would strike again. He would hit the king snake repeatedly. We watched as small beads of venom would kind of squeeze back out of the bite site. The king snake just waited patiently for the rattlesnake to get tired. Once he did, the king snake got a hold of a part of him and started squeezing. He just coiled and wrapped himself around the rattlesnake until he was dead. He then proceeded to eat his Easter dinner as we ate ours. YUM!

Snake Story #2

When I was growing up, we lived out in the country. We lived on a many acre avocado farm. One day, our friend Ethan came running down the hill behind our house, yelling for my dad. He was screaming that his dad, Dan, was pinned by a rattlesnake. My dad grabbed a shovel and sprinted back up the hill with Ethan right behind him. A few minutes later, all three of them came back down the hill. My dad was carrying the headless body of an enormous rattlesnake. He had chopped off it's head with his shovel and then buried it. He put it's body in a box. He said something about skinning it and making a "hat band" out if it. (Yes, if you go back a few generations, we are from Arkansas.)

Well, for the next several hours, all of us kids watched that snake's reflexes coil up and strike, headless, at the side of the box.

And my dad did make that snake into a decoration for his hat. On a windy day your heart would stop and then you would realize that the rattlesnake you were hearing was actually dead and sitting on my dad's head.

Don't you wish you had a childhood like mine...

For more snakey fun from my childhood, visit my mom's blog.

Put bubbles in the kiddie pool

I was looking through my pictures today.

I remember this one time when I was about 7 years old. It was summer and we lived at the apartments on Las Lomas. I was next door playing with my neighbor, Lisa, and we decided to go swimming in the kiddie pool. Someone got the idea to pour a big bottle of bubbles into the water and as we played and splashed, the water started sudsing up. We swam around and around and around in circles and the water got more and more and more bubbly until we were up to our necks in bubbles. We were having the best day EVER! I can still remember thinking that "This is the most fun I've ever had."



Now, you can probably guess that I have had other fun since then. But this memory strikes me in a way other fun memories don't. And that's like this...I don't abandon myself to the fun anymore. There is a controlled containment to my fun now. I don't mean a, "I'm a grown woman and I can't act irresponsibly, so hold back on the crazy" kind of containment. I'm talking about a holding back. I don't think I really let myself enjoy certain things because deep down inside I think that it isn't dignified or mature. I think as I've gotten older, even though I am having fun in a given moment, the rest of life and the weight of it keeps my feet a little too soundly on the ground. I can't remember the last time I just threw my head back and let myself thoroughly enjoy the moment, and that makes me a little bit sad. I don't want my girls to hold back on their enjoyment of life, but here I am...their primary example.

So, I think I'm going to try and take a few notes from that girl in the picture. Don't take life so seriously. Lighten up, Shan...enjoy the moment. Be a seven year old girl once in a while and put bubbles in the kiddie pool. You just might have "the most fun you've ever had!"