2004-06-03

am the lucky one, aren’t I? I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar. And for the record, I’m not worried. “Precancerous” means “If you wait long enough, it’ll become cancerous, but it isn’t yet”, so I’m just glad I actually had that physical. I made Fred take a picture of the spot on my back, since it’s in a place I can’t see and I was wondering what it looked like, and can I just say HOLY SHIT do I have a lot of freckles on my back! I had no idea. Luckily they’re all those little tiny freckles and not the big scary melanoma-looking ones. With all the sunburns I got as a kid, I’m surprised I don’t have to have all the skin on my body removed. (You do know the mole warning signs, right? Keep an eye on your moles!)

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Speaking of my skin issues, I have to keep a bandaid over the spot on my stomach. Regular bandaids just won’t cut it in the morning, because I sweat (heh – I originally typed “swear”. Which is also true!) profusely when I’m working out, and any regular bandaid will just slide off after a while. This morning when I was digging around in the basket where we keep our large collection of bandaids, I found a waterproof bandaid that sticks on all sides, and it swore on the box that the bandaid would stay in place through anything you could throw at it. I put it on, and went to work out, and sure enough the bandaid didn’t budge at all. When I took the bandaid off to take a shower, a small pool of sweat poured out. Gross. Yet also somehow cool. Is it better to let the spot marinate in a pool of sweat, or go without a bandaid for a little while? I suspect the latter.
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I realized as I was vacuuming the downstairs this morning just how many damn spiders we have living in our house. I counted at least seven corners inhabited by spiders, and I’m sure there are many more. Like I’ve said before, as long as they keep their webs clean, I’ll let them stay. The problem is that spiders don’t actually eat bugs – they paralyze them and then suck the juices out of them, then toss the bug shell that’s left over out of the web. There were no less than eight bug shells on the floor under the web of the spider who lives in a corner of the kitchen. Did I suck up the spider who was making the mess? No, I vacuumed up the bug shells and let the spider stay. Because he’s killing the bugs like he’s supposed to! It is absolutely an amazing thing that I’m letting these spiders live in my house without freaking out, because as a kid I hated any kind of spider. Once (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before) there was a spider in my room and I didn’t dare to get close enough to kill it and Debbie wouldn’t kill it for me, so we sprayed the fucking thing with half a can of furniture spray until it stopped moving. Most of the spiders in the house are fairly small-bodied with long legs. The spiders I can’t stand (and will either kill or shoo out of the house, depending on how close to the door they are when I spot them) are grass spiders. They tend to be HUGE – when we lived in the other house, we left a foam noodle in the pool one night. The next morning we decided to go for a swim. On the noodle was a grass spider the SIZE OF MY FUCKING HAND, and it was covered with baby grass spiders. ::shudder:: The other kind of spider I really, really don’t like is one I didn’t know the name of until I happened to find the page I linked above. It’s the jumping spider. Not only do they have what appears to be pincer-like front legs (I always think they look like tiny crabs), THE FUCKERS JUMP. REALLY FAR. LIKE FOUR TIMES THE LENGTH OF THEIR LITTLE BODIES. Ugh. I actually found a couple of jumping spiders facing off in the kitchen this morning. I put a cup over them, slid a piece of paper under the cup, and took them outside. When I dumped them out of the cup, one of them immediately JUMPED TOWARD ME. Little fucker. Spider pictures that have made me shudder this morning: the banana spider (UGH), the black widow (those things just look SO FUCKING EVIL), and the golden rod spider. I don’t know about you, but after looking at all those spider pictures, I’m feeling all itchy, as though thousands of spiders are crawling on me…
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A couple of people asked in the comments yesterday whether it bothers the spud that I clean her room and get rid of stuff while she’s gone in the summer. It hasn’t so far, and she’s always glad to see her room clean and straightened when she gets home. This is actually the first year I’ve cleaned her room that I haven’t tossed any toys, mainly because she’s gotten older and isn’t getting so many toys that she never plays with. I’m going to take down the Little Mermaid poster and put a bulletin board in it’s place, but I’m going to keep the poster (it’s a nice one that her father’s cousin gave her when she was little) and if she decides that she wants it back, we’ll find another place on her wall to hang it. As for the shirts, I’ve packed them away so that if at some point after she gets home she says “Where’s my (blank) shirt?” I can go dig it out. It hasn’t happened in the five years, though, and I expect it won’t happen this year either, since I talked to her the other day and it sounds like she’s already got a ton of clothes to bring home with her! I generally give the old clothes until around Christmas, and if she hasn’t needed something I’ve packed away by then, I figure she never will, and I donate it to charity.
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Yellow lilies. Pretty, eh?
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I got the BEST LINK EVER from Laura this morning – Maine Goodies has anything an exiled Mainer could ever wish for. I’m particularly drooling over the whoopie pies and lobster stew!
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Spot. He’s in his bed! (He spends all day in his bed. I suspect he does the exciting stuff at night when we’re asleep) ]]>

23 thoughts on “2004-06-03”

  2. A friend of mine found a brazilian wandering spider ( http://www.petbugs.com/caresheets/P-fera.html ) on a banana one time. She worked for a pet store so she actually kept it in a terrarium in her house. After she showed me THAT thing, I didn’t eat bananas for years. Everyone, check your bananas carefully before bringing them home…

  3. Furniture spray? I once threw cheese at a spider, for lack of any other means of defending myself. Oh, and I was crouching on the kitchen table at the time. Hence the cheese.

  4. I haven’t read this yet, but I just wanted to let you know, Robyn, how much I appreciate your journal. How you update all the time, etc etc.
    Have a yellow smiley day, sunshine!

