Creepy Crawly Things

Yesterday I helped a friend pack her moving truck for a trek away from Texas. When I got home, I saw what looked like a piece of black plastic sitting next to my walkway. I thought "Ugh. My trashy neighbors are littering again" and went to pick it up.

THEN IT SLITHERED AWAY.

Y'all. I almost picked up a snake.

I, of course, shrieked and jumped away. Then I had a freak out moment (or ten) in which I paced back and forth in front of my house, hopping a little to avoid getting too close to the snake, while I watched it to make sure it didn't sneak into my house. Then I realized I should call for back up. I quickly dialed the boyfriend. As soon as he picked up, I said (screeched) "IHAVEASNAKE!!!" Not "there's a snake near my door," or "I almost touched a snake because I thought it was trash." Just "IHAVEASNAKE!!!" as though I would ever actually possess a snake on purpose. He, fortunately, offered to come over and deal with the creature that almost killed me. I dialed my Dad, continuing my crazy, hopping dance to ensure the snake did not sneak away. Dad convinced me to go inside and retrieve my shovel and my flashlight. So then, I run back outside, carrying the shovel, flashlight, my purse and, with the phone pressed to my ear, narrate everything that the snake is doing. Which, to be honest, is basically sitting there on the ground, under my living room window. Boyfriend finally arrives and takes over the shovel and flashlight.

HOWEVER. He did not kill the snake and mount its head on a pike, which is what I wanted. He just poked around in the bushes and scared it away. NOT OK. What if it sneaks into my house at night?! I'm not trying to find a snake in my kitchen at 6 in the morning. Anyways, I finally have a clear path into my house, sans snake, and I take the dog for a walk. I grab my pepper spray on the way out the door in case the snake makes a return appearance. If so, I will blast him with pepper spray. This, for some reason, makes the boyfriend laugh and say things like, "it's not that big of a snake" and "it was just a little garden snake."

First of all, it was not THAT small. It was at least 2 feet long, maybe even 3 feet. Second, I almost touched it. Third, and probably most important, IT UPSET ME AND CREEPED ME OUT. Based on that alone, it is an incident that should be treated with the utmost seriousness. Having been properly chastised, H (my bf) makes amends and we continue the walk.

He doesn't make even a peep when I peer around the columns in front of my house with the pepper spray before deciding it's safe to enter.

Warnings

I like to keep up with the current weather conditions, mostly because I need to know what outfit will be appropriate and if I will need galoshes. However, there are times when weather is totally unpredictable. Ok, basically all the time but whatever. Back home, we had handy devices for such emergencies. They are called tornado sirens. A tornado siren will go off when a funnel cloud has been spotted in the area and you will know to take cover. My hometown is also semi-close to a nuclear plant so we have nuclear meltdown sirens (or something more professional sounding) as well.
Here, where there are more tornadoes than in my hometown, there are NO tornado sirens. They have lightening sirens. Seriously? Lightening is pretty obvious. It's a bright flash of light. Comes with thunder pretty often. Tornadoes are a little more sneaky. Or maybe they just seem sneaky to a person who is used to tracking the slow and obvious progress of hurricanes.
Last night, there was lots of lightening (no, I didn't hear any sirens) and wind and crazy weather. There's crazy weather all over the country. I was trying to go to sleep last night and I kept feeling like someone was creepily taking my picture through my bedroom window. Then I'd get nervous that there would be a tornado happening and I WOULD NEVER KNOW because there are NO TORNADO SIRENS HERE. You need emergency weather warning things for when people are not expecting dangerous weather, for example WHEN THEY ARE ASLEEP. Most people sleep indoors so the lightening is not going to effect them that much. You know what could seriously effect you? HAVING HALF OF YOUR HOUSE DESTROYED AND BEING SUCKED UP BY A FUNNEL CLOUD. That could really ruin your whole day. If not kill you.
But here, they're unconcerned. No sirens to wake me up and warn me to take the dog and run to the bathroom (where I will have to cover myself with a thick blanket because I have glass shower doors and that's the only completely interior room of my house) to cower in fear of my life. Not for the first time am I noticing Texas' Survival of the Fittest trend. It's dangerous here. And they won't warn you.

To Rain or Not To Rain...

I can never tell when it's going to rain here. Back on the East Coast, I could. It's really pretty standard. It gets cloudy, a little windy, a little (or a lot) cooler and it rains. There's a clear relationship between the previous weather and the weather in a few hours. Now, sometimes we'll have the whole raining-while-sunny thing or some heat lightening that can throw people off, but once you realize see it a few times, you can find that pattern too.

