I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

My husband apparently wants to read Gilgamesh. "Do we have a copy?” he asks.

Our house is basically made of books. It’s not big enough for all the books we have. I still have books from when I was five. I have books that I love, books that I think the kid might like to read eventually, I have books I’m keeping just because I hated them and ended up having to read them, like, two or three times, so at this point it’s like keeping the mummified head of my enemy on a pike.

Honestly? I don’t remember if we have a copy of Gilgamesh. I mean, the odds are pretty good, but who knows.

Anyway, now he’s critiquing the book shelves and complaining about our lack of organization. (Three or four years ago, we put everything together by series and author, but didn’t have time to alphabetize, so our ultimate organization is something like check where I have all the Eddas or I’d probably put that near the Neil Gaiman, go look on that shelf.)

(Did I mention the entire closet dedicated to comics boxes? Because that’s on him.)

My grandmother got home from Tennessee yesterday, where she spends about four months a year with my aunt and uncle, so today after the boys got out of school, we headed to Casa de My Parents to see her.

It was a nice afternoon and evening, and we returned home to the Little Pink House to discover that it's that time of year again--housekeeper spider time!

Housekeepers are not poisonous, and they're a good sort of spider to have around, but they're huge and creepy. So we do not squish them (they're too big for me to even want to try ~shudder~); we capture them and let them outside.

Scott spent part of the evening chasing "Mr. Spider" around the living room and into the bedroom. Unlike our recent frog-hunts, this was somewhat lackadaisical, and when he went to bed it was Scott: 0, spider: 1 (and hiding in the bookcase).

So I'm reading on the couch. The book is good, but I'm tired and my fleecy blanket is making me even sleepier. Time to retire. But I'm thirsty, and there's a little detritus on the side table, so I figure I'll toss that as I go to get my drink ...

... zoiks! Mr. Spider is on the floor by the side table. (They're not poisonous, but seriously, you see one of those things on the floor and you startle.)

Okay. Take a breath, head to the kitchen, toss detritus, grab glass and laminated card of measurement conversions. Return to Mr. Spider, drop glass over him, slide card under, head to door ...

... zoiks! There's another housekeeper spider in front of the door!

Do not drop glass. Take a breath. Finangle the door open, toss Mr. Spider into the shadows of the front porch. Time to address Mrs. Spider ...

... zoiks! Are you kidding me?! Rather than a breath, take a moment to consider the various and sundry possibilities of this third spider's identity, and what sorts of marital/familial configurations spiders might have, before placing glass over Mrs. Spider, card beneath, finangling door, and tossing her out to join her husband.

Only pull the door to, rather than closed. The Other Mr. Spider (I went with adulterous lover; I like drAma in spIderland) has scrunched himself into the corner where the doorframe meets the wall. Harry him out of the corner and onto the floor, except he stays half on the bottom part of the doorframe. Harry him along that, at which point he heads out under the partly open door and makes his escape (after some prodding with the card).

Look around, carefully. No more spiders. Take glass and card back to kitchen.

And realize ... I am wide bloody awake.