animal stories.

Oh no, it’s late.

And I kind of knew this would happen.

Because, see, we went to the open mic at the Castle tonight and whenever we go there we don’t get home till real real late.

But what makes this especially unfortunate is that tomorrow morning I have to be up and at ‘em for a 9:30 am class. In which I am teaching tiny children how to dance and if that isn’t just about the worst kind of thing to be doing at that hour, then it is not late.

And it is late.

And this might surprise you about me, but I try to be honest on this here blog, so here goes: I. Hate. Teaching. Small. Children. How. To. Dance.

Seriously. I usually avoid it like the plague, but when I do find myself doing it, the minutes tick by painstakingly slow. Sometimes it seems that surely the clock must be broken–please God, tell me that it has not only been one and a half minutes since last I looked!–and would these adorable little pink-clad girlies PLEASE just stand in first position, already?!

But tomorrow morning I get to convince them to stand in first position and try to make them think that making a diamond with their little legs is a good idea, because that’s what we call a demi plie when they’re that small.

But see, I like calling a demi plie a demi plie. I like working with people who want to be there; people who can conceptualize dance and understand technique and don’t show princess underwear underneath their pink tights.

Oh, but it’ll be okay. You can do anything for four hours, right?

But there are two things I must tell you before I give myself to sleep in order to be fresh as a daisy for the littles in the morning. And both of these things involve animals. I know, this post just got so much better.

Because see, something very momentous took place tonight. To me. I was sitting at a bonfire, wearing shoes without socks that also happened to expose a good deal of my feet. Scandalous, I know. And I was wearing a whole outfit, really, but the shoes part is important, which is why I mention it. Cause all of the sudden I felt something on my foot and that something was definitely slithering. But I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, so I decided to look, and sure enough, a snake was slithering up and over my foot.

Yes.

A SNAKE WAS SLITHERING OVER MY FOOT. LIKE MY FOOT WAS GRASS OR A LOG OR MAYBE ANOTHER CREATURE, WHEN REALLY IT WAS MY FOOT, AND WHOAAAAAAAA! THAT’S DEFINITELY A SNAKE AND IT’S DEFINITELY SLITHERING OVER MY (MOSTLY!) EXPOSED FOOT.

Crazy, right?

But then I jumped because I had to, and if you don’t know why I had to, please refer to the paragraph that is all done up in caps right above. I screamed just a little and then calmly announced that a snake just slithered over my foot, but it’s okay. I added the but it’s okay part because I suddenly wanted to sound tough and not like a scaredy cat.

Then my friend Ian caught the snake and you know what happened almost immediately? He pooped. The snake, that is–not Ian. But I was suddenly really grateful because that snake could have not only just slithered over my foot–he could have slithered and pooped on my foot, too. Which would have been quite a story, I guess, but ew. gross. It’s moments like these that the provision of God is evident.

And then my other animal story takes place at the Castle. Because at the open mic there was a man dressed in a silken outfit, complete with a fancy silk vest and fancy silk shirt. And I looked over to see one of my friends do something that looked like he was stroking this man’s fancy silk sleeve, which was a little odd, but maybe warranted when you consider the silky nature of the man’s outfit. Totally, strokably silky. But then my friend kept stroking it and I suddenly realized that he was actually stroking a squirrel.

A squirrel that was laying comfortable as can be in the man’s silken lap, letting any and all humans pet it till kingdom come, apparently.

Which was strange.

But not as strange as the man getting up at the open mic to tell us the story of this squirrel and how it came to be so tame. The story goes that this man was working for a landscaping company (which further confused me, considering his silkiness) and that they noticed that a squirrel was stealing their peanuts. So they caught said squirrel, and nobody knowing what to do with it, this man took the squirrel home, killed it by severing his spine with a sharp knife in his bathtub (he graphically explained to us, much to my horror) and ate it with a red merlot sauce and mentioned something about the giblets being delicious, specifically.

And then the landscaping company employees heard some squeaking eventually–a baby squirrel calling for its mama. It’s dead mama. So, out of guilt and God knows what else, His Silkiness adopted the baby squirrel and has raised it as his own, bequeathing it with a name that is Russian and very difficult to remember.

But the nickname is Peanut, which is not nearly so difficult to remember.

So those are my animal stories. A squirrel and a snake. Not so bad in one Friday night, right?