Trying to reason with spider season

Saturday seems like the best day to blog because I tend to avoid things I should be doing. Like I have been up for 2 1/2 hours and haven't done anything but thaw the shrimp and drink coffee. And switch over to the Mexico calling plan on my cell phone. And kill a spider. They are getting bigger.

Oddly enough I have not blogged about the growing spider situation lately. Okay I know, I know, come Fall-ish weather you see more of them in the house, blah blah. And they like rooms with clutter, whatever. But seriously I have killed probably on average a spider every 4 days around here since July. Two in the bathroom, one in my bedroom, one in the living room, two in the hall between my bedroom and my bathroom, and a few in the entry hall. Today was no exception. The spiders themselves are all pretty much the same kind - those black hard ones that are smaller than a dime including legs, maybe the size of a 10 centavo piece. Still, though, it's no fun. Today's spider I didn't see until I was walking from the crack-top back to the bathroom to put my contacts in (it's probably better that I saw it with my glasses on - the prescription needs updating). It was big. Probably between a dime and a nickle. Nickel? Nickle? Dang it.

Anyway, I did an about face and blasted the fuck out of it with Raid and it died pretty quickly, not as slowly as the one in the corner over my TV last Saturday. I find myself doing complete spider-checks in every corner of every room I enter, just because I grow paranoid. One of these days it will be one of those wolf spiders like what Shelia always had in her house. Mother of God. I would just have to move out I think.

So I leave for Cancun on Wednesday morning and Shelia is picking me up from the airport at 3am. Do I even go to bed that night? I guess I do and just get up at 2am. Nuts. No water on the plane (well, to carry on, I guess you just have to ask for 7 bottles when you get ON the plane because the bottled water on planes is like 4 inches high from lid to bottom). Plus no lip goo, right? I am having (of course) a sudden onset of over-dry lips these days and I know that's why. I need to learn to stop falling prey to my own psyche's tricks.

So I am telling my good friend Keith about my impending trip and how cheap I go, and he did a little research and lo and behold, he booked! So he and his wife Laura are coming down on the 9th (next Saturday) and staying til the 18th, staying in one of Brian's condos at Salvia. Awesome. It will be fun, they haven't been there I don't think, and I think they will enjoy the vacation. So in an effort to avoid the obvious, I sent them a couple of emails about how to get through the airport and money and that kind of thing.

Yesterday, my brother Chris and my nephew Cody came up from Yorba Linda for today's Duck game. They got into Portland around 8am and went to my mom's, and then today they drove to Eugene at like 7am and will spend the night in Eugene and fly out from there tomorrow. Cody is 13 (8th grade) and is a fox. I took some pictures with my new camera but I am too much of a dork to figure out how to upload them so maybe I will learn later. We had dinner last night at Old Market Brew Pub in Garden Home (Mom, Chris, Cody, Tom, Jim, Shelia, Barbie and myself) and then afterward Tom went back to Mom's house but I didn't because I fear driving in Beaverton. I would have succumbed to beer drinking and that would not have been good, I'm sure. It was a good time though, and when I got home Janet called and I talked to her for like the 4th time that day and for another no lie hour and a half.

Jill, Chris's wife and Cody's mom, was in town on Tuesday and we went to dinner (mom, Shelia, Jill and I) at Pazzo's downtown (she stayed at the Benson). It is always good to see Jill. I got home at like 10:10 though so I became cranky and even though the strongest I drank all night was San Pellegrino I felt hungover the next day. I sometimes wonder if me and my psyche are even on the same side.

That should keep you up to date for a while. I did manage to close the three "B" unit files that have been sitting in my recording standup for a month, had a good month end and get to keep my job for another month at least, so the vacation must be my reward. I am looking forward to it.