Bugs Everywhere

There comes a time every summer when the population of bugs seems to quadruple overnight.

I keep taking walks with Darcy and spending the majority of my time trying to wipe spiderwebs off my face, arms, and out of my hair, all the while hoping the spider wasn't present when I walked through the web.

Last week I was at Walmart, and I felt something keep tickling at my nose. When I was finished buying the library's supplies, I loaded the bags into my trunk, returned the cart, and finally got fed up and scratched the side of my nose. When I pulled my hand away, a tiny spider dangled from a little thread attached to my finger, and I realized that I'd had a spider on my nose possibly for 30 minutes, and no one had told me.

That's what kind of place Walmart is.

I took a bike ride with Mum Sunday and was struck so hard in the forehead by some sort of beetle or fly that it made and audible THUD sound. Also I lost count of the number of gnats that died by smacking into my face and neck. I kept wiping at ticklish spots and coming away with bug corpses.

It was traumatic.

I sat down across from Mum only to have her announce loudly, "A yellow spider is crawling up your leg! It's right there!" She pointed. We both hunted for several minutes for the yellow spider only to realize that she'd imagined the whole thing and we'd both believed it because there are so many crawly things about, there was no doubt that I had a spider on my leg. There were no other spaces available for the spider to live.

We also have a giant spiderweb stretched across our doorway, featuring a big-butt spider, that The Brother opted not to destroy when he went outside last night, meaning that whichever family member goes out via that door today will find out the hard way that a spider now lives there.

Then, I came to work, and I looked up.

Never look up.



Yes, it is exactly what you think it is.



I think I'm going to hide now.

Bug Eating and Run #7

I went to Death Trail for my run, by myself again because The Brother thinks W.O.W. is more important than my continued existence. I wanted to try Week Three of the running app before I died in front of Jen. I mean, Jen is tough, but I don't know how she would feel about having to drag my corpse off the trail by one of my legs so that the disc golfers at the park can play through.

And do you know what? Week Three doesn't suck. I don't know why. It is likely horrible, but by some miracle, it wasn't as bad today as it will be later. But I did okay.

Week Three includes a five minute warm-up, * 90 seconds of running, 90 seconds of walking, THREE MINUTES of running, 90 seconds of walking, then you repeat from *, and then you have a five minute cool-down. And it didn't suck.

When I finished the run, I was really proud of myself. I mean, when I was going to gym class every day, I couldn't run three minutes without stopping to breathe. Granted, I had raging undiagnosed asthma and allergies then, but still.

I am still pretty proud of myself.

Also today I ate a salt-and-vinegar cricket. It was like a potato chip, only with more legs.

Photographic evidence:

Photo courtesy of Emily, who is on the right

My face says, "Why did I agree to this, someone save me, I am dying on the inside, what is my life?" Emily's face says, "This was my idea." Jess' face says, "Let's do this!"

Really. Potato chip. More legs.