Friday, July 03, 2009

ssssssafe

the last rat snake the chief encountered is still lying beside my car at the base of a boulder. it makes me sad to see him there. but the neighbors are decidedly freaked out about snakes. that one was on the porch upstairs, and that meant it got by me on the ground level, and found it's way up there. but it's a rat snake, so i was sad that it got killed.

today after catching the sun for a few moments, maybe fifteen tops (but we take what we can get these days), i folded up my chair and began to walk to my door when another sun catcher, a black rat snake was flicking its tongue at me and moving its head ever so slightly back and forth. i wondered if he was trying to glamour me. i'm too big for him to eat, but he was moving like a cobra would, it was wonderful to see. i am told they bite and it hurts, i should have read those snake books my girl checked out. maybe i'll just look online. but he was coming toward me ever so slightly, and i wanted to discourage his being killed, so i squatted down, my sun chair between us, and a huge harry potter book in my hand.

i breathed on him hoping it would freak him out and make him go away, but he just kept edging toward me, ever so slightly. i thought waving my hand in the sun would create a scary shadow, but that had no effect either.

so i resorted to touching him. i wanted to use my hand, believe me, but i went the safe route and touched his head with the book. the very large book. and he didn't like it one bit. but stayed there, so i touched him again. he was very insistent that there in the last rays of sun, edging toward me, was where he wanted to be. so i kind of pushed him with my book because he had to go some other direction than toward my house. for his own safety.

go away little one,
he was not so big, i imagine, as far as rat snakes go. i guess he was about three feet long. black as coal with a creamy underbelly. his black tongue flicking so gently in the air. it's really something to see. to be there sharing space with such a divine creature.

but i wanted him to live, and if the neighbors caught a glimpse of me talking to this snake, they would have produced any manner of firearm or shovel to decapitate or otherwise blow this creature into the underworld.

when i touched him that last time, he quickly folded back over himself and slid into the bushes, at the base, i watched his tail zig and zag out of sight, i wanted to touch it, but decided not to, i wasn't intending to freak him out, just help him live another day. i'm told they are wonderful for keeping other creatures at bay, and it is one creature i've never had a close enounter with. considering i had just folded up my sun chair, and he was sharing the same sun, it was a nice little moment for us.

but he's gone now. i'm watching the house alone, and it's okay. i needed to be alone this week. and i'm grateful for it.

the lady who was carrying on about the cups wrote a letter to corporate. whatever. so i'll have to talk to the dm about it. fine. she came in today, and while i knew it was her, i didn't treat her any different than any other day. though she may have felt that way. i have no intention of changing who i am for some damn customer.

she left without biting my head off, though she has taken to telling the other baristas what a monster i apparently am. i find this amusing. i've given my share of shit to people. i'll bear the karmic load until this burden has passed. i tried, quite some time back, to stop being a bitch--mostly it was moving to texas where everyone was so goddamn nice, i had to stop being a bitch because no one was being a bitch back to me. but mostly, they had other ways to stick it to you. nice ways. smiling ways.

perhaps that's why i don't trust a smile.

anyway, i digress.

hopefully i'll get some reading done tonight. saw my girl, back from a week at her friend's house. we checked out a bunch of movies, we'll hang this weekend and it will be well. i am looking forward to it. then, next week, i away to boston.

wow, time flies.

much reading yet to do. gotta get to it.
time to hit the books.

No comments: