Snakes in the Basement

From the basement came a blood-curdling scream. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" shrieked my sister, Colleen.

I was upstairs in the kitchen at Dad's old house, and Colleen was in the laundry room sweeping up the lint from under the dryer. We'd found a few mouse droppings in the storage room, but no recent signs of any mice, so I figured that she had finally seen a live one. But the screaming didn't stop, and it sounded more serious than a mouse. Maybe a nest of them, I thought.

"Colleen," I hollered. "What's wrong?"

She replied with the unthinkable..."THERE'S A SNAKE IN THE BASEMENT!" and she bounded up the stairs and into the kitchen.

"What? NO WAY!" I replied. "Where?"

"Under the dryer in the laundry room. I almost put my hand under there!!!" And she had. It was at the last minute that she'd decided to use a broom instead.

I asked how big it was without considering that it really didn't matter. There was a SNAKE...ALIVE...IN THE BASEMENT.

If there is anyone on earth more terrified of snakes than me, it is Colleen. She doesn't even like to go in her backyard for fear of them.

"Holy crap!" I replied. "What are we going to do? I'm not going back down there!"

"But we have to," she said. "We have to get the basement cleaned out. Can you kill it because I can't."

Okay, I thought. I can do this. I HAVE to do this. Kirk is in Frankfort. John is downtown. Kyle is at school. It was Colleen and me versus the snake, and by God, we were going to win.

"I'll try," I replied. "Let me get a weapon out of the garage."

I went into the garage to get the shovel only to be reminded that we had taken all of Dad's tools to his new house yesterday. The only thing with a long handle was a sponge mop and a push broom. I grabbed the mop, and we headed back downstairs.

We tiptoed gingerly to the laundry room, both of us standing in the doorway waiting for the other to go first. Colleen spotted a plastic milk crate.

"I'll get on the milk crate, and you look under the dryer," she said.

Just then, Dad came in the back door, and we hollered up at him, "There's a snake in the basement!" He came down with the push broom and walked into the laundry room.

"It's under the dryer," Colleen said.

She was standing on the milk crate and had started lifting the dryer up when it occurred to me that she was raising the side facing me. If there was a snake still under there, it would slither out in my direction.

"Wait!" I yelled. "Let me get the other milk crate first." So Dad slid the other milk crate over to me, and the two of us, armed with a mop and a broom, lifted up the dryer to see a black snake, about 18 inches long, crawling along the wall behind the dryer.

"There it is!" we yelled. I wondered how we were going to kill it with a mop and a broom, but I figured I would just bash it with the back of the mop head. Then Colleen got the idea to go in the garage and get the tree loppers off the wall. It is about an 8 foot long pole with a curved saw at the top. We figured it would at least be something metal to hit it with.

I stood there on the crate with the mop in my hand watching the snake watch me. It crawled one way down the wall and then the other. It stopped between the wall and a dusty can just as Colleen came down with the loppers. I reached back to get the tool, not taking my eyes off the snake. "How am I going to kill this thing?" I thought. The loppers were too tall and got caught in the rafters. I looked up to untangle them, and when I looked back down, the snake was GONE!

"It's gone!" I yelled.

"WHERE?" said Colleen.

"I don't know!!!" I replied.

I thought maybe it had crawled into the can, so I took the loppers and pushed it around. It was a can of WD-40, so there was no way the snake could have gotten into it. Then I thought maybe there was a crack in the wall and the snake was in there. I took the broom and swept along the floor/wall area. Nothing. We looked under the dryer again. Nope. Under the upright freezer. Not there either.

Mind you, we were standing on milk crates this whole time, lifting up old pie tins and dryer sheets with our broom and mop, with a snake loose in the basement and no way to find it or really kill it once we did.

We looked for that damn thing for an hour and did not find it. We both refused to take any boxes home in our vans today in case it slithered into one of them. That's all we'd need is to be driving 65 miles an hour down the Snyder Freeway and have a snake crawl across the brakes!

Tomorrow we go back, armed this time with a rake and a shovel. I'll let you know how it goes...

Saving Time in a Bottle

In the corner of the garage in crumbling plastic bags sat hundreds of seashells from Sanibel Island. My sisters and I had collected them over the course of two, week-long trips, one in 1973 and the other in 1975.

I remember those trips like they were yesterday. We stayed in a cottage right on the beach. Mom had to bring all the linens, pots and pans, dishes, food, clothes, beach toys, and anything else we might need while we were there. I'm sure it wasn't much of a vacation for her, but for us, it was paradise.

We'd wake up every morning and head to the ocean. Dad liked the Gulf because it was calm, and Sanibel was even gentler than Pensacola or St. Pete. We could wade out for several yards and not be any deeper than our knees. The sandbars were excellent at low tide, and there was a shallow "pool" of ocean that we girls could safely play in pretty much by ourselves.

Our favorite pastime by far, however was to kneel in the water where the waves hit the shore and search for shells. Colleen and I would take our buckets and our sifters and scoop up load after load of shells. I can still see us kneeling there with our backs against the ocean, and our sun-kissed cheeks covered with Coppertone.

"Look, Sharron! I found a cat's eye!" Colleen would cry and drop it in her bucket.

"I found an olive," I'd say, and we'd look harder to try and find the next perfect shell.

We'd collect bags of shells. Back then, nobody really worried about "over-shelling" by tourists. Shells were the calling card for Sanibel. We even got plastic shelling bags from our hotel that we filled up with our treasures to take home and study back in Kentucky and remember and plan for our next trip.

We sorted them after one trip. The turkey wings in one bag. The sailor's ears in another. The conchs in yet a third. The other visit, we just dumped them all into a box, and that's where they stayed, on a shelf covered with dust and cobwebs, until today.

Today was the day we were cleaning out the garage. The dumpster had been delivered, and it was time to let them go. I pulled the box of shells out to the patio for one last look. I had called Colleen and Jennifer, and neither one of them wanted any shells for a keepsake. I wasn't so sure. I wanted to see them again. To study them. To remember.

I put a blanket down on the patio and reached for the old Sanibel Island bags. They were crumbling plastic by now after over 30 years in the heat and cold of the garage. Some sand dusted out onto my leg, and I brushed it off, remembering days at the beach when it would get stuck to my skin and scratch when Dad rubbed the suntan lotion on my legs and shoulders. I picked up the biggest conch that we'd ever found. It was always in my mind to pour hot wax into it and make a candle out of it like I'd seen in the gift shops. I saw the tiniest shells down in the bottom of the pile, and I remembered how I loved finding the perfect baby olive or cat's eye.

I started to put a few of these tiny shells off to the side for old times' sake. Then I remembered a small, glass spice bottle that I'd packed up an hour earlier. I got it and began dropping the tiny treasures into it. The whole time, I was picturing two little girls, one tow-headed and sunburnt, one dark haired and tanned, kneeling in the water side by side looking for shells. I found myself singing, "If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do..." I couldn't get past that line. I just kept repeating, "If I could save time in a bottle..." over and over in my head because I felt like that's what I was doing.

One of the bags had some sand in the corner of it, so I dumped it into the bottle and shook it down. I kept placing shells in one by one, and when the bottle was full, I put the cork in it and set it aside. Then I picked up the blanket, carried the rest of the shells over to the dumpster and dropped them in. I picked up my spice bottle full of memories and went back to work.

Playing Dress-Up

This will be my third weekend in a row dressing up for Locust Grove. Two weeks ago, the girls and I were in character for the grand re-opening of the house after its remodel. Last weekend, Emily and I were in character for the free Fourth of July festivities. This weekend is the Jane Austen Festival, and I'm in the style show.

All of this got me to wondering, "What does it say about me that I dress up in Regency Era clothes and pretend to be someone else? What must 'regular' people think of my weird hobby?" If I look at myself from an outsider's point of view, I think I seem pretty odd! To me, it's totally normal to do this. I love the theatrical part of it. I love pretending to be someone I'm not, living in a time that is totally foreign to today, thinking on my feet and pulling it off. It is a big rush for me. Whenever someone comes in to my room and engages me in conversation, I feel a surge of adrenaline and my neurons start firing, and I'm "on."

But then I look at the folks who attend the Jane Austen Festival, say, with a different lens. I think they are odd because they dress up for fun and fun alone. I find myself putting me on a higher, less-weird plane because I do it for a reason (or so I tell myself). I reenact to teach and inform and educate others about life in the olden days and about the Clarks and the Croghans and life in Louisville 200 years ago. These JA fans are just weird grown ladies parading around the grounds of Locust Grove as if they were living there.

They are not much different than the men who dress in Revolutionary War or Civil War clothes and pretend to do battle. But really they are not so different from folks who dress like pirates or gangsters at Halloween and play like they are someone else.

I guess all of us, if we'd admit it, have a secret desire to dress up and become another version of ourselves. To escape from the stresses of today and slip back into the days when things seemed easier, slower, more relaxed. It's the lucky one of us who actually puts on the costumes and caters to our inner child who cries out, "Let's play!"

Closing Day

So today we close on Dad's new house. I am going through the motions and trying not to let myself think about what this means. I know it is the right thing to do. It will be good for Dad to be so close to us. He knows it too. The house is a nice house. Great location. Wonderful neighborhood. Still. This is the beginning of a life-altering change, and I am responsible for it all.

So much work has to be done before he can move. So much work. I can't even get my head around it. I feel so very guilty for my kids' sake that their summer will be spent doing our basement and moving Dad. It makes me sad, but it has to be done. Who knew when we signed the contract for our basement remodel that Dad would make an offer on a house the next week? Well, it is what it is.

I think about him all alone in his family room on Northridge sitting in the dark, watching CNN. So often I wish I could pop in to watch a show or a ball game or drop off a plate of food. Right now, even, I have a plate from Monday, gone bad in my fridge that I just didn't get to him. Now I can. That will be good. On holidays, we'll be so close. He won't have to be alone on Christmas Eve day or for the Superbowl or Derby. He can go to the kids' games or come over for dinner. It WILL be good. I am excited about the possibilities of becoming so much more a part of my dad's life and having him involved more in ours.

