What's For Dinner, Mom?

Believe me, tonight you don't want to know. I spent part of the day cleaning up around the house, and another part out and about picking up some things needed for the weekend. When I got home I was rushing to get dinner ready, pull my clothes in from the line before it rained, dress my nine year old in a spanish dancer costume and custom-create a hairstyle and send her off with her dad to her school's fall festival, while keeping my littlest one off me and out of danger. Spaghetti seemed a good choice - it's quick, filling, and there are usually leftovers. The meat was cooking in the skillet and I added salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, and a dash of chili powder. When I put the spices back onto the rack I hollered because I realized I had grabbed the ginger instead of the garlic powder (ew! and, in my own defense, they are the same color!) Oh well. I couldn't do anything but try to mask it, so I tossed in some extra chili powder. I added the sauce to the meat and started the water for noodles before I pulled the last of the clothes from the line. As I put the last few things in my basket, my husband, his cousin, and my daughter appeared in the back yard armed with a video camera and a blow torch (?). Apparently there was a huge, menacing spider dangling from a tree limb and they meant to annihilate it. Of course I had to see what all the fuss was about. I followed them to the edge of the woods and there he was - the biggest, ugliest, grossest spider I'd ever seen. I'm pretty sure I could see his eyeballs, and I need my vision prescription updated. My husband's cousin brought the torch up to it and we all watched with heebie-jeebies as it fell to the ground. I'll leave the rest of the details out, but suffice it to say that there is one less big spider in the world I need to worry about. We talked for a few minutes and I casually walked back in to stir the sauce - which I found spewing all over the wall, stove, and counter top. I had left the burner on high instead of bringing it down to low where I simmer (as opposed to boil) spaghetti sauce. I tried to salvage it. Half of it had boiled down and part of it was stuck to the bottom of the skillet. Scraping the loose sauce from the top of the bubbling, churning mass was almost not worth it.

There have been few times in my life when I had to say I blew it. Today, I blew it. I say we eat the salad and garlic bread and call it a night. 

Yes, this is that spider.