A Snake In The House

3/20/12

I was visiting with my parents and was on the computer when my mother walked in and calmly told me that there was a snake in the house.  I looked up at her in disbelief as I stood up.  "A snake? Where?"  She led me to the area between the living room and the kitchen counter to where the snake was nestled against the wall below the counter top.

Yipes! To some it may not have seemed to be so big a snake but to a family of hometown New Yorkers, it was one big uninvited house guest!  "It's just a garden snake" I said coolly" no use creating a panic but I didn't know what kind of snake it was at all and I was frightened of it. My parents are both in their 80's and obviously did not know how to rid their home of this creature, so it was up to me to do it. "Wait," I said as I ran into the room where my purse was and quickly returned with my digital camera in hand.  "What the heck are  you going to do with a camera?"  My dad was clearly annoyed that I ran back with my Olympus in hand.  Did he think I had gone to pull my Snake Charmer Flute out of a wicker basket from the room?

I asked my mom if she had a pair of gloves so that I can wear them to pick up the snake but after I had the gloves on and bent down towards the snake, I had a rapid change of bravado when I saw it lift it's head and look directly at me, knowing that I was the one to contend with. Was it going to lunge at me, how far it could stretch during it's leap? 

"Dad, a broom! Could you get me a broom?"  My father went out through the sliding glass door in the living room and returned with a worn out broom but didn't hand it to me.  "Help me! I can't do this alone!"  I heard the urgency in my voice as well as my dad's.  "Que tu quieres que yo haga?" My father was asking me what I wanted him to do in Spanish with the same nervous sound in his voice that I had previously had when asking him to help me.  I asked him for the broom and he passed it over to me.  My mother must have realized that this was a woman's job because she quickly left and returned with her own weapon, a dried up old gray mop which they also kept out in the patio area. 

It was on now!

I leaned forward and pushed the broom into the snake's middle area but it stretched out further.  My mom was towards my right and instinctively lunged at the snake with her mop as well, assisting me in pinching it against the wall.  My dad realized that we had not done anything more than to arrest it from moving from the place it had been at all along and he yelled out to us in a more urgent voice pitch, "Pero saca lo pa fuera!" "But take it outside!"  How in heck was I going to do that without removing our weapons from it and picking it up?  I asked my mom to remove her mop and told her that I would keepit pinned. Once mama stood clear, I tried to sweep the snake towards the entry door but it slithered side ways as both my parents yelled in unison for me not to let it get away; I was screaming also. Our adrenaline was pumped, my fathers eyes were bugged, my mother's face, determined as she backed me up with her dried up mop in hand.  The snake had now, slithered under a table in the foyer.

The picture below is where it had found shelter at but I photo shopped a snake image and pasted it onto the photo I snapped of the location it was hiding in.  My mother removed her dry twigs decoration from under the table where she displayed her candle decor and I was able to continue sweeping at the intimidating slithery pest again.

The picture below is photo shopped just to give you an idea of where the snake had later hidden once we were in pursuit.  I couldn't very well let go of my broom to capture this Kodak moment.

"Dad, abre la puerta! Open the door", I shouted desperately as once again, I pinned the snake under the broom.  My 83 year old father, in his blue house shorts, white wife beater and slippers opened the entry door.  Wfile standing outside, he leaned his frail body forward and held the door opened with the tips of his 3 middle fingers.  I lifted the broom up and off of the snake and struck it as if I had been playing golf and trying for a hole in one.  The snake hurled into the air and down to the floor again, everyone screamed as it slithered, prompting dad to let go of the door.  Papa was now standing outside and my mother and I inside screaming as we both got busy pushing the snake under the door with our beat up broom and mop.  It really was a hilarious situation.  Mom and I pushed and pushed at the snake, all the while I was yelling for my father to open the door and telling him that we were trying to shove it outside but that he must open the door.  Mother was the one who opened it after realizing that dad, was certainly not going to place himself in the line of fire and have that snake landing at his feet.  As my mom held the door, I managed to sweep the snake out.  Mama then released the door and I pushed it shut.  Now I am yelling out to my father, afraid to open the door again.  "Dad, is it gone?"  "No, it's still inside the house"!  Papa was still yelling.  Inside the house? No, it couldn't be, my mom and I were in the foyer in the same location where we had finally managed to push it through the bottom of the door.  Very  slowly, I opened the door and suddenly the snake dropped back into the foyer. Mom and I screamed and jumped but I kept sweeping at it with the broom. The door was now held ajar by mother.  I frantically swept and golfed and screamed until it finally landed outside by the welcome mat. 

