I'm FaceTiming my daughter, when a sudden shift in my chair throws me off to the side. I scream. I always scream.
The back of the outside rocker pulled away from the socket that keeps it upright and stable. I balance, stand, and fix the chair. My daughter watches from her children's playroom in South Carolina.
Tony, having heard the scream, looks out the window. "Are you all right?"
"Yes."
Not wanting to end the conversation/image with my daughter, I pack up and go downstairs to the deck below. The furniture is more stable: a couch with cushions. Underneath one of the cushions, it looks like some straw is laid out. There shouldn't be straw, but I will just lift the pillow and brush it aside.
When I lift the pillow, I scream. The straw is a giant praying mantis.
However scary a praying mantis may look, it is an insect I love and adore. In the past, I've purchased their egg cases and placed them in the garden.
Not sure how this little guy made it to the deck, but his value requires that I carefully carry him, on the pillow, down to the garden, where I gently force him onto a raspberry bush. I wouldn't do the same for a destructive grasshopper.
My daughter suggests, "Maybe you're not supposed to be outside today."
It is a snack for thought, but there is never reason to not go outside--unless there is lightening, a serial killer, or 15 degrees below zero temperature with wind.
Outside is where I'd rather eat, write, and live--but always with the amenities of the indoors, a doorway within steps.
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