Fight or Flight: I'll Kill You, and Your Little Dog, Too

In my sister's little one street neighborhood in Mississippi, the neighbors all let their dogs run loose. If I go out walking or jogging, there are usually 4 or 5 dogs wandering around. They might bark at me from afar, but I think it's just to say "Hey, who are you?" Some of the dogs are big, but over the 2 or so years I've visited here, they've proven themselves to be harmless. They rarely come up to me.

Every few months, a new dog seems to appear. Today, a scraggly brown dog I hadn't seen before skulked near me as I was starting my 30 minute brisk walk. Strange dogs can be a little scary, but I wasn't too worried. I was fairly certain that if the dog bothered me, I would destroy it. I could completely see myself kicking it in the ribs, gauging its eyes out, and strangling it with my bare hands. That seemed completely feasible.

I attribute my ease of violence to the fact that pregnancy activates something where you are very defensive of your personal space. In the fight or flight, your flight is impaired by oh, 20, 30, 40 extra pounds, so you're ready for a fight. I truly think I am jacked up on some hormone. I feel ready to punch anyone in the face who bothers me or gets near my stomach.

I hope I never have the need to do that, but I'm just saying to the world in general, I will $&*@ing kill you if you threaten my physical safety.

Here's a pic of my sister's hood. Lots of open space between the houses, a cotton field at one end of the street, and a cow pasture behind the house on the other end. It's a little annoying and dull to walk up and down the road 5 times to get in my 30-40 minutes, but there is hardly any traffic. It's much safer and more pleasant than my neighborhood in CT. Click here to read full entry.

Fancy Pancakes of Summer 2008

I made fancy pancakes twice on my Mississippi trip; these pancakes on right make up for the crappy ones I made a few days earlier. Can you identify the six figures in these fancy pancakes? (Answers at end of post. Hint: top left 2 are from a children's book.)

The crappy pancakes were made with my 10 month old niece on my hip and my nephews bickering nearby. Even after I turned on Nickelodeon for them, it was tough to create American flags, trees, horses and airplanes while carrying my niece. I didn't take a picture of the bad pancakes because I was trying to fairly distribute the pancakes while monitoring the baby playing on the kitchen floor. Plus, I was flustered at my poor baby-sitting skills.

Read below for 7 fancy pancake-making tips:

• A tablespoon is the best tool for pancake art.
  
• You have to have confidence to make fancy pancakes. When the batter starts dropping, you have to go for it. Have the image of Clifford the Big Red Dog in your head so you can make the front half, then quickly dip the tablespoon in for batter to make his back half. Save just enough for his tail.
  
• You've also got to keep your designs fresh. Think outdoors, think TV, think holidays, think letters, think shapes, think astronomy.
  
• The batter can neither be too think nor too runny. Skim milk is fine to use.
  
• I prefer a higher-heated griddle, close to 400 degrees. The griddle is essential; its large size keeps the pancakes flowing in copious amounts..
  
• For fun, add food coloring to batter.
  
• Blueberries and chocolate don't work well for the complex shapes, but you could puree blueberries and mix them in.

Answers: Back, L-R: Max and Ruby (bunnies from a book with the same title), Clifford
Front, L-R: Dinosaur head, star, monkey Click here to read full entry.

Welcome to Mississippi!

Mississippi, Day 1:

Me: “I can’t believe we’re driving with styrofoam food trays on our laps.”  We laugh.
Sis: “Welcome to Mississippi.”

Mostly, MS has not lived up to all my stereotypical images and dramatic expectations. When you hear "Mississippi," you picture shacks by cotton fields. While there is a cotton field at the end of my sister’s road, this northeast corner of MS looks like any other sorta rural place: there are two lane roads, neighborhoods, a downtown, a few trailer parks... kind of like where I grew up in VA.

However, Mississippi does have some quirks.

