But it has precedence...

I don't feel pretty.

I don't feel witty.

I definitely don't feel bright.

I spotted something today. I will have you know, I am aging gracefully. Ergo, I am silver, not gray--silver. Sil-ver.

It's shiny and sparkly and has already multiplied fourfold. My poor children or hub haven't caught on yet, even though Sunny commented on how my hair is thickening since taking megadoses of fish oil.

All I can think of is how my dad used to beg us to sit with his head in our hands, taking a fine-tooth comb and raking through it, using tweezers to pluck out his gray. Knowing, however, how wonderful it is to have someone touching your hair, I have a feeling the gray was just a pathetic excuse to get us to spend time with him.

I hope it works on my kids.

It's clutch time - literally. We've got ball pythons hatching, but if you go to the snake sites, everyone's snakes are cooler than ours. They've got better normals. They've got some seriously reduced patterns to make you drool. Your friends and family don't understand the obsession. It's a way of creating life to your designs, and, dammit, I want a cool-looking snake! It's not that the "normals" aren't special, because they are. We're learning a lot in this our first official season. We've reproduced. We've had to force feed (I don't like doing it, but if you want them to survive...). I learned out how to sex the snakes. My hub knows what to look for as far as ovulation and shedding and overall timing. We definitely know what a girl about ready to lay is like, and the poor ladies look so uncomfortable as they twist and writhe to get those eggs in position to lay.

Still, though, while we're waiting to get our first simple morphs, some people are producing snakes with all kinds of super powers, double and triple recessive genetic snakes, and hitting the 1:16 and 1:32 odds.

It boosts the jealousy factor. Pardon me while I seem to be coveting. It's not that, entirely. I want to get to that point. I want to have all those years of proving genetics behind us with a totally cool one-of-a-kind morph to name.

I think I'll slither back to work now, trying to afford a snake with a better gene pool.

Oh, and just so you know...2-liter bottles bounce. We sat around, amazed, as the generous people in our quickie-mart parking lot helped me chase down the bouncing bottles of pop. Our five-part consensus allows for a +/- 6" error, but those puppies really do hop up about a man's height when dropped properly. I can drop things with ease, thank you very much. Okay, okay. The curb assisted, but only minimally. I didn't even see it!