Oh Gross!

The FS Blog Round Up is back and will henceforth be referred to as the FS BRU. The BRU isn't gross, it's fabulous! This weeks topic is gross though. Vomit. Yuck.

Jill from The Perlman Update is hosting, be sure to check in with her blog on Fridays to read the BRU. If you are familiar with her family you know that she has the WORST luck when traveling. All of her kids are prone to motion sickness. It's not a question of IF someone will get sick. It's more a question of which kid will hurl first. She is a strong woman. Freaky frightening animals I can handle. Barf not so much. I still have nightmares about the tire swing at the camp where I was a counselor. The kids would take turns on it turning and spinning until the inevitable happened. We called that thing the Vomit Comet.

I am assuming Jill is asking for vomit stories just so she knows others feel her pain. Sadly even though my kids are pretty good travelers and don't seem to suffer from motion sickness, we have had our fair share of barfy experiences. There are a few rather horrible experiences that stand out in my memories. Experiences so nasty that time hasn't dimmed the impact of the event.

Lists aren't my usual thing, I'm not that organized, but for post this I think I will borrow the idea of the list as a blog post from my BFF Monica. She will probably remember a few of these.

1. Projectile Vomit at 75 mph. Back before we packed up to wander the world, back when my kids were toddlers, I was one of those moms who ran to the doctor every time the kids looked a little off. Then 3 year old Alonzo was running a fever and wasn't keeping anything down. I packed up the kids, strapped everyone into their carseats and headed out. About half way to the doctors, while doing 75 mh down I10, I heard what has to be one of the worst sounds you can hear. The sound of a small child gagging behind you. About a second later a flood of vomit hit me square in the back of my head. I managed not to wreck the car but I have no idea how. I also managed not to barf myself, I think because I was afraid I would kill us all if I did. The up side is if you arrive at the doctors office dipping vomit you would be amazed at how fast they can get you in and out.

2. Barf + bunk beds = nothing good. When Navy boy Dakota was in junior high he woke up in the middle of the night overcome by nausea. He tried hard to get out of his bunk bed but just as he stepped onto ladder he lost the fight. The spray pattern from that height is impressive. I don't think he missed a square foot of carpeting. Carpet should NEVER be used in kid's bedrooms.

3. Bunks beds take two. Colin and Alonzo had low loft bunk beds meaning Colin's mattress sat in a frame on the floor and Alonzo's bed was about chest height. Colin went first in this instance. Just as I finished up changing the sheets and wiping the vomit off the floor and bed frame I heard Alonzo's tiny voice above me "My tummy hurts." Before I could scramble up off the floor I was hit with a shower of vomit. Drenched from head to toe in barf, and the bed I just finished cleaning up? Covered in splatter. Bunk beds are evil.

4. Blueberry Pie + stomach virus = new carpets. Purple vomit all over the carpet. Did you know blueberries stain, even when partially digested? Did you know that Colin had seconds? That was a whole lot of purple. I may never eat blueberry pie again. Enough said.

5. Mosquito nets + stomach virus = disaster. You know how mosquito nets look all romantic in the home design magazine? Yeah, not so much in real life. Grayson woke up in the middle of the night with stomach cramps. As he started to gag he tried, he really tried to get out from under that mosquito net and to the bathroom. I know he tried because he pulled the net mount right out of the ceiling. I woke to a loud thunk as the frame hit his bed and the sound of someone hurling. We found poor Gray sitting in pile of vomit completely tangled on his mosquito net. Thankfully the wooden frame that holds up the net managed to miss him.

I think that is enough barf for one day. Hope I didn't gross you too badly.

Wild Alligators In the Bathtub

On Wednesday I posted a picture of an alligator in the bathtub.

For those of you that asked, No it's not real, it's one of the boy's toys that has been periodically scaring the pants off me for years. That thing is at least 15 years old and yet every time I catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye I jump. I used to feel pretty silly about it until the boys left it on the back step in Jakarta. Dwi, our wonderful pembantu, came to me in a panic, "I think there is a snake by the backdoor!" I peeked out the back window and for a moment my heart began to race and then I realized what I was seeing was the tail of that stupid plastic alligator. We had a good laugh.

