A Wild Woman Screams

Coral has finished shedding! She looks gorgeous and she knows it. Topkapi has not shed yet, but it will be either today or tomorrow, because she's already lost the blue tinge to her eyes. I have been spraying her cage liberally whenever I walk into the room so that she won't have any problems shedding in one piece. The air conditioning and the heat lamps deplete the humidity in the cages so, except with Coral who takes action into her own hands and curls up in her water bowl, I have to really pay attention to the humidity levels in Barbossa's and Topkapi's cages. Obviously, Coral does not have faith in my reasoning skills.
CocoRosie continues her pacing of her cage. I keep offering her food but she doesn't want any, so it's not hunger why she's being so active. Hopefully it's just hormones (it is mating season) and not anything more serious.
Barbossa was acting strangely this morning. I went to turn the heat lamp on and he was in a very awkward position, with the top part of his body pressed tightly against the glass. I knew something was up, so I looked all over the cage and, sure enough, under a bunch of mulch there was poop. I cleaned it up and he is resting comfortably. Even without being able to make sounds, snakes learn to communicate with us really well, we just have to be paying attention.

In my unintentional series of reviews and recommendations, I must add a particular book that I recently started. Now, I am not a hard critic on books. I will read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I am not picky on authors, on styles, and I am not swayed by other people's reviews or comments on any book (the Gods know why I write recommendations myself if I put no value in them). In other words, I am easygoing when it comes to liking a book. Having said all that, when I dislike a book, I REALLY dislike it (it's actually close to hate), and since there haven't been that many of them, I can remember them all or close to all. I can tell you that "Catch 22" is at the top of that horrible list, as is "Prague", "Slaughter House Five" and a few others. I have another one to add to the bunch. It's called "Women who Run with Wolves: Myth and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype" by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. This book is a serious waste of trees. I know that it sold millions of copies, that people love it and think it's amazing, and want to cuddle with it at night, but I cannot swallow it. When I bought it (thankfully for 50 cents at a book sale) I liked the look of it. It was completely feminist, written in a spiritual way, using stories to express psychological ideas to make women realize the powerful beings we are, etc. Sounds good, right? Well, it's not. This woman must really think we are all idiots and that we need everything spoon fed and over- analyzed for us to get it through our tiny, tiny brains, because she just doesn't shut up! She puts a story as an example of a particular idea (the story takes up a page and a half) and then continues to talk for 10-15 pages about every little thing in the story. We get it, you're a psychoanalyst or whatever you want to call yourself, enough! These stories are not that deep, and even if they were my brain works just fine. Guide me in the right direction but don't shove the ideas down my throat or I will use my independent, female, "loba", wild woman spirit to throw the book across the room, which I actually did this morning when I decided I refuse to read one more page. This is a huge thing for me, because I never leave a book half read. But I can't put up with it anymore, it's been days of torture and I will not waste my eyesight on this.

And... scene.