Black Widow? AGAIN?!?

So, yesterday I ordered a pizza, and decided to wait with my front door open to get some fresh air in my house. As I opened the door, I heard a tearing noise, and knew that I was ripping fresh spider webs. I looked down, and sure enough, there was a full-grown female black widow in the doorway of my house! I killed her, but the male got away; hopefully, I got all of the egg sacs. There was much spraying of insecticide in my home!

While I’m sure that this would be traumatic for anyone, some of my readers are aware that I have a history with black widow spiders. The summer of my ninetheenth year, I was working as an Ecology instructor at Camp Thunderbird (a Boy Scout Camp near Moberly, MO). We had actually captured two large female black widows and stuck them in a double-ended salt and pepper shaker to display so that the Scouts we were teaching could see what these dangerous arachnids looked like. Both females laid egg sacs while in captivity.
Weeks later, when we were breaking down the camp at the end of summer, I knocked over the shaker. Both egg sacs had hatched, and two adult and thousands of new-born black widow spiders decided that my right arm was the path to salvation! I spent several minutes dancing and screaming like a wild man and rushed to use staff shower facilities.
Several hours later, while waiting in line for dinner, I felt an itching on the back of my neck. I swatted at it, and, sure enough… a baby black widow! I believe that my distress was understandable, having had deadly poisonous spiders on my body for the better part of day. Some of my friends on the staff decided that, since we had the night off, we should all go to Moberly and watch a movie to help me wind down. And what was playing, you ask, in the Moberly Theater that weekend in the summer of 1990?

ARACHNOPHOBIA.

I have to wonder, what is it about me and man-killers? The black widow spiders, the ex-wife, the crazy girlfriends… Coincidence? I think not!

Third Quarter 2008

Although I will not do any additional training, such as SEE or the Rites, I will attend every Unity and Blue Lodge function I can this quarter. Further, every day at 1530 I will perform a 20 minute Relaxation Response session using IAO as my mantra. After this session, I will read three chapters from Lamsa’s Bible from the Aramaic, or five chapters on Sundays.

29June 2008

Well, I attended my second service with the local Unity Christian Church, and I have to say, it was more enjoyable than the first. I had a great sense of energy and well-being for the rest of the day–whether that was simply due to returning to a congregation after so many years, or whether it is specific to Unity services, I do not know. I will say again that being a Gnostic attending Unity services is what it must be like for a Catholic to attend Protestant services–they hit all of the themes; they’ve even got some creative innovation going on… but they miss the deeper substance. Still, it is far and away better than having no church at all!

As for the service itself… I can’t make this stuff up. The guest minister actually did a sermon on the relationship of Back to the Future and Harry Potter to the Acts of the Apostles. I think I have drill next week, but I’ll be interested to see where this goes after that.

I was going to attend Lodge Tuesday night, but the JOC is finally standing down, and my schedule has been temporarily shifted to assist with the transition. Maybe I’ll get to stop in on the 15th.