I didn't stage the bathtub picture. I think Grayson left it in the bathtub, although it is possible that one of the older boys was deliberately trying to scare me. If so, it worked. I walked by and out of the corner of my eye I saw the alligator. For a second I totally panicked. Then I dissolved into almost hysterical laughter even before I realized it was just that stupid plastic alligator, again. All I could think was where did Colin find THAT thing? You see just a few days before that picture was taken I had posted this comment on Facebook,

My kids have decided I am the meanest mom ever! I have declared a technology vacation today. No wii, no iPads, no computers. I expect them to go OUTSIDE and play, or play boardgames TOGETHER.

To which the fabulous Donna replied,

Somehow I sense your next blog post will tell the story of how they get back at you by releasing some sort of a wild alligator in your bathroom. You might want to give back that iPad before it's too late.

Not only is she a talented writer but apparently she can predict the future. I'm just glad the croc was fake, this time anyway.

Wordless Wednesday - Help

Wordless Wednesday -- Look What Zo Found Now...Eeek!

Wordless Wednesday -- Where'd You Go?

Ain't Worth the Clean-up

What does making bread in a food processor have in common with Christmas? You got it! Right now I'm thinking both things just ain't worth the clean-up.

We have officailly reached the point where I am sick of all the Christmas decorations and they really gotta come down. Soon. Like yesterday. Traditionally we leave the stuff up until the kids go back to school. This year the kids don't head back until the 9th. I don't think I can hang in there that long. However trying to pack up all those breakable things with three wild children trying to help guarantees something, usually something of great sentimental value, will be broken beyond repair. So I guess Christmas stays for one more week, but I am really looking forward to having it all packed away, and the house cleaned, and put back to rights. I am not looking forward to all the work. No matter how I look at it I have at least two days of work getting it all boxed up. Sigh. Currently I'm not convinced that it was all worth it, that's a lot of cleaning up to do.

One of the best presents I received this year was a much longed for food processor. It's a thing of beauty. A sliver Cuisinart all shiny and new just waiting for me to try out everything it can do. Most things it does wonderfully. Nearly instant strawberry ice cream, fantastic. Bread crumbs, perfect! Chopping vegetables to make the mirepoix for the black-eyed peas for our New Year's Day party, so easy and so fast. I can't wait to make a carrot cake just to see how well it does shredding all those carrots. The one thing I have found that it doesn't do well well is knead bread dough.

Now I know this seems obvious to some, it is after all a food processor, not a bread machine. But here's the thing. It came with a dough blade, and there are recipes for bread in the cookbook that came with it. It should make bread dough. I figured I had to try it out at least once. In fairness it did seem to do a good job of kneading the dough, but holy cow what a mess. That was the first and last time I'm trying that. It just ain't worth the clean up. The dough managed to work itself into every hard to clean crack of that machine, I spent more time cleaning that thing than if I had just mixed and kneaded the dough by hand. And to top it off I had to hold the base while it was kneading the dough or it started to walk across the counter.

Now unless I am really in the mood to mess with bread dough all I want to do is dump all the ingredients in a machine and go have a cup of coffee while the machine does the hard stuff. Then I can just yank the dough out, shape into a loaf, and bake it up. I do not want to have to baby sit the machine to keep it from committing suicide by walking off the edge of the counter. Sadly my bread machine disappeared during our first international move 6 years ago, I really miss that machine. Happily my KitchenAid stand mixer does a pretty good job of handing the messy part of making bread. I guess I will stick with the KitchenAid unless of course I get a bread machine for Mother's Day. (Yes Babe, that was a hint!)

Not Exactly Wordless Wednesday - I'm An Elf!

