This evening I really ought to go hunt up a long hooded black robe and a scythe, because two — count ‘em, two — of my pets died today. Not major pets, I suppose; if you rated the Crumpacker pets by weight, the turtle was in about third place and the froggie in fourth or fifth. Both hale and hearty, to meet the eye, up till today. And now both deader than doornails.

This happened to me once before, years ago, when I kept birds. There they were, merrily chirping and feathering my carpet and generally doing their birdly thing, when Erika and I left to go to the Strawberry Festival. When we returned a couple of hours later, both of them were pushing up daisies. Never found out why. No apparent reason. Gas leak? Scared to death by — what? The mystery remains.

But it gives me the shivers. Here is one of the perks of being raised Catholic: a persistent sense that this specific terrible thing is specifically and terribly my fault. I have been biting my lip for three hours pondering how I transgressed against these pets, and when they are replaced, how will I avoid unwittingly bumping off our new charges as well? I’ve been researching various reptiles and amphibians all evening, but I can’t seem to find one which appears to be shatterproof.

I suppose it’s not a bad life lesson for the kids. In between their grandmother’s cancer death last fall and the various life forms I’ve apparently felled, they seem to accept without fuss that death is a part of life. And not being raised Catholic, they don’t even blame themselves! And now back to the research. Do you figure a snake this time? I used to have the most adorable baby ball python I carried around in my bra — he lives with Erika now, but perhaps my bra is a safer place than the wide wide world.

Coda: Crying my eyes out, bringing out my dead and burying them together in my back garden, in the pouring rain. I get similar reactions to beloved plants which die. These are signs than I am either hopelessly stuck in childhood or have (or am trying like hell to have) my finger on the pulse of the Universe, or quite possibly both. Humans too often think life other than theirs doesn’t count. I sometimes think other, “lesser” life, being more in need of protection, counts for more.

Either way. There are these men and children whom I love, and they don’t up and die of red leg on me. I’ll take it.

I somtimes have problems with late May and early June, because I spend the whole time waiting for things. Waiting for the NHL finals to be over, because every year that is a super-huge deal to me. Waiting for the school year to be over, because although the last day of school isn’t until June 19, this is the fuck-you time of year, commemorated by Open House — which is tomorrow night, and which is the annual Woodland Elementary aren’t you glad this crap is almost done? celebration. We are looking forward to lots of late nights goofing around, watching too much TV and playing Wii. Oh wait, we’re doing that shit already. We’re all about late-spring fever.

The year goes by so quickly — I don’t mean the calendar year but the school year, which starts at the first breath of Labor Day and ends approximately now (or five minutes ago, if you ask us). The summer goes by in an eyeblink. We have a trip to Sequoia planned for the Monday after school ends, followed by a trip to La Quinta [Palm Springs area] for July 6-9 to celebrate Sam’s 8th birthday. No sooner do we get back from La Quinta than the Orange County Fair starts, lasting a month, on the heels of which are Boolie’s 4th birthday, Erika’s 25th, and then — gasp — the first day of school. All this is punctuated with trips to beach and pool. Summer is always a blur.

So I guess we’re lucky to have a pause right now. The boys’ school rather wisely suspends and/or lightens homework for the kids in June, and waiting out the end of the NHL season always goes by too fast. Meanwhile, we’ll welcome home our new baby, a juvenile pink-toed tarantula, who is due home tomorrow morning. You gotta love spider babies: they don’t require expensive car seats and don’t scream in your ear all night. Which is appropriate for the time of year when we all stop to take a breath before the next round of family life begins.

I was raised Catholic; more than that, I attended Catholic schools for eleven years, from my earliest education until I escaped to university. The result of all this is, of course, that I am forever haunted by guilt. I feel guilty over everything. About things which are my fault, certainly, but also about things which are not so much my fault as they are accidents. Even about things that have nothing to do with me. The nuns who dogged my childhood and teen years would be delighted.

I’m usually pretty good about keeping the guilt at bay. My life pretty much revolves around my husband and my children. Okay, and books and the Internet. But I’m what you’d call a family girl. I’m always at home, or if out and about, I’m either earning money or doing things with my husband and kids.

But then there are the Basenjis.

I really don’t have time for them, and they are the major source of guilt in my life. They spend most of their time in the backyard, for the simple reason that they need extremely close supervision indoors lest they leap up and eat your dinner, or chew up your $400 purse. (There is really no excuse for having a $400 purse, so I guess I should thank Rudy for chewing up mine.) But they are masters of the guilt trip, and they play on the sneaky aspect of my Catholic conscience that constantly whispers There is misery afoot, and it’s all your fault.

