Rachel Callahan

The Awesomenesses of Life.

June 13, 2016June 12, 2016 Rachel Callahan Photographical Oddities

I saw this car at the playground the other day and couldn’t help reading it as one long sentence. AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE READ.

I love Zombies. Save the tiny red dog ta-tas, Mom.

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I get weird trends. I used to be a teen, a youngster, hip and all that. You do weird things to be different, to show your independence as a generation.

Yup. I get it.

I do not, however, get the trend of armpit hair. Especially the dyed variety. And the fact that it’s something someone might pin on a Pinterest board? Yeah. I’ll turn in my youth card over that one.

It’s like candy corn made out of hairy body odor!

But the other day, I was enjoying Spotify as it was playing random songs, and one struck me that I really liked. I turned on my iPhone screen to get more info only to see…

There have been some awkwardly trendy album covers…especially in the musically ick decade of the 80s…and I’m sure that many singers regret their album art choices…but there’s no way that Ms. Eli isn’t horrified by her nasty pits already.

Right?? Right.

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Ali has a recurring issue of Raw Toe from dancing around the pool. In an attempt to try and help her protect her toes for the summer, I made this rather embarrassing purchase.

WHY couldn’t “place on child’s big toe for pool play” be an other recommended use?!

Of course Ali has refused to try my brilliant solution, so they’re just hanging out in my pool bag, waiting for the perfect moment, when I’m talking to someone I haven’t seen in a few years, to fall out and force me to cancel our pool membership and move to Vanuatu immediately.

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While Ali had horseback riding camp a couple of weeks ago, Noah and I explored the vast rural outskirts of our state. While doing so, we made a couple of gas station stops for Starburst and Powerade, as one does. We discovered that rural Alabama casual Fridays are a special day indeed, as modeled by this convenience store clerk:

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I pulled up behind this guy the other day and was immediately frightened. As assumed he dated the lady above.

And then there’s this guy, who spent a whole lot of words and stickers making me play “what doesn’t fit?”

Nevermind. It all fits.

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You know you’re into CrossFit a little too much if you have this set of pillowcases…

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I bought these pens for their features. Any pen that can protect me from the dangers of water fading fraud is the pen for me.

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I grabbed a couple new cookbooks the other day in hopes of being inspired to reign in one of the many out-of-control areas of my life. That area being that we eat out way too much and I cook way too sparsely, even though I enjoy it. But alas. Recipes just make me bang my head against their spine.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MEATLESS MEATBALLS. Just call them stuff balls. Or balls. I don’t care. But don’t say meatless meatballs!!!

Nobody wants to eat anything that has to be put in parentheses. Especially “cream.” Why not go ahead and call it moist “cream” and really do us all in. If it’s mushed vegetables instead of a cream sauce then please just call it Vegetable of Mushroom Soup.

(In case you didn’t figure it out yet, I haven’t made any progress in my lack of cooking.)

But I do know one thing: some things should never be attempted at home. I mean. Why? Why?? WHYYYYY.

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It’s bad enough to get the “enjoy every minute – they grow up so fast!” pile of feces from a real person. But the other day, I got it from a Facebook ad.

It started out like this…

Yeah. They do. And you know what that means? Less diapers. More fun stuff.

And then it went here.

Umm really because I hope that my kids are still left when they’re older. And when they get a lot older, maybe even there’ll be grandkids left. Pretty sure I’m expecting more than memories to hang around. But thanks.

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Speaking of marketing, who decided women are just dying to put this on their face??

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My dad and I have the same sick sense of humor, so I sent him this questionable Bar-B-Que restaurant location that I found the other day.

After commenting that he assumed they served some fantastic ribs, he sent me this back – because you need an extravaganza to put the fun in funeral.

A couple of days later when I was at the Hot Air Balloon festival, I spotted this for him – and quickly decided I wouldn’t ride in that basket. I didn’t want to find out how desperate they were to secure me as a potential client.

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….But what if I agree to dispose of them there, but in an inappropriate manner? WHO WILL KNOW?

Free the laying monks!! And also who knew monks laid eggs? Not me.

Because I’m me, my first thoughts were “Who puts Bernie on a cracker? And isn’t that name racist?”

Speaking of Bernie, he has a fan in the Target Merch Placement department…

Dear Lunchables:

I, for one, definitely did not ask.

This was at the bottom of an article on our local news site. May I suggest a laxative. Or perhaps the Lunchables Walking Taco.

Nature’s blend of … salted caramel liquid? That seems like it might help a failed backend fetch, too.

Speaking of people who have failed backends, Thank you, Mental Floss, for this lovely piece of trivia. I know some people who might convert to Catholicism just to have Fiacre on their team.

WHO is this hard core fan of tampons??? Because when I find myself sitting around doodling, it has less than nothing to do with tampons. Am I missing out??

Is your ex seeming a little too happy on Facebook?? Well. We have the product for you.

And finally.

For those of you who were looking for the perfect conversation starting swimsuit for your kids this summer,

I am here to help.

Both for your daughter,

And your sons.

Because nothing says happy summer like a bad case of Tiger Crotch.

It’s Not Summer Until Somebody Cries at Swim Lessons.

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience.

I have a stubborn, finicky five-year-old. Who tries to convince me and everyone else otherwise with his charming blue eyes.

No really. He’s stubborn and finicky.

It is for this reason that, when he began swimming on his own two weeks before his first round of swimming lessons, I texted his father and said “Swim lessons should be a breeze. Unless of course he decides to make me go insane.”

I am fully aware of his abilities to make up his mind not to do wonderful, delightful things and nothing will change his mind.

Such as the time we blessed the children with a trip to our local minor league baseball stadium that houses half a dozen brilliantly unique inflatables, which he normally adores. But for completely mystifying reasons, he refused to get on any of them. Then, when we went to our seats, he begged us to take him back to the inflatables. When we decided to go back to the inflatables much later, he refused to play on them again.

So yeah.

He can be like that.

But. I blame the failure of his swim lessons completely elsewhere.

You may remember, three years ago, that his older sister got fired from swim lessons halfway through her first week for refusing to put her face in the water. But, despite being totally cool with his face submerged, Noah didn’t make it nearly that far.

The wonderful teacher that we used with Ali hasn’t taught the last couple years, so we decided to try a different method of lessons for Noah – lessons provided through the pool of which we are members.

It was inexpensive, close by, and seemed like a great solution. Ali could swim while he lessoned, and we could even use our enrollment fee to pay all but $10 of the lesson fees!

WHAT could go wrong?

I wasn’t super thrilled that it was four days a week for two weeks – I prefer more of a spontaneous lifestyle, and eight appointments in ten days was definitely a cramp to my style. But kids need swimming lessons. Parents must make sacrifices.

We showed up on the first day and swam for a bit, then headed to the indoor pool for lesson time. The teacher was finishing up with the class before.

We sat for a bit and watched – surely this would be good for the kid to get to see the easy easy things he would have to do – all of which were way below his self-taught abilities.

