Mother's Day, now with bonus banana slugs.: seanan

Mother's Day, now with bonus banana slugs.

One of my favorite things about Brooke is the way she gets excited about a lot of the same horrible things that I get excited about. I love all my friends, but very few of them respond to "Hey! I found a horrific multi-segmented exoskeletal thing under this rock!" with "Oooh, neat, let me see!" the way that Brooke will. Brooke is awesome.

Since the book release party was Saturday, and Brooke was going to be staying with me all day Sunday, we started talking about California Things We Could Do. Somehow, this led to my announcing that we have foot-long electric yellow slugs available for viewing in Muir Woods. INSTANT RELEVANCE TO BROOKE'S INTERESTS. And this is how my long-suffering mother found herself roped into spending Mother's Day driving out to Muir Woods so that we could go hunting for monopods in the damp redwood forests of Northern California.

Once again, the apple really didn't fall all that far from the tree.

Muir Woods is about a ninety minute drive from my house, and we used the excursion as an opportunity to educate my mother about Canadian music, blasting Moxy Fruvous and Great Big Sea (she was tolerant). She did ask me at one point whether I'd called the park to be sure they were open. I confirmed that I had. Then...

"Well, did you ask if the banana slugs were out?"
"It's not like the park rangers were going to go and check."

There is no banana slug time clock.

Muir Woods was surprisingly crowded when we arrived; apparently, I wasn't the only person who thought celebrating Mother's Day with giant yellow slugs was a good idea. Brooke and I were ready to be thrilled by nature; I started with being thrilled by the chipmunk in the parking lot. SO CUTE. After that, we were thrilled by a Banana Slug Crossing sign, a First Amendment Zone, and the bathroom. Did I mention that we're excitable?

It was misting lightly as we entered Muir Woods: perfect weather for casual hiking and banana slug-hunting. We had barely been inside for five minutes when the first banana slug sighting occurred, with a three-inch yellow guy* waving his eyestalks saucily at us from the clover next to the walkway. Brooke took his picture. Two minutes later, banana slug sighting number two occurred. So here we are, wandering through this cathedral of redwoods, the tallest trees in the world standing sentinel all around us...looking at the ground. I love my friends.

We did stop to gape at redwoods, and Brooke took many, many pictures. Eventually, we turned onto a side trail, where we proceeded to hit the banana slug jackpot, finding a four-inch Pacific banana slug and two seven-inch California banana slugs in quick succession. Yay!

Now, there's an old tradition that, if you disturb a banana slug while in the woods, you have to kiss it before you put it back. I was watching the Pacific banana slug industriously ooze around on my coat sleeve when a family with three little boys walked up, irresistibly drawn to my slimy friend. Not wanting to be responsible for the squishing of every slug in Muir Woods, I told them about kissing slugs, and that I'd have to kiss the slug before I put it back.

They looked at me expectantly.

I kissed the slug. (I admit this only because Brooke was carrying a camera, and hence has proof.) The eldest of the boys also kissed the slug. His mother made sure to get it on camera, and will thus be able to horrify his prom date in a decade or so. That's me, making the future harder since 1978.

We stopped at the park gift shop when we finished slug hunting, and Brooke acquired a glow-in-the-dark Slug Patrol T-shirt, which she chortled over with great glee. Then it was off to the car, and onto what Brooke termed "the roadkill buffet." A deer came bounding in front of our car, causing Mom to shout and point it out to Brooke (because they don't have deer in Canada, apparently). She was so busy shouting and pointing out the deer that she totally missed the fawn that was following its mother across the road. I screamed. Brooke screamed. Mom hit the brakes, missing Bambi by inches. I swear, if she had hit that damn deer, we'd still be up in Muir Woods. Mourning.

We started moving again after the fawn cleared the road. A wild turkey came strutting across the roadway, unconcerned by the large motor vehicle hurtling toward it. Mom stopped for the turkey.

"You have turkeys here, just wandering around," said Brooke, nonplussed. "That's a thing."

Also featured on the roadkill buffet: joggers! Suicidal joggers! Some people really don't want to live to breed. We managed to not kill any of them, and went rolling merrily back toward home, Mom and I bellowing along to the radio, Brooke slowly passing out in the backseat.

Happy Mother's Day!

(*Technically, banana slugs are hermaphroditic. Really, I don't think they care.)

tsgeisel

May 12 2010, 15:16:35 UTC 7 years ago

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I presume you already have a Banana Slug t-shirt from UCSC of some sort or another?

seanan_mcguire

May 12 2010, 15:17:29 UTC 7 years ago

I do not! I was a Berkeley girl, not a Banana Slug.

7 years ago

pyre006

May 12 2010, 15:40:42 UTC 7 years ago

awesome!

May 12 2010, 16:14:58 UTC 7 years ago

It was fun!

keristor

May 12 2010, 15:45:17 UTC 7 years ago

I love your mother! And Brooke! And you, of course! (I haven't met either of the first two, but they sound awesome...)

