Spiders

I confess to having a bit of a fascination with spiders - I both love and hate them at the same time. Being a typical girl, they give me the creepy crawlies, but at the same time I love looking at them, they are gorgeous creatures.



Back in my days of domestication (before I went feral), for a few years in a row a spider like this one would take up residence somewhere near our house. I wouldn't let anyone touch it, I thought it was beautiful. The kids and I would feed it grasshoppers. I think it appreciated it. One made its zig zaggy web right outside my kitchen window, which was pretty clever for a spider. It knew the light would draw the moths at night.

The last time the maintenance guy was in to fix something in my apartment, he told me about a spider that seems to have migrated up from Florida.. something called a brown widow. I thought he was yanking my chain until I looked it up, and sure enough there is such a thang.



It looks just like a black widow except it is brown. Apparently it is as poisonous as a black widow as well, but isn't as aggressive. It will run when approached (thank God for small favors).

Then there are these:



Wolf Spiders. My office partner had some recent adventures with these types of spiders, claiming they were as big as her hand. I'm not sure if that was the case or if it was a claim born from a couple of panicked nights of trying to kill some. It does seem that these things can get up to a couple of inches in length, and with their legs included that would make them as big as a hand.

Okay that would scare me.

I used to have a baby spider named Chuck living in my bedroom. The cat ate him.