Spiders…some of them totally disregard the rules

Everyone knows I have a love/hate relationship with spiders. They fascinate me, I love watching them and learning their ways. I enjoy watching them hunt, and learning the differences of prey capturing techniques used by the different spiders. Some stalk their prey, some use trap nets, some a combination of both. Some spiders are actually cute, jumping spiders, for instance, they are on the smaller size, they aren’t big enough to really be scary, and they are kind of fun to have around. On the other hand, when a spider crawls on me, runs at me, drops down from the ceiling in front of me, or surprises me in anyway I am going to jump, scream, dance around, flap my arms and generally act like an idiot. 

Well today I had a new one. I have had all of the aforementioned activities of spiders in my life. A lot of them many times over, but today I had a new one. I am sitting in my chair playing a game on my phone this afternoon and drinking a glass of iced tea. I finished a game and reached for the iced tea glass. I was watching a new game load and wasn’t paying attention to what my right hand was doing, muscle memory was taking care of the tea glass getting to my mouth. 

Just as I took a sip though something tickled my nose, and started up my nose and headed for my glasses. I didn’t throw the glass of iced tea across the room, but it was close. I did splash some out on the floor. I also didn’t throw my phone across the room, but that was close, too. I managed to drop my phone onto my lap and got the spider brushed off of my nose before it disappeared into my hair. 

After I settled myself I looked to see if I could see said spider. After a short search I found it. It looked like it was on its last gasps. I apologized to the spider for squishing it and then went back to my game. Rick came in a little later and as I was telling him about it I looked and the spider was gone. So I guess it managed to get enough legs working to limp off to a dark spot in the house. 

I really hated to hurt the little spider, but doggone it, it just didn’t obey the rules. 

Dad’s Caramels

1 cup sugar

¾ cup corn syrup

¼ teaspoon salt

1½ cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine sugar, syrup, salt and ½ cup cream and stir constantly over low heat until sugar dissolves; then cook to soft ball stage. Add another ½ cup cream, cook again to softball stage. Add last ½ cup cream and cook to firm ball or 245º. Remove from heat, add vanilla and pour into well-greased pan. Cook, score in desired size and put in the fridge overnight. Break on score lines, separate and dry.  Wrap in waxed paper twisting the ends.