Here’s how my day has been going so far: my sister showed me a picture of an enormous dead spider, found outside her house, and then I spent a good five minutes staring at a crumpled-up ball of black string, trying to decide if it was venomous.

As luck would have it, it’s not.

On the plus side, tomorrow I’m flying to LA for an entire glorious weekend, and the fact that I’m probably going to miss a lot of good thunderstorms while I’m gone is not nearly bad enough to counteract my almost stupid joy at the prospect of seeing friends.