The Great Earthworm Mystery

It has been rainy here off and on for the better part of two weeks now, and has rained every day since Friday to the point that at least once a day, it's rained faster than it can soak in, and there has been standing water in my yard, front and back. My back door has a little rooflet over it such that I can open the upper slider on my storm door and not have it rain in unless the wind is blowing toward the house. The front door is more fully protected, and if the wind is not blowing, I frequently open the sliders on both doors to let the cool air circulate. (I might add that I securely latch both doors when I do this.)

Sunday night, despite the fact that I had shoulder surgery the previous Wednesday, I was able to open the lower slider on the back door, and the upper one on the front door and got some nice, cool, newly rinsed chi wafting through the house. Even though it's half past October, it's been in the low 80's-high 70's during the day, and the middle to high 60's at night. I worked all day Sunday, and when I signed off at 7 pm, I went into the living room to close the slider and close and lock the front door. As I did so, I noticed it was raining pretty hard, and there was standing water in the front yard, and quite brisk runoff in the street. I immediately went back to the "Liberry" to check the carpet in front of the back door, and that's when I noticed a brownish lump on the carpet about four inches back from the threshold. Since I have four cats, it's only natural that my first thought was that one of them had refunded a hairball on the carpet. I turned on the "Liberry" light to investigate -- lo, and behold! It was an earthworm! Quite alive and kick-. . er. . squirming.

I picked him up in a tissue to put him outside. Rather than fling him unceremoniously out into the yard, which was mostly puddles, I put him outside in the dirt just off the side of the porch, where he at least would have a fighting chance. The storm door was firmly shut and latched; the slider is 2 feet off the ground and has a screen on it. So how did the little bugger get in? Weird.

So I putter and mutter about the house until 8 o'clock, time to give my oldest cat, who is diabetic, his evening dose of insulin. I'm standing by the kitchen sink, look down, see something that looks like a piece of dirty string on the rug and realize it is another earthworm! Now I'm totally weirded out. I spent about 10 minutes carefully inspecting all around the door frame, along the wall on either side and all along the floor, and found no cracks or openings of any kind. I have no clue how they got in.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like earthworms. True, they do have a certain ew factor, but they are Beneficial to Mankind, and I respect that. I like having them in my yard, and I appreciate the work they do aerating the soil. When I was sifting those (expletive deleted) little white rocks out of my front yard, I sifted carefully and whenever I'd come across one, I'd always rescue him from the sifter and tuck the little bugger under the dirt and wish him bon appétit! Worm poop is free plant food. However, they breathe air same as we do. When the ground gets saturated like this, they come to the surface to breathe. Otherwise, they'd drown.

Phred in situ

Phred's new phriend

So today, it was raining again and I opened the back door and put up the top slider on the storm door. And now tonight, I'm taking my supper dishes back into the kitchen and there in the doorway to the kitchen is another one! I started to throw him out with the other two, but I reconsidered and put him in Phred's pot. Phred has a big pot. I may have done the little bugger a favor. There's a herd of robins that hang out in the trees next door. . .

A Mercurially Retrograded Monday

Found out Sunday that Mercury was going to be in retrograde til the 15th, so I shouldn't have been surprised that this is how my Monday went:

I had already gotten permission to start my Monday shift three hours later because I had a doctor's appointment with my orthopod that morning. My Mom had had a garage sale at her house Friday and Saturday that had a bunch of my stuff in it -- she had to be someplace Monday morning at 8:15, so she brought my $307.05 by on her way -- called me on my cell phone (which I keep under my pillow) and woke me up, in fact, to tell me that's what she would shortly do. But that was OK because there's a branch of my bank close to Dr. Hall's office and I could drop it off on the way to my 9:30 presurgical appointment (which they rescheduled from 8:45).

So, I nipped into the drive in bank and deposited it -- or tried really hard to. First when I tried to get the capsule out of the pneumatic unit to put the money in, it sucked itself back up the pipe, and it took about five tries for them to get it to come back so I could put my money in. Then, once they'd gotten it, and made my deposit, they couldn't get it to go back to me with my deposit slip, so I had to sit there and wait while somebody walked out of the bank lobby and back around to the motor bank part and handed it to me.

Then I sat in the doctor's waiting room for an hour before I even got back to the exam room, and sat in the exam room for another 45 minutes before he finally came to give me my exam and talk to me about the surgery. (He also whipped out his surgical marker and drew an "L" with a circle around it on my left upper arm with a big arrow pointing to my shoulder -- very attractive!)

I didn't even get over to the outpatient admitting to do that part until noon, which was when I called my boss to explain that I would be later than planned. Then I sat in the EKG room for almost 45 minutes while the tech and the repairman convinced the EKG machine to print out my EKG. Took two tries to get a PA chest x-ray they liked. When I went to do the urinalysis, I dropped the cup in the toilet and had to go get another cup.

Dr Hall's office is way on the other side of town, and by the time I was finally on my way back home, I was just in time for the two elementary schools between me and home to let out. Then there was a wreck at a major intersection and a stalled car that had two lanes blocked and by then it was sneaking up on 3 o'clock. Finally made it home and got my 'puters booted up and sat down to work only 3 hours and 20 minutes later than I said I was going to.

And not to put too fine a point on it, they tell me I have to be at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday morning as I am first on the surgery schedule!

Jung Called It "Synchronicity" -- I Call It "Spooky!"

I was reading in a news article that 37 pages of the diary of Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut killed in the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia, somehow managed to survive the heat of the explosion, the extreme cold of space, a 37-mile fall to earth, and were found lying in a field just outside of Palestine, Texas, two months later. It took Israeli forensic scientists and museum experts 2 years to restore it and decipher the 80% of it that was deciperable. It made the news because 2 pages of it are going to be displayed as part of a larger exhibit of famous documents from Israel's history, held to mark the country's 60th anniversary this year.

Does this strike you as just a tad bit eerie? --a diary survived when most of the actual space shuttle did not, it's the Israeli astronaut's diary, and it was found just outside Palestine, Texas.

Cue the "Twilight Zone" themesong, please.