Come into my parlor. . .

said the spider to the fly; Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy... The "parlor" is a mess -- actually the whole house is a mess and certainly not pretty. One day when I was about 4 years old I was out in the yard, and as I was looking at a spider's egg case that was attached on the board fence it burst open and hundreds of teeny tiny spiders came racing out. It was amazing. I've loved spiders ever since. So much so that I let them live in my house. R doesn't mind them either, fortunately for them, and in fact he found a cockroach last night and fed it to the spider that has spun a web close to the light by the closet. It has been there all summer, waiting patiently for a fly or moth to come to the light and get snared. He or she seemed very appreciate of the food. I've never seen anything in its web. Other insects that invade the house -- namely those that get into our food are promptly dispatched -- but we leave the spiders alone. Well, R does kill the brown recluses when he finds them (usually at the bottom of a box of papers). What in the world do they eat? I used to think the reason the cockroaches we brought with us from Oregon disappeared was becaue the brown recluses killed them, although the Roach Hotels got quite a few. We've got a cockroach problem now though either because we brought stuff into the house from someone whose house was infested with them or because of the compost heap which is not that far from the back door. One time I happened to be standing at the back door and saw a lizard rush out from nowhere and eat a cockroach. There is a place in the foundation under the back room of our house (whch used to be a screened in porch) where snakes and lizards spend the winter and hot summer days as well. What happened to "Roach Hotels?" That was one insect eradication product that actually worked and did not involve spreading poison. I always liked Kafka's Metamorphosis and have read it many times. I fear were I Gregor Samsa's mother, I would not be so very sympathetic to his plight.