May 12 2010, 16:15:06 UTC 7 years ago

They are. :)

janeg

May 12 2010, 15:53:35 UTC 7 years ago

Brooke, spend more time around Toronto next time - there are turkeys wandering the roads where I ride, and occasional deer. There are even occasional deer about ten minutes east of my home, in the city. No, I don't know what they are when they aren't being deer.

However, we have a critical shortage of banana slugs.

May 12 2010, 16:15:23 UTC 7 years ago

A shameful lack, it's true.

hsifyppah

kyburg

May 12 2010, 15:58:17 UTC 7 years ago

Wish I had a jawdrop icon for this one. You've mentioned what you think of banana slugs. Dude. You LOVE your friends like whoa.

May 12 2010, 16:15:57 UTC 7 years ago

...what do you mean? Banana slugs are the only kind of non-aquatic slug that I like. They're big enough to be monster movies, and hence awesome.

themysteriousg

May 12 2010, 16:11:40 UTC 7 years ago Edited: May 12 2010, 16:11:59 UTC

We have two Banana Slugs that we've rerouted out of the garden to a jar where they are fed fresh fennel, lettuce and other treats by my 4-year-old. They are named Nanner and Slugo. She thinks they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Not up for explaining hermaphrodites just yet.

May 12 2010, 16:16:19 UTC 7 years ago

California, Pacific, or Slender?

Deleted comment

May 12 2010, 21:17:48 UTC 7 years ago

I'm sure Brooke will post them eventually.

saffronrose

May 12 2010, 18:01:55 UTC 7 years ago

Canadian music? Stan, Garnet, or Nathan Rogers? (many others too numerous to mention here)

Did they have banana slug chocolates at the gift shop? Mackenzie's Chocolates in Santa Cruz makes them.

May 12 2010, 21:18:05 UTC 7 years ago

Moxy Fruvous and Great Big Sea.

They did not.

jawastew

May 12 2010, 18:32:40 UTC 7 years ago

I remember seeing one of those banana slugs when I went to the Point Bonita area. They're crazy weird, but I would never be so brave as to kiss one. ;)

Also: the wild turkies, they are everywhere in the bay area! Sometimes they just stop in groups in the middle of the road. They, clearly, have not heard of Thanksgiving or freezers...

May 12 2010, 19:28:19 UTC 7 years ago

Yes on the turkies. They are everywhere. I had to swerve to avoid some in walking in residential Walnut Creek just the other day.

hasufin

May 12 2010, 19:34:55 UTC 7 years ago

I completely failed to notice any banana slugs at all when I visited Muir wood back in '01. Of course, I didn't know banana slugs lived so far South - I always associated them more with the Pacific NorthWest.

Clearly, I need to go back and look.

May 12 2010, 21:19:02 UTC 7 years ago

Yes. Yes, you do.

peachtess

May 12 2010, 21:12:39 UTC 7 years ago

I love banana slugs! I was introduced to them in science camp when I was a kid in California. My trail guide/teacher told us how the Native Americans used to use the slime from a banana slug to numb wounds. Then he let us kiss it to demonstrate. Works pretty well!

Plus we had a banana slug song.

Banana Slug, Banananana Banana Slug....

May 12 2010, 21:19:12 UTC 7 years ago

Awesome!

kat_merle

May 13 2010, 01:51:32 UTC 7 years ago

I am jealous of your Mother's Day celebration.

May 13 2010, 15:59:55 UTC 7 years ago

It was extra-slimy.

May 13 2010, 02:43:34 UTC 7 years ago

Best Mother's Day EVER.

May 13 2010, 16:00:02 UTC 7 years ago

YES.

scholarinexile

May 13 2010, 15:43:33 UTC 7 years ago

I'm so envious. This sounds like an awesome expedition. Here in Pittsburgh, the best we get are these four-inch fire-engine red slugs with leopard-like black spots that emerge after rainstorms.

And I love Great Big Sea; I've seen them in concert about six times. Alas, they haven't been anywhere near here for awhile.

May 13 2010, 16:01:08 UTC 7 years ago

Dude, red slugs? AWESOME.

I love GBS in concert.

mskauri

May 13 2010, 16:59:10 UTC 7 years ago

You MUST stop posting things like this for me to read at work, following which I must stifle my giggles lest my colleagues think I'm odder than I am....

FWIW, I LOVE Moxy Fruvous and GBS....have several of their CDs and saw MF in Portland on their last tour. Had dinner beforehand at the table adjacent to their lead singer (who looked MIGHTY FINE in his jeans, tshirt and biker boots....yummmm).

May 14 2010, 04:33:26 UTC 7 years ago

I never got to see MF perform live. I am now deeply jealous.

groblek

May 14 2010, 04:03:27 UTC 7 years ago

Heh, this makes me think of my honeymoon, where we went camping up the coast. My wife ended up taking many photos of the banana slugs that came to visit our campsite - she was quite taken with them.

I grew up in coastal Mendocino county, so I'm quite familiar with & fond of the slugs myself - they make me think of home. Hmm, Muir woods is probably the closest redwood forest to Davis, I think we'll have to plan an excursion there sometime...

May 14 2010, 04:33:54 UTC 7 years ago

It's gorgeous there, it really is.

Also, best honeymoon ever.

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Mother's Day, now with bonus banana slugs.

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