Wordless Wednesday - Wood Hoopoes

We Survived

Last week David went to Frankfurt for training. I didn't blog about it at the time because according to Donna's sacred rules of FS blogging rule #2 it is better to blog about events afterward rather than announcing to the world in general that David will be flying internationally on Friday on Ethiopian Air and that the boys and I will be home alone all week. So I held my peace and mentally wrote smart-a**, tongue in cheek, dark humor type posts dealing with driving in Malawi and my reaction to Dave texting me pictures of his dinner at Koh Samui, my favorite Thai restaurant. Hmmmph! They would have been funny posts, in a very sarcastic way, but then yesterday happened. We survived is probably the best I can say and I am thankful to be able to say that. So what happened? Well pull up a chair, have a sit, and let me tell you. This is going to take a while so choose a comfortable chair.

Sometime before 5 in the morning on Friday I was awoken for the second day in a row to the sound of a smoke alarm complaining of a low battery. You know the sound a slow steady and yet oh so loud BEEP.......BEEP.......BEEP......BEEP.....David's reaction to this is usually to pull the offending alarm, remove it's battery thereby shutting it up, and go back to sleep. Sadly I am not as tall as Dave so even with the tallest stepladder in the house I can't reach the alarm. I took a deep breath and acknowledged that sleep was over and I might as well get up. I was more than a bit pissed because maintenance had been out the day before to look at the alarms and replace batteries after the beeping woke me up at 4:15 on Thursday. Turning on the light I was relieved to see the alarm was a little later today and it was almost 4:45 so that wasn't too bad. I was planning to make popovers for the kids last day of school before the holidays and needed to get up early anyway.

Popovers cooking, drinking a hot cup coffee in the quiet peace before the kids awoke I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had stayed up late making cupcakes for Grayson's party, slicing mounds of vegetables and making homemade ranch dip for Colin and Alonzo's parties. I had left the kitchen a mess the night before but that wasn't going to be a problem. I had plenty of time to clean the kitchen, take a shower, make cookies for the Christmas party at the ambassador's in the afternoon, and if all went well I would even have time to give myself a pedicure before Dave's plane landed at 12:30 so that my toes would be pretty at the party. Things did not go well.

It started off well enough. The popovers popped beautifully and the kids were happy to have their favorite breakfast treat on a school day. I managed to get everyone dressed and out the door with backpacks, water bottles, party treats, and 100 kwacha each to pay for being out of uniform. Yes the school makes you pay if you were civilian clothes on special party days, seriously.

I glanced at my watch it was now about 5 minutes before the bus should arrive. We were slightly ahead of schedule. I decided I had just enough time to call in to complain about the beeping. Yes the alarm was still beeping. BEEP....BEEP.....BEEP....after a bit you just tune it out, or go crazy, whichever. I told the kids to wait by the gate and I would be right out. I called the poor soul that mans the phones after hours for the umpteenth time in a week. I could almost hear him thinking "You again!" Dave goes out of town and everything breaks, usually after hours. While I was on the phone I hear a blood curdling shriek. Recognizing Alonzo's voice I ignored him because this child will scream like a banshee and swear he is bleeding to death from a paper cut so I figured if he was screaming he was still well enough to breathe and breathing is a good thing. Right?

By the time I hang up he has stumbled in the house and is laying on the floor sobbing. I look him over, don't see any blood, and he did make it into the house on his own power so he couldn't be hurt too badly. Right? Without a whole lot of sympathy I ask what's wrong and he sobs louder. If there are words in the sobbing I can't tell it. His brother appears to tell me he fell out of a tree. Big deep breath, I can feel my head trying to explode.

"Where are you hurt?" I manage to asks with out screaming "Why the BEEP were you up a tree when I said to wait by the gate?" although I promise you I thought it, loudly. He sobs something that might have been a word.

The bother chimes in "I think he broke his arm." Great, just dandy.

I manage to get him to stand up and stop sobbing quite so loudly. I ask if he wants to stay home and go to med to which he responds between gasping sobs "I d-d-don't want to m-m-miss the p-p-party." and to which I thought, but didn't say, "Then you should a stayed out of the BEEPing tree."

