Something has really been bugging me lately...

Our yard, as is the case every year at this time, has been invaded by huge, orange garden spiders. Some of those things are so large they look like kumquats with legs! One morning last week I counted eight separate webs strung from tree to flower, bush to rain gutter.

Each morning my sweet wife does her early morning patrol, admiring her flowers and sweeping up the odd leaf that might have fallen on the patio. Occasionally, especially early in "spider season", these morning meanderings have been punctuated by a loud scream as she does a face-plant in one of those webs. Of course, in her minds-eye, the engineer of that web - who spent much of the night weaving and tacking his masterpiece together - is now crawling around her hair, looking for a place to hide! So, into the house she dashes, screeching and slapping at her head, demanding that I seek out the critter and get rid of it.

So far I've not found any of them, but I'm sleeping with one eye open these nights - just in case I missed one and it comes crawling across my pillow in the middle of the night.

***

Gary Monahan, pub owner and our Mayor Pro Tempore, dropped a bombshell at the City Council meeting on October 4th. He announced that he will be stepping down as Mayor Pro Tem, but will serve out his term as a councilman. He cited increasing family obligations as the reason.

This is going to put a real crimp in Mayor Allan Mansoor's game plan, since he has relied on Monahan to pick up the slack when his job has precluded him from performing some of the duties normally associated with that of Mayor.

It will be very interesting, indeed, to see who is nominated to succeed Monahan at the meeting on October 18th. I'm betting Eric Bever, the remaining member of the ruling troika, gets the nod even though both Katrina Foley and former Mayor Linda Dixon are much more qualified based on their proven leadership experience in public service.