Ticked Off!

This morning, I woke up just a bit early. Did some eyebrow maintenance, and then got naked and turned on the shower. I put my hands on my hips while waiting for the water to get hot and then I felt… something. Still a little groggy (I am NOT a morning person), I thought it felt like something was just stuck to me (like a scab or a piece of something) at the back of my right hip.

So, I pulled. And it hurt, but I pulled the item right off. Looking at my fingers to see what it was, I at first thought it was a spider. I yelped and threw it into the shower. Looking at it again (still moving, of course), I realized it was a tick.

I started freaking out. I called for Sean to come take a look and make sure I got it, and make sure the place where the tick bit into me was OK and to look at the insect and see if he also thought it was a tick. And also, I needed him to check every inch of the rest of me and make sure it was the only one. The first thing he said was, “Do I need to get a match?” Apparently, he’s had more tick-removal experience than I have!

Of course, once I was assured my skin was OK, I ran to get the camera to take a picture of it for later identification and story telling purposes. It was a fast little bugger and I didn’t get a great shot of it before I decided to smash it. Sean tried to smash it with his fingers, but eventually I took a pen and just crushed the life right out of it. I was like, “My blood!!”

Sean said, “You’re lucky it didn’t really burrow in and you could just pull it off!”

I have this terrible fear of ticks. They are one of the most dreaded bugs to me, and their parasitic nature and blood-sucking-ness totally give me the heebie-jeebies! Thankfully, I have never had one on my flesh until today! But it was one of my biggest nightmares come to life!

Whenever I am outside where there might be a possibility ticks would get on me, I’m constantly saying “tick check!” And I don’t even wear “Off” bug repellant because there isn’t enough DEET in it (not even in the Deep Woods version, which has 25% DEET!). What I use is Sawyer Maxi Deet, which contains 95% DEET! Yeah!

I almost always wear this stuff, but did not when out for a nature walk this week. But, even though it was a prime “tick area,” I don’t think that’s where I got this tick. I think I would have noticed it before today since that was Wednesday, and also it would have been way more engorged with blood and embedded then it was. I think it is more likely that I got this tick from playing with a stray cat at my in-laws house yesterday. In fact, I did pick up and pet the cat, holding it on the very side of my body where I found the tick this morning.

I got in the shower to detox from the tick experience. I felt so… dirty! And anyone who knows me knows that I am militant about personal hygiene, so the whole tick thing just made me want to scrub my skin right off! While I was in the shower, Sean googled ticks to see if we could figure out what kind it was. It looks to me like it was probably a dog tick (I’m guessing American dog tick), which thankfully do not carry Lyme disease, but also do not usually bite people. Since it was not very embedded in my skin and because it was about the size of a pencil eraser, this is the most likely suspect. Deer ticks, which can carry Lyme disease, are usually very tiny.
Still, I’m supposed to keep the look out for fever and rash, as dog ticks can carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and other diseases.

-- Note: the blurry pictures are of the tick that was on me, the clear photo is a picture from the web of an American dog tick --

Holy S'mores!

I originally posted this on my blog on MyUCC, but since no one can find it there, I'm reposting it here...

I was recently talking to a friend who said that his kids were making S'mores in their Sunday School class the next day. When I asked what lesson that went with, he wasn't really sure. So, I came up with this theory of the divine S'more.

Just to clarify, the S'mores I am referring to are the camp desserts made from toasted marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers. Three ingredients. A trinity.

In my S'more theology, the graham cracker is God - the substance, the part that holds everything together and surrounds all. Jesus is represented by the "good stuff" - the chocolate. And what holds it together is the Holy Spirit, melted by the fire of inspiration and connecting us with God and Jesus.

While each ingredient is tasty on it's own, combined together is what makes a S'more such a treat. Without any of those ingredients, a S'more just wouldn't be the same. It is complete and yet made up of separate parts that become one.

And yes, S'mores are messy. Just like life and faith. Does anyone have it all figured out? I like that we are all on this big camping trip together, sitting around the campfire. When we really enjoy our S'mores, we're covered in marshmalow, melted chocolate, and graham cracker crumbs!

Random Thoughts from the Road: The Return

In the spirit of my first post, "Random Thoughts from the Road," I present part two - my return drive to Cleveland and the many random thoughts I had along the way. I was really tired after the week-long convention, so the thoughts were a little few and far between.

• There is a town called Clarksville in Michigan, which made me start singing the Monkees' song, "Take the Last Train to Clarksville" and I wondered if this was the town they were talking about, although I doubt it. (turns out, it's about Clarksville, TN)
• Billboards of Michigan: Awful picture of a scorning woman and it says, "Be a Hero - Report Vulnerable Adult Abuse"
• I passed a track that was apparently to train police officers to drive the police cars - like a test track for police cars. Never thought about something like that before.
• Billboards of Michigan: Leinenkugel beer. We have these in Ohio, too. And I enjoy Leinenkugel. And I really like saying Leinenkugel. Leinenkugel.
• Flipping around the radio dial, I stop at a talk show because I thought it might be NPR, but turns out to be a pastor who says he refuses to pray in an interfaith prayer or service because he won't pray to false gods, but wonders if it's OK to pray without using the name of Jesus, as he has been asked to do on occassion for city meetings and other public events. He even says it's OK, because he knows he's still praying to his god and his Jesus. So, I wonder, you can't do that at an interfaith prayer or service? Maybe I'm naive, but if there is a god, I like to think the omnipotent is listening to all of us - no matter what religious affiliation we subscribe to.
• Billboards of Michigan: GIGANTIC cleavage shot for Harley Davidson motorcycles
• Not even out of Michigan, I was REALLY tired and falling asleep, so I had to pull over at a rest stop and take a nap. I set my cell phone alarm for 20 minutes, ended up sleeping for 45 minutes. I was glad that no one came up to the car to see if I was OK, which is something that always seems to happen when I nap in the car. Yeah, because if I was dead, I would have reclined the seat, gotten a pillow, cracked the windows, and had the radio on something soothing. People, if I'm slumped over the steering wheel, THAT'S when you can ask if I'm OK.
• Was hungry mid-afternoon, so I finally stopped for a snack at a KFC/Taco Bell combo. I found it kind of amusing that there were 5 Hispanic gentlemen in front of me who ordered KFC, not Taco Bell.
• What is THAT SMELL?
• Turns out the smell was a truck full of live pigs.
• Truck full of live pigs makes me want to become a vegetarian.
• Growing up, I never liked ABBA. Now I LOVE ABBA!
• I am both deathly afraid of bridges and impressed and fascinated by their engineering. The bridge that replaced the drawbridge over the Maumee River in Toledo is a pretty cool, but very tall bridge. I remember getting stuck at that drawbridge whenever we went to Toledo or Detroit to visit my dad.
• I hate having the hiccups
• Thinking about how this weekend is July 4th and fireworks. I remember being pregnant with Eroll and going to late-summer baseball games where they had fireworks and I remember worrying about if it upset him in there because it was so loud.
• There are few stranger lyrics than "Alligator lizards in the air" from America's Ventura Highway. (apparently there really is such a thing as alligator lizards, which are a type of lizard and are not alligators, and you very well might see them along Ventura Highway. But they don't fly.)