I tell him if he wants to go to the party he has to stop crying and go get on the bus which apparently arrived as he fell out of the tree and is now honking a bit impatiently. Can't really blame the driver there. I get the boy loaded on the bus and head back in for more coffee, I really need more coffee. That wasn't going to happen. About the time I finish stirring in the cream the doorbell rings. SIGH! I set the cup down without taking a sip and go see what's up. It's the guard telling me the bus is back. Of course it is. Alonzo is crying again and now no longer cares about the party. He wants to go to med. Great that means I will have to drive. I don't drive here, ever. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car, the cars are on the wrong side of the road. Toss in my total lack of a sense of direction, all the pedestrians, gas lines, minibuses, and non-working traffic lights and we have a problem Houston.

I call med to let them know what is up and then manage to get to the embassy with killing myself, the car, or any pedestrians. Whew. We meet with the folks at med who send us off to Partners in Hope for x-rays. Having never heard of this place nor having any idea where it is I manage to convince them it is important, that in the interest of not wrecking the car and creating more work for med, that I have someone from motor pool drive us. Good call! Motor pool drops us off. The x-rays are taken, payed for (with money I had to borrow from med), and processed. Film in hand I call motor pool to send a car to retrieve us and we head back to med. Med looks at the film and confirms the kid is broken. They are surprised he wasn't casted there and ask what the doctor said.

"Ummm....I didn't see a doctor, just the technician who took the x-ray. When he was done he gave me the film and said to go back so I did." Apparently I was supposed to see a doctor and misunderstood what I was supposed to do when he said "Go back" I was supposed to go back to the front desk or possibly go back to sitting in the chair in the waiting room, but I was not supposed go back to the embassy. CRAP!

Med quickly reassures it will be OK and then they spend a few minutes formulating a new plan. They also reassure me that they have contacted the management officer (MO) and the community liaison officer (CLO) who have made arrangements for my kids to go home with the CLO's kids so they will be fine after school. Not to worry.

The new plan is for me to go to ABC Clinic for casting. We call for another car from motor pool and are promptly told there are no drivers available. By this time I am thinking if I can just hang in there until 12:30 Dave will be home and I can have a nervous breakdown while he deals with all of this. I have never missed the ER at Methodist Children's Hospital so much in my life. One stop shopping for all you emergency needs.

After a quick call to the MO he manages to produce a driver and car from somewhere. I didn't ask where, but I almost wept in gratitude, and we are off. I meet with a lovely British doctor who reviews the films and talks to me and Alonzo about how we should cast this. Then we meet with the guy who actually does the casting. He has a different plan called a backslab. He and the doctor disappear for a bit and eventually reappear to tell me he will be getting a full cast to above the elbow. Ok that's great. At this point I just want it to be done so we can go home. The doctor leaves to see another patient and the guy doing the casting does a backslab cast anyway. This is just a piece of plaster that runs along the back of the arm like a splint and is held on by an ace bandage, it is not a full cast.

The doctor returns, takes in the situation, and decides that maybe this is fine. Alonzo needs to return on Wednesday anyway when the orthopedic doctor comes his visit to make sure all is well.

We are finally on our way back to way back to the embassy when I get a text from Dave. YAY! He's back! I tell him to meet me at the embassy. He tells me he is in Lubumbashi. WHERE??? He is supposed to be here NOW! How can I have a nervous breakdown if he isn't here to take over? Besides we have to be at a party at the ambassador's residence in like three hours, I am still at Med with a broken kid, I still need to make cookies, I've only had one cup of coffee today, I never did have breakfast, and I getting pretty light headed

Med finally releases us after feeding us both yummy granola bars from a personal stash. I manage to get lost between the embassy and the CLO's house which wouldn't be so bad, but it's not that far from the embassy, and she lives really close to my house. And still I managed to get lost. The kid in the backseat with the broken arm is the one who has to give me directions to get me unlost. When I said I had no sense of direction I wasn't kidding.

I walk in the house and my friend looks at me and ask if we have eaten. I say no and she starts cooking quesadillas even though she is in the middle of coordinating the Christmas party at the ambassador's residence that will take place in just over two hours. We all need friends like that! I inhale my quesadilla and so does Alonzo, I don't know that last time food tasted that good. I collect my children and manage to make it home with our getting lost again.

