Today was an interesting day. It started out with a simple goal — house cleaning. Joel was working on repairing the car under a neighbor’s covered car port down at the bottom of the hill, so I used the peace and quiet to start with my new found favorite task — window washing. I was scrubbing away in the living room when I heard the patter of little footsteps. A bird had (once again) flown into the house. Again, this is about as far from Cinderella as it gets. The birds don’t flit about, helping me sew and clean. They poop on everything, everywhere they land. I forgot how hard it is for one person to get a bird out of the house! I chased him into the kitchen where he left little bird poops on my counters, landed on my drying silverware, leaving more “reminders,” and flew into my newly washed windows over and over again.
I ran around to the outside of the house, going from window to window, tapping and making fingerprints on my clean glass to scare him towards the door. Finally, after the flutter of many feathers, that little incident ended.
That being over, I went into our bedroom and decided to reorganize my side of the closet (Joel’s side, of course, is always organized and folded like a Gap store). I reached for the first item to fold and a slimy head popped up — another lizard in my clothes! It was particularly shiny and slithery so I decided to look it up in my Central American Wildlife Guide to make sure it wasn’t venomous first. Examining the stripes and spot patterns, I realized how funny it was to be looking at a guide book for creatures found inside my house. I decided he wasn’t dangerous (I “decided” because I couldn’t exactly find him in the guide), so I mustered up all the courage I have for capturing reptiles (none), grabbed a clear plastic shoe box, ….. and called my husband. He assured me that, while he appreciated me calling him to tell him about the trivial matters of my morning while he was under the car working on time-sensitive repairs, his work with the car was probably more important than him coming home to find a little lizard that would most likely be gone by the time he got here, gave me a short pep talk that I could do it myself, told me to call him when I caught it and said he would now be hanging up the phone (in the nicest possible way).
I again mustered up my flimsy courage for capturing reptiles and gave it another attempt. After a few tries, I actually got him cornered in the box, held it tight enough for the 2.5 seconds it took to run outside and threw the whole thing onto the rocks.
The rush of adrenaline was making me lightheaded and nauseous so I called Joel to let him know of the captive before I passed out.
Finally, after Joel came home, I was back outside, washing windows again (I’m kind of a scattered cleaner), and noticed a giant (6 inch) spider on the roof. It was truly disgusting and something that most definitely would be in the “venomous” section of my guide book. Joel (again the hero) informed me he had known about this particular spider’s location for the last month, asked what exactly I expected him to do about it that didn’t involve a ladder. I assured him it most definitely would involve a ladder. We were stuck at that point, arguing about whether it was necessary to kill the venomous trespasser who would most certainly climb under the eaves and enter our room to inject poison into us in the night while we’re peacefully sleeping (my version), when, out of nowhere, a large bird swooped down onto the roof, plucked up the offending 8-legged creeper, and darted away. It was incredible! There’s a certain song we sing when things like this happen to one of us, “Who is on the Lord’s side….” (I’m pretty sure it was me this time!) I call this, “The day God killed a spider for me.” Awesome.
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