Then it was his turn. He was in a class with five other kids, all of whom looked younger than him. Six 3-5 year olds sat on the side of the pool, squished together as only 3-5 year olds will do. I sat off to the side, watching. Another mother came and sat next to me, waving her hand in front of her face as if she had the vapors* and and saying “I am SO nervous!”

WHAT could there possibly be to create nervousness??

* I know “the vapors” is a thing of the past, since now vapers are people who smoke fake cigarettes. But hopefully we’re all old enough to remember what the vapors meant five years ago. However, this post will be a fascinating relic in five more years.

The teacher stood in front of the gaggle of tiny humans, saying something quietly to each one of them. They silently sat, staring at her.

After going down the whole row, she looked incredulously at me and Nervous-Mom. She threw her hands up and with wide, shocked eyes, yelled across the pool, “They won’t even tell me their names!!”

Um. Yeah. They’re 3-5 year olds. They don’t talk to strangers until they warm up to them.

Duh.

I started to join Nervous-Mom in her nervousness, but for different reasons.

An assistant teacher walked up and hopped in the pool next to shocked and dismayed teacher-who-has-never-met-a-small-child.

She looked at the new arrival and threw her hands up again. “They won’t even TELL ME THEIR NAMES!! WHAT am I supposed to even DO?!”

Assistant teacher said quiet and calming words. They seemed to work, because Teacher-From-Mars took a breath, got her paddle board and convinced Nervous-Mom’s daughter to grab ahold of it and kick her feet. Then the second kid. And then it was Noah’s turn. She motioned to him and pointed to the board. Then motioned again, impatience pouring out of her eyeballs.

I saw Noah begin to get up from his middle position in the squished gaggle of kids. This couldn’t be good. I figured I’d walk over and try to help.

I got within talking distance and told Noah calmly that he needed to obey his teacher, all while she nodded vehemently and looked at me with an incredulous and hateful gaze for creating such a disobedient human.

Noah ran over to me, threw his arms around me, and started crying.

They weren’t shy tears or belligerent tears this time.

These were real tears of “someone is not being nice to me and I can sense it.”

I removed him from the swim lesson area and found a quiet corner.

I tried reasoning.

I tried bargaining.

I tried bribing.

We tried FaceTiming his father and letting him reason and bargain and bribe.

Noah couldn’t quit crying and made it clear that he could not participate in swim lessons.

Every now and then I glanced behind me to keep an eye on Ali, who was swimming laps, and also caught glimpses of Teacher-The-Child-Hater.

One time there was exaggerated eye rolling.

Another, arms thrown up.

Incredulous eyes and looking at a tiny humans like they were the stupidest.

Looks of shock and mistreatment like these little beings came just to torment her otherwise perfect existence.

Looking around at all the parents, trying to find sympathy for her martydom.

Nope.

I’m one of those moms that think their kid needs to do what they are told to do, but there was NO WAY that I wanted to put up with this teacher for eight days, let alone subject my tiny progeny to her.

I went and found the paperwork girl that had come around to get our information earlier. I informed her nicely, “This isn’t going to work for us. He’s not going to be able to do it. He could hear and sense her stress and it totally freaked him out. We’re not going to come back.”

She didn’t flinch. “I understand totally. I’ll get you a refund processed.”

“Thank you.”

We went back out to the outside pool. Noah sat in a chair for a bit to gather himself, then jumped in and swam better than he’d ever swum.

After a while, a changing of the Lifeguard occurred, and I realized that the one standing right next to me had been this morning’s assistant. She realized it too, and soon we were talking.

She pointed out, “He’s swimming way too well for that class anyway.”

I asked, “Why was she so stressed? Or was it just me getting that vibe?”

“It wasn’t just you. She’s normally a swim team coach. She doesn’t know how to deal with kids who don’t swim.”

“And, apparently, little kids in general.”

“Yeah, that too.”

So the moral of this story is: stick with swim teachers that come with high recommendations, because some teachers may despise the “swim lessons” part of swim lessons. And if your kid teaches themselves to swim, that might just be good enough. At least for one summer.

Alabama, The Hunger Games Arena.

June 6, 2016June 5, 2016 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Actually Possibly Informational, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck, Running

For the first time in my life, it has recently been pointed out to me that Alabama is an unsafe place to live. And also for the second time in my life, less than a month later.

I really had no idea. I was in denial. It’s so beautiful…It has to be perfect! All places have these things…right??

The first time it was pointed out, it was by a brand new Alabama resident who grabbed my arm and said with a horrified voice, “Someone told me there were VENOMOUS SNAKES here. That’s not true, is it??”

“Well yeah, sure. We mostly have Copperheads and Rattlesnakes and Cottonmouths, all of which I’ve seen in the last year. There are some others too, I think. But it’s not a big deal.”

She gasped in horror and said, “THEN DOES THAT MEAN THAT THE SCORPIONS ARE TRUE, TOO??”

“Sure, I mean, I’ve seen two in my life, but yeah – we have scorpions.”

I was confused. Didn’t all of America have the same basic set of “Nature to Avoid”?

I moved on. Until I wrote my boob/Cottonmouth post a couple of weeks ago and one of my blog readers came ALL UNDONE.

(Bethany. You know you did.)

She went on and on about how in her state, they don’t deal with wildlife, and this is just BIZARRE, and how is it that everyone in the Horror-Filled State of Alabama doesn’t band together to fight against the treachery of our nature??

Again. I was stumped. I don’t find my state treacherous. I’ve lived here all my life and have never thought any of it was unusual.

But then I began making a list.

We have venomous snakes and spiders (some even like to bite the nether regions of toddlers.) Mosquitoes. Horse flies and the angry Yellow Fly down south. Chiggers (okay they’re the worst.) Poison Ivy, Oak, and Sumac, plants that regularly tried to ruin my summers as an awkward middle schooler. Lots of fire ants. The dreaded Cow Ant. Bees. Wasps. Hornets. Yellowjackets. Dirt Daubers. Ticks. Snapping Turtles. Flying cockroaches. Stinging Ladybugs. Poisonous Caterpillars that send the strongest of grandmothers to the ER. Bats that cause confusion and delay. Tornadoes. Hurricanes down south. Triple digit heat. Alligators down south but slowly encroaching north. Coyotes. Armadillos that can do a NUMBER to a car tire if you hit one.

(I actually have no factual evidence regarding that last statement but their armor does seem intense.)

Alabama even had a bear run out in front of a car recently, totaling the car and killing the bear.

(My kids were fascinated by this story and said “ARE THERE PICTURES??” I responded with “Y’all don’t need to see a picture of a dead bear.” Ali’s face clouded over with disappointment and said, “Oh. So there’s not a picture of the bear actually getting whacked by the car?”)

(Clearly they’re as deranged as their mother.)

But I digress. After I made The Alabama Danger List, it did seem like a lot.

Maybe Bethany was right.

Maybe Alabama was The Hunger Games.

And maybe, just maybe, I was Katniss. I mean I do hike around with a giant (camera) backpack and a side braid, all the while with sweat dripping off of me from the inhumane heat.

