Category: creepy

*Gulp* : flee! :

Thursday’s National Geographic Photo of the Day. That there’s a cotton mouth.

Photo by Jared Skye.

His photo caption: “While working as a field researcher for a biodiversity study on pine plantations in North Carolina, I found this Agkistrodon piscivorus in a drainage ditch. It’s seen here displaying the classic defensive posture that gives it the common name ‘cottonmouth.'”

I would not have gotten this shot. I would have screamed, wet my pants and run.

I am humbled by Mr. Skye’s fortitude.


(brace yourself, then click the image to see a full size)




Happy Anniversary!

One hundred and five years ago today, San Francisco suffered a devastating earthquake.

What the quake didn’t destroy, the subsequent fires did.

Each year, people gather at Lotta’s Fountain at 5:12am to remember.

I guess Mother Earth decided to add her own fireworks to the remembrance:



It came on with a loud thump, it almost felt like a truck ran into the house. The Good Man shouted “doorframe, honey!” and I found one quick.

Once it was over, with hands shaking and heart thumping, I recalled the video I saw of the recent earthquake in Japan where it just kept going and going. I can’t even begin to imagine. The few seconds duration I just experienced seemed almost intolerable.

All are well in the house of The Good Man. The Feline slept through it. The fish are non-plussed. The boy hardly flinched. The girl is a little on edge, but will get through it.


I Need Some Cheek Salve

Yeah, so I’ve talked a lot here on the blog about my job and working with folks around the globe. I am having a lot of fun and getting pretty gosh darn smart about the different cultures in the regions where I’m working.

But there’s one thing I’m having a LOT of trouble with.

It’s the kiss-cheek greeting thing.

The Euro folks seem to favor this method, and it’s not one cheek, but both. Shake hands, smooch one side, smooch the other side.

Suddenly, I become VERY rigid when I see these supplier reps coming in for a landing on my face. Gah!

Just this week, we had a VERY large meeting where there were, I kid you not, eight people who flew in from London for a meeting. I greeted them in the lobby and had to kiss-kiss all eight of these sumnabitches.

I don’t even know all of them. Hell, I don’t even LIKE most the ones I do know.

But they all stood in line to smooch-smooch me.

Then…when the two hour meeting was over, it was time to leave, and they all lined up to smooch-smooch me on the way out.

I felt a little…mauled…by the time the day was through.

Might I add that I was the only girl in the room of eight external people and five coworkers. There was no kissy-kissy between the guys. No, I got the brunt of the moist greetings.

Damnit! I’m an American! We like a little bit of space in our greetings! Also, I’m no good at the kiss-kiss. I never know where to land the thing. Do just sort of kiss the air? Or do I actually place it? And what if, horror of horrors, I miss and land it wrong?

I did accidentally bump noses with one of the dudes. Is that bad form?

All that aside, it just seems…wrong…to get to get that intimate with a freaking supplier. They aren’t my friends! They aren’t in my confidence! THEY ARE SUPPLIERS and therefore need to be treated at arm’s length to be sure they remember their boundaries.

Then again, maybe this is all a negotiation tactic to throw me off my game. Ooh, if I think about it that way, this kissy-kissy crap seems diabolical.

Mostly it just makes me uncomfortable.