Fast forward two hours I have managed to unearth some snickerdoodles from the freezer, those will have to do for our cookie contribution. The kids are cleaned up to a level that is mostly presentable, and I am dressed and almost ready to go. I get a text from Dave saying he has landed, in Lilongwe this time, and should make it home in time for the party. Things are looking better. Finally.

We have a nice time at the party. Alonzo enjoyed showing off his war wounds. We sing carols and take pictures with Santa Claus. When we arrived at the party Dave handed me glass of wine and told me to relax. I did. When he noticed I was out of wine he handed me a cup of hot mulled wine and managed to keep that cup full the remainder of the party. Do you remember what I have to eat today? One granola bar and one quesadilla. Drinking on an empty stomach is a bad idea. Drinking on an empty stomach at a party at the ambassador's house is a really bad idea. I don't think I did or said anything too stupid, at least I hope not, I'm not exactly sure. If I did please don't tell me, I don't want to know. My head was really spinning when we left.


I thought the day was done with us. The kid was broken, my husband ended up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when I needed him at home, I had to drive, and yet we had still made it to the party, even if I was a little drunk. We had survived. HA!

The day wasn't over yet. I sat down to send my mom an e-mail and realized three things:

1. The alarm was still beeping and I never called to cancel the maintenance guys who probably showed up only to find I wasn't home and they were wasting their time. David fixed that by yanking the alarm down and removing it's batteries. Silence, blessed silence.
2. The internet was down, nothing unusual in that, and hopefully it would be up soon.
3. The computer was dead. The nice, relatively new iMac with the 21inch screen, the computer the kids use for homework, the computer we use for Skype, that computer was deader than a doorknob.

What a perfect way to end a perfectly crappy day, but we survived.

Wordless Wednesday - The Camera Shy Turaco

Wordless Wednesday - Why Women Live Longer Than Men

Oh Baby Baby, It's A Wild World

It's Saturday night. The weekend is only half over. So far this weekend has seen a pied crow with an apparently broken wing, the return (yet again) of Squirtle the Bell's Hingeback Tortoise, several lizards, a white tree frog with orange feet, two millipedes, a brownish tree frog with red feet, assorted bugs, a blue headed agama, and last but not least, the African pygmy hedgehog currently eating a cricket in my kitchen. Thankfully there have been no spiders or snakes, yet.


I am not sure why my kids spend so much time watching Animal Planet or NatGeo Wild. They are far more entertaining, and often more terrifying than anything I've yet seen on either channel. Currently the boys are watching Austin Stevens chase hyenas around Africa. I have no idea why, and it seems like a spectacularly bad idea to me, but the boys seem to be into it.


Colin wants to have an animal TV show when he an adult. Considering what my daily life looks like I am betting he could just make that happen. He has a plan. He will go to the Coast Guard academy getting his degree in biological-environmental sciences. This part of the plan may or may not be heavily influenced by Dad. Then after he serves his time as an officer he will return to college to get his masters in herpetology, then he figures he should be ready for his own television show.


Update on assorted animals: The pied crow did not have a broken wing. We think possibly one of the guards had thrown a rock at him, and he was stunned, but not really hurt. Dave was able to walk right up to the bird and pick him up. We took him to the wildlife center but when David opened the basket it simply flew away. David was pretty surprised. Most of the lizards, both frogs, and the millipedes were released unharmed. A couple of lizards did become snake food because snakes need to eat too. The hedgehog will be released before bedtime even if I have to do it myself. Squirtle has yet again taken up residence in the large konde, oh yay. Sarcasm intended. I am sure that tomorrow will bring more animals. At least my life is rarely boring.


I spoke too soon. While I was editing pictures for this post the cry went up "SNAKE!!" and now all the boys, including David, are outside with the guard looking for a snake, in the garden, in the dark, in Malawi. This seems like an even worse idea than chasing hyenas around Africa but there you have it, a future Animal Planet star in the making. I really hope they DON'T find it. Nope, my life is rarely boring.

