Apologies in advance to the arachnophobes.

You might want not to scroll down to see the photograph if you're really badly afraid.




I finally felt well enough to mow the lawn this afternoon (first, I was too busy, then, I was too sick). I get kind of twitchy when my lawn goes unmown; it's kind of the same thing I feel when my house is a mess (which it is, kind of, right now).

It's part of the "pretend grown-up" thing for me. Even though I'm nearly 40 and hold down an arguably grown-up sort of job, I still kind of feel - because I've "failed" to do two of the things (marry and bear children) that I sort of think the iconic grown-up does, and also because I'd usually rather watch cartoons than "serious" television - that I'm sort of playing at being a grown-up.

And I tend to take not accomplishing the typical grown-up tasks in reasonable time as evidence of that. (Never mind that if I had gone into that iconic sort of marriage, like I imagined grown-ups as having when I was six, my husband would be the one responsible for caring for the lawn).

So I sometimes have the irrational thought in my head that someone will come along, someday, and say, "Give it up; you tried being a grown-up and failed." And I will immediately be poofed back to being 7 years old again and will be led off by the hand.

And while there are some things about being 7 again that might not be entirely unattractive (having a metabolism that allows me to eat peanut-butter-and-Nutella sandwiches with impunity), still, the thought of going through the whole growing-up process again ("And get it RIGHT this time," my unseen interlocutor reminds me), horrifies me.

But I did mow my lawn this afternoon, maybe chasing away that shadowy figure yet again, so I get to stay a grown-up for at least another week.

And I got to see this:



It's an Argiope aurantia, a female (female spiders are bigger and showier than the males). She had a web in my backyard right up against the fence (so I didn't have to disturb her when I mowed; she did move up off the web onto the leaves when I went by).

I thought I knew the spider but verified it using Bug Guide, which looks like a really good resource - it has a "clickable guide" based on insect body shape - so if all you know is it has four wings and a skinny body, you can go from there. I was able to find pictures of other A. aurantia and they have the same markings as "my" spider.

Incidentally, does anyone know the plant she's on? I think it's in the milkweed or dogbane family - it has pods like a milkweed. It's a vine with smooth heartshaped leaves and milky sap.

And the WORST SMELL EVER. Seriously - the first few times I ran over the stuff mowing, I checked the bottoms of my shoes to see what I stepped in, and then I thought, "whoa man, I better check the antiperspirant." It smells like week-old sweat socks. No, week-old TEENAGED-BOY sweat socks. It's unbelievably rancid. I've not been able to identify it (other than guess at the family) because I've never seen it flower. (It's some kind of weed; my neighbor has it and it crosses the fence).