  5. Brr. Calvin killed not one, but TWO Brown Recluse spiders in our bathroom last night (they’re more poisonous than Black Widows). I imagined things crawling on me all night long, and I actually lift up the toilet seat before I go. Because, you know, I don’t want to get bit on my dainty bottom. Heh.

  7. I *love* Fiddleheads- a taste aquired in New Brunswick and you can sometimes get them in British Columbia, but they always store them wrong so they get all slimy and I refuse to think about paying $16 a lb for them out here. Last I was in the homeland, they were $1.29 a lb. Unfortunately, McCain’s isn’t selling them frozen anymore. And at $4 a can, that site is a little out there too.
    The other thing that tempted me was the blueberry jam- the blueberries out west are highbush ones- about three times the size and a third of the taste of the ones from the Maritimes and Maine. I used to get the best blueberry rhubarb jam from the Farmer’s Market in Fredericton.
    Just one more reason to appreciate the homeland when we visit I guess.

  8. This was one of the scariest journal entries ever, because of all the spider mentions. Nothing else living scares me more than one of THOSE things; in fact, I am creeped out & scared of anything w/ more than 4 legs.
    You killed my dream of coming to visit someday, Robyn. I couldn’t sit in a house where I knew a million spiders were just lurking in the corners, waiting to all rush out at once and crawl all over me with their horrible creepy legs. Guess I’ll just continue having to visit you electronically! 🙂

  9. Oh, Robyn. I’m all teary-eyed over the Maine Goodies page. You know what I mean. Creme horns. How I love thee, creme horns. They have something approximating them here, but they aren’t really the same thing.
    Mom usually express mails me fiddleheads in the spring. She and Dad brave the black flies for a batch or two. I’ve never had canned. Any good?

  11. OK – I am officially CREEPED OUT by the spider pics and entry. That is my worst phobia. I’m looking over my shoulder now in case one is trying to sneak up on me! I don’t like spiders and snakes, and that ain’t what it takes to love me…..

  12. OK enough talk of spiders. > I doubt Spot does much else besides sleep and eat at night. My guys don’t. I was away for a week. Every night since I got back, I’ve had 3 cats in my bed asleep everytime I wake up no matter what time it is.

  13. Re the bandaid thing – I think wounds are supposed to heal the best with less scarring if they are kept moist. (The reason why extreme sporters with road rash wrap themselves in saran wrap.) But since you are going for a badass scar, it wouldn’t hurt to do without. 🙂 I had a mole removed from the area where my waistbands hit. That sucked. First I became allergic to neosporin, then I became allergic to bandaids. I had to buy the tres expensive hypoallergenic bandaids. And it was always irritated from anything rubbing on it. Bleh.

  14. With your mole scar and my hernia scar, we are the two scar-iest gals ever!
    We have big old wolf spiders in our basement. I hate them hate them hate them hate them!! They’re HUGE and AWFUL and they COME SKITTERING out of the laundry basket and FREAK ME OUT!
    That is all.

  15. Blarg! I have always been skeeved out by spiders, and I am sitting here, sipping a diet pepsi with a rolling stomach and really wishing I wouldn’t have clicked on the links. 🙂 I absolutely cannot sleep in a room if I see a spider on the walls, ceiling etc. I make my husband go and kill them first. I’m such a wuss.

  17. Oh. My. GOD. My shoulders are way up by my ears right now, with all the spider talk. And the bug shells! Ew! I have attempted bug removal with Lysol, Windex, shaving cream and Pledge. Whatever weapon is nearby will do. As long as I don’t have to touch it. And also several thicknesses of paper towels to pick up the squishy (or crunchy) carcass.
    Must go itch now.

  18. {shudder} I got a jumping spider off my shirt today as I was sitting in my recliner. I didn’t know they bit till you directed me to that site. YUCK!
    I hate the grass spiders too, they invade our house every year as soon as it warms up then again when it cools off.
    Hey you guys have strawberry and raspberry Marshmallow fluff in Maine? Cool. Never seen it before. I am thinking about ordering me some Whoopie Pies.
    Great links today Robyn!
    Oh and I am glad you got the precancerous shit in time but that is still scary shit. I had precancerous cysts on my colon and later it freaked me out that cancer was trying to grow in my body. And I did alot of what-ifs, like what if I wouldn’t of went to the doctor etc..
    You are a mighty mighty brave bad ass woman in my book!

  20. I think the banana spiders are beautiful and they make huge webs outside. Your description of the jumping spiders as little fuckers cracks me up because you can tell by looking at them that they really are little fuckers. Heh.

  21. Eeeew!!! We’ve got little spiders all over the place here, and I HATE them!! And my cats won’t even kill them(they’re much more interested in trying to catch flies that they can’t reach). Interesting, though, I had always thought that black widows were more dangerous than brown recluses. I remember being warned all about black widows when I was a kid, but not so much the others.

  22. I used to live in a house that was infested with those jumping spiders. Those things are so scary!
    Sorry you have to have more skin removed, Robyn. I’m glad they caught it before it became cancerous. xo

  23. Hi Robyn! Hope everything works out with the rest of the mole removal! I wanted to suggest..while working out or anything really..LIQUID BANDAIDS!! I swear by them!! I have a skin disease & it’s common that I have an open boil type place on me (sorry TMI) & I workout daily & sweat A LOT girl..so I use the liquid kind! I used to never believe that they worked or lasted but they do!! Things heal so much quicker IMHO!!
    Best wishes always!!

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