Papa was yelling at me to push it towards the furthest area from the entry way.  He words jumped out in Spanish.  I understood his level of intensity because the snake was now slithering all over the place and much faster than before; it could still make it's way back into the house.  I alternated from sweeping to the golf swing until the snake finally landed inside the stone pit to the right of their condo's entry door. "Kill it," my father yelled out, 'Pour Chlorox on it," he continued. "It's gone dad relax, they were here first you know.  We live in Florida, you should have been long adjusted to living with all these creatures by now," I said as I walked back into the house, knees trmbling.

My father followed me in as he continued admonishing me for not throwing bleach on the rocks.  "Now it will return during the night," he said.  "It won't come in here dad, it will find it's way towards the grass soon."  It's just a garden snake, I added, 'they do not bite."  I hoped.

"Yeah, they don't bite but I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night because that thing has worked it's way back into the house, crawled up the bed and wrapped itself around my ankles."

"Dad, you know that's not going to happen."  As I walked towards the room where my purse was, I could hear my mother mumbling about how they have to find a new place and move away now.  Drama queens run in my family.

TODAY,  3/21/12

Again, my mother walks in to tell me that there is yet another snake outside of her door in the stone pit; once again I go to see.  Sure enough,a small black thinner snake nestled against the wall of the pit; it was much smaller than the one my mother and I had swept away yesterday and yes, once again, I grabbed my camera. I took close ups of this one since it was so much smaller and was not in the house. 

 My mother came out with a gallon of bleach in her hand thinking the I would drown the snake in it but I refused saying, "No mom, I am not going to burn a creature to death."  "But what if it comes into the house again?" She asked.  I walked outside and noticed a man wearing an orange colored construction hard hat having a smoke beneath the shae of a tree.  "Excuse me" I said, 'do you think you could help me?" The man walked over and I explained what was occuring, including yesterday's event.  He smiled, asked where it was and followed me in.  This is what happened next.

The video below, though very short, is monetized.

The Way I C It... People who move to tropical places should accept the fact that they are sharing space with natures creatures who have lived there many more years before the transients invaded their territory.

1ST FULL LUNAR ECLIPSE DURING WINTER SOLSTICE IN 372 YEARS

The way I C it.......

God shows himself to us through nature, music, colors, love and food

(naturaleza, musica, colores, amor y comida)

GANG? THE YOUNG LORDS PARTY

At the tender age of 14, I was a member of the Young Lords Party/Organization. YLP/YLO was thought to be a political radical gang by many, especially by law enforcement, the judicial system and politicians. My idea of them at that time is that they were a large group of intelligent young Latino leaders striving for a better quality of life for Hispanics and other minorities. Mostly consisting of Puerto Rican college students who were fed up with the injustices carried out by the system against Hispanics and other people of what was then known as third world nations due to racist and bigoted ideas, this group of students banded together, grew and created an organization who were hell bent on making to make things right for their people and for Hispanics to be treated equally. The Black Panthers Party were already an organized group who were making quite a bit of noise against injustice to blacks as well.

My attraction to the Party was provoked by my having a teen crush on one of the male members, who to me was cute and looked so good wearing his YLP green beret. On a side note, he never even knew I was alive. Anyway, I was welcomed and became one of their a go-fers, just like any of the other young kids who walked into the Bronx Division Headquarters office on Longwood Avenue. I was handed a stack of the Party’s Palante newspapers to sell on Southern Boulevard, the largest and closest neighborhood shopping strip. All the stores were there and I would have access to many of the people they wanted to educate. I was glad to do it because I really loved wearing the green beret, symbolic that I was a member.