And aside from the occasional tick and regular mosquito bite, I do a good job of winding my way through the perils of my surroundings, despite my constant outdoorsiness.

(Okay but I did suffer an impressive allergic reaction while I was in Mexico – to a wasp sting that I had received the week before near home. I thought surely I had contracted the Zika Virus. But nope. Just the results of Alabama Wildlife following me out of the country.)

But overall, I am a pretty DANG GOOD Tribute.

However. As soon as I began making this list of vile dangers that I so expertly avoid, The Gamemakers at the Capitol felt it best to throw me a few unexpected challenges.

First there was runch on Thursday with my friend Tanya. We run, then we get a smoothie. It’s what we do.

(I promise I eat way more lunch later. And so does Tanya.)

On last week’s particular run, we each ordered the Strawberry-Peach Smoothie from our favorite local smoothie maker. And then, two hours later, were both simultaneously and violently overcome with food poisoning.

Oh, the gut pain. It reached all the way up to my boobs. And lasted. And lasted. And lasted.

Clearly we must have been slipped Nightlock in our smoothies. It’s the only explanation.

But I am an AMAZING Tribute. And I recovered. Just in time to go away, out into nature, for my annual small group girl’s retreat.

We left 30 out of 32 of our children at home with the daddies. So of course, it seemed only right that on Saturday, I should lead a hike on a trail I had never taken. There would be no whining! No “I need to potty”s! No “I’m tooo hooooooot”s!!

The State Park office warned us that it would be treacherous, but we knew we could handle it. And handle it we did.

We climbed that boulderous trail with grace and Woman Power, all while having deep and completely unladylike conversations.

We. Were. Amazing.

After our hike, three of us wanted to go on a trail run. We took the trail that the State Park rep had suggested as the “better choice” for running.

It was lovely, but not easy. The trail was not smooth, and had generous amounts of curves and hills and roots and branches and boulders and low trees.

A mile into our run and just a few minutes after telling my friends about Tanya’s very true blog post that runners can’t just become trail runners because trail running is freaking hard, an angry root caught my shoe, tore a hole through it, curled its tentacles around the inside of my shoe, and turned me into an involuntary missile.

I propelled forward, nearly caught myself, but then a boulder said nope.

I flailed forward again, this time headed straight for a broken face against three more boulders who were itching for a human sacrifice, but I threw out my left hand just in time.

I saved face, but not elbow.

I landed, in a wash of pain, knowing I had just ended our delightful trail run with some sort of wretched injury.

And then I began to pass out.

Nurse friend Lydia took my dropping pulse and made me sit, then tried to lift my feet up over my head as I screamed at her as to why she thought this was a good idea.

She’s a pretty DANG GOOD Tribute as well, because she crafted me a sling out of the long-sleeved(?!?!) shirt she had been wearing around her waist to cover the backside of her leggings-as-pants. I might’ve thought her modesty was silly, but I did appreciate the sling. So tip: always have a modest friend in the Arena with you.

I stood up again, then went right back to passing out.

After a minute of sitting, I decided. it was only a mile back. I could power through this.

I stood up again, began to walk, and Lydia decided from my paling face that she’d leave me with Ashley to go “get help.” I wasn’t sure what that meant but didn’t care because I was passing out again. I reasoned that the only way through this was through it and kept walking, and I am here to testify – that is sound medical decision making. The passing out faded, and I slowly made the mile trek back, trying desperately to ignore the pain of every wiggle in my arm.

The hurt began fading as we marched on, taking orange then red then blue then boardwalk trails, carefully retracing our steps.

As we approached the last trail, Lydia met us with water, an apple, a blood pressure cuff, more of our friends, and a state park official, who was pleasantly surprised that I’d done the hard work of removing myself from a mile of woods without his help.

He filed an “incident report”, taking my name and address and driver’s license number, while I nervously asked if I was getting banned from state parks and begged him not to prohibit trail running because half my friends would hate me. He told me to go to the ER and I nodded promisingly.

He left, and Lydia asked, “What’s the plan?”

I said, “Let’s go back to the house and chill.”

After all, it’s just an arm. There are way worse things to be without. It is my left arm and I’m left-handed, but still. Just an arm.

(I did get a phone consult from my Miracle Max Physical Therapist and a text consult from our shared Pediatrician, and they agreed that I’d probably live without an ER visit.)

(I did indeed live but also totally got stuck in my sports bra for about 20 minutes, but because I’m a DANG GOOD TRIBUTE, I fought that sports bra and I WON.)

We came home on Sunday, so I made a stop by Urgent Care. Turns out, my elbow, although swollen and oddly shaped, was not broken. But my index finger, which I didn’t even realize was hurt until hours after the fall, was indeed broken.

(Luckily I typed most of this post the night before. Broken fingers are WAY easier to type with than metal splints.)

(Apparently my high threshold for pain is detrimental to my health.)

But I can now add two new treacheries to the long list of Alabama Hunger Games Hazards.

Venomous snakes and spiders. Mosquitoes. Horse flies and Yellow Flies. Chiggers. Poison Ivy, Oak, and Sumac. Lots of fire ants. The dreaded Cow Ant. Bees. Wasps. Hornets. Yellowjackets. Dirt Daubers. Ticks. Snapping Turtles. Flying cockroaches. Stinging Ladybugs. Poisonous Caterpillars. Bats. Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Alligators. Coyotes. Armadillos. Post-Running Smoothies. And Shoe-Trapping Roots.

How many of these things do you have in your area? Surely we all equally live in The Hunger Games. Right?

The Best Worst Comments: Volume IV

May 31, 2016May 30, 2016 Rachel Callahan Best Worst Comments, Weird Strange and True

It’s a good year when I get to have two Best Worst Comments posts before summer even begins.

It’s a good year because people are really getting passionate about the important things – like sherbet.

And….bass turds? I don’t even understand what that has to do with sherbet but I’m pretty sure it’s not an ingredient.

The above comments, of course, were on my Dilemna/Dilemma post (and the universe shift theory that goes with it), which still gets tons of traffic due to the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD LIKE ME. Except that those people like me are also a little scary…

Somebody please tell Zoe that she probably shouldn’t enter a spelling or geography bee anytime soon. Her head might completely explode when she sees that the United Kingdom is an island – AND SO IS ENGLAND!!

Arthur is also still struggling, and apparently still shifting.

It’s also a good year because people are taking the time to be offended by five-year-old comments on six-year-old posts.

Actually, Erin was getting offended last year by five year old comments. But of course, someone was offended by Erin this year.

(One day, I should explain to all these people that the person they’re attacking gets no notification of the attack against them. And that with the time lapse between the offending comment and resulting attack, they very well may be dead.)

(But. I’m sure the fact that their victim is already deceased has never stopped a vicious internet troll before, so by all means continue.)

It’s a good year because, continuing in the vein of “they’ll never see your reply,” my Big Bang Theory MBTI post was graced with an expert who disagreed with everyone who disagreed with me. There’s too many to put here (you’d fall asleep before you read them all,) but “Smarty Pants” took it upon himself to ‘splain to everyone how they got it wrong. Sometimes in short form,

Sometimes in medium form,

And sometimes in long form.

