Causing cardiac arrest in caterpillars

I don't do it on purpose.  It's just that in my capacity as impulsive animal saviour, I may, on the rare occasion, leave them with PTSD. 

There you are, a woolly bear caterpillar or a fat earth worm, trying to make your way across the asphalt bike path, when you suddenly find yourself rolled, pushed, nay verily, road-rashed to safety.

It's fall and it rains a lot. There are wee furry caterpillars and earth worms all over the freaking place. Were my finger nails long, I could use them as pincers to grasp the fur of the woolly bear caterpillar (or the full width of the earth worm) and lift it into my hand.  However, my finger nails are not long, which is why I generally make several failed attempts in my catch and release manoeuvre.   I end up having to roll them around a bit before I can gain purchase upon their carcasses and then I walk them over to the grass and set them back a good 4 feet from the bike path.  I worry that after I release the wee furry/slimy little bastards their compatriots have to rush over with wee defibrillators to stave off the cardiac arrest I've set them headlong into.

"I was just out for my Tuesday stroll... heading to the Country Style for coffee and a bagel...  From out of nowhere, a great, hulking shadow appeared above me.   I was squeezed and lifted a good centimeter off the ground before I was dropped - 4 times.  Then I'm rolled like some cheap carpet, over and over again before I find myself in its hideous grasp - travelling at MACH 10 to the grass."

Oh God.  I'm probably seeing the same caterpillar over and over.  A poor woolly bear caterpillar that struggles to make its way back onto the path after I've moved it.  It's probably trying to cross the freaking road.  And there I am, every morning, forcing it to re-enact its very own version of Groundhog Day.  I'm a monster!!

I just have to streamline my rescue process.  I could spray the animal with some sort of topical anasthetic - you know, to sedate it.  If I laminate some small pieces of very thin cardstock - I could use those as rescue boards for the transport, getting them underneath the body so that they don't have to be rolled so much.  I could play Holsts's Neptune the Mystic, not the ominous beginning part, but later, like 6 minutes in when the angelic chorus starts... I could shroud myself in an ethereal cloak - so that the beast believes it's having a religious encounter.  Then, and only then, may I transport it safely across the road...  To a caterpillar playground/spa...   I may have to leave the house earlier in the mornings. 

Craving cutlery

I missed being the small spoon.  If I didn't really throw my arm over David's side, I could almost manage the big spoon. But small spoon?  Months had passed since I'd been able to lie on my right side and claim that privilege.

Heavy sighs.  Discomfort.  Near tears... a new nighttime ritual.

"What is it love?" asked David.

"I can't be the small spoon." I whispered.  Another protracted sigh.  Pain, less manageable at night, turned me into a whiny adolescent.  I hate being a whiny adolescent.

"Let's change sides," David said.

I drew in an epiphanic breath of air. Change sides?  WE COULD CHANGE SIDES?!?  "Quick!  Quick!  Help me up!"

"No, you just scootch over.  I'll run around."  And then he did, circling the mattress, as I used my good arm to drag myself across the sheets to his side of the bed.

The blankets lifted for a moment as David settled himself back into the bed.  He then pulled me into the curve of his body, the warmth of his chest upon my back, his right arm looping around my waist, one hand routinely cupping a breast, sending me headlong into Nirvana.

"Oh my God.  So good.  This is soooooooo good."

He murmured assent into the back of my neck.  His breath, on the back of my neck?  I thought I might expire from joy.

"This is better than sex."

He squeezed me closer.  "Yeah."

I snuggled back against him, attempting to glue our bodies together.  "I can't believe we didn't think of this before now."

"Your ask is my demand, my love."

Try to get this one past your filters...

SPOILER ALERT!

The soft porn had been unexpected.  From what I knew of the books, I'd gleaned that there'd be kilts, horses, time travel, romance to be sure - but the soft porn?  A delightful bonus.

