Upside Ann

  I dreamed we had a pet spider.  Not a tarantula, but one of those whitish-you-almost-can't-see it spiders that find our home a favorite abode.  And the spider - not sure it had a name- didn't live in a cage, but was a free-range spider in our house.  (I think this was Zupe's idea.)  Our spider had spent a week away at camp.  Spider camp? and was back.  It was so glad to see us. It dropped down from a silk from the ceiling in front of our faces.  It wanted to crawl up on my finger.  (I am NOT a spider person.  I once threw a baby gate at a spider skuttling across the carpeting late one night while I was watching Saturday Night Live.  I cannot imagine how I am emotionally surviving this pet!)  Since the spider was being so friendly, I thought I'd take its picture.  I took a portrait.  Just her face. (Wow! This new dream camera has some great zoom lens!)  Ended up being not what I wanted.  There were two imag...

  For the past week I've been watching this little furry black spider saunter around the kitchen ceiling.  I don't know.  Maybe I've gotten soft in my old age or maybe I've developed greater empathy and less anxiety about arachnids.  But, not once did I say "Crap - where did that fly swatter go?" or drag a kitchen chair across the room to off the beast.   This morning, however, the damned thing committed suicide.  There I was happily sauteing a skillet of zucchini for lunch when I see a black shape web drop itself RIGHT INTO THE SKILLET!!!  Aghhhhh.  Intense swearing as I try to swish it away from its fatal plunge then try to remove its crisping body off our noon-time vegetables.   Do things like this happen to EVERYONE, I ask?  This is NOT the first time I've had a spider drop down inches from my face.   The first time I was a young professor attending the graduation party for a student held in the basement of ...