But it’s an even better year because of COURSE, somebody had to come and disagree with him.

…and, after telling “SmaryPants” (which is way grosser than SmartyPants) to quit disagreeing with everyone, he had to throw a p.s. in there…that was disagreeing with me.

It’s a good year.

It’s a good year because another post that gets a lot of Google hits, an especially disgusting post about that feeling of snot in the back of your throat that you just can’t evict, had some special visitors.

I kinda wish I still had the problem so I could try CJ’s solution. Although I fear I might break my nose again in the process.

But more detailed than CJ – in the most extreme way, was Chazz Tubjuggler. Who blessed us with three tomes of phlegmy information – including the priceless advice of “become a smoker so that you’re more experienced with mucous removal.”

There’s so much here. SO MUCH. But yes. He also recommends the “Farmer Sneeze.”

And who hasn’t delivered huge mucous baby at 100mph through their nose?

Also, if smoking is so great for phlegm removal expertise, why has he been dealing with it his entire life?

Oh but Chazz isn’t done.

The more I read, the more I think that Chazz might have done his lifetime of smoking on a farm. His country analogies are ON POINT.

Of course it couldn’t be a good year without at least ONE fantastic denim comment.

Oh Ranger. I think you must be the talk of the farm.

It’s a good year because Ed felt it necessary to make this comment on a post that had absolutely nothing to do with Birmingham.

And Realist made this comment on a post that had nothing to do with Indians.

And a regular reader, Nancy, taught me this valuable new phrase on this post.

But my favorite comments are on the post you guys helped me write a few years ago – A Scientific Report on Chick Cars. Obviously tongue-in-cheek, I took a survey and then tallied the results, gauging cars based on their manliness or chickliness.

You’d think that women would be offended most by my gender-boxing, but NO. Men have been extraordinarily angry about the entire idea.

There’s this guy, who was clearly attempting to call me an idiot, but accidentally named himself idiot in the process…

(There’s absolutely no such thing as sarcasm and exaggeration in Mr. Idiot’s universe, apparently),

And then there was Ryan.

Oh, Ryan.

When I read this comment,

And the name he gave me,

I laughed out loud, multiple times, for days.

Confederate Shehag.

Guys. He called me a CONFEDERATE SHEHAG!!!

This should be my byline on every social network, business card, church directory, and résumé for the rest of time.

Rachel Callahan, Confederate Shehag.
Writer, photographer, and the reason that feminism is a complete joke.

The Lilies, the Snakes, and the Misplaced Boob.

May 25, 2016 Rachel Callahan I Love Birmingham, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience., Not Crazy Renee

It was time for a new adventure. And I wanted to see firsthand, for the first time in my life, The Cahaba Lily.

It’s a famed flower in our area, being very rare, quite endangered, and living in sparse, hard-to-access clumps along the Cahaba River, which is a relatively tiny waterway that winds itself through nearly every suburb of south Birmingham.

So I needed to experience the Lilies for myself. And with my camera. And why not – with my children. So I asked my group of adventurous friends if anyone would like to join us, warning them that this adventure would be in completely uncharted territory and so it was not for the faint of heart or diaper.

The only takers, out of the 20 or so in the group, were my sister-in-law Lindsay with her three kids and Not-Crazy-Renee – but only with her oldest kid this time.

I had a friend, Leigh, who regularly visited these elusive Lilies, who gave me directions on how to get there, including such fantastic advice like “Wear good shoes and watch for snakes…you’ll have to jump over a creek bed…go UNDER the train trestle.”

Sound words.

So we parked in the lot behind the Bar-B-Q place, as prescribed, and set off for adventure.

The first challenge was the “jump over the creek bed.” Either Leigh has Amazonian legs or the last time she went out there it had been during a drought. There was no way us adult ladies were jumping over, let alone our six small companions.

So most of us decided to de-shoe to cross, with a couple others opted for the risk of wet shoes. We got over, re-shoed, and continued our journey. Up the hill,

under the trestle,

up a little further,

and there they were.

The magnificent Cahaba Lilies.

They were bigger than I expected and there were more of them than my companions expected. We were all breathless in wonder of their bright, shining beauty.

It took no time for us to find a way down to the creek, and the kids began re-de-shoeing (in order of bravery) and wading into the creek rapids while I took pictures.

And while Renee found another rock to sit on and said,

“Um. Hey Rachel? There’s a BOOB on my rock.”

I looked over. She was messing with something.

She moved out of the way and I grabbed my zoom lens and focused on the…boob?

HOLY CRAP IT WAS A BOOB.

The kids noticed the commotion.

Ali asked, “What’s that?”

I asked, “Is it hollow or solid?”

Noah asked, “Hey miss Renee will you go get me that big shell on that rock? IT’S GIGANTIC!!”

Renee said, “Ummmm Rachel? What do you want me to do here?”

I didn’t know what the right thing to be done was but I had to examine the misplaced prosthetic. Lindsay and I scrambled over.

“How did it get lost?”

“My guess is a capsized kayak incident. The cutlet just slipped out.”

“That poor lady!”

“I wonder why it’s so wrinkly…”

“I think it’s just because it’s laying down. I bet if we pick it up…”

Lindsay and Renee both grabbed that breast at once. I grabbed my camera.

This was a bonding moment between the two of them that could never be forgotten. But the hypothesis was right. What a perfect (albeit a bit muddy) boob, when held aright.

So we let the boob live its life and sat around it to take pictures of our children.

And they were fully photogenic, exploring the waters, looking at the flowers but NEVER touching (thank goodness for Wild Kratts drilling into their heads the severity of “endangered”), smelling the flowers, looking for real shells, and in general living The Good Life.

A train even went by, loudly making the day even grander.

I took plenty of pictures of the Lilies from a distance, but I was aching to get out there. I spent half an hour weighing the risk of tip-toeing out with my massively pricy camera, and finally decided that with Eli’s agility on my team, I could do it. So I called in our most in-tune-with-nature cousin and asked him to hold my hand out to the lilies.

Every rock was covered with tiny shell creatures that felt like I was walking on a bed of nails. And I have terrible balance. But I made it out to the stream to get the pictures I’d craved.

While I was shooting, Lindsay took a picture of me and sent it to my husband. It took his second look to notice the artistically endowed foreground.

Meanwhile, some of our children had ventured fairly far upstream and out of earshot. Renee was worried about them, so she’d gone back up trail to check. After I managed to wade back to shore, I joined her.

Four kids were out on a rock in the stream, and Renee and our youngest cousin, Andi, were on the shore.

Andi had just quite nonchalantly said to the other kids, “We found a snake, guys.”

Renee assumed she was trying to freak the other kids out because she was standing next to Andi and had certainly not found a snake. “Andi, we didn’t find a snake!”

“Well. We found a snake BODY, anyway!” She pointed right where Renee was standing.

