Day 20

Woke up. Went to Cyril’s. all fine, glad to be back on that swing again. Wrote some e-mails in morning, while it poured here. We went to Samana this afternoon. I checked on a network for my Mac group, got money from bank, and we went on a whale watch with Kim, the Canadian woman who basically created the whale watch industry in the DR, all from Samana. It was a good tour – she’s very informative, and we found a mother and calf, with an escort male, about an hour out. We hung out with them for over ½ hour, in which time we saw the calf ride on top of the mother and play, the mother and the male both show some flippers / flukes, and a very annoying plane continually buzz over as it circled to show whoever they had charged an outrageous price to charter a small plane to see whales.


Today Lane went back into the house for something, and came out screaming – she said she had stepped on a snake, which slithered away in the house. Being herptophobic, I wanted to set an example for my children while simultaneously wanting to flee screaming. I chose the middle ground, and tip-toed into the house, with Benjamin leading the way. We looked in a couple rooms, and under beds, but no sign of a snake, which I was saying (and hoping) must’ve been a long gecko, despite Lane’s statements of disagreement. We were about to give up, when I mentioned to Amy, who had joined in the search, to look in the unaccompanied bathroom downstairs, the door of which we keep shut to keep any mosquitoes from ganging up and attacking from there. When she opened the door, there was a creature we didn’t recognize in the corner of the room. I immediately noticed it had legs, but they were shorter than a gecko’s. Amy tried to pick it up with a bucket, but it started squiggling like a snake and headed under a baseboard. So this might have been a revelation for me – I’m not specifically afraid of snakes but, instead, of snakelike movements – any movement not involving legs. While I considered this possibility, I started recognizing how many snakelike movements are part of my daily routine – toothpaste snakes out of the tube, toilet paper snakes down the toilet when flushed, and liquids snake around their containers, for example. This leaves me with the option of either recognizing snakelike motions as being part of everyday life and physical being, or have a nervous breakdown. I’ll let you know which route I choose. Or else YOU can let ME know.