Anytime I enter the kitchen, which features a large window overlooking the backyard, Rudy jumps up on the wrought-iron patio table to fix me with a baleful stare and commence Baroooooooooing fit to wake the dead. I can go outside and pet him and Dollie, and feed them treats, and replenish their food and water, but the next time I appear at the window Rudy will again Barooooooo. Again and again and again.

After ten minutes of this, I’m irritated; I’m cooking dinner or doing dishes, and I don’t have time for quality Rudy time. The truth is, I frequently don’t have time for quality Rudy time. Make that hardly ever. So that dog, and his furrowed brow and his reproachful Barooooo, have become a sort of constant reminder of all the ways I’m failing to be Supermom.

So how do I handle this? By saying Shut the hell up, Rudy a lot and going upstairs where he can’t see me through the window. Because if I go into the living room, he will peek through the blinds at the patio door and scratch on the glass with his paws. Did I mention he knows how to operate the kitchen doorknob? I’ve seen, from the inside, the knob turning as he manipulates it from outside. It’s only his lack of opposable thumbs that prevents him from marching inside and telling me what’s what.

I suppose I should be grateful, though. My mother has passed on, and my kids aren’t even Catholic. And a girl raised Catholic needs a source of constant guilt in her life. Rudy fills that need admirably.

Okay, I’m sorry. I’M SORRY! That was an unforgivable pun, but if you had to live with my husband, you would understand. He has worse ones. Way worse.

I got to wondering about Obama’s potential Presidential pet, and the answer I found: He has no pets. Which is odd to me. Most Presidents I can remember had pets. Shit, we have two Basenjis and a tarantula, and we’re not running for anything. What kind of person doesn’t have a pet? I really want to know.

Bill Clinton had Socks the cat. I think later he got a dog. George W. has his Scottish Terriers. Even Nixon had Checkers the spaniel. So what is up with a guy with no pets? Makes you wonder.

So now here is the thing about the spider.

I am crazy, because (1) this used to be MY spider, (2) I shipped him off to Erika’s house, and (3) as of today, he is my spider again. (Or, possibly, she. Have you ever studied how to sex a tarantula? I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. And I’m quite certain that you don’t, either.)

Shortly after Boolie’s birth, I dispatched all living members of the family who were not plants, Basenjis, Ben, children or Sea Monkeys. Because I already had enough living things to worry about, is why. I purchased this spider when he was a baby, about nickel-sized including legs. As you can see, he is All Grown Up.

And why was I insane enough to take him back? Because of this: When Sam started first grade nearly a year ago, he filled out a poster called “All About Me”. And in the spot for “If I could wish for anything in the world, I would want” he wrote and drew: A Tarantula. And I am a sucker.

I am trying to muster up the courage to pick it up and not be afraid enough to drop it on the floor. Because did you know? Tarantulas have exoskeletons, which means they wear their bones on the outside, which means that if you drop it, it will fracture and quite possibly die. I should also point out that they won’t bite unless you seriously fuck with them, and even if so, the bite is about equivalent to a bee sting. There are more poisonous breeds, but they’re not sold as pets.

Anyway. Tarantula. Like I needed this? Sometimes I am floored by my own stupidity.

My 7-year-old, Sam, is way into monsters and creatures, as befits a young boy. Over the weekend we were watching a show on the History Channel featuring such beasts as Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster. And I said, Hmm, I wonder if they will do the Jersey Devil?

Sam’s ears pricked right up. The Jersey DEVIL? he said.

The Jersey Devil probably isn’t very well known apart from the Delaware Valley area encompassing New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. It’s a local legend that dates back to the 1700s, and I always found it charming. I was a huge Jersey Devil fan as a kid; I can clearly remember chanting The Jersey Devil! The Jersey Devillllll! The Jersey Devillllllllllllll! until my parents threatened me with mayhem if I didn’t stop.

My grandmother lived near the Pine Barrens, the southern bit of New Jersey the Devil is said to frequent, and I always looked for him when we drove through there. Once, when I was about six, I thought I saw him running through the woods. As a lark, I later reported this to a woman who maintains a Jersey Devil page and conducts Jersey Devil hunts, and don’t you know, she included my story in her list of Devil sightings.

All this I showed to Sam on the Internet first thing the next morning, and his eyes got huge. Mom. You’re famous! he cried. I said no, I just appeared on some random webpage. Yeah, but you have your own website, too! he insisted. Funny. Yeah, famous with all three of my readers.

Anyway, the Jersey Devil is Sam’s new obsession. He printed out various pictures of him from the Internet and tacked them above his bed, together with his own retelling of the story of the Jersey Devil’s birth, with illustrations. (I’ll bet come next hockey season, he becomes a New Jersey Devils fan.)

We had the most interesting visit to the local reptile zoo yesterday.