Happy Thanksgiving (Otherwise known as the obligatory "I am thankful for" post)

I wasn't feeling particularly thankful for much when I woke up this morning. In fact I was feeling down right grumpy. As I sat and drank my coffee I mulled over all the reasons I wasn't feeling quite in the mood for Thanksgiving.

1. We have had no hot water since I returned from my trip to Kenya last week. The last hot shower I had was in Nairobi. On Friday. Five days of taking "camp baths" isn't making me too cheery. I probably don't smell great either. Deodorant and perfume only go so far. Late today the water heater was pronounced "fixed" (again) but I will believe it when I step into a piping hot shower (hopefully) later tonight.
2. We don't have a turkey for Thanksgiving tomorrow. This is my first ever Thanksgiving without turkey. What is Thanksgiving without Turkey? They don't call it Turkey Day for nothing. But even I draw then line at $70+ for a turkey. For that price I want lobster with champagne and I don't want to cook it. Or do dishes either. We are having chicken instead. Chicken Day. Doesn't quite have the proper ring does it?
3. My kids have school all week, including tomorrow. School on Thanksgiving. That's just wrong. They will be playing hooky. Sorry school, they are skipping you tomorrow.
4. I am missing my family. Thanksgiving is the day we always get together as an extended family. Uncles and Aunts and Cousins. Fried turkey and baked turkey and spiral sliced ham. Dressing and giblet gravy. Side dishes and desserts by the dozen. Chaos and noise and laughter and long games of washers. All of it is only an ocean away.
5. And my biggest reason I wasn't feeling it this morning is this is our first Thanksgiving without Dakota. It has been almost a year since he left home for bootcamp, but I still miss him everyday. Tomorrow perhaps most of all. It feels as if there is a hole in our family.

I was prepared to put on a happy face for the kids. I want them to only have good memories about the holidays and Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday so I want it to be special to them too. I drew up the menu, and set to work doing the prep work. When you can't go buy chicken stock in a box or refrigerated pie dough cooking a proper Thanksgiving dinner can a take bit longer than it might otherwise. Also we are having guests tomorrow and I hate to be in the kitchen when there are guests in the house. I would be rather sit and visit. So today I did as much of the prep work as possible and while I worked I put on the radio station from back home and sang along to one country song after another.

Then something strange happened I began to realize how much I have to be thankful for. So here is the obligatory Thanksgiving Day "I am thankful for" list that bloggers all over America, or where ever Americans have landed worldwide, are busy publishing on blogs, FB, twitter, or whatever their social media of choice may be.

1. First I am thankful for my Mom. Mom taught me to cook and to garden. Thank you Mom, because of you we will have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Tonight my kids ate their very first artichokes which we grew from seed in our very own garden. Even better two out of three kids liked them. Dave did too, I think.
2. I am thankful for the internet without which we would be in big trouble because all my cookbooks disappeared 3 international moves back. (Please God let them be in storage, Amen.) Thanks to the internet I can find recipes for virtually anything, except gratineed potato gnocchi in sage cream and that's not on the menu for Thanksgiving anyway.
3. I am doubly thankful for the internet as it lets me make great friends all one the world. I mentioned earlier that I was in Kenya last week. Well I was there for a very bloggy meet up with Naoma and Alexandra. I can't even tell you how thankful I am to have such wonderful women welcome me into their homes. What an amazing gift.
4. I am thankful for my husband. I love him more than words can express. When I called him at 2, after he spent his entire lunch hour picking up "a few things" I still needed for tomorrow, to tell him I forgot to put sugar on the list and he would have to go back to the store on the way home he didn't even bat an eye. He just said "OK no problem." He not only brought home sugar he also brought Pringles. Salt and vinegar Pringles, just for me. Now that's love.
5. I am thankful for my kids. They are loud. They are noisy. They fight all the blessed time. They usually stink. But they are mine and love them.
6. I am thankful for friend near and far. You enrich my life in more ways than I count.
7. I am thankful for my husband's iPad and specifically a little app called Tunein. With that app I can stream radio stations from around the world, but especially my favorite country music station from home which for some reason will not stream on my computer. That taste of home made me feel so much better today, although it did leave me with the lingering feeling I should call Dave to warn him of a pile up in 410 so he wouldn't get caught in traffic.
8. I am thankful for laughter. Just a little while ago the boys came through the kitchen and complained about my choice of music. Why didn't I listen to something more interesting, something better, something not so old. They left with their various music players blaring The Beatles All You Need Is Love, The Beach Boys California Girls, and Glee's version of Raise Your Glass. Snort! Giggle Giggle.

