Patricia Harrelson

I’m dividing Part 3 into two parts: Part 3a pictures the events of a typical day. The sunset is always the most wondrous part of the day. In the photos below you will see a sunset, a side view of the house (look carefully and you will see Cindy waving from the roof), the ladder to the roof that I won’t climb, AND the wolf spider who visited our kitchen.

The spider was the most eventful part of the day. Cindy spied it when she came in from the veranda where pale geckos were scurrying about the roof which prompted her to look up as she entered the house. There in the corner above the fridge was one gigantic wolf spider. It was late and there was nothing to do but retreat upstairs. In the morning when I came down, he was still in the same spot. I made my tea at the opposite end of the kitchen and took it outside where I did my journal writing.

When Cindy came down, she called Don who had already debugged our vacation when he entered the bodega to retrieve the TV. There were several TROPICAL roaches in there, and Cindy wasn’t about to go in and help me move it into the house, so we called Don, the property manager. When we called him about the wolf spider, he graciously came right over and “exterminated.” Cindy watched (to make sure wolf was dead and gone), while I retreated to the fruit tree corner of the yard so I could pretend I had nothing to do with this sentient being’s death.

Afterward, we exchanged stories about wasps, tarantulas, daddy long legs, whip snakes, and rattlers we have encountered. Don is apparently the neighborhood exterminator, frequently called upon by homeowners invaded by creepy crawlers. We sure breathed a sigh of relief once the spider no longer sat in the corner of the kitchen.

Then we packed up to go to the beach: See Part 3b.