Here, not so much.

It rained this weekend for about an hour. This is after two days of cloudy, windy weather. After an hour of lightening and thunder. Crazy lightening too. And really long, loud thunder. It sounded like we were being bombed. I, however, still went to see Something Borrowed and it was totally worth it. I'm glad it's been a while since I read the book because I hear it's pretty different. But I digress. It rained while we were in the theater. It was still lightening and thundering (is that a word? Whatevs. I'm going with it.) when we got out, but just barely misting. It continued to be alternately very bright, like aliens were taking pictures of us, and very loud, like people were firing cannons (and this is not an unfamiliar sound for me, surprisingly enough). It made sleeping difficult, particularly since there was no sound of rain on the roof to dampen the thunderous noises. It was weird.

Despite the small amount of rain, it's still pretty humid, around 60% humidity. It may get worse as the summer progresses but the humidity of the other places I've lived (Charleston, SC anyone? Parts of it are below sea level. It gets really humid there. And then it smells like low tide. Ew.), tops it. The heat though, is different. When I was in Athens, GA for my sister's second graduation (Sarah, M. P. A.), when the sun went down, I felt downright chilly. Fortunately, I'm rarely without a cardigan and then all was right with the world. My mom was not so lucky and had to cover up with a Justice League snuggie.

Or maybe she was way more lucky. It's up to interpretation, I suppose.

Landscaping, Part Deux

I got to go home for a brief time last week. And by brief I mean I was in my hometown of York, SC approximately 34 hours, even though I was on "vacation" from Wednesday-Sunday. The rest of the time I was driving back and forth between Atlanta and Athens, helping my sister move stuff, seeing her graduate and assorted other things that kept me from relaxing on the couch at home. According to Google Maps, I traveled about 775 miles and spent about 12 hours in a vehicle. Obvii, I spent A LOT of time on the road, enabling me to take in the gorgeous green scenery on the South Carolina and Georgia roadways (until you get close to Atlanta and then you just see cars, buildings and more roadways). And man alive, were they green. Unlike in my part of Texas, SC and GA have been getting plenty of rain. However, College Station did recieve its first measurable rainfall since January while I was gone. Whoop!

My area of the south has a lot of trees and that certainly helps the green-ness of the landscape but do you know what else does? Kudzu. For those of you who don't know, kudzu is a crazy vine that was originally introduced from Japan a long time ago to shade Southern porches. Yes. It's THAT important. It was also used to stop soil erosion. It worked. Of course, it also spread everywhere else and has more lives than a cat, but it's green. And kind of pretty. I realized I missed it during my long drive a last weekend to that wedding. It just looks so bare on the side of the road.

Other things that look different on the east side of the country? Hills. They have them there. Lots of them. I moved furniture and boxes and stuff up and down those hills. Where I spent the weekend, they're pretty mild hills but there are some mountains around there. I would not want to move up, down, over or around a mountain. Hills are annoying. There aren't that many that I've seen here. I hear tell there are some though. I'll have to continue my exploration of Texas in order to confirm this. I suppose I could Google it, though, but where's the fun in that?

Landscaping

When people in my hometown first heard I was moving to Texas, a few of them asked me, "are there trees in Texas?" Yes, friends, there are trees in Texas. A lot of them are smaller, squattier versions of the ones back home, but some of them are big and provide excellent shade. There are also plants that try to eat your leg off, as I discovered this weekend.

This weekend, I went with the bf and one of his buddies to Brownwood, Texas for a wedding. It was an eventful trip considering the guys sat up front and the dog and I inhabited the tiny bench backseat of the pickup. It got even more eventful when we stopped on the side of the road in Flat, TX (actual town name. I used the GPS on my phone to tell people where we were in case no one ever heard from us again) because the oil pressure was down, the engine temp was up, there was a strange knocking noise coming from the engine and we couldn’t go over 55 mph. Limped to Gatesville (home of a prison and the only Wal-mart I’ve ever seen where the groceries and produce are on the left side), put three quarts of oil in, ate some Subway and booked it to Brownwood to switch cars with his parents, change clothes in a gas station bathroom and hustle to the wedding. We made it just in time.

