Tonight I held a dead snake. I'm still in shock.

Daughter brought home a dead snake (!!!!). After much cajoling and "Stay away from me!" responses, I got tired of fighting it and gave in to touching the snake. Then I decided to face my fear and hold the damn snake. Oh, it was missing its head. It appears someone cut it off. Ugh.

My husband used to catch live snakes. If he had been here (he was back at the RV), he would've held it. He said he would've held a live snake, too. Good for him, because HELL NO to a live snake. Yes, I held a boa constrictor once when I was in 9th grade at a pet store in Security, Colorado. But NO way I'd do it now. Not my thing.

Tomorrow she will give it a proper burial.

I'm sitting here, ready to drink a beer and shivering. I can't believe I did that. Yes, I have a pic to prove it. *shiver* Yes, I washed my hands—thoroughly.

Man...I can't believe I did that. And might I add that I don't ever want to do that again.

[RV experiences] A cry for help in the middle of the night

Oh my gosh, I need to post about this before I forget! This morning, close to 4 a.m., I was finally ready to drift off to sleep. All of a sudden, a man starts yelling, "HELP!" in a frantic, desperate voice. You could tell he was running toward where we were parked in the RV. Paul looked out the window and grabbed his phone to call 911 if it came to that.

Surprisingly, five people appeared out of nowhere to help—at 4 a.m.!—and Paul saw another guy laid out on the concrete on a traffic island near Fountain Blvd. Since five people were already attempting to help, we stayed in the RV.

A little while later, the second guy was sitting up. We saw flashing lights, so an emergency vehicle had arrived. We don't know what happened, but I know that I have never heard a man yell that loudly or frantically. Took me quite a while to get back to sleep. I hope everyone involved is okay and all is well.

One thing about living in an RV is that you are closer and more involved with humanity and its wounds and ills when you're in the city than you would be living in your house or apartment. It's both startling and humbling. Definitely food for thought.

Achilles tendinitis? Say it ain't so!

So, turns out I likely have Achilles tendinitis.

Over the past month or so, I've increased my walking to almost every day (and twice a day, most times) for four or five days a week. As a result of the sudden increase and duration in physical activity, my body—and in particular, my Achilles tendon—went, "Whut?! I'm not ready for this!" So now I have a very painful, stiff, and sore Achilles tendon on my left leg.

The last thing I need to happen is for it to rupture, so I gotta focus on making sure I don't blow it out completely. I'm not going to stop walking, that's for sure. It's doing great things for my body. Who knew it would be a problem?! Didn't count on this happening!

On the upside, I've lost weight (my son and his GF actually commented on my face being thinner when we Skyped the other day) and I was able to fit into another pair of jeans I hadn't been able to wear for quite a while.

Guess you could say there's a good side and a bad side to all of this. Then again, that's life in a nutshell, isn't it?

Job seekers and freelancers: check out my You Should Work at Home FB page and Twitter account

Attention writers, editors, transcribers, and other job seekers:

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If it makes you happy, do it!

If you like Pokemon Go, play it.

If you don't like Pokemon Go, don't play it.

I'm sure some of you enjoy hobbies other people don't enjoy.
Leave people alone and allow them to do what makes them happy. In a world that seems to grow madder (as in insane) by the minute, people need to have pastimes to take their minds off of other stressors.

Football might make you happy, but others may find it stupid and a waste of time. And you can insert countless other hobbies/pastimes as well.

Don't like reading about Pokemon Go? Do what I do when I see people posting about subjects I don't care about—scroll on by or ignore the posts. It's that simple, folks.

Allow people some joy and recreation in their lives, even if YOU don't like or approve of it.

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Creativity in a slump?

Need help polishing your prose?

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A house divided cannot stand

The easiest way to destroy a country is from the inside. Especially when you ignore the needy, the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised within a country's midst. Unless a whole lot of stuff changes within the United States, our country will not survive. When you divide your people, others can conquer them. I'm sure you've heard, "Divide and conquer" before, right?

We have the power to address all of these problems. We are so busy propping up the infrastructures of other countries that we are ignoring our own, and it's crumbling...not just physical infrastructure, but cultural as well.

And when I say culture, I don't just mean European culture. America is, and always has been, a melting pot of various cultures, religions, ethnicities. In case you have forgotten, the words on the Statue of Liberty read thusly:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I say this a lot, but I'm PROUD to have one of the founding fathers, President John Adams, as a relative on my birth father's side. Same for his son, President John Quincy Adams. Now, listen to his words:

"Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."

If we do not take substantive, meaningful action to address the serious issues that are currently tearing our country apart, we risk losing our freedom AND our country. Because when your house is divided, it can be conquered.

Our house is fractured and divided into so many pieces. There is hard work ahead, but we must commit to bringing those pieces together as best we can. We have to be brutally honest with ourselves and see the truth, not coddle ourselves with comfortable lies.

There is work to be done, not for just some of us, but for all of us. As Americans. As people who love our country and do not want to see it crumble, only to be discovered centuries later in dusty history books. Right now, the biggest threat to our country's survival is from the strife we are fighting from within. Wake up, America. Let us take a cold, hard look at ourselves and commit to doing what must be done for the sake of our country and all of us who reside within it.

We can do better. You know this, right? Let's get to work on the problems facing us and SOLVE them, together.