The opening allusion to sex in the  first episode of Outlander - was just that - allusory.  Squeaky bedsprings groaning - first from carefree, laughter-filled bouncing, and then from actual unseen lovemaking.  The scene was charming and let you do your own imaginative heavy petting.

Later on,  David and I sat up a little straighter as oral sex filled our screen.  We exchanged glances.

"I didn't know we got this along with the good acting," said David.  He shot me a grin and waggled his eyebrows.  I waggled mine back.  Not only was there oral sex on the tv, but it was man-on-his-knees-in-front-of-his-loving-wife oral sex - some might say the best kind.

"Who produces this?"

"starz."

"...You're making that up."

"No seriously.  There, up in the corner, starz."

"For a company like that, I feel that instead of the well-scored sountrack we are hearing, it should be of the "bown-wown-chicka-wown-wown" variety.

"I'll bown-wown-choica-wown-wown you."

"I will take you at your word sir."

Choking the chihuahua

"Get out of her!"  Firm shake.  Firm shake.  "OUT!  YOU. GET. OUT. OF. HER!!!"

My hands around her throat now - Chi-Chi's eyes bugging out even more.  She's making gagging sounds, but I can still see it's not her.  "GET OUT!  OUT!  OUUUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!!"

"Heather."

"GET OUT!!!"

"Heather..."

"YOU. LEAVE. MY. BABY. RIGHT. NOW!"

David's hand firmly on my shoulder.  "HEATHER."

My eyes pop open.  I've been crying.

"My chihuahua was possessed."

David pats me consolingly.  "It's okay love, I'm sure she's alright now."

"She was possessed."

"I know."

I'm still hyperventilating a bit, wiping away tears  "She was... She was...  I had to... (beat)  We don't have a chihuahua do we?"

"No love."

"Oh thank Christ..."

Good thing she's cute.

Butt.  Butt.  BUUUUUUTT.

She is the smallest of our cats, but she packs a punch when she's headbutting you first thing in the morning.  Her small feline cranium careens into my temple, followed by little cat teeth attempting to groom me.  Then this:

"Puh!  Puh!  Puh!  Gaaaaaaaag!"  as she realizes that shoulder-length human hair is much more difficult to clean than cat hair.

"Lola!  Dude."  My arm pushes her off my head.  I crack an eye open to look at the clock.  I can still sleep for another 5 minutes.

Butt.  Butt.  BUUUUUUTT.  Her lower cat teeth now failing to comb through the back of my skull.  "Puh!  Puh!  Puh!  Gaaaaaaaag!"

"Seriously, cat."  My hand pushes her off the bed.  Almost before she's hit the ground, she is back up on the bed, headbutting me with added ferocity.

BUTT.  BUTT.  BUUUUUUUUUUUUUTT.

"You are killing me cat."  I open my eyes and she's at my face, all sweetness and light, before headbutting into my forehead.  She then rolls on her back, displaying the tummy she's licked bald.  Oh, look at me, I'm too cute to strangle...

Sleep has abandoned me, I might as well enjoy the bath.

"Give it your best shot, cat."

Butt.  Butt.  BUUUUUUTT.  "Puh!  Puh!  Gaaaaaaaag!"  Butt.  Butt.  BUUUUUUTT.  "Puh!  Puh!  Gaaaaaaaag!"

We made her!

Rissa's clear, perfectly pitched (to our ears) soprano drifts down the stairs.  She is in the shower, as she is every night after her dance classes.  For the grace that she exhibits as a dancer, this child, after 3 hours of sweating, smells like a dead goat.  David and I are both working on our laptops on the sofa at the bottom of the stairs.   Rissa belts out a rendition of Lean On Me from above us.  David and I look at each other with parental pride. 

In the next instant, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer joins the playlist.  Rissa sings at the top of her lungs - putting a jazzy twist on the holiday classic.

"We made her..." I whisper, afraid that if she hears me, she'll stop singing.

"We did," David agrees.

How can an egg and sperm make something so remarkable, I think.