There was a fairly large adult snake wrapped in piles over a patch of brush.

Renee came and got me. “Hey Rachel? Andi just found a snake down here. I think it’s a Copperhead. Can you come see?”

“Sure! I follow a snake guy on Twitter. I should be able to tell!”

I went down and examined. “Oh. I think that’s a banded watersnake. Definitely not a copperhead. Harmless! But I’ll take a picture and ask my snake guy.”

I was feeling just swell about myself, diffusing danger and fear like that, and I began taking pictures of the two kids remaining on the rock, Tessa and Loulie. (Ali and Eli had wandered in the water in front of it looking for neon crawfish.)

They were staring at the clear waters, when one of them yelled, “A snake!!!”

Renee, clearly tired of snake calls, said, “Where? Are you SURE?”

I lowered my camera and looked out in the water. There was a tiny bright orange snake swiftly swimming toward Ali and Eli – with its back arched and its head out of the water and its mouth wide open, angrily showing the white insides of its mouth.

“Oh now THAT is a cottonmouth. Ali and Eli!! GET OUT OF THE WATER!!”

The girls on the rock began freaking the freak out, and Ali and Eli began trying to run on the shelly bottom. Chaos ensued. As Ali scrambled out first, Eli yelled, “We’re supposed to stay together!!!”, and the girls on the rock were LOSING THEIR MINDS.

At one point in our attempt to calm them, I remember yelling over at Loulie, “YOU HAVE A PET SNAKE! Why are YOU freaking out?!” Because I believe in child-shaming, apparently.

The two in-the-water kids were safe, and now it was time to address the two marooned children. Or we could leave them. I mean, they were relatively safe up on the ROCK THE VENOMOUS SNAKE CAME OUT FROM UNDER, as I discovered later when I was editing photos.

Look below the rock right between the two girls.

This is when it’s good to have a Not-Crazy-Renee in your life.

She looked at me with a determined expression and said, “I’m going to get Loulie. You watch my path and let me know if you see the snake again.”

“So you’re just gonna LEAVE Tessa?” (I’m such an encouraging friend.)

“No. But I can only get one girl at a time. I’ll go back for her.”

(Meanwhile, Lindsay was staying very quiet on the trail with the four children we had left. She would be happy to pray for Renee while she rescued their children. Prayer is powerful, y’all.)

Renee got in the water.

Eli yelled from the trail, “A SNAAAAAAKE!”

Renee yelled up at him, “NOBODY say ANYTHING about a SNAKE unless you SEE one at my FEET!!!!”

She was in full yoga pants and tennishoes. Surely that would help her rescue the children. Yoga pants are powerful, y’all.

Right as she stepped on a large, flat rock, I remembered that was the very rock I’d see the cottonmouth swim under when it disappeared from view.

I felt this wasn’t the best time to tell her that, and just watched her feet even harder.

She got to Loulie and commanded, “Okay. I am going to GET YOU OFF of this ROCK, and then I am going to PUT YOU IN THE WATER, and we are going to WALK BACK and you are NOT GOING TO FREAK OUT. GOT IT?!!?”

Her voice was impressive – she could lead infantries with it. Loulie obeyed perfectly. They scampered back to shore.

Then she went back for Tessa.

This time I had the forethought to warn her before she stepped on the snake rock.

She looked at me icily. “You let me step on that rock the first time!”

“It was too late. I didn’t want to tell you while you were already there.”

“Good choice.”

She grabbed Tessa and hurried back to shore.

I said goodbye to my beautiful banded watersnake with one last close-up picture, then I scampered up to the trail.

Oh – and later when I checked Twitter…I found out that sleepy, docile, large banded watersnake I’d gotten so up close and personal with? Was also a cottonmouth.

Thankfully, my snake expert @AlongsideWild also sent me a blog post he’d written discounting everything else we read on the internet that day about the extreme aggressiveness of Cottonmouths. They act aggressive, but they really don’t want to bite us.

They’re just a sorely misunderstood snake with anger issues. That’s all.

We emerged from our adventure, amazed that we’d only traversed a third of a mile from civilization – we were sure we’d slipped through a wormhole or out the back of a wardrobe or into a tardis.

As we sat at the playground reminiscing about our day while listening to our children speaking in excited tones to every other kid they could find, we marveled at how the books were actually right. Having an actual adventure is FANTASTIC. And exhilarating and every bit as good as reading a well-written piece of literature. Even with the peril that must also be present to make it an adventure.

We, as well as our children, were over the moon about our travels.

But this post isn’t about snakes. Or lilies or children or even grand adventure.

This post is about The Boob.

And there is nothing more that I want right now in the whole entire world than to see that lonely boob reunited with its rightful chest.

So please, spread the word. Spread it far and wide. Spread it until we find the prosthetic totin’ kayak rowin’ adventurous women that just happened to capsize somewhere near the Cahaba Lilies on Buck Creek so that we can let her know that her boob is there waiting on her. And that it is enjoying the flowers until they return.

Editor’s Bonus: A research collaboration piece from later that afternoon:

How Mommy Nobel Peace Prizes are Won.

May 23, 2016May 22, 2016 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Kids: The Experience., Not Crazy Renee

“I’m having a bad day.”

“I’m having a bad day too.”

“Wanna join forces and do something really difficult together?”

“Sure! Let’s be sure to take on something so challenging that it will surely be physically impossible for us to accomplish it with the quantity and ages of children that will be accompanying us.”

“Perfect! I’ll pick you up at noon.”

We didn’t actually say that, but we should’ve.

Not-Crazy-Renee and I were happily (sadly) each at our own home with our own children, brooding about different things. It was Friday, and somehow we decided that five kids and two mommies in the middle of the woods was better than going it alone at our separate houses.

So I took Renee to a hiking location that she’d never been to before, whose particular parking place in question was in a quite sketch location (across the street from what is nearly certainly a chop shop – I promised her van would be there when we returned – and crossed my fingers just in case), and we set off on a 2 1/3 mile hike with a 9 year old, two 5 year olds, a 2 year old, and a 6 month old – and a couple nets and jars for tadpole catching.

This doesn’t seem like a fantastic idea.

And let me assure you. It’s not a fantastic idea.

There were moments. Oh, were there moments.

There were bugs in the eyeballs…poison ivy everywhere…

“The pond smells bad! I wanna go!”

“I’m so tiiiiired. I just CAN’T keep up.”

“I can’t walk any further!!”

“DO NOT WALK RIGHT THROUGH THE POISON IVY SON HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU?!”

<wails>

“YOUR HAIR IS HANGING IN THE MUDDY NET!”

“I NEEEEEEEEED A WET WIPE I CAN’T BE MUDDY ANY LONGER!!!”

“Okay it’s time to put down the frog. Put him down. Push him out of your hand. Put down the frog. NO DON’T PUT YOUR ARM IN THE POISON IVY TO PUT THE FROG DOWN —- DROP THE FROG!!!”

“DO. NOT. DRAG. YOUR. BROTHER!”

