Okay, holidays are over, another year has begun....life is getting back to it's regular routine. And, as we dip a foot into the waters of the New Year...see how it's gonna be....I'm thinking, "Probably about as weird as ever."

Take today, for example. Today should have been a pretty uneventful day, and it should have gone pretty well too. I especially thought today should have been a good start to the year since The Hub and I finally realized over the weekend that the furnace was leaking carbon monoxide gas and there was a reason why we hadn't been feeling well for about a month and a half.

Finding the leak was not rocket science. Since the pipe leading from the furnace suddenly went askew, The Hub had the idea that it might need to be taken care of. We looked at carbon monoxide alarms, but they weren't single use, and it would have been cheaper to get a canary. Less beneficial to the canary, of course, and thus not our style....but cheaper. My point is that we thought we had a very slight leak and the carbon monoxide levels in the house might be getting a little elevated, but it hasn't been that cold out and we didn't think there was any rush to solve the problem.

Of course, we were dizzy, nauseated, forgetful, had headaches, and even the dog lethargic. I was short of breath, The Hub was exhausted. Finally it occurred to us to check the area around the chimney. The Hub hit the chimney with the palm of his hand and several pounds of concrete fell out. Oh. Apparently that was lose and leaking. So he hot footed up to Home Depot, got come concrete, and - yes, it's true - duct tape and repointed all the damage to the chimney and repaired the duct. We opened all the windows and aired the house out. It was amazing how much better we felt.

So. The Hub went off this morning to start his first job of the New Year. I took the ebays to the shipping station, picked up a perscription and stopped by to visit my parents on the way out to Union Bridge to clean the Meetinghouse where I attend worship.

I had volunteered to take over the cleaning of the place on a consistent basis yesterday at Meeting for Business. Pipe Creek Meeting is an extremely small Friends Meeting...too small to have comittees to do things. Basically, everything is everybody's problem. If you see something you can do to make things better, you do it.

F. gave me a key and I said I would go out there today to do some basics and take notes on what would need to be done on a consistent basis. Meanwhile, the hot water heater for the Meetinghouse quit functioning, so B. said he would try to fix it. None of this was any big deal.

But for some reason, I had the overwhelming feeling that I ought not go out to that meetinghouse by myself. I reasoned that since my asthma has been bad - breathing in furnace fumes is not usually good for asthma - and the meeting house is quite old and a little musty that maybe I was afraid I would get out there, run into some kind of really serious mold and get sicker than my rescue inhaler would be appropriate for.

So, when my mother came home, I asked her if she would go out there with me. Since I almost never ask for any help, she knew I really needed it on some level and she agreed. I explained that I wouldn't take long. I was just going to vaccuum, polish the benches, the kitchen floor and the bathroom and there were pleanty of interesting books to read out there. Besides, I thought Mom might be interested in the archetecture, since the place was built 1771.

As I unlocked the meetinghouse and found the lightswitch, I wondered what the matter was with me, because I certainly didn't feel that bad.

"These benches aren't real comfortable, Ma. Why don't you sit back in this kitchen area?" I said, leading the way through the meetinghouse itself into the kitchen/library area. I flung open the door to the bathroom. "I'll just start in here. E. said I ought to use this lime-away on the toilet." I turned the light on and stood there, spraying the sink with scrubbing bubbles. "Oh, yeah, I see, this toilet has a lot of hard water staining. Well, I can work on that, but it's not too bad."

"You haven't got any water." Mom said from the hallway, handing in the lime-away which she had just gotten open. It had some weird safety cap on it.

"Oh, we haven't?" I turned on the faucet in the bathroom. She was right. "Well, B. said he was gonna come out here to try to fix the hot water heater, so I guess he turned the water off. I guess I'll find the valves to turn the water back on while I'm here. I wonder if those are the ones?"

I was looking at something that appeared to be a faucet with 2 knobs on top about a foot off the floor. The plumbing in there was all re-done in the 30's and since there was a drop of water on the faucet I figured that was it.

I also figured that was it because there was large rubber black snake on top of it. Huh. Interesting. I'd have never figured B. for the kind of guy with a leave-a-rubber-snake-in-the-bathroom-to-startle-the-cleaning-lady type of sense of humor, but you never can tell about people I thought, admiring the rubber snake. It must have been expensive, I thought. Very detailed. Mom had wandered into the other room with a book. I figured I'd just toss it into the sink bowl and turn the water on, then maybe put on top of the water heater so he'd know I saw it, " Seems kind of a weird place to put a rubber snake." I remarked to my mother out loud, bending over to pop it out of the way.

"DON'T TOUCH IT!" said my mother from the hallway. My mother does not like snakes, but she is the ORIGINAL and still the best Cool Cat. She invented, perfected, and patented the Cool Cat Act when cool was just becomming cool. I've known her my whole life though, and I know that even though she was speaking in her she-who-must-be-obayed-Mom voice, snakes scare her. She hates them. Well, at least she dislikes them intensely.