From Rudolph, she moves onto Chrisine Lavin's Doris and Edwin: the Movie, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mis, Blues Traveller's Hook, It's a Hard Knock Life from Annie and then a reprise of Lean On Me to finish the set.

She's in the shower for 20 minutes.

"There's no way I'll have enough hot water for a bath."

"You might have to wait another 45 minutes for the tank to fill."

"I'm okay with that."

Things you should NEVER say to new mothers...

People say the stupidest crap to new moms.  One of my close friends just welcomed her first baby to the world and people have been saying truly moronic, unfeeling, make-a-new-mother-doubt-herself, crap to her.

To these morons I say: Yes, you have had a baby yourself.    THIS baby, however, is not YOUR baby.  THIS baby is different from your possibly decades-long remembrance of the baby you had.  THIS baby, when it (insert action here), might not want whatever the hell you think it wants. You just met THIS baby.  You don't know THIS baby.  THIS baby is an entity unto itself.

If THIS baby is using a soother, do not say, "Oh, you've chosen to use a soother?" in the most condescending tone possible.  Yes, the new mother has chosen to use the soother - that's why the baby is sucking on it.  The appropriate answer to this rhetorical piece of tsk-tsk, judgemental crap should be:  "Oh, we haven't chosen the soother, the baby chose it.  We left random items in the crib, you know, soother, teddy bear, switch blade, nun chucks - he decided to go with the soother.  We're a little bummed."

If the new mother has decided not to breastfeed, 1) it's none of your frickin' business, and B) DON'T say, "Have you tried..." and then list things.  She has.  She has tried.  She knows that breast milk is best.  She knows about the antibodies.  She KNOWS.  The next time this comes out of someone's mouth - make up the worst possible thing you can think of.  Coat your breasts with jam, lift your shirt and bra and say, "My mastitis was worse than most..."

"That baby is too young to be out visiting people!"  

"What's the alternative - shoving him back in, until he's cooked more?"

"Are you tired?"  

"Yes, yes, but not because of the baby.  It's all this spare time I've found I now have. I actually have more spare time than before the baby! I have learned to knit, paint watercolours and speak Italian - and that's just this week!  Next week, we'll be doing some tandem hang-gliding..."

"You have to get that baby on a schedule!" 

"As soon as I figure out how and when this time-sucking remora eats, sleeps and craps, you'll be the first to know."

"Oh s/he's not (insert verb here) yet?"  

"Yes, s/he is smiling/laughing/teething/crawling/walking/running/reading/writing/reciting the periodic table - (sad smile and wince). I don't think s/he is comfortable enough around you to share her/his talents."

"When's baby #2 coming?"  

"That depends.  How long did it take you after recuperating from the episiotomy, hemorrhoids, post-partum, self-doubt, lack of sexual interest/lubrication to get back up on the horse?"

Oh, and when the new mom phase has shifted to toddler mom...  If a toddler mom looks like she might possibly be pregnant?  Never ask,"When are you due?"  Ever.  In fact, don't say that phrase to any woman -  even if she looks like she has three basketballs inside her.  Don't say it.

When first hearing this phrase, an exhausted, overwhelmed, teetering-on-the-edge of sanity toddler mom will probably internalize it, dying just that little bit more inside.  The second, third or fourth time she hears it?  She could lose her shit, I know I did, with varying degrees of meaness depending on the tone of voice that the stranger (and it always seems to be strangers) used.

"Nope, not pregnant, just fat from the first one."
"Nope, not pregnant, stomach cancer."
"No... (sob)... not pregnant... I lost the baby at 7 months...

Give the new mom a break.  Let her lead the conversation - remember what it was like when you were a new mom - remember that.  Be there for her, be a sounding board, check in on her, brush her hair, let her shower, take the baby for a few hours so that she can do whatever she wants...  I know, I know, you've been there, you know it all, your child has turned out perfect.  No, she hasn't reinvented the wheel, but to her, it's still a brand new wheel.