There is a giant O-shaped pond in the center of the store, which is populated by red-eared sliders [water turtles], large koi and catfish, and a giant monitor lizard. They sell cups of mealworms for the kids to feed to the turtles with long tweezers, and the boys were standing by the side of the pond feeding turtles when the monitor lizard, basking on the central island, decided to move. This fucker is 4-5 feet long. It looks like it could eat you; at the very least, it looked like it could eat Boolie.

The monitor leaped into the water, scaring the crap out of a number of the large fish, who startled and splashed a ton of water onto the bystanders — mostly, on Sam and me. Then it swam through the pond and started hauling itself over the wall of the pond and onto the store floor. Boolie was terrified and went to hide behind a display island. The lizard was really agitated. And kind of scary.

It landed on the floor of the store, took a huge runny dump right in the middle of the central area, and strode off to the back of the store. Ewww, it took a dump! I said, causing a group of nearby boys to titter. The store personnel didn’t notice, and I didn’t want someone to slip and fall in the shit and sue them [that’s us, always seeing the liability angle], so I went up and told the guy Your giant lizard took a big poop in the middle of the floor. He had to clean it up with paper towels. I suppose that’s a liability of being in the reptile business.

The boys are still talking about it. We’ve gone to the reptile zoo a number of times, but this is the only time we’ve encountered monitor lizard shit. And I don’t think it’s something they’ll forget very soon. Sam can’t wait to get to school and tell his friends about it tomorrow.

Going Like Sixty introduced me to Blog365, a network of daily bloggers. I never thought I could ever maintain blogging daily, at least not that anyone would read. My rants and ramblings come in bursts and waves, and while I could certainly post something every day, it wouldn’t be anything people would want to read.

But I’ve recently read a couple of biographies of 18th century figures ranging from an obscure New England midwife to Thomas Jefferson, and have been charmed by their daily habit of recording local weather conditions. Now there is something I observe and think about every single day. Despite my frequent rants about the monotony of So Cal weather, the reality is that there are indeed changes and seasons, just not proper or normal ones.

So I’ve started a daily weather journal to which I will post each day. There’s also a link at the top of the blogroll, in case you ever get so desperately bored that you want to read the details of Southern California weather. I’ll also throw in earthquakes and wildfires and the blooming of local plants and coyote sightings and other random details of nature. Why, I do not exactly know, except that I’m charmed by the 18th century habit of doing so, and that’s good enough for me.

Sam, my first grader, has tended all year long to play soccer at recess. This is made possible by Southern California’s temperate climate; when it’s not raining, in which case they’re confined to their classrooms for recess anyway, it’s warm enough to play soccer.

But in May, when the weather grows even warmer, the stink bugs show up. For the duration, therefore, Sam and five or six of his cohorts have abandoned soccer in favor of what they call the Stink Bug Patrol.

Each recess, the Stink Bug Patrol roams the schoolyard and grassy areas searching for stink bugs. Yesterday at lunch recess they found four! They have no hesitation about handling the things, and yesterday one crawled up the leg of Sam’s jeans before he shook it out. They give them little-boy names such as Toilet and Boogerman and Boba Fett, then release them to fly away as a giggling group of little girls lurk nearby to watch.

Every day when I pick Sam up, I am treated to the daily stink bug recap, with an account of how many bugs they found, how many people they “stinked”, and how many little girls they grossed out. Clearly, this is the highlight of his day.

God, I love having little boys.

URGENT STINK BUG UPDATE: Sam came home this afternoon to report that the Stink Bug Patrol has been disbanded by disapproving teachers who don’t want them poking at the stink bugs. What a bunch of buzz kills. Shame on women who don’t understand that LITTLE BOYS MUST. DO. THESE. THINGS.

There’s nothing for it but to start a Stink Bug Patrol at home.

One of the things I like about Southern California is the proliferation of birds — native, migatory and introduced. The native birds include the roadrunner, more common in the deserts, but occasionally glimpsed in suburban neighborhoods. To a girl who grew up on the East Coast, the sight of roadrunners is totally made for TV; until coming here, I almost doubted such things really existed apart from Warner Brothers cartoons.

We live across the street from the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, one of the best birding grounds in the nation, which serves as a stopover for migrating birds, including lots of egrets and herons. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a Great Blue Heron trying to perch in the top of a palm tree.

Also commonly seen right in my own neighborhood are wild turkeys, who mysteriously appear, disappear and reappear at unpredictable intervals on a grassy lot around the corner from our home, and feral parrots apparently descended from escaped or released pet parrots. These parrots frequently fly in shrieking flocks of 10-20 birds about our neighborhood as well as in other Southern California beach communities.

I frequently am heard to say that I miss robins and bluejays and Baltimore orioles and all the Northeastern birds who populated my childhood. But you have to admit, a life surrounded with herons, turkeys, roadrunners and parrots is a rich and varied life, at least as far as birds go.