My mother was very much against them and even more afraid of my growing interest and admiration for the group. She warned me over and over again to keep away from them and told me that she did not want to know that I was on Longwood Ave or Southern Blvd with those 'titeres' (hoodlums) but I did not listen. I felt they were doing something important and I wanted to be a part of it. Going to Jenny's house to do our homework together was my reason for leaving after school to pick up my papers. Mom was pleased that she had gotten through to me. I would take the long way around to Longwood Avenue. Jenny lived a different direction from it and mami always watched me through the window, so I had to make it appear as if I was walking towards my friend’s house, then I took a detour and continued on my way to do my job. I recall a time when THE PARTY had a plan and all of us were to have a share in carrying it out. I was very excited by it because they even allowed the go-fers to partake. For the first time, I felt like I was going to actually assist in making a change for our people. I felt important and grown up.

At midnight, I quietly got out of my bed, got dressed, lifted up my mattress to pull out my green beret with my Young Lords Party button affixed on the front and placed it on proudly my head as if I were wearing a crown. Quietly as I could, I pulled my coat off of the metal hanger in the closet, making sure it did not clang against the other empty ones beside it. My snow boots were next, gloves and then, like a cat treading quietly yet decidedly on its pads, I slipped out of the house. Two of the older female members of The Party, were outside waiting for me when I came out of the apartment building I lived at. I followed them to our designated area, which was just 1 street over upon receiving my instructions, got to work. Assisting the females who will remain nameless for obvious reasons; meaning that, after 20 something years who could remember? I began taking garbage cans buried in snow from the alleys of the buildings and dragging them out to the center of the street where we then dumped the waste into; we continued doing that for about an hour, maybe even longer! It was a mess and looked even worse because of the white blanket of snow on the street. My two escorts returned me home safely and after we were done doing what I now know to be, criminal mischief. Before entering the door, I made sure that I had wiped my boots dry, wiping off any wet spots around the top and exterior once inside and to also place all my clothing back into place. I think my mom must have suffered from OCD because she knew where everything was, which direction they were pointed towards when she laid them out and any other little detail about the items; she would have made a great private eye. My drenched socks which still had frozen chunks of ice attached to the bottoms, I had to hide under my mattress. I can still recall the wonderful rush of pride and accomplishment racing through my body as I lay in bed looking up at the ceiling until sleep quickly entered to claim me.

You may wonder why we had carried out an act of criminal mischief in our own neighborhood. Back in the 60's there was still a lot of racism and it was not only limited to black people but to Hispanics and the Asians as well. The dominant Hispanics in New York City were the puertorriqueños during that era. Ever watch West Side Story? The Puerto Rican gang members were, The Sharks and the white gang members were, The Jets. The Hispanic communities in the Bronx as well as in El Barrio in Manhattan were never taken care of as were the communities where the Anglos lived. Our garbage would be left to pile high in the streets for days until the sanitation trucks would finally be dispatched out to our neighborhoods and take care of business. When it snowed, our streets were always the last to be plowed, sometimes never. Suffice to say that is the reason the Young Lords Party gave out the trash assignment the night I snuck out. They/we had taken drastic means. I always wondered why, if a 14-year-old could understand that concept, why then did so many grownups, not? That night, all of the members of the Young Lords Party had the biggest party ever! Together, we had left a huge mess over all the streets of the Hispanic communities of New York City... and Guess what? The sanitation trucks were all out there the following day and all of our fathers were able to drive to work and our mothers were able to walk to the grocery stores safely without having to climb over snow mountains.

The Young Lords Party had succeeded in forcing the plowing of our communities, removal of trash. We were here and not going away. We had caught their attention.

Sometimes, Drastic Times Do Call  For Drastic Means.

Then again,

That's just the way I C it.