In honor of UIM's story of When Spiders Attack, I will relay THIS Godawful tidbit of Jessica history.

True story.

1996. I'm living at my parent's house after college. Due the the fact that my Uncle Matt has moved IN while I was away, I no longer have a bedroom. My room becomes the basement. Yes, they made me sleep in the basement. To their credit it is what is known as a "finished" basement, which is to say it was painted. I set this room up to look like my own studio apartment, complete with T.V., couch, recliner, and the added bonus of my parent's pool table, it looked pretty good.

One morning I awaken to get ready for work. I pick up my bathrobe and towel from where I left them on the floor, having showered before bed the previous night. This whole floor thing is the real crux of the story. I put on the robe and go upstairs. Throw the towel on the kitchen table and head for the downstairs bathroom to take my morning pee. Sitting on the toilet, I at first thought that a stray hunk of hair was sliding down my shoulder.

Not so. As I looked at my left shoulder I saw what can only be described as an eight legged GERBIL climbing my arm TOWARD my HEAD. I didn't even have time to scream as I reflexively swished it off of my shoulder onto the floor. Y'all, it had MASS. What I mean to say is not that it was a particularly religious spider (although it could easily have carried a full sized Bible), but I literally felt the weight of it against the back of my hand. It had hair, and glasses, and wore nikes, it was that big. When it hit the ground it literally made a thumping noise, and was in fact SO LARGE that it had to ACTUALLY SCRAMBLE TO IT'S FEET.

Needless to say, I dropped the robe, and came tear-assing out of the bathroom, stark ever lovin' naked, screaming like I was on fire. My Mother was the only one in the kitchen. She watched me come shrieking and naked out of the loo, heard the word spider, and took in a breath to admonish me for making such a scene. That's when the SECOND spider came strolling out of the towel that had been meant for MY HEAD. Thankfully for all I was so absorbed by my terror I didn't notice Spiderman II on the kitchen table. She, however, did. She noted the abnormal size of the beast, thought, "Hmmm. Best not to alert Jess to this one." and scooped it up in the towel to toss it outside. When I heard of this later I was mortified to know she'd allowed this abomination to live, especially without driving it out several miles from our house so it couldn't find it's way back.

We set off spider bombs later that day. I have spider stories that would turn you white.

I read Tempest's blog.

I read Tempest's blog.

I READ Tempest's BLOG.

Conneticut is now added to the ever expanding list of places we cannot move to. Two weeks ago I woke Al from a sound sleep at 7:30 am to kill a spider. I was deeply ensconced in my workout, right in the middle of my living room floor doing crunches... when I looked up. There. Dangling squarely above my forehead was a spider roughly the diameter of a pencil eraser. I dragged Al's sorry butt RIGHT out of bed to kill it. And it is perfectly within my marital rights to do so.

The largest one I've EVER seen in person was under the second floor deck of the landlord's house. From outside the atrium, at my front door (for those of you who have seen my apartment) it had built it's filthy, monstrous web at my eye level. It wasn't even IN my atrium. It was under the deck OUTside the window. I woke AL up that time, too. I told him he had to go kill it right now and call me on my cell when the wet works were over. I couldn't come home knowing that that beast was still alive by my house. It was the size of Al's hand, outstreched. It was tan and brown striped, not hairy, but it appeared to have knuckles. It actually looked similar to one of the Alien face huggers. Al had to kill it by hitting it baseball style with the handle of a broom. It was TOO BIG FOR SHOES.

I bet Alaska has no spiders. Antarctica, too.

In other news, last weekend was the much posted about visit from UIM. Oh what fun! UIM, Wryguy, EvilG, Metrocake, and her boyfriend who I will refer to as Frosting. Hmmm, it makes him sound more effeminate than he is...

We had a great time, ate Buffalo at Peter Pan's, played video games at Dave and Buster's, and inexplicably discussed Rush at my house. It's a long story.

Also, for those who care, my sister in North Carolina has just gotten engaged AND approved for the mortgage on her farm all in one week. The wedding will be in August. It's going to be the borderline White Trash Hoedown she's always wanted and warrented. It's actually being catered by (I wish I was making this up) Port-A-Pit. Yes I said Port-A-Pit, they come to your home and set up a big ol' bar-b-q pit. There will be pony rides for the kids, and I think I'm making the moonshine. Anyone got a recipe?

It'll be great. I'll be like a Turkey at a Penguin convention.

O.k., I'm back. Sigh. Whyfore do I wait so very long to post?? Now there's too much. I bore myself just thinking about it.

SO... Mohegan Sun was more fun than I've had in a long time. I mean it was phenomenal! Our weekend was quite a lot different from the one Tempest described happening for her and Carrie and Jacknife, as our included bodily abuse of ALL kinds. There are moments that I know happened only because there was photographic evidence to support the allegation. I just want to Groundhog Day that whole weekend. We had not one, but TWO massages at TWO different spa's. Bliss. We also spent the last day drying out from our hard livin' at the Mystic Aquarium. There I had a SAND SHARK SNEAK UP ON ME. I kid you not. Worst moment of my life. I stood too close to the tank saying, "Hey! There's nothing in here but AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!" As the shark swam into view RIGHT passed my face.

All in all it was great. All yea.