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So I'm washing Meyer lemons in the sink. I just picked them and paid dearly (talk about nasty thorn trees!). The outer ones are gone, so I have to gingerly squeeze in through the brambly limbs, worm my arm in, grab a lemon, and try to extract it without suffering too many impalations.
As I said, I'm washing the lemons, and they're gunky with this black mold or fungus. Suddenly I feel something on my neck. Well, I don't want to touch any part of me with my gunky hands, so I figure I'll bear with it until I'm done. But whatever it is crawls further onto my neck, and I'm thinking, What the hey! It's a sizable entity! Finally I reach up and, with the back of my wrist, rub against the spot. Something falls, bumps against my hip, and clacks the floor loud and heavy. I look down at this fair-sized snail.
It sort of reminds me of Naked Gun. You know, the tall guy whose head and chest you never see. And in one scene, Leslie Nielson does a double-glance upward and says, "Tiny, you've got something on the edge of your mouth." A hand goes up in a brushing motion. Leslie says, "No, you missed it." The hand goes up to brush again. And half a banana falls on the tabletop.
Anyway, I thought of telling Lady Cranefly, but decided to postpone it until well after dinner -- because she can be quite squeamish about such things (and she was, let me tell ya).
Did I do good?
Dinner: Chicken breasts with Meyer Lemons, Shaker Lemon Pie, and lemonade.
I forgot to get lemon drops at the grocery.
-cranefly
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You know, those California snails are not indigenous. They were introduced in the 1850's as escargot, but we Califolk thought wiser about eating them. See http://www.daviswiki.org/Slugs_&_Snails. Finding a snail on your neck is no big. If it was a full on banana slug, I'd be more impressed. Or even better, a leech. BTW, banana slug mucus is high in protein. Californian survival camps often teach that you should lick banana slug slime if you're starving. At least that's what we tell people. Here, this is right up your alley, or your neck as the case maybe... http://www.washington.edu/research/pathb...1990g.html
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Isn't UC Santa Cruz home of the fighing Banana Slugs?
Cranefly - if you'd like some more snails, I can pick up about a dozen on the sides of my plastic and terracotta pots on my porch garden just about every morning. They sometimes make interesting cat toys. Although McCrae much prefers worms -- not so hard to unstick and carry inside. I'm still waiting for the first bird or rodent.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
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Thanks for the offer. But I just checked around the Meyer lemon and it seems to have enough snails. I also checked in the backyard where I grow a garden and it seems to be doing okay in the slime department too. Oh, and the strip of plants outside the kitchen door is quite adequate likewise.
My neck, however, does appear to have a vacancy. But since I'm planning to pick another 50 lemons tomorrow, that problem will likely take care of itself.
Our small Persian, named Fudge, has been stalking a hummingbird outside our kitchen door. THe hummingbird keeps gathering fluff from some remnants of flower blooms and carrying it off to a nest. Fudge will lie down at the base of the plant and wait for it. So far we haven't found any dead hummers in the house.
Oh, I'm doing vermicomposting. I could give Fudge a red wiggler and see what she does with it.
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...it's fornicating banana slugs. When I was in SC, you'd see them all the time. They tend to hang together in a huge ball of snot dripping from a low branch when in the act. Slugs are one of those animals that have both sets of genitals, male and female, but can do themselves. They need a partner to line up organs. Banana slugs also take big bites out of each other when fornicating, something to do with needing extra energy.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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...they're vampiric fornicating banana slugs?
I sense a Fox TV special in there somewhere.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
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They're nasty vampiric fornicating banana slugs. Don't forget the mucusballs they hang form. An acquaintance of mine ran face first into one hanging from a tree on a foggy morning. It's about a tennis ball sized glop of slug bodily fluids: slug mucus, slug blood, slug sexual discharges. As I remember it now, I can't help but giggle about it. Face first. Poor thing. But it was funny.
I wonder if I could get one to hang from a Meyer Lemon tree... 
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Maybe you should have spent a little more time on the books and less time playing Mr Peepers with the fornicating mucus forming, vampiric ( is that even a word?) banana slugs.
Ditto on the gross part. But they do look great on a T-shirt.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit
Haggis Killer
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The Queen Wrote:Isn't UC Santa Cruz home of the fighing Banana Slugs?
Fighting?
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I really appreciate all this talk of mucus ... as I slowly succumb to the wicked cold or flu that clobbered lady cranefly over the past two weeks.
Still, slimey suspensions of mucus. It's a cool image. I may add them to the jungle trees in a story I'm working on. It's just so ... in your face.
Sorry. Just sneezed.
Better wipe off your monitor.
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