Happy Thanksgiving, Where ever you are!

Wordless Wednesday - Kitengela Glass

Good Friends Who Make you Laugh Are The Best!

One of my best friends anywhere, on any continent, is Monica over at A Day in the Life. We were friends long before either of us had ever heard of a blog, never mind began authoring our respective blogs. We were pregnant together (there's a bonding experience for you) and raised our babies together before Dave and I decided to up and move our family all over the world. Our two boys are still best friends and spend every second together when we are home. Last summer I overheard the two boys plotting for Colin to live with them, or for M. to come live with us for high school. Maybe Monica and I can just send the two of them off to boarding school together.

One of the reasons I adore Monica is she gets my quirks, and has a few of her own. One of my quirks is the fear that someday something will creep up the drain pipe, into the toilet bowl, and bite me on the butt while I am happily doing my business. I know it seems irrational, but everyone has heard the urban legend of finding a snake in the toilet and I'm not convinced it's just a legend. In fact I cannot go to the toilet in the middle of the night without turning on the light and checking the bowl before I sit down. A habit that drives poor husband nuts since it is now combined with the fear that a black mamba is lurking just waiting to kill me. Hey! I live in Malawi, it's not that far fetched. Anyway I have to turn on the lights before I can set foot in the bathroom, which means that every time I go to the bathroom at 2 in the morning he gets a woken up by a blast of light as I scan the room for a wet mamba slithering out of the toilet bowl. It's good thing he loves me!

As it turns out Monica has the same quirk. The toilet thing, not the mamba, so far as I know she doesn't have major snake issues. Who knew toilets were so scary? If you want a good laugh go read her newest post "Why is there a machete in the crapper?" I laughed harder than I have in ages. Another thing I adore about Monica is she is one funny chick who can almost always make me laugh. No, I am not going to spill the beans, you will have to go read the post if you want the answer to her question. I am, however, going to add to her toilet issues just a bit.

Today I was cleaning the toilets and after I finished brushing out the bowl I flushed the toilet. Seems pretty standard, right? Clean, scrub, flush. Except this time when I flushed something long and black started coming out of one of the little holes at the top of the bowl, you know the little holes where the clean water comes from? Yes, I know that those holes are too flipping small for a mamba to come slithering out of, but when I saw something moving I screamed down the house. Dave and just arrived home from work and came running. This would have been a great except he took one look and started laughing. It wasn't a mamba. It wasn't even a snake. It was a worm. A worm. In my toilet. It came out of the clean water holes. In my toilet. I may never go to the bathroom again.

Even better I am going to have to apologize to the kids. They know darn well I am scared of something crawling up and biting me on the bum. I have found several worms in toilets over the past few months. I blamed the kids. It seemed reasonable, after all they are the ones who carry horrible spiders around the house, and leave little plastic bugs and rats in dark corners to scare me. The last time I found a worm one I told all three boys that if I found another one they were all grounded for week. They all swore up and down it wasn't them. SIGH! I hate when I have to apologize for accusing them of doing something they didn't do.

In a bizarre twist Karey, a good friend of both Monica and I, recently found a squirrel in her toilet. A squirrel. In her toilet. I am laughing just typing that. Squirrels are funnier than snakes and worms. I really hope she jumps on Monica's band wagon and blogs it. Please Karey??

Oh and one more thing. As I read this post out loud to Dave before I hit publish he informed me that it was two worms, not just one. Two worms in my toilet. Count me doubly horrified!