Near Death Experience

I was nearly eaten alive this morning by a giant carnivorous spider!

Or something like that.

Okay! So maybe it was entirely my fault that I ended up so close to this spider... but it was, indeed, a giant! And the episode scared me so badly that I'm certain my life span will now be three days shorter! What happened was this:

I saw a cute little green lizard on the back porch and I went outside to try and catch it. I thought it would be fun to let Lila see him up close and then I would, of course, let him go. Well, if you've ever tried to catch a little lizard, then you know it is not an easy task! He kept darting away from me and I kept following until I was hanging over the railing of the deck, with my head in the lantana.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something white. I raised my head a bit and just as it registered that my head was TOUCHING a spider web, I saw, not 4 inches from my face -- I am completely serious about that -- a huge spider! I then did three perfectly rational things.

1. I screamed loud enough for anyone on the block to hear me.
2. I ran back into the house, gasping, "Giant! Spider!" (to which doug replied, "oh yeah! i forgot to tell you!")
3. I started crying! It's not like I thought this spider was going to come and get me, but it scared me so bad that I just couldn't help it! I was gasping for breath and I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body.

Ugh! Just talking about it is making my chest constrict. [shudder] To prove that this really happened and was not, in fact, a hallucination caused by my sinus infection, I went back outside and took photos, which I am attaching. For a size scale, those are lantana blooms. Huge. Freaking. Spider.

And, in case you are worried, this is not a dangerous spider (unless you are an insect). The first time we saw one, not so close up, we looked them up on the Internet. And now I really must think about something else.