Posted by: tlnemethy | May 12, 2013

Spider-Incognito

The amygdala is a portion of the brain that controls the four F’s of life: fight or flight, food desires and fornication. When stimulated by any external influence, the amygdala reacts and, in turn, the body responds. We all hope (unproven assumption) that when we’re confronted with a situation that demands fight or flight, we stand strong and brave against our fears. I’ve always wanted to be the hero at some point, and no matter the reason.

Today though, I was confronted with my first true fight/flight situation. Things did not go as I had hoped.

I don’t like spiders, but after having lived in what I believe to be the spider capital of the world, I thought I was at least desensitized to their eight-legged presence. False. Apparently, moving back to my hometown has resulted in increasing sensitivity due to their lacking presence.

Anyways, today I went for a ride with Papa Bear so he could check out how my car was running after he (foolishly?) let me under the hood. He’s putting Squirtle through her paces on the highway when I look over. Call it intuition, maybe even the unsettling awareness of eyes upon me, but I looked over at him without a clear reason and I nearly died right there. Sitting on the sleeve of his shirt, mere centimeters from arm skin, was the biggest tarantula I’ve ever seen in New England. Seriously, this thing could’ve carted him around had it so desired.

Now, let me put this back into perspective. It wasn’t actually a tarantula: just a big-bodied, and hairy black spider, but it still made my heart constrict to the size of a quarter and then punch itself through my chest. I froze. No heroic smooshing from me. I sat there, maybe even contorting my body tighter against myself and closer to my door as I mentally prepared to launch myself from the moving vehicle.

My eyes were locked on the spider. And he was looking right back at me with his eight beady eyes, not moving really, but just menacing me from his standstill. “You need to pull over right now.” I’m not sure if I spoke normally, but I’m pretty sure I tried to stay cool so it didn’t hear my voice and attack like the tarantula in Jungle 2 Jungle.

Saying those words, of course, makes it seem like a dire emergency. Which it was, but maybe not quite so dire as I thought. Papa Bear gets this horrified look on his face like I might be gonna puke or I’m having a stroke or something of which I’m the only one who knows. “What’s wrong?” My eyes are still locked on that spider because, even though it doesn’t have long legs, its body is the size of a silver dollar. “Just pull over, there is the biggest spider in the world on you.”

So, in the spirit someone who knows the need is present, Papa Bear pulls off to the most inconvenient stretch of the highway while telling me to hit it or get it off or anything. I don’t even attempt it. Instead he comes to a complete stop and does one of those moves where you aren’t even attempting to kill the spider, but merely to remove it from your person as fast as possible. It brushes off to the tiny crack between the car seat and the center console where the  parking brake and shifter are.

I know immediately that the spider is not dead and has now returned to a place even more dangerous than my father’s arm; a place of the unknown crevices of my car.

In my mind I’m mentally calculating the speed at which spiders move, narrowing down the probability that it is still waiting in the crack to one in which it has sensed danger and run around the center console to my side of the vehicle. We are once again driving at this point because Papa Bear knows it fell on his side of the car.  That DID NOT comfort me.

I’m sitting stock-still, my body curved like a question mark so that my head can still watch the crevice like a hawk while the majority of my body years to open the door and spring to safety. I’m not sure if we spoke. My memory isn’t the best at this point. All I remember is my raincoat getting extremely warm as I watch for the spider to reappear. I didn’t realize I was panicking at first, only when I noticed my breathing was rapidly increasing did I start to go through the symptoms of adrenalin rushes in my head. Yup, I literally flashed back to AP Psych class in high school to diagnose myself. Not like it helped at all.

So I’m officially hyperventilating when Papa Bear notices I am definitely not all right and he start asking me all these questions. But I can’t really answer since I’m literally breathing myself to death over an incognito tarantula living in my most prized possession. Finally, after him asking me a few times, I choke out that I am NOT okay. As soon as I say the words I start bawling.

Just to let you know, crying does not mix well with hyperventilating, so I’m doing this gasping thing and I’m pretty sure my pupils were just itty bitty little pinpricks. All I can think about is this spider having the possibility of being perched on me instead of my dad if I had chosen to drive instead. If I had fund that spider I would have swerved into a ditch, stalled in the middle of rapid traffic, or had a coronary on the highway. Any which way you see it I most likely would’ve suffered a gruesome death and the spider would’ve gotten off scot-free.

After I calm down a little bit and we’re only a few miles form home, Papa Bear asks me why I freaked out so much. I said something along the lines of, ” It was looking at me.”

Let’s just say, when we pulled off into the driveway and tore the car apart there was no spider to kill. Therefore, we bombed the car with one of those spider and insect killers and I seriously debated selling the car.

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Posted by: tlnemethy | May 9, 2013

Ya Uchus V Bloomingtonia

Nope, you read that title correctly. Or at least you butchered it in bastardized Russian like I did when I spent an interesting summer in Bloomington, Indiana studying language. I had been in the Air Force ROTC detachment for a semester when I stumbled across this language immersion program through ROTC Project Go and I, of course, couldn’t think of a better way to spend my summer. Onwards to the SWSEEL (Summer Workshop for Slavic and Eastern European Languages).