"Why not, Ma? It's just a rubber snake." I said, moving aside to let her see it.

"Tea, that is NOT a rubber snake. Get away from there!" this from the middle of the meeting house. No panic, but no compromise either. She felt that this was a real snake.

Now, Mom's a city girl. Me, I was raised in the county and, moreover, I've come upon more snakes than I can count. Snakes can't hear, exactly, but they're sensative to vibration, and I tread extremely lightly. I know a lot about snakes, since I made it my business to - on account of there was a time when I couldn't go for a walk in the woods without coming up on at least one of them per trip. Specifically, I know that there are very few poisonous snakes in Maryland, and those that have round heads are not poisonous. I know that they are likely to be found in pairs. I can identify almost all types of local snakes when I see them. I have never researched the local lore that copperheads in this area can interbreed with black snakes and so some of the local black snakes are poisonous, though it is something I have heard. I am also aware that snake bites can be pretty painful....so even though a local snake isn't going to kill you it's not a walk in the park to get bitten by one. But the number one thing I know about snakes is that they are WAY more unhappy to see you than you are to see them, and unless they are really cornered, their whole M.O. is to just get away from you.

"What makes you think it's a real snake?" I asked.

"Tea, who in their right mind is gonna leave a rubber snake in the bathroom of a meetinghouse?! I'm telling you, he's sleeping. He crawled up there to get up off the floor to keep warm. Maybe there was still some warm water in that pipe"

"Is that what snakes do?" I asked, uncertainly. Because, of all the snakes I've seen, I'd NEVER seen one that still. Ever. And with all the noise and racket I felt that I was making, throwing open the door, bonking up the lid on the toilet seat, fooling with the faucets, etc, I thought if he was real he certainly was awefully lethargic. I squatted down, more or less eye level with him and peeked at his underside....which was also highly detailed.

My mother began to go on and then stopped, "- Yes, that's what snakes do! Will you get OUT of there?"

"You know." I said slowly, getting up, "I believe you're right. I believe that is a real snake."

"What finally convinced you?" asked Mom a little sharply.

"Well, he's awefully detailed underneath for a rubber snake, and - oh- kay! yep. He just moved his head. Okay then!"

"I don't see what you can do here. There's no hot water, and also, there's a live snake. I don't see how you can clean, though if you want to run the vac, I'll wait for you."

God bless my mother, she is nothing if not brave. I know perfectly well that her preference was to be about as far away from that snake as the IGA on the other side of town, but she would have sat there stoically if I'd wanted to vaccuum. Surely that would have woken it up, and it really didn't have any place to go besides out of the bathroom, and then who knew where it would go. Besides, I'm not afraid of many of God's creatures - largely thanks to Mom. But I know what it's like, since I'm terrified of bees. You can keep a lid on it up to a certain point, but I suspected that a slithering snake with no place to go but towards us might be a little past that point for my mother.

If I had been there by myself, I would have either picked it up carefully behind the head and taken it outside or coaxed it up onto the wand of the vac and taken it out. But if I'd been there by myself, I'd have unceremoniously tossed it into the ceramic sink bowl. At best I'd have gotten the fright of my life. At worst, it would have bitten me, and I wouldn't be able to blame it. I don't care who you are, if you're minding your own business, sleeping, and someone comes along and tosses you into a cold sink you're going to be pretty pissed off about it.

I calmly, but quickly got my cleaning supplies out of there while the snake roused himself a little bit, moving his head from side to side very slowly....I guess trying to decide if the scrubbing bubbles can I'd set down practically on top of him was a threat or not.

On the way home, I got to thinking about it. I wondered if the snake was a regular or a newcommer. He might be a regular, and not minded too much by anbody, on account of black snakes keep rodents away, almost as well as a cat. On the other hand, while most Quakers are like me, and are not inclined to do harm to or even disturb anything or anybody that isn't harming or disturbing somebody else most people aren't big on snakes. Moreover, a lot of the folks who do stuff around the place are senior citizens, and a sharp scare isn't really good for anybody. I thought I ought to at least let someone know he was out there.

So I called E. who used to do a lot of the cleaning before I volunteered. "Oh dear. Somebody should have mentioned him." she said.

"Oh, so he is a regular attender?" I asked, laughing.

"Well, I've never seen him. But we know he's around. He sometimes leaves his skin in the kitchen."

"Ah. I see. Well, okay , I guess I'll just keep my eyes open for him . I'll go back on Wednesday. Hopefully he'll have found a new place to nap by then."

I just got an e-mail list for the meeting. I guess I'll send an e-mail around, letting everybody know he's not hibernating, that they might want to mention him to the roofers we have coming, and maybe propose a name for him. My father suggested "Clyde".

The Hub thinks I ought to have hit it over the head and killed it. He says that Quakers are weird people...but to me it would be weird to kill something simply on account of it was in my way.

Note to self: It's Really, Really, Really time for an eye exam!!!