It's a cricket...no a spider...no a spricket!!

This creature...hideous as ever I have seen... could perhaps be one of my least favorite creations on the face of this entire earth.  It makes me queasy just to post the picture. This is the infamous spider cricket (loathingly called a spricket!). Unfortunately, in this area of VA, there are many, many spider crickets. Now, I'm not too squirmy when it comes to bugs.  I've killed many a bug for myself and my roommates. But these are an exception. A serious exception.  These things make me run around and scream like a child.  The are so fast! and they jump right at you.  And I'm not talking little jumps that are proportional to their size.  They jump HIGH and FAR.  And I HATE it.  And this is the season where they start coming out.  Let me just give an amusing description of what these awful bugs will do to me (and my roommates).

A couple of weeks ago, Laura went downstairs to put some food into the fridge that is in the basement.  I was walking towards my room, Elizabeth eating dinner at the table.  All the sudden Laura lets out a huge scream.  I've heard that one before. It's a bug scream.  Elizabeth said she thought it sounded like someone got killed, but no it was a bug. Not just any bug. A spricket.  It was on one of the very top steps. Laura stood at the bottom.  Elizabeth and I very carefully turned on the light to the stairs so we could see the bug. Unfortunately, we flat out refused to walk down any of the stairs while the bug was there.  And at the same time, Laura was paralyzed at the bottom of the stairs.  She was ready to hunker down and sleep down there if we couldn't get rid of the bug (seriously). Elizabeth and I tried to get it with a broom handle, but we missed.  Instead it jumped down about 7 steps toward Laura.  We all screamed...and then Elizabeth and I laughed. Laura ran away from the stairs saying that there was no way that she could kill it, but... Elizabeth and I just stood at the top of the stairs.  We informed Laura that unfortunately, we couldn't kill the bug from above it on the stairs and we were completely unable to descend the stairs because we would then have to travel over the bug (and let's be honest: that is not an option because you are basically just inviting it to jump onto you). After many minutes of convincing and planning, and transferring the broom to the bottom of the stairs, Laura attacked with vengeance.  With multiple direct hits from the broom, she killed the thing.  Dead.  It took us probably a full minute to decide it was really dead so Elizabeth and I could walk down the stairs to help clean it up. I exaggerate not. This is all true. You can ask my roommates. I think we would have just left Laura stranded there.  Or...I guess we could have gotten her out through the basement door.  Either way. My least favorite creation in the world. 

I think when I die one of my top questions may be why God had to put sprickets on the earth. I'm pretty sure they do no good...they just haunt my nightmares.

(As a p.s.  I suppose that means if I lived in Panem and had to participate in the Hunger Games, the Capitol would torture me in the arena with hundreds of huge sprickets.  It would be oh so easy. I don't think I'd ever recover.)

Happy Holi!

If you haven't experienced it before- Holi is the festival of colors. It's celebrated in India and I don't know where else.  Here in the states, you can see it celebrated at Hindu temples. While I always knew about it during my years at BYU, I never actually made it down to Spanish Fork to experience the goodness.  This year, I made it to a celebration in Potomac, MD with a bunch of friends from church. It was glorious!  The weather was a little chilly, but overall beautiful. I loved the celebration.  It was a welcoming setting, people everywhere were so friendly.  You walk by people and they reach up and brush your cheek with color and say "Happy Holi"...or they throw it in your face or on your clothes and say it.  Either way, I was laughing and smiling the whole time.  I decided I needed more celebration in my life. Love my church and the culture that it offers, but...frankly...it's not nearly as fun and happy as this was.  I'll have to find other celebrations to participate in!

 This is Emma and Spencer- two counterparts in the day. They were friends in my car for the trip. :)  Spencer doesn't like to be dirty.  He tried to stay away from the color, but was unsuccessful. He did an excellent job tolerating the dirty and I think he even had fun!

 This was one of the many small children experiencing Holi. I laughed as I watched the reactions of the kids.  Some were very excited, but a lot of others were really unsure about the people and this whole color thing. I also laughed at the kids as I assessed their sensory processing skills (being the nerdy therapist that I am).  I could tell some of them definitely had issues processing and t'was a challenge. 

 This is me, Laura, and Kara- my friend who organized the group.  My poor camera had a splotch of dirtiness on it! And I couldn't see anything through my glasses, but Laura wouldn't let me wash them because she thought it was so funny!

 This is what happened when you walked into the area nice and clean.  A crowd of people dashing you in color!

Kara and me

This is what we looked like after a while. The color just all blends together and you look nice and camouflaged.

Laura and I right after a good attack of color.  I got a whole mouthful on that one.  Gross!!

Still gross.  I had a sore on my tongue the next day!

The Group

Me, Joe, Emma

 Another part of the celebration is the burning of the witch. I didn't know anything about this when we went to the event, but from what information I could gather when I got home, the witch is symbolic of this evil sister who tried to kill her brother.  She was "immune" to flames, but when she tried to kill the brother with fire, he was protected and she was burned because the god that he worshiped spared him for being righteous.  It's supposed to represent evil loosing- burning, and good winning.  I also hear tell that it's supposed to be like the winter witch being burned and spring coming with new life.

 So we waited for the burning of the witch. 

 And we waited....and we got a little bored.  So, Laura started "flying" with Emma's help...

And eventually our hunger ran out. So we left to go get Cafe Rio.  People thought we were extremely weird.

The rest of the group was originally right behind us, but apparently right after we left, they finally burned the witch. So, we sort of had separate lunches. And people still thought we were weird. :)