Slow Days and Possums

We’re heading into a busy weekend with the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival.  All day for three days.  My older kids like to stay late and do every last session.  Mamma wants to sleep.

I’ve been getting myself ready by taking longer naps and drinking plenty of water.  I tend to get a little dehydrated when I’m running around and not paying attention to my water intake.  It’s just one of the many delights that age has added to my life.  Wisdom, maturity and bladder issues if I don’t drink at least 4 glasses of water every day.

Speaking of aging, my Poise giveaway is still open so head over and enter to win that $100 VISA gift card!  You can bet I will have my Roll On Cooling Gel with me at the festival.  My new motto is “don’t leave home without it.”

The past few days have been pretty quiet here.  We did school, played outside, cooked…..all at a nice, slow pace.  I love being in no big hurry.  It makes me want to go rock on the porch with Aunt Bea and my banjo singing old mountain songs.  I miss Mayberry.

Where everything is black and white….la da…la da da da da…..

Rascall Flatts.  Gotta love ’em.

Great.  Now I’m stuck on the Mayberry song.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in my recliner minding my own business when I heard a scratching kind of rustling sound coming from the ex-nursery (we are trying to come up with a new name for it).  I knew no one was in there but still I called out, “Hello?!”  No reply.  I heard it again.  Scratch-scratch-rub.

So I got up and walked in there and sure enough there was no one, but I could hear the sound.  Louder and definitely not small.  It was coming from the far corner of the room where there is nothing but a twin bed.  It sounded like something was rolling around under the bed, maybe struggling.

In that flash of a second between sanity and insanity I decided…for certain…that there must be a possum under the bed.  Why a possum and not a cat (since we have several outdoor cats and I have never even seen a possum here) I don’t know.  But I froze.  In 2 seconds all of this flashed through my mind, “How do you get a possum out from under a bed?!  Will it bite?  What’s the procedure for getting myself to the emergency room after it bites me?  How long does rabies take to set in? Or should I just back up and close the door and leave it alone?”

You might not want me to be with you when there’s a high pressure situation.  I don’t think clearly.  I chose to inch my way toward the possum and see what happened.  The scratching sound got louder as I got closer.  “Hello!” I called.  Maybe it was a friendly possum.  The sound stopped.  Uh-oh.  Whatever it was it heard me and now we have reached the point of no return.  It’s me or the possum.

After a second the scratching started up again.  I was in a hill country horror movie.  Kill or be killed.

From 4 feet away I sort of got down on the floor to see if I could figure out what was under the bed without risking my life when all of a sudden a big CRACK sound startled me.  The window!  It came from the window!  Turns out Jacob was trimming limbs on the bush right outside of the ex-nursery and that bush is so overgrown that it was scratching against the window.  HUGE RELIEF!  I don’t have to wrestle a possum after all!  Trip to the emergency room averted.

This is my life.  Day after day I face death in some way or another.

It could be why I need so many naps.