So You Think You Can Dance?

I have owned this house for fourteen years now. A lot has changed since 1993, almost all for the better. This house has been through three hurricanes since I bought it, and many more since it was built including ‘Andrew’, the daddy of hurricanes. When I bought it, this house had been owned by a drug dealer and while landscaping it I ran across some heroin drug kits buried in the yard. During the first year we even had a few users show up looking for a fix. That’s why I built a fence out in front of the front doors.

The one thing I have never liked is the manicured yard, or ‘Polish’ (no offense to anyone) as I call it. I like the look of a tropical jungle, and I think I have achieved that look. The problem with a jungle is that you get the critters, like possums, iguanas, raccoons, lizards, etc.

I know my neighbors look over here and must think we are crazy. The other day if they were looking, they would have seen Mark screaming and dancing around the front yard like he were an African witch doctor. It’s something that we both do, but it has no ritual significance. It’s called the spider dance. Our yard is prime arachnid habitat. They build their webs everywhere, especially across pathways that we use every day. Whoever is the first to use a pathway in the morning is the one who gets to do the dance. First you feel the web on your face, then as you try to clear that you feel it on your arms and hands. At that point you realize it’s a spider web and you ask yourself "where’s the spider?". I always assume it’s in my hair, what’s more I assume it had babies and tiny spiders are running around all over me. At this point I’m in full spider dance and usually have to run in the house and take a shower.

We have another dance we do . The one where we walk around with a long stick flailing madly at imaginary spider webs as we walk around the yard.