Gecko Capture and Eviction Success!

I am glad to announce I have managed to capture one of the baby geckos that have invaded my room.

It's hard to catch them. They are usually on the ceiling, or high up on the wall when they make an appearance. Sometimes they are on the window behind the venetian blind, on the other side of the entertainment center, forcing a lot of physical contortion just to reach them. But sometimes they get on the carpet and make a dash for some other place only they understand. That's my chance.

You see the carpet snags their little feet just enough to slow them down. Not much, but its enough for me to maneuver my hands in such a manner that does not crush them when I finally make contact. They are very fragile creatures - imagine velvet coated jello. The slightest squeeze would be fatal to the little guys, so I am VERY gentle during these capture attempts. That means they often fail, but I'd rather have them in the house than ants or spiders or palmetto bugs, so if they evade me (along with an occasional anole), it's no big deal. I even leave water out for them if I think it's too dry.

But I got one the other day.

I put the little guy outside and he immediately ran up my arm. Put him down again and he jumped back on me. Then it occurred to me that he might be scared of the big world out there and took him to a dark corner with lots of objects where he could hid (the porch is full of objects he could hide in but apparently he didn't like it), and this area he liked better. He hopped away and hid under a piece of bamboo. 

As for the other ones, well, now I'm wondering if taking them into the big scary world is doing them a favor or not. Maybe I should just nurture them in the house. They don't bother me, except every once in a while when they move in the periphery of my field of vision. That can be startling. What do you think? Keep them in the house or keep trying to evict them when I can? I know  there's still more enjoying a roof over their heads (but not the carpeted floor so much). 

BTW, in case you are wondering, I want them out because there isn't enough food or water for them inside the house. I can see them get skinnier over the weeks they are inside. So even if the world outside is scary, it's probably healthier than starvation inside my home.

Can't stop a old man from Driving

My 90 year old father has a habit of jumping in his care and doing road trips. Read that again.

90 year old man. Doing long road trips.

The thing is, I've tried again and again to stop this. I offer to drive him (won't have it, thinks I'll kill him yet I have never had a serious accident, never had an accident or ticket at all in the last 10 years, and I have a clean license and have never even been arrested). I go with him until recently when he's scared me too much to get into the car unless it's absolutely necessary. I even went so far as to turn him into the state of Florida as an  unsafe elderly driver - but he passed all the tests. Yet he IS NOT A SAFE DRIVER.

He doesn't see everything. He doesn't here anything. He forgets where he is going and can't follow directions. Yet the state of Florida says he can drive.

What the hell is going to happen? Well, it's fairly obvious. He'll kill himself, or he'll kill someone else, or both. Worse, he might just cripple himself horribly so his final years are even more filled with pain and sorrow.

I can only pray tht when it happens, he only does himself.

You have to also realize this individual disowned me when I was ten years old and told my mother it was "up to her" to bring me up. Yeah, I must have been a bad ADHD kid at ten. Somehow I grew out of it and have never had problems with violence, drugs, or any of the typical things you might imagine an "uncontrollable child" would naturally fall into. And I've had my own ADHD son - learned how to love him without the bullshit "disowning" crap of my old man.

He's still nasty to me, mostly. I guess all families have the one member the parents dislike. But am I wrong in thinking, at least partially, that the problem is his? The nastiness, bullying personality that made an adult actively disown a 10 year old child? Something in him is seriously wrong.

I do hate him. I can't stand him. I avoid contact. But at the same time monitor and watch him closely. I have a duty and I wish I didn't have to be around him. Although he will never claim anything about what he said or admit how much he hates me (I guess for being an unruly 10 year old, since that's when it began - haven't done anything to or around him for 30 years so it can't be anything I do). He's a real problem and he's getting worse.

90 years old. State of Florida says he can drive. I can't stop him. This is a nightmare.