Brownwood is pretty close to the center of Texas and it was HOT. And DRY. But lovely. The wedding was outside and in the afternoon so there was a lot of sweat happening but once I took off my boots, I was much better. And the groom’s uncles cooked a pig. In the ground. Only one of my favorite things ever. But pork BBQ vs. cow BBQ is another story and there was also chicken, brisket, blackberry cobbler and pink lemonade. I may have also eaten a vegetable. Ah-mazing. After the wedding, instead of staying in Brownwood, the three of us drove to Blackwell, TX to stay with the bf’s parents on the lake. The cool air from the water rocked and it was nice to see his fam again, including his chocolate lab (even though he brought my underwear into the living room twice).

Sunday morning we were up bright and early. Or, the dogs were up bright and early so we got up too. For some unknown reason, I decided to wander around outside, in an unfamiliar environment, with my glasses on. We’re walking around, I’m squinting in the sun, trying to keep my 18 lb. dog from pulling me off my feet whenever she sees a rabbit, which is often. She’s freakishly strong. Browning, the lab, keeps pulling as well and each time he does, the bf makes him heel (stop, go behind him and sit down to wait) so the walk is taking a really long time. I’m wearing flip flops because I love them but the ground out there is really different from most lake environments I know. It’s got a steep incline, it’s really dusty and there are rocks every where. They’re getting in my shoes, I’m rolling around, slipping. It’s beginning to get really annoying so I decide to stop waiting on Browning to heel and take off for the house. The lakes where I’m from have mud. It’s flat-ish and the ground is soft and full of grass. Every where that’s flat has big trees growing for awesome shade. Perfect hammock atmosphere. In Blackwell, there’s just rocks, mesquite “trees” and cacti.

I complete the loop about the same time that bf and Browning catch up to Hope and I and we start to cut across the yard/rocky ground with trees. Bf is pointing out mesquite trees (which are the size of South Carolina bushes) and I’m studiously staring at the ground, avoiding cacti and large, ankle-breaking rocks because I have no peripheral vision in my glasses and without sunglasses, the sun is blinding me. I notice some grass that is bravely poking up through the dry, rocky ground and step through it. The grass promptly reaches out and sticks its needle sharp blades into my calf. This causes me to shriek and jump away from this leg-eating grass. This causes the bf to turn in alarm, while Hope takes advantage of the situation, yanking her leash and making my remaining good leg skid along the rocks. Using my cat-like reflexes, I regain my balance and control of the dog and attempt to look at the gaping wound in my leg.

"Are you ok?" asks my caring bf.

No. I absolutely am not. That seemingly innocent looking grass jumped out and attempted to eat a chunk out of my leg. Now it's burning and stinging and red. And the sun is still in my eyes and I can barely see what's going on because I'm wearing glasses!

"Haven't you ever seen yucca before?"

"NO. I have NOT seen YUCCA before. This GRASS just attacked my leg and you're asking me about YUCCA?!"

"That's what that is. Be careful. It has stickers."

Too little, too late. By now I'm grievously wounded and I can't decide if I want to scratch the places where the yucca got me or put ice on them because it burns. I limp back to the house, avoiding anything that's not a rock, put my contacts in immediately and settle for putting lotion on my legs as it continues to alternately burn and itch for another 20 minutes.

Bottom line: Plants here will try to eat you.

With My Boots On

When I was younger, and taking horseback riding lessons, I had a pair of white cowboy boots that I loved. I wore them tucked into my jeans. That way you could see them better. Then I grew out of them, switched to riding boots (they look like hiking boots but with a larger heel so you don't slide out of the stirrup) and boots became something with a 2-4 inch heel, usually pretty thin. I had brown ones and black ones and tan ones and, horror of horrors, a pair of white pleather, thigh high boots. These were salvaged from a particularly interesting residence hall move out, tags still on, but they've been faithful costume boots for years. I thought I had the boots thing down.

Then I moved here. And you know what? It turns out I don't have boots. I have heeled boots. Or dress boots. Or flat boots. What I call cowboy boots are actually just "boots." And, of course, I bought a pair from the well known Cavender's. I mean, they should be authentic, right?

My white cowboys boots of days gone were pretty flashy. They had some rhinestones and stuff. But they are nothing compared to some of the gems you can see here in Texas.

And those are just the ladies' boots. The men's are also craziness. Take a second an imagine a stylish male friend in some of these:

Cute, huh?

And at about $200 (and sometimes upwards of $800), these fashion (mis)steps are quite an investment. So the next time you pull on boots, think of these. And decide if your boots are making enough of a statement.