"Spider-like, We Feel the Tenderest Touch"

Okay, I'm venting here.

For at least the seventh time this month, I just walked through my yard and ended up with a faceful of spider web. Not a Kodak moment.

For the most part, I'm pretty darn tolerant of our creepy crawlie neighbors. I never kill spiders . . . okay, when I first moved into this house, I use my car to roll over and squish the dinner-plate sized tarantulas on my property. I've since realized that they don't present much danger although I still don't like turning over a rock and finding a hairy spider the size of my palm under it.

Recently one of our Research Assistants began screaming bloody murder. I ran toward her office expecting to see a dead body, a rapist or at least a pair of purple Mary Jane Crocs. Instead, the silly fool was backed into a corner hollering at a cricket. I scooped the little guy up and rode down the elevator with him cupped in my hand so that I could release him into the atrium garden outside my building.

But . . . I draw the line at huge, intricate spider webs situated at a height to cover 5'3" women. I don't like the webby silk in my hair, I don't like the strands draped over my lips and I certainly don't like snorting them up my nose.

I've lived in my house for over ten years and cannot remember a problem of this magnitude before. Sure we have a couple of nasty days of web worms in the spring, but--sweet mercy--these spider webs are getting really, really old. I'm guessing it has something to do with all the rain and now all the heat. I'm having nightmares of Arachnophobia.

Maya going off to wash her face again because she still feels creepy