I can't think about leaving Northridge, though. Not yet. The image I have in my mind is one of us in our slippery socks, running through the hallway and sliding across the living room floor. I think of Christmases in our corners, each of us checking out our stuff and of tables laden with food at parties and graduations. I remember summer evenings on the patio with Mom, coffee, and a piece of pie or Dad's garden loaded with tomatoes, beans, zucchini. I know these days are long gone, and no matter where Dad lives, those memories will always be with me.

One "memory" that gives me comfort is one that has never and will never happen. It is one that I wish I had, and one that I think Mom is sending me to let me know this move is right. It is so very, very real. It is a vision of her, sitting at the table in the Florida room of the new house. She is in her short blue robe wearing her white slippers, drinking a cup of coffee and eating a slice of cantaloupe and a piece of toast. One of the kids has come down. "Hi Grandma!" they say. "Well good morning!" Mom replies. "How are you today?" And they sit together and talk and share breakfast, and it is all good.

Guilt

Guilt is listing all of you father's stocks for sale (the ones he's spent his whole life acquiring) in order to get money for a down payment on a new house for him (one that he doesn't really even want to buy) because it is just a half a block away from you and will make it easier on you when it comes time to take care of him.

Stress =

Having a suspicious "thickening" under your arm and pain to go along with that...Waiting two weeks for an ultrasound and MRI to see what it is...Convincing your dad to move into a house three doors down and then having him cry when you tell him you've made an offer on his behalf...Having your bid rejected and wondering what to do next...Planning a basement remodel and trying to figure out just what the hell to do with all of the crap you've collected thus far in your life...Considering paying for that AND a St. X education...Thinking that if your dad moves, you are responsible for all of his crap too...Having your oldest getting ready to graduate from 8th grade and start high school...Where did the time go...Having your middle child begging for an email...Having your husband gone a lot of the time and doing life by yourself...Fourteen loads of laundry in the basement waiting to be sorted, washed, dried, carried upstairs, folded, carried up more stairs, put away...having to do that again every...single...week...Teenagers...Needing to work in the yard and being unable to do so...Eighth grade teachers...An ineffectual school administration...Rain, rain, and more rain...Tiring...

Primary Election 2010

Last night, Kirk and I were down at the Marriott for a military function. In the same hotel were Jack Conway and Greg Fisher, Democratic candidates for U.S.Senate and Metro mayor, awaiting the election results.

Being the political junkie that I am, I left the military party and slid quietly into the Conway gathering. I could feel the electric excitement as soon as I entered the room. The anticipation was tangible. I walked over to the television and saw that Conway had an 8 point lead at that point. I stood around, making small talk with strangers, watching the results crawl in. I watched people glad handing and chatting. I saw judges and former governors, state representatives and mayors. I saw young kids and old hats. There were black people and white people, people with disabilities, people with money and people without. It was a microcosm of society, and it was awesome.

At one point, I noticed a former Republican state senator, Lindy Casebier, being interviewed by one of the local stations. I made my way over to him and said, "What in the world are you doing in this room?" He turned, seemed to recognize me, and said, "I've seen the light, honey!" We spoke briefly, and after sharing political philosophies, I figured it was time to make my way back upstairs to the other party. As I turned to go, he said, "It was good to see you, Sharron." That was really cool for me that a former member of the Kentucky General Assembly knew me by name.

Kirk and I decided that the Conway party was much more fun than the military one, so we went back down and rejoined the festivities. By this time, the 8 point gap was closing. Six points, then three, then two. The tension rose. People crowded around the television. Rumors spread through the crowd. iPhones were checked. Someone was passing info from a laptop. Soon the word got out that the number of votes needed for Mongiardo to win was more than the number of votes left to count. Conway had won!

A roar erupted from the crowd. We watched the door for his arrival and acceptance speech. The campaign manager came on stage and said Jack would speak at 10:30. I called Kyle, who was watching the girls, and let him know Kirk and I were staying to hear Jack speak.

Around 10:30, Crit Luallen came out. She's amazing in her own right. What a dynamic lady! I totally admire her math and accounting skills!!! She spoke for a moment and then introduced Jack Conway. The crowd went wild when he came out. We were fairly close to the stage, and we had a great view. The electricity was popping in the room. I stood there and listened to him speak, and I literally had goose bumps up and down my arms. I thought to myself, "Remember this moment." Kirk asked, "Can't you see him running for President someday?" I really can, and as stood there, I felt like last night was the beginning of something really special.

Something in me woke up, and I was reminded once again why I just love politics. It's messy. It's brutal. It's hard. It's honest, and it's full of lies. It's people at their best and their worst. It is the people working together to govern themselves. To choose for themselves who they want to lead them. It is all these things, and it is totally amazing.