Todd “Chief” Rowley gently fingers the large dent in the 37-pound Albino Burmese Python’s body as it slithers around his shoulders. The snake was attacked by a rat one child irresponsibly left in its cage. The snake was close to death once the wounds became infected, but fortunately Rowley was called with enough time to perform surgery.

Maya Elias turned 17 on March 1, but she is wise beyond her years. At first, the University High School valedictorian started volunteering at an eastside nursing home because community service was a scholarship requirement. But then she started to get attached — to their frailty, to their memories. “Over the years, it’s what I realized I love doing, just going there and being with the elderly,” she said.

It took two minutes for 1-year-old Christine Rexroad to crawl from her living room to the pool, slip in and drown. Her mother left the pool gate unlocked in a mad rush to find the family dog who had escaped from the yard. Robert Rexroad was on his way home from work to have lunch with his daughter — a tradition he started months earlier.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office has made an arrest in last week’s fatal shooting at the Avalon Reserve apartments. Damien Lavon Hudson, 20, was arrested without incident on Sunday June 1 on Bethune Avenue on the city’s west side as a result of an ongoing investigation and surveillance by the Tactical Unit.

They come uninvited, guests with names like Dolly, Sally and Teddy. They run you out of your house and they scatter your most precious belongings to the four winds. After they leave, it is up to you to pick up their damage. And there’s a high likelihood one of them will be visiting you sometime this year.

Three weeks ago many homeowners in southeast Orlando found their lawn sprinklers had run dry. The city, which has control over the reclaimed water valves that thousands of residents are hooked up to, had to shut off the water because demand had doubled from 6 million gallons a day to 12 million to hydrate landscapes alone.

Thousands of Central Floridians have tarnished credit reports following a flood of foreclosures due to a subprime loans, causing property managers to reevaluate their qualifying standards. According to Lori Trainer, president of the Greater Orlando Apartment Association, qualifying agents nationwide have adjusted their thinking to be less businessminded and more humanitarian.

Harbor House, a local women’s shelter for victims of domestic violence, will soon expand services for the majority of its residents. Surprisingly, and tragically, the intended services are not for women. Last week, Harbor House broke ground for a new children’s center that will serve as a day care and school for youth, who, on average, comprise 60 percent of those staying at the shelter.

Two weeks ago Lisa McCormick gripped rosary beads in her hands, trying to stifle her frustration at State Road 408 traffic. She was stuck near the Semoran Boulevard exit on her way to work downtown from her Eastwood home. The westbound lane was closed after a tractor-trailer truck rear-ended a vehicle, pushing another truck over the guard rail where it teetered back and forth. For the next two hours she sat parked in her vehicle miles behind this scene, slowly inching forward. “The conditions on the 408 are not acceptable.

It’s not the first time Avalon Park resident Kathleen Caron, 29, thought she would die. Violently ill during her entire pregnancy, her life was marked by unceasing nausea, dizziness and fatigue. She was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness. Bedridden and losing weight, Kathleen was on an IV and visited by nurses, unable to keep anything down, hardly able to shuffle to the toilet.