Guest.

Tonight we had a visitor. I had just come in from an evening run with my buddy Jules. I was laying on the floor doing some abs and OUTTA NO WHERE comes this THING. This THING that slithered SO RAPIDLY FAST past my head on the floor, looked as if it had no legs. Amanda, who was sitting nearby, catching up on some correspondence, and I quickly leapt up onto the nearest piece of furniture while shrieking without telling our throats to do so. We both had different stories. "It has no legs!" "It must have traveled at least 35 miles an hour!" "It was ORANGE and BLUE and HAD NO LEGS!" "It MUST be a baby SNAKE!" "...at least a foot long!"

Hearing the commotion, Elyse (who was being given a relaxing-massage in the next room by our good friend Rebecca who takes it upon herself to use her massage therapy education to bless the people around her-THANK YOU LORD) ran out with Rebecca to save the day. Immediately, we recounted the terrifying tale to the both of them. They quickly grabbed flashlights and took an aggressive approach to getting that thing out of our house, so we might sleep this evening. After 15 minutes of searching around the couch under which it had taken refuge, we had just about given up. We slowly moved the couch back to its original position while Amanda thoroughly explained that she wouldn't be able to sit on the couch for the next few months. While taking one last sweeping look at the room, Elyse and Rebecca spotted the what we had decided was a Salamander (because of it's slimy looking qualities, dark blue body and orange tail) in the corner of the room by the front door!!! Grabbing the box from her newly transported, from the States, Bible (one side in each hand) she frantically tried to push it towards the door. After an EXTREMELY long and jumpy minute, we watched as the salamander slithered faster than NASCAR into a thin curtain rod that has been laying near the front door ever since it had fallen down a few months ago. Rebecca seized this PERFECT opportunity to grab the tube and CHUCK it outside before it had any opportunity to escape. VICTORY!!!! Mice/cockroach/insect/lizard/and now Salamander sightings (as you can see) quickly become collaborated floor events.

While I used my camera to videotape the celebration, my eyes diverted to the 17 bread-roll size holes in our screen door. Maybe we should get that fixed soon?