There was a moment, one mile from the van that was hopefully not chopped, where we both looked at each other with that look that we were certain there was no probable way that we would make it out of this hike with all five children and two mothers still in good working order. She had a baby on her front and a tadpole catching kit on her back, I had a toddler on my shoulders, and there were STILL three whiny children completely surrounding us on the ground.

We needed a white flag.

We. Were. Done.

But we did make it out. Amazingly, that last mile went shockingly well. And so, we rewarded ourselves RICHLY.

As we collected our reward, the backseat piped up, of course. “Can we have a cake pop??”

“No. This is a Mommy-Reward-Only trip to Starbucks.”

“Reward for what?!”

“For taking you children into the woods and not losing our MINDS. (Or at least if we did, finding them again before we left.)”

We all went back to my house and had a grand poison ivy wash party in the bathtub.

And then I shooed my neighbors away, told my kids to knock themselves out playing iPad (literally if they wanted to I really didn’t care), and I took a shower and edited the photos from our epically disastrous hike.

Except I quickly discovered that I didn’t take any photos of the screaming, hopeless, Oh Dear God how are we going to get out of here moments. And also that children are never more beautiful than when they’re physically nowhere around but you’re quietly enjoying editing photos of their pretty faces.

Like for instance, this photo. I was helping some child with some emergency and Renee needed to put a fussy baby back into the Ergo. So what did she do? She handed fussy baby to my kid for a minute so she could reposition the baby carrier. And somehow, magically, it worked for a hot minute.

They’re so quiet and it’s so adorable and still. You’d never know that Noah just screamed “OWWWW!! He’s sitting on my firehose!!”

Or, that just a minute after taking this picture,

Noah saw a pack of gummies, forgot he was holding a baby, grabbed the gummies with one hand and started opening them with the other hand, thereby leaving no hands and arms around the baby in his lap, letting the baby flay out onto the dock.

“Hold the baby Hold the baby HOLD THE BABBBBY!!!”

But you’d never know it from the pictures.

(With regards to this event, Ali had the following conversation later that night with Chris…

Ali: “Noah was holding Joshua but then he forgot to hold him because he decided to eat some gummies and Joshua fell and almost hit his head.”

Chris: “That’s okay. Noah doesn’t have a lot of experience holding babies yet.”

Ali: “Yeah and when he has held babies before, it was on the soft couch. And there weren’t snacks around.”)

(Moral of the story: It is child endangerment to let five year olds hold babies when snacks could become visible.)

Also. Child quarrels are so much more adorable when had in the woods…and also when photographed with NO SOUND.

And little explorers look much more Indiana Jonesish when you can’t hear the Mothers yelling, “Come back! It’s time to come out of the cave!!!” Because we really didn’t want to crawl in after him.

(And, if photographed just so (aka accidentally out of focus), children can even look like ghosts of children past. How much would you freak out if you looked in a small railbed tunnel in the middle of nowhere and saw this.)

When reviewing photographs, you just remember the thrill of exploring new worlds and old civilizations – not the overwhelming feeling of HOLY-CRAP-PLEASE-DON’T-LET-THOSE-GIANT-CAMEL-CRICKETS-JUMP-INTO-HER-HAIR.

And then sometimes you’re distracting all the kids so that your friend can attempt to catch a frog…or tadpoles…or just rinse out the giant clumps of mud the children collected in the tadpole-catching-nets. And somehow, the lighting is just perfect and the children are all smiling and…

…and then you realize that your friend is actually doing some sort of AMAZING dance behind your head to get those children to smile. But whatev. Nothing matters but this tiny perfect second in the middle of miserable chaos.

But the best picture I captured on that unforgettable, delightful, fantastic, can’t-wait-to-do-it-again hike was a particularly beautiful bonding moment (and might I say, at an exceptionally nice angle) between Not-Crazy-Renee and Noah, while they both desperately searched for tadpoles.

Yes. The pictures always make the trauma worth it.

Marketing 101: A Crucial Skill For Parents.

May 18, 2016May 17, 2016 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Kids: The Experience.

Last Wednesday night, Ali had her Awanas awards ceremony. Noah had his Cubbies banquet the week before, and I remembered the agony of trying to get him to sit still through Ali’s ceremony last year. It negated any ability I had to celebrate my oldest child, and I had no desire for a repeat.

So Chris and I decided, with no input from any children, that we would split ‘em up – Chris would go with Ali to her ceremony, and Noah and I would go elsewhere. Anywhere, as long as it didn’t require him to sit still and quietly for over half an hour.

We thought we had this handled. It made sense. It was a good solution. Who could complain?

Well.

Kids talk.

Ali assumed that Noah was coming to her ceremony, so she decided to help us out and excite him about the prospect.

“They have ICE CREAM on the PLAYGROUND afterwards!!!”

Noah doesn’t like ice cream. When we go get FroYo, he gets a cup full of toppings. But her excitement had won him over. He could not wait to go to Ali’s ceremony to get ice cream which he would most definitely not eat and hand to me to hold while it melted down my arm.

So Chris informed him. “You’re not going to Ali’s ceremony. You’re going with Mommy.”

“BUT I WAAAAANNNA!! THEY HAVE ICE CREAM!!!”

Why God made children’s brains to not grow logic and reasoning until they’re 25 I will never understand. I guess so we could commiserate with His constant eye rolls at us.

So I decided to spin it. Because that’s what parenting is. And I’m pretty sure that’s what the Spin Doctors were referring to with their name – what amazing parents they were.

(Also now we know who they were really referring to as “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.”)

(By the way I’m totally making this up and am certain to be contacted by The Spin Doctor’s senior care nurses for my libelous statements about their music. And now about their age as well.)

(Holy Crap I just googled them and did you know they released an album last year?! Pardon me while I take a break and listen.)

(Okay I’m back. They definitely sound tired from all that spinning.)

So anyway. I pulled Noah’s sad, despondent face up in the palm of my hand and said, “Actually, buddy, you and I are going to go on a date.”

He immediately stopped his moping and his eyes grew seven sizes.

“A DATE?????”

He’d never heard the term used before except with regards to the magical place that Chris and I leave for when they’re with a babysitter. He knows we get dressed up and depart with giant smiles on our faces and come home late. This date stuff has to be fantastic. OBVIOUSLY.

He was insatiably impatient for the rest of the day. At one point, he yelled upstairs to me. “HEY MOMMY! What are you DOING up there? I’m ready to go on our date!!!!”

We met up with Chris, dropped Ali off with him, and set off on our special night.

Noah picked Firehouse Subs for dinner, because the kid loves himself the meatballs out of a meatball sub, and he knew he didn’t have a chance at convincing me to take him to McDonald’s, date or no.

Then we went to Sybil Temple, because I needed a picture of it for Picture Birmingham. While we were there, he found a “secret passageway” leading out of it. He was most certainly the first to discover that back stairway.

At first I had him convinced to go to the Sunset Playground so I could take pictures and he could play, but then he spotted the Little Mall and wanted to go there. So we compromised – we’d do both.

