It's 4:15am and there's a spider on my roof, to be more exact, on the weather station anemometer creating work for me. How do I know? - I'll tell you in a minute, but first some background on current events, or "eventos" as they say down here.

They say "living well is the best revenge", I've always subscribed to that sentiment and practice it every chance I get. Life has been good and continues as such, so I share it - selectively. The cats, beginning with Max, live a good life, they have a safe place with harassment by dogs or other cats, we run a tight ship and it's for a select group even though they're just a bunch of Mexican wild cats who were born at the right time and place. They get fed well 3 times a day with treats thrown in on a regular basis. Max gets combed daily and Nacho gets it once in a while.

They have a good medical plan, when they get sick a trip to Dr. Pepe fixes them right up and when they come of "age" they get a trip to Dr. Pepe for a bit of "pruning" so we don't have any more 7 kitten Winters! They have toys both inside and outside and when the yard cats knock one of the jingle balls into the pool, guess who retrieves it?

So, life B good at Casa Abuelo, we live well - but, that is reserved for the select few, and IS NOT extended to spiders, of which we have numerous varieties and copious numbers. Mexico must have invented spiders, I'm used to spiders, they're ubiquitous, we had daddy long legs in NE when I was a kid, in TX we had tarantulas, all harmless. We used to have one or two little ones in the pantry in TX, Chris left them alone as long as they didn't get too big or build extensive webs, but here? - we got 'em in spades!

They see the cats and me living well and assume it's an open invitation, I provide lights at night to attract bobos and bugs of all nature and size for them to feast on. We have some lizards, but you can only eat so many before you get cotton mouth so the spiders are busy busy busy.

The iron scroll work on the front door is a favorite, it's under the front entry light and perfect to spin webs on. From time to time my gardener's wife cleans them off as do I, but within a day or two, or actually a night or two they're back in force. Now, this being the eve of the rainy season, which produces even more bugs, sends a coded genetic message to all spiders "MAKE BABIES", Dr. Pepe doesn't have a cure for that problem. So, this last week or two has been the annual mass annihilation of unwanted spiders (and they're ALL unwanted) better known as Spring cleaning. I get out the 1,400 PSI powerwasher and blast them and their nests into next year. Yesterday alone I spent 5 hours doing the terraza and deck furniture. They love the boveda brick ceilings where they can attach the egg sacks with webs that are stronger and stickier than anything I've ever seen.

In addition they also like the underside of the eves (2 stories up) and of course some get inside the carriage lights and live large (they must be blind, but they're fat). They create nice little web refuse collectors on the sides of the house that catch everything from bugs to dust to leaves making house cleaning a total inside/outside eventos. Last Saturday I spent over 2 hours up on a 2 story ladder blasting the west side of the house and came down with spider webs etc. in my hair, soaking wet from blowback from the powerwasher etc. - and the next day they were already in a "rebuilding" mode.

So, why do I tell you all this? Well, at 4:15am this morning, one enterprising spider climbed to the highest point on the house, primarily to get even with me for evicting all his relatives I think - and got onto the moving cups of the anemometer of the weather station and managed to lasso it to the nearest object and stopped it from turning! - yes, I mean he stopped it dead in it's tracks and locked it down.

When I got up at 6 and checked into the weather control room the wind speed showed 0.0mph. Now, that's not totally uncommon, it was very still this morning and I didn't think much of it and went on about my day of scrubbing floors etc. and finally about 4pm I noticed it was still 0.0mph - red flags went up, something was amiss on the weather mast and specifically the anemometer which is the highest point (of course).

I got out the ladder, hiked up on the roof, noting as I went the cups were not turning, and climbed up on the cement pedestal the mast is strapped onto and unscrewed the spinning cup assembly while clutching the mast with the other hand for dear life. And yes, sure enough the web lasso was obvious, the little beggar had caused me all the grief he could and wasn't even there for me to squash. Anyway, that's the story for the day. The owners are arriving for Taiwan for their annual visit and I hope they come over soon before the spiders take over again!