They're coming to get me.

Well! It's happened! The battalions have banded together and they're coming to get me. Not only have I seen my first live snake here today... I've seen my first two! And I feel sure that there are more coming. The job that I'm doing right now involves sticking my hands into the (thick!) vines and pulling some of the plants out from their roots. Guess who lives in the vines?

Thankfully Lorena was with me when we saw the first snake. She is also afraid of them but after a lifetime in Tuscany and years in the country-side she's learned to cope. When we saw it we just looked at each other with big eyes and it was clear that neither one of us was breathing. At least it's not just me. Then Lorena explained that the snake we saw wasn't a dangerous one. The dangerous ones move more slowly "so it would be easier for us to kill them," Lorena said. Yeah. OK. You know me well enough to picture me up against a snake. Who do you think would do the killing?

The second one actually fell down... you know how when snakes want to get from a higher step to a lower one they sometimes just throw their entire selves over the side of the higher step? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO LEGS?!  (Actually I sort of do that too when I'm tired, and what's my excuse?). That's what happened, about five inches in front of me. After that one I had to take a break. Lorena told me to sit down and listen to my heart, and try to understand where the fear was coming from. Lorena's a truly warm-hearted hippie. I think it's pretty clear where the fear comes from but I appreciate the fact that she's giving enough credit as a human being who can control my own insanity to think that it will go away if I "just think about it."

Special thanks to Ben Kaberon, who I g-chatted with after the "incidents," and who gave me some very interesting advice about facing my fears and just grabbing hold of the next one (snake) that I see. Thanks Kaberon. Don't worry, not enough people read this for you to feel embarrassed about those pearls of wisdom. I do wish you were here so that I could watch you take your own advice. And thanks to Michael Ann who I also g-chatted with after I saw the second snake.

The rest of you, if it wasn't 3:00 AM and 7:00 AM where you are, respectively, I would have been contacting you using whatever means I could think of. Clearly this is a code red. Actually I guess it's a code green, black, yellow, silver... they come in ALL DIFFERENT COLORS AND THEY ARE EVERYWHHHHHHERE. A fun thing to do could be to place bets on where and when the next one will surface. Maybe I'll see whether this blog has a gadget for that.