Icky, Sticky Webs

One of the problems of living in Southern California is that there are so many things that can harm you: poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, gang members, and nutcases on the freeway with road rage. In upstate New York, we had none of that. Well, I suppose the gangsters could have posed a similar threat, but they did not do as much tagging so they weren't as heavy on the mind. Anyway.

I now live in the desert, and, with this new abode, am thinking most about the poisonous spiders in this region, namely, the black widow. Huh-huh-huh-huh (that's a shudder, if you can't tell). See, our dear little foreclosure stood vacant for somewheres around six months. During this time, the spiders, gophers, and ants thought they had inherited the property. Cheeky critters, they are. They have decorated well: uncountable mounds of dirt in the yard, courtesy of the furry subterranean guys; complete highways (with invisible infrastructure), by the miniature guys; thick, sticky webbing full of fly carcasses, from the eight-legged family.

And it's those webs that get to me.

Those webs. They are everywhere. They gather amongst the eaves of the roof, in the cracks of the retaining walls, in every crevice in the house, under our new patio furniture, in the upper corners of the shower. And beneath them...dozens of dead ants, remnants of their feasts. (Drama break - most of the webs in the house are for the Daddy Long Legs who, outside of their sheer number, I am happy to have around as they are able to consume both ants, my other nemesis, and black widows. Huh-huh-huh-huh.)

I am less concerned about the interior webs. They are merely annoying, for no matter how often I suck them up in a vacuum, they reappear 29 minutes later...with carcasses.

What worries me, what has entered my dreams at night, are the black widows (huh-huh-huh-huh) that live outside.

See, I was sweeping out a section of the back yard and found what looked like some chaotic old webbing running from the raised flower beds to the fence. That type of web is characteristic of the widow. She weaves a nasty ol' web...nothing pretty and geometrically precise. No, nasty. Nasty as her bite. And then I noticed A SPIDER in this web as I was poking at it with my broom. And THEN, the spider dropped to the ground, head pointed in my direction. And I noticed its long, pointy legs. (Widows have that slick, pointy look - it looks evil. As evil as their bites. Huh-huh-huh-huh.) And I did not wait for it to move any further - I took my flip-flop off and...WHUMP!

Upon closer look, it appeared that the spider was already dead some time before I encountered it. Quite dry and a bit crumbly. Nonetheless, she was a widow.

I went to clean the windows on my precious baby's room. They were totally dirty and full of cobwebs on the outside. While I did not encounter any actual spiders as I was dismantling the panes and the screen (hooray for modern windows - so much easier to clean than the, albeit beautiful, antique, double-hung, wavy glass ones at our previous residence), I did tangle with the webs. Huh-huh-huh-huh. They were everywhere - strung from the eaves to the window, piling up in the window track, attached to the screen, and so on. I vacuumed and washed everything within three feet on every side.

But now I have to do that on all the windows. And every time I tackle a new area of the house I get the heebie-jeebies. A stray piece of hair slips out of my ponytail and slithers past my ear, and I jump. I have the sensation that pieces of web are sticking to my elbows, falling down into my collar. I constantly search upwards in the trees and eaves to ensure that nothing is dropping down on me in sneaky ambush. You may call me paranoid; I prefer cautious.

I am slowly winning the war on spiders, ever so slowly, with the occasional lost battle, but they do haunt my dreams. Just the other night (and several nights in a row), I could not shake the sensation ALL NIGHT LONG (well it felt that way) that webs and spiders were sticking to my back. I would be somewhere, in a dream, and suddenly a spider would drop from the sky. Huh-huh-huh-huh.

I leave this topic for now as I prepare to go call a therapist. I think I need to talk this through with a professional. Never fear, though, I will return later to talk about rattlesnakes, gophers, gang members, and rabid soccer moms and their speeding, Mercedes Benz driving, talking incessantly on the phone and driving like they own the road husbands. Welcome to sunny California.