I took a few sunset photos,

he even allowed me to take one of him,

And then we went to the Little Mall, where he played happily at the train table in the toy store, because as all parents know, the train table at the toy store is infinitely more fun than one’s own train table. Because 1,001 other kid’s germs make those trains SO much more delightful.

As we were leaving the Little Mall, he spotted a kiosk selling Starburst. Because it was a date, and I was paying, I bought them for him – under one condition: That he would let me get a picture of us arm-in-arm.

And then we went home.

We did nothing out of the ordinary – nothing special that we wouldn’t have done as a family on a random night out. I did absolute zero to deserve any accolades or extra appreciation.

But Noah didn’t see it that way.

He thought it was pretty much the most special night of his life. And I had no idea the word “date” would carry so much weight. If I’d known, I would’ve used it to exhaustion years ago.

That night, after he had to get out of bed for that last bathroom visit, he peeked his head into my bedroom door, smiling adoringly.

“I really enjoyed our date tonight, Noah.”

He skipped back off to his room, yelling as he did, “Loved it!!”

Chris and Ali got home a few minutes later, but Noah was already asleep. Chris went to check in on him, and without opening his eyes or moving from his deep-sleep position, Noah said,

“On our date we went to Firehouse and then to Sybil Temple and then the sunset playground and then the little mall and then a tiny store where Mommy bought me Starburst. It was so much fun.”

The next morning, I fixed breakfast (i.e. poured the cereal.) Ali sat down at the kitchen table to eat hers, and Noah said, “Hey Mommy. I want you to come out on the porch with me for breakfast.”

I carried our cereal bowls out, and saw that he had already been out there. He’d set up a breakfast nook for two, moving the table and a chair over to my favorite spot, the porch swing. On the table were a pile of five Starbursts for each of us.

Then he said, “Oh wait. I need to make them fancy.” and rearranged them.

Several times that day, he told me that we needed to date again soon. And I got more unprovoked hugs than I’ve ever gotten in my life.

A few days went by, and we were all driving by Sybil Temple. It made Noah realize that we’d gone a whole 96 hours without a second date. He grabbed my arm and said,

“Hey Mommy. Tomorrow night. You. Me. DATE.”

So, fellow parents fighting the daily battle of illogical offspring: Spin. Spin your parenting well. Use their inability to properly apply deductive reasoning to your full advantage. Turn the mundane into the extraordinary by just a tiny bit of marketing. You’ll get a few more hugs for it, and maybe a lot less whines.

Very Short Stories from Mexico.

May 16, 2016May 15, 2016 Rachel Callahan Uncategorized

“Not at all creepy.”

Our resort had a spa. The upcoming sign is not from our resort.

In fact, it was in front of a roadside tent shrouded in bedsheets.

As in, park your moped here on the sidewalk for a moment and follow me into my dark hole between the sheets for a ….

Yes, they even know how to use suspicious quotation marks in Mexico.

The Solution to Our Problems.

I found the antithesis to Birmingham’s favorite graffiti artist…

It would make for such a good dichotomy if he could come paint over some of our graffiti…

Well THAT’S Different…

On the day that Chris and I ran towards town, it was a tricky route for me.

First of all, I’d made the mistake of trading in my capri running leggings for shorts. It was hot and humid and I was desperate enough to attempt it. But the thing is, if I run without separating them with a double layer of spandex, my two inner thighs are mortal enemies and fight like siblings that have been in the backseat together for twelve hours.

Second of all, the sidewalks were insanely noncompliant to any and all proper building codes.

So between my bickering thighs and maneuvering the sidewalks whose curbs were sometimes nearly waist-high, Chris got significantly ahead of me.

And so, I found myself running virtually alone in downtown (Island) Mexico.

And right as I was passing this gorgeous wall,

A dump truck passed me full of male construction workers.

And one of the stuck his head out the window and…

He Dog-Called me.

As in, he made loud, repetitive, bulldog-ish barking noises at me.

And that’s how I learned that Cat-Calling is the boring American way.

I can’t wait to go to Europe and get Gerbil-Called.

Living Without Mommy Guilt: What REALLY Made It Paradise.

There wasn’t a trace of Mommy Guilt on Isla Mujeres. There were 14,000 Mexican residents, and from what we could tell, none of them owned a car and all of them had children under the age of three.

What they did own were mopeds.

And they weren’t for solo trips. They were the family car.

It was completely normal to see…

Dad driving the moped,
Dad holding the baby on the handlebars,
Mom on the back of the moped,
Mom holding the toddler on her lap,
Dad AND Mom also holding beers and/or grocery sacks.

There was no five-point LATCH system.

There were no Mommy Blogs furiously writing guilt-laden blog posts.

(“The Time I Tried to Drink my Baby Instead of my Beer While Driving 45mph on a Moped.”)

There were no Playdates where Moms compared their children’s nutrition, pooping schedule, ability to sound out letters, and general brilliance.

Children walked to and fro school with no adult to make sure they looked both ways.

Tiny schoolchildren regularly ran out into the road (dodging Mopeds and Beers and Babies) to rescue their soccer ball from their playground that had long lost its retaining wall.

MOMMY GUILT DID NOT EXIST ON THIS ISLAND.

And, shockingly enough, every child was happy. No child cried. No wrecks were witnessed or in evidence. Police were rare and unneeded.

And EVERYONE WAS JUST FINE.

This. This is why I want to move to Mexico. I want to buy myself a moped and throw my carseats* and my Dr. Sears Parenting book into the ocean.

*The author does not recommend the abandonment of carseats for fear of being written about on Mommy-Guilt-Laden internet sites. But does whole-heartedly recommend the jettisoning of any and all Mommy-Guilt-Laden internet sites.

The Art of Sales.

We enjoy a taste of tourist-kitsch, so we visited the gift shop area a couple of times while we were there.

They all boasted of the identical items, including these bags that were most certainly licensed by the proper entities,

And piles of dead people.

Since all of these shops were identical and there were dozens of them, the salesmen would get creative with their tactics to get us in the door.

Such as the man, in the exact tone and timber of the owner of Oaken’s Trading Post and Sauna, yelled out, “YOOO HOOO!!” We couldn’t even see him or his shop – they were down a dark alley. His Yoo Hoo was giggle-worthy, but not convincing.

And then there was the shopkeeper who preferred a direct approach. “Hello there sir! Come into my shop and let me help you spend your money!!”

Why not just say what you want. We all know it anyway.

Risqué Breakfast.

Our resort was all-inclusive, and they definitely put out an impressive spread for breakfast and lunch, and had a nice menu for dinner. (The best part of breakfast was that they had a huge vat of homemade Nutella to PUT IN YOUR OATMEAL. Do this tomorrow, people. You will thank me.)

But the interpretations were sketchy and endlessly entertaining.

Such as the night that I ordered “Apple Figure” just to see what the figure was. Turns out, they meant “Apple Sculpture.”

But my favorite was on the breakfast bar every morning.

Because really, is there a better way to start a new day than to rub some vulgar jam onto your biscuit?

