Welcome to Living La Vida Boca. This blog adventure is beginning due to a recent move from North Texas to the beautiful Boca Raton, Florida. Let’s just say my husband got a new job and as a result, we have found ourselves in a new and different location. For those of you who don’t know, Boca Raton is in southeast Florida. It’s north of Miami (about 30 minutes) and pretty much south of …everything else. Of course, I hesitated to move to Boca because of the inevitable hurricanes, but what do you do when your dear husband has found his “dream job” and can’t turn it down? You move and hope for the best. (Don’t think for a minute that I haven’t started putting together my emergency kit in the four weeks we’ve been here…see, while living in north Texas, I hated storms….especially those with ”golfball-sized hail.” Another thing I wince at is the thought of snakes. Within three days of moving to Boca Raton, I had a very close encounter with such a creature. Yes, Texas has lots of snakes too, but I cannot remember but two snake encounters in my childhood in East Texas — and NONE in my adulthood until…I moved to Boca. Here’s how it all came down.
It was a sunny, happy, carefree afternoon. I was walking to my car, after opening the garage door, while talking to my husband. On my way to the car, I was picking up papers from moving boxes we were temporarily storing in the garage as they had been blown by the wind when the garage door opened. While chatting and picking up, I looked down briefly and saw something black lying on the driveway. Within milliseconds, my brain registered “Alert! Alert! It’s a snake! And it’s close!” I stepped quickly to avoid it since it was probably about one foot from my foot and it just sat there (what nerve!). I walked to my car (to escape) as I told my husband, “Did you see it? It’s a snake. Tell the kids!” What I meant was, “Tell the kids so they will know there are snakes here and they need to be careful when they come outside.” What my husband interpreted was, “I can’t wait to tell the kids so they can come see the snake!” So, out comes my son to check it out. The snake still had not moved. My husband questioned if it was still alive. Who cares? Get rid of it. So, what does he get to “get rid of it?” A 3-foot-long stick with an American Flag on the end of it that had apparently been left behind by the prior resident. What? No shovel? No machete? No AK-47? No, just a tiny stick with patriotic flair. I was in the car by now, with the door securely shut, planning my escape route (I thought “I need an escape plan for hurricanes AND snakes!). I watched as my husband gently nudged the snake with the stick – that snake budged for the first time. After several more pokes, the snake wiggled off into the front bushes of the house. Oh, I feel much better now – now that my nemesis is HIDDEN from plain view! My husband then came over to the car to check on me since I had begun to cry – after hyperventilating. He asked if I planned to come back home (after I ran the errand I was originally planning to run). I told him, “If Texas wasn’t such a long drive, I might consider not returning.” He said, “I don’t think it was poisonous.” I thought, “It might as well have been a black mamba as far as I’m concerned.” I did return home after my errand. By then I had calmed down but was still very creeped out. I told my husband, “I just can’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened had I stepped on it.” He replied with a smile, “Well, you probably would’ve hurt it.” Enough said.
