insert "jury" joke here

Last week was a whirlwind of action. I went to the doctor, the dentist, and the eye doctor, and I am pleased to report that all of my body parts are functioning satisfactorily, if imperfectly. I ordered a fancy new kind of contact lense and was sorely tempted to schedule a fancy $600 teeth whitening procedure (but I didn't). We can only afford so much fancy at one time. See also: my teeth would be whiter if I didn't drink so much coffee.

I also went up against the man and prevailed. You see, a couple of weeks ago, I got a jury duty summons. I was due to report to court today. I had resigned myself to just going, but then Jason reminded me that I'm not technically a California resident, and therefore not obligated to serve. Because Jason's home of record with the Navy is Massachusetts, we pay taxes there and our various civic duties are owed to the commonwealth. All I had to do was fax some paperwork over to the county courthouse, and I was off the hook. Woohoo! An unobstructed workweek for me. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be so excited about that...

Over the weekend I did some relaxing, but also some exercising, some cleaning, and some grocery shopping. It was my last weekend as a boat widow, so I wanted to get things in order around here before the husband hurricane returns.

I hung some pictures in the living room and in the hall outside our bedroom:

Owl print by Happy Doodle Land, wedding pictures by Jamison Wexler.
I had to evict the barn spider from the web she had strung from our patio roof overhang all the way over to her original web on the sliding door. I felt bad destroying her hard work, but there are plenty of other places for her to build a web that don't involve me inhaling it every time I go outside. You can't see the web in the picture, but she's hanging in the center of it. It was strung perpendicular to the two wind chimes. It was huge!

Had I left it there, this is what I imagine would have happened to me eventually:


Oh, and one more thing. These guys:


Look like my guys when they were little:

The hat in action!

I introduced you to all of my resident California spiders but one the other day, so here's the shy one a wee bit late. She runs a bit of web from each end of the corner and just hangs there in the middle.

In cat news, remember how Jasper has refused to use the litter box since March? I've been making the best of it and giving him litter boxes lined with towels instead. Well, on Tuesday I took away his towel box and he has begrudgingly started using the litter boxes like everyone else. There have been a couple of accidents, but he seems surprisingly willing to use the boxes with litter in them now. It's a miracle! Fingers crossed that this isn't a fluke.

Finally, my feather hat was such a hit that I thought you might like to see it in action. Blink and you'll miss me:


I know the timing is completely off from the middle to the end, but I can't do anything about a 12-year-old VHS tape's glitches.

there she weaves by night and day

I used to be terrified of spiders. If I saw one in the house, I would suck him up with the vacuum and then have nightmares about him crawling back out to get me. Not all spiders were bad, though--in high school my sister and I shared a bathroom and a little spider lived up in the skylight. We named him Kud'ar Mub'at (after the Star Wars novel character) and said hello to him whenever we came into the bathroom. Or maybe only I did that.

These days, I try to take a more balanced approach. Spiders are useful in that they keep all manner of other annoying insects out of my house, and they're pretty neat to look at when they're not crawling on me. There are a few interesting California spider friends I've met lurking outside our house, and instead of freaking out about them, I've been working on identifying them.

Meet my friends:

This is a barn spider. She disappears all day and comes back to her web on our sliding glass door at night. Tonight I watched her rebuild a section of web.
This is a banded garden spider. Look at how huge her web is! It's woven all throughout the bush outside my office window. She never seems to move from that spot on the web.
I haven't identified this guy yet. He was hanging out at the top of the barn spider's web one day a while back, during the daytime when she goes into hiding, and I haven't seen him again.
I also have a teeny-tiny black widow living inside my kitchen cabinetry. She dangles off the edge of the cabinets by the floor sometimes, but hustles right back under the drawer if there's even the slightest movement of air. I haven't yet been able to take her picture--she's shy!

Does anybody else have cool spider neighbors? Have you ever named a spider?

P.S. Name the poem quoted in the title and the movie in which the main character quotes it and you will be officially crowned the emperor or empress of awesome.

there are spiders in this one

Hidey-ho, blog friends. Aunt Flo's in town and I've been feeling particularly crappy and sluggish all week.

Never fear, though, because I took a rally nap this afternoon and got to work putting together a dinner of champions, which is baking and boiling to perfection right this moment. Consequently, it's about as hot in the kitchen as it is outside, so I took advantage of the momentary cooking lull to escape to the living room.

I've been dealing with some real life stuff this week, too, so forgive me, my loves, if I've been distant. I promise I'll be back and better than ever soon.

For now, meet my friend who has taken up residence on the wheel of the recycling bin:


What the heck is that white cone ball thing? And please don't tell me it's holding spider eggs, because I do not need a bunch of baby spiders being born in my garage.

Just for fun, here's a game of "how many spiders are in this web":


That's all for tonight. I'm going to crack open a beer and have my dinner.