I tried it the very first day because our hispanic friends told us – “Try everything – ESPECIALLY the weird stuff!!”

I assumed Vulgar Jam qualified.

It was quite tasty and not at all vulgar. So I sent our friends the picture for translation.

Turns out, Chabacano can be translated as vulgar…or it can mean apricot.

I think what they were going for was apricot.

The Squirrel of the Caribbean.

May 13, 2016May 12, 2016 Rachel Callahan Uncategorized

As our plane was coming down in Cancun and I saw all of the scrubby, foreign trees lining the city, I immediately began dreaming of all of the exotic, wildly colorful snakes that must be in those trees.

I was so excited over the prospect of spotting one because I absolutely adore reptiles and amphibians. It’s not “I love reptiles and I want one as a pet”, but more of an “OH-MY-GOSH I AM LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE SPOTTED ONE IN THE WILD!!!”

My reptile/amphibian adoration has definitely ramped up in the past few years in correlation my hiking obsession. It’s like a treasure hunt thrill to spot a lizard, or even better a frog, or even better a turtle, or even better a snake. It’s as if I saw something beautiful that I wasn’t supposed to see, and it makes me supremely happy.

However, I did not spot a single snake while I was in Mexico.

But.

I hadn’t even considered the complete covering of Iguanas there. I really had no idea.

On the morning of day two, we went on a run after breakfast. It was actually our second run of the trip, as we had gone on one soon after arriving. But that run had been right after an extremely rare island thunderstorm, so all we could see on that run was the massive amounts of humidity-induced sweat waterfalling onto our eyeballs.

Oh – and a dead fish on the sidewalk. But I don’t know if that counts as a nature spotting.

(But it did count as a Mexican Roadkill sighting for my friend Tanya.)

But that second morning, we set off down a dead end street. It was quiet and residential – perfect for experiencing the island on foot.

About halfway into our run, I spotted him.

A GIANT, MASSIVE, GARGANTUAN, DINOSAUR-SIZED IGUANA. Just sitting, sunning himself on someone’s concrete wall.

I squealed and slid to a stop and ripped my phone out of my arm band. I couldn’t believe my luck. This felt rarer even than spotting a snake. It was absolutely chart-topping on the I-spotted-a-reptile-in-the-wild continuum of thrill.

I know that he doesn’t look dinosaur-sized but photos don’t do size justice and things always look more impressive on vacation.

I hung around and tried to get close enough to pet him, but he finally crawled down the other side of the wall, disgusted at my tourism.

Later that afternoon, we set out on a photo walk. I wanted to take some pictures around the island, hence the walk – so I could tote my big camera. But before we even got out of the gate of our hotel, Chris began pointing wildly and telling me to shush.

There were TWO iguanas on the wall along the resort driveway. A MASSIVELY LIFE-CHANGINGLY AWESOMELY HUGE one, and a smaller one, obviously being pursued by the MASSIVE one.

It was a romantic resort…who could blame him for trying?

But as soon as I grabbed my camera and crept closer, the pursued female took that as an excuse to scamper away.

Massive Dino Iguana was NOT amused by me ruining his game.

He puffed out his body and began grunting at me.

Chris was a few yards away (no interest in being eaten by a massive iguana) and asked, “Is that the Iguana grunting at you??” Yes, yes it is.

With every careful step I took toward him, he became more bowed up and in attack-form. He was NOT a fan of any human that would ruin his Lady Hunt like that.

But I slowly inched my way in front of him and he relaxed his puffy muscles and just glared at me, letting me feel the full force of his ire.

Chris, of course, began photographing me photographing my friend, assuming that they just might be the last photographs he ever had of his wife.

And plus, it would go well with his photography-of-my-photography collection – for him to show the children one day.

This is the time your mom stood on uneven igneous rock filled with living sea creatures to take a picture. She might have ripped her pants getting down there.

And this is your mother on the beach taking idyllic ocean pictures that would make all her Facebook friends hate her.

And this is your mother right before she nearly fell into the sea.

And this is your mother taking pictures of the very dinosaur that would momentarily eat her for dinner.

But he didn’t take me out.

When we got back to our hotel room and I edited my Angry Iguana Photos, I was even more taken by his charm. His fantastically creepy circle eyes…his spiny back…his bizarre ear holes.

I was still under the impression that I’d been blessed to see some unusual creatures…until our run the next day. At which time I lost iguana count.

I saw this guy (the cinder blocks really puts into perspective his size, I felt,)

Then this massive guy, who was my favorite with his wall-coordinating green splashes,

And because he puffed out, grunted, and raced me – me running alongside him on the sidewalk, him running on the wall. Until he slipped and nearly fell onto my head and I screamed.

And then when we got to the other beach, this guy, proving once and for all that iguanas can enjoy a good view, too.

As I was photographing Beach Iguana (and Chris was photographing me photographing Beach Iguana),

Chris noticed that there was yet another Iguana to the left, on the other side of the beach wall.

I walked over to check him out, and realized that this iguana was not, in fact, enjoying the view of the ocean.

CREEPER.

(Which if he was the same iguana for whom I ruined a date the day before, I guess he could have had some unresolved needs…)

I sent a picture of Creeper Iguana to Not-Crazy-Renee.

I assumed she was joking and moved on.

…Until we got back from Mexico and went to dinner with Renee and her family and the whole thong extravaganza came up and I discovered that NO – she had ACTUALLY THOUGHT that was me, and that my text was saying that Chris took a picture of me like a sleazeball. Like for reals my friend thought I went to Mexico and jumped into a string bikini thong and somehow magically acquired perfectly seared brown buttcheeks. In fact, she thought I was just reiterating how nice my angles were when someone that was not her photographed them.

It’s good to know what your friends really think of you.

But this story isn’t about Not-Crazy-Renee. It’s about Iguanas.

(Or are all stories about Not-Crazy-Renee? I’m not sure.)

We took a cab ride back from downtown that day, and I decided to count Iguanas. On the three mile ride, I saw six, just hanging out on the sidewalks and grabbing some sun like a Mexican buttcheek.

We also had noticed many concrete walls with glass shards decorating the top. At first, we assumed they were to keep the bad guys out. But as the trip went on, we decided they must be to keep the iguanas off the walls. I asked one of our waiters, and whether he was humoring me or not, he said yes, they’re totally to keep the iguanas off the walls.

On our final night in Mexico, we took the best run of the entire trip. It was sunset, and we explored fully the meandering, and in some places crumbling, trails along the oceanfront.

I took several kinda-official-stairways up to caves. Each cave had multiple holes in the wall where Iguanas poked in and out. I lost count of the iguana sightings early on in the epic run.

The walkway even went through a cave itself, where, on the other side, was an iguana, just watching the sunset.

I sat down beside him and watched him watch the sunset. HE WAS MY FAVORITE IGUANA OF ALL TIME.

He and I became immediate soulmates. And I knew right then that I was meant to live in a place where Iguanas were as common as squirrels.

Protected: A Properly Improper Education.

May 12, 2016May 12, 2017 Rachel Callahan Uncategorized