mite-e uncool day

although in many ways, today is a way TOO cool day…

…if you take the “cool” in the literal sense of the word. welcome to texas – tuesday night i went to the store at 10pm with the top down ’cause it was so nice. went to put the dogs out wednesday morning and it was in the upper thirties and misting. now it’s “warmed up” to the forties, but pouring rain. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again – i can deal with cold…i can deal with wet. but both? unfuckingcool.

moving on…

…so, i woke up this morning at 6:15am or so after crashing out last night around eleven. that’s about right for me. got up, started some tunes, read five chapters of dorsey, and told the pups they had to wait for the rain to let up to go out. around eight i couldn’t keep my eyes open, figured another half hour or so might do me good, shut off the tunes, and promptly passed out until eleven or so…

(checks phone…sees when he returned ME’s six missed calls from while i was back asleep)

… make that 10:36 or so. went and uncovered the snakes and got the BIG unpleasant surprise – tish has mites.

for all that don’t know, i own a snake with a health problem or two these days named “tish” (which is short for “morticia”, as in the wife on the addam’s family, as the movie was big the summer before i got her, and i got her in september of 1992 and she was already a year old – that puts her at seventeen years and some change old right now. this makes her extra cool to me ’cause she’s the only living creature in this house that was actually ever touched by my mother other than me – my dad had boa constrictors when they first got married, so she wasn’t afraid of snakes).

she had a weird lump in her side, had surgery to have it removed a few years ago, and it has since come back with a vengance. they tell me it might be something to worry about, might not be – time will tell (as i can’t afford the expensive rep vet bills). BIG sign of a problem is supposed to be when her rather isatiable appetite suddenly goes away…

…so far that hasn’t happened. she just ate a big meal two days ago, actually.

which makes it all the weirder that i didn’t notice the mite problem, that by today had multiplied so bad that just moving her with one had i ended up with a dozen or so of the little fuckers on me. from there i had to run to san marcos, get some mite stuff from petsmart, come back, clean out her whole terrarium (which was hand made by me, and is four x three x two feet) and then spray it down with this mite crap, soak two paper towels in the stuff, and wipe her down as well.

also had to re-set up the guyana boa’s tank with fresh bedding just to make sure, which i only put in ’cause i pulled him out and saw not mite one.

so, there we are. my whole day spent on mite (i.e. snake flea) deatail. i’m trying to go a bit booze-free this week, but this might just make it HAVE to happen today…