Intruders and Other Unwelcome Guests

Strange happenings around here today. Very strange indeed.

It started early this morning, at o'dark thirty. Middle of the night. Dark. I was sound asleep and suddenly awakened by the smell of pasta sauce. It took me a while to wake up enough to figure out that I shouldn't be smelling pasta sauce cooking in the middle of the night.  I laid there for a while, smelling sauce, mulling that over, and slowly waking up to the fact that something wasn't right. But I wasn't panicking. I was kind of still asleep. After laying there for a bit, I had to use the powder room. I got up and walked out of the room. When I got to the top of the stairs I noticed light coming from the living room, like the lights were on in the kitchen.

What? It's the middle of the night. Why are lights on in the house? I shut off all the lights when I went to bed.

But remember that I'm half asleep and incapable of thinking straight. So I stood there wondering about someone downstairs eating our pasta with the lights turned on. I took stock of the situation. Who was down there eating pasta? How did they get in?  It wasn't J. His door was closed. The Man was in our bedroom. I'm certainly not the one doing the eating.

I decided to go to the powder room and then deal with the intruder. Sound logic.

Leaving the powder room,  I passed the top of the stairs again and stopped, straining to hear something. And I did.  I heard soft voices coming from the kitchen. My kitchen. In the middle of the night.

Yikes. There really is someone in the house. Now I'm awake. I quietly skedaddled into the bedroom to get the Man, thinking about where the bat is that we normally keep in our room. I turned on the light to wake him up.

And saw an empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~
It was the Man downstairs. And it wasn't really o'dark thirty. It was past time for him to get up. He had the TV on and was eating breakfast. Not pasta.

Oy vey. My imagination is rampantly out of control.

So now I'm wide awake and stayed awake until it was time for me to get up. I got ready for work and left early since I had a meeting somewhere far, far away. As I left the house, I noticed a HUGE spider web from the railing to the ceiling with a big fat spider in the center of it.

Go away, Mr. Big Fat Spider.

I gave him wide berth and made a mental note to ask the Man to remove him from our back porch. We are not a spider friendly facility.

I got in the car and started backing out of the driveway when I spotted a large white thing in the grass. I stopped the car and got out to look at it. It was the spider web in the first photo above. With a bigger, fatter spider that darted into the hole.

Yikes. I started looking around and saw about seven more webs all over the front yard and in the shrubbery and landscaping along the front of the house.

I think we're being webbed.

~~~~~~~
The Man's going to be very busy tonight.

Like I said, a rather strange day.

~~~~~~~~~~
But now I'm sitting in the living room, watching a movie tonight. The Man got rid of the spider on the porch and the webs in the grass are gone. I think we're safe for now.

The Man and J are both at meetings so I have the house to myself. The fans are whirring, windows and doors wide open. A glass of water beside me. It's an Indian summer kind of night - warm and humid. Stink bugs galore on the screen doors.

Hang in there, summer. I'm not ready to part ways with you.