It happens every summer, and I am going to lay blame on the teensy-weensy spiders that seem to inhabit my neck of Shirlington.
Each year around this time, they seem to say to one another, “We’ve got a buffet up on the second floor,” and I’ll find myself with one or two or more spider bites on my fleshy parts. (I am 87% fleshy parts; the other 13% of me is Diet Coke.)
Thing about these bites is they’re never noticeable until they start swelling up a bit, and once they are swollen, they stay swollen for a week or so. Ow, ow, ow.
It’s only a summer occurrence; once the weather turns cooler, the itsy-bitsy spiders go back from whence they’ve come, waiting to see if their prey (me) makes it through the long, cold winter ahead.
To get to me, the spiders first have have to get past Albert the wonder cat, who has never met an insect he isn’t happy to swallow whole. But if he is distracted, as cats sometimes can be, they have free run at me.
[Some brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreaking insect-bite news: Fox 5 last night reported that the culprit could be tree mites, which apparently are out in force this summer because they can feast on the larvae that were deposited in trees by the cicadas earlier in the summer. But I am sticking with little spiders as my nemeses.]
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME … FOOTBALL? Hard to believe but high-school football practice starts this week in much of the local area. Given that the “2020” season was held this past spring, that’s a pretty quick turnaround, which means a number of players who got injured will not be fully recuperated.
With summertime swimming just about wrapped up and American Legion baseball nearly so as well, there will be an interregnum of a week or two, but then attention will turn to fall high-school sports. Golf, the first out of the gate, may already be taking place, even though actually student classes won’t start for a couple of weeks.
Given the relative good news on the COVID front (despite the 24/7 hysteria so many are falling for), maybe we’ll have a sense of normalcy surrounding high-school athletics this fall.
Nah!
- Scott McCaffrey