Yesterday, I had only been in the state for 3 hours, but already my nephew had found a pinecone with a black widow in it, and I had gotten bitten by a tiny, translucent, red creature. I have no idea what it was. (Mini-scorpion?) I know for a fact it wasn’t a fire ant, because my nephew got attacked by a swarm of those last summer, and my bite, while itchy, did not form into a pustule/welt like he had all over his legs and hands.

What fire ants can do was a revelation to me.

The one thing about Mississippi that meets the dramatic expectations- not the accent, not the poverty, not the obesity- is the fire ants. Read my previous post “Fire Ants: Giving Regular Ants a Bad Name” for further info.

Mississippi has other quirks that I’ll try to capture on camera this week. This is my 7th or 8th trip out here over the past 2 years (my niece and nephews are my obsessions, besides my blogs), and I’ve never captured the area on film as much as I want. You can see some of what I have gotten on my flickr gallery.

About the eating while driving thing: my sis was behind the wheel with a cheeseburger and tater tots, I had a grilled chicken and bacon wrap, and the boys had grilled cheese. We had to eat like that because it was past bedtime and the boys hadn’t eaten yet because we had to go straight to T-ball from picking me up at the tiny Tupelo, MS airport. My husband does not let me eat in his car very often, so even though I could have waited to eat my wrap, I was hungry, and getting to eat while driving felt like a luxury.

Day 2: Had the nephew’s birthday! Click here to read full entry.

Fire Ants: Giving Regular Ants a Bad Name

"Sorry little ant," said me to the ant who froze as he saw me about to squish him on my kitchen floor, "but I just returned from fire ant territory. I have no mercy for you."

Before I went to Mississippi, the words "fire ants" conjured images of tiny red ants that you might run across in say, a crevice on one outside wall of your home. You know, somewhere you never go. El-wrongo.

The truth about fire ants: they are normal, small-ish ant size, and they are everywhere. Everywhere that there is grass-- in your yard, on the grass beside the road where you jog, in the graveyard-- you have ants. I think there is some poison you can put down, but that ain't good for kids and pets.

Fortunately, fire ants live in large mounds, so you can spot them. However, if you inadvertently step on one while wearing sandals, you are f#@%&! My nephew had 50 or so red pus-filled welts on his legs for a week after he stepped on an ant hill.

Ever since then, I'm on hyper alert in parks and yards. If grass is really really short, I'll walk on it in sandals, but I would NEVER walk in grass over 2 inches high in anything but sneakers, and even then, I would watch the ground constantly.

Taking a walk in the neighborhood? La la la, *GASP*- a 5 inch high mound that you know is filled with 1,000 biting ants! It's not like there's a specific danger ant area; it's everywhere.
Jogging in the park? *AUGH*!!! Leap sideways to avoid a food-wide ant estate.

That little quote in the intro? I actually said that out loud. Just me, home alone, talking to an ant. Click here to read full entry.

Harrison Ford, Nephews, Dreams

I just had the most insane dream. I was about to get in the car to go to work when Harrison Ford walked by. We chatted a bit, and I asked him if he was depressed, and he said, "All I can say is, bless any man who marries a younger woman." I was sitting on the ground, and he leaned down and kissed me three times on the lips, then walked away. I was a little taken aback, but I can roll with a lot of unexpected things. I considered calling after him, "Say hi to Calista!" but thought she might not know who I was, so I said, "I like those lips!" then got in my car.

Nephew 2: Jack, look. (Trying to put huge coin in his piggy bank.)
Nephew 1: I told you it was too big.
Nephew 2: See? It don't work.

Nephew 1, looking in pantry: No peanut butter crackers!?! Rrrrrrr! It can't be true.

I keep a journal, so if I have a dream I want to write in, I write my dream in it sideways. That way, the dream is in with the current entries, so when I go back and read, I can see what in my life inspired certain dreams. They often relate in interesting ways. I put them sideways so I can find them easily if I just want to go back and read my dreams. Click here to read full entry.