As a select few of you already know, before I left for my fantastic trip to Chicago last week, my home had a very unexpected visitor!

This is not a photo of my actual visitor; it is instead a photo of a guy that looks EXACTLY LIKE HIM! This photo is provided by the Ohio Historical Society web site and, apparently, these enormously huge, fast-moving, terrifically scary, non-poisonous snakes are common around here. It's just that usually, they don't magically appear in your laundry room on a Monday evening to scare the fuck out of you and your cats! (Thank god, Mike, my ex, whom I awoke from a sound sleep with my terrified shrieking over the phone, got out of bed and came out in the pouring rain to get the enormous fucker out of my family room and set it free back in the wilds whence it came!)

(PS: More about my trip later. Trying to play catch-up around here.)