SWSEEL weekendsI’ve had a fascination with words since I was old enough to recognize the characters; so it makes sense that languages might also pique my interest. German, French, Spanish, Russian—I’ve dabbled in them all at one point or another. I don’t remember why I chose Russian, maybe because in my mind it always holds so much mystery (it is written in a completely foreign alphabet you know), but it definitely wasn’t a romantic notion on my part. I suppose I chose it because, of all the languages offered through Project Go, Russian seemed like the language of the location I’d most like to be stationed in the Air Force. C’mon, if you have a skill like that the military doesn’t usually overlook it. Now if I’d taken Farsi or Arabic I would have been stationed in areas that utilize that language. Not my cup of tea, really. Fur hats and dancing bears are right up my alley, but sand just gets obnoxious.

I was eighteen that summer, one of the youngest people in my Russian class, and it was the biggest decision I ever made on my own. Moving to Michigan for school was easy because my brother was already there and my grandparent’s lived downstate, but I knew no one in Indiana and traveling by myself was just nerve-wracking. When I got my acceptance letter I actually thought about turning it down for about a week because I just didn’t want to go off on my own. But I’m a firm believer of doing things when the opportunity strikes because nothing is guaranteed in life so I ended up filling out all the forms and committing to the entire summer.

I got off the plane in Indianapolis and sat outside with all my luggage at one of those picnic tables with the rubbery mesh tops. It was sunny and I pulled out my laptop to play some solitaire as I waited two hours for my bus to show up. I kept my bus ticket in my hand the entire time I waited because I was afraid I would somehow misplace it and be trapped by myself.I relaxed once I got on the bus though;  it was gonna drop me off just outside my dorm room so even directionally challenged me could find it hard to get misplaced.

Stepping onto the pavement it became clear that I had way too much stuff with me. The information I received said I’d have to bring all my bedding and towels so I’d packed a bag just f0r those bulkiest of items. And it’s not like I packed a comforter that’s ridiculously space-consuming, all I had were the sheet sets I used in my dorm room. I had my backpack on and a large duffel bag at each hip that made it extremely cumbersome to walk up the hill towards my dorm. I began to sweat instantly under the scorching sun. New Hampshire gets warm, but not that early in the summer, and like Michigan gave me anything but snow to look forward to so I was out of my element.

Finally, I shuffled my way up the hill and into the air-conditioned lobby of my dorm only to find no reception desk or any place to get my dorm key. I wandered aimlessly and completely tuckered out from the long day, hopelessly trying to find a sign or anything of use. There it was, a little no-frills sheet of paper that looked like it had blown off the front door and lay wrinkled on the floor by the elevator: SWSEEL Participants Check In at South Tower. I was currently in the North Tower.

Gah. That was all the way at the bottom of the hill. I hoisted my gear up and began the trek for my key, the heaviest duffel wearing a red patch into my exposed skin as it rubbed me raw. My first day in Bloomington was nearing an end.

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Posted by: tlnemethy | May 6, 2013

Damn, That Jumpsuit Makes Me Look Good

So, in preparation for my journey into adulthood (post actually turning into an adult), I decided to brush up on my limited knowledge of auto mechanics.  Now, in Florida there were the kindly Road Rangers to save stranded motorists from their own stupidity, but in the rest of the continental US you have to fend for yourself. Alaska and Hawaii have more grey areas that include bear attacks and pineapple itch.Those are some nice overalls.

Mostly, I’ll do anything that gets me into a jumpsuit, especially one that doesn’t clash with my old, brown, Imma-be-a-badass flannel.

I was expecting more of a point and learn type tutorial, but apparently Papa Bear is more fond of a do and learn type so I crawled under my car for my lesson. Considering my brother and Papa Bear are just the mechanically inclined type of individual they seem to have been born with the Mr. Fix It gene. I tend to demolish.

Anyways. I’m laying under my car staring up at the undercarriage (hehe) and I can really only see a fragment of my pops pointing to things from above. He hands me a weird lasso type device for grabbing the oil filter and I fumble around with that for a while before I scrape my knuckles on the oil filter housing and get the sucker loose. Pops is telling me that the oil will just gush once I unscrew the filter and he keeps saying that it’ll be hot so all I’m thinking of is scalding my delicate armpit skin on the Hands in da pantslava oil. I was a tad nervous about the temperature if you must know. But then, I get to the last groove on the screw and it pops loose and I get hit with the oil and it was a pleasant warm rather than a Jobst glove prerequisite.

Interestingly enough though, getting the oil plug off was probably the hardest part because I lack the upper body strength for awkward positioning manipulation under cars. I must say that the bolt on that sucker must have been tightened by an angry ‘roider because it was “just on there real nice.” I hope you read that last part in my voice with just a hint of yooper accent.

But guys, c’mon. I’m learning about cars. Now I know where my distributor is, how to change an oil filter (and my oil), fill up the gas tank, jack a car (no, not steal), and take the top down on my convertible. That’s really all I’ll ever need to know, but damn I might just keep picking up on things as they come along.

Just saying though, if you ever get the chance to wear a jumpsuit like mine there is no way you’ll be able to resist wandering around with your hands in your pants. It is just way too roomy for that to go unnoticed.

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