Cooking dinner in the kitchen when I notice Athena is scrambling around after something on the floor of the walk-in pantry. Uh-oh. I immediately stop what I’m doing and pull her away. It’s a BIG black spider, possibly a black widow. SCREAM. I lift Athena up, but she’s scared by my outburst and scratches the hell out of me. Then the issue becomes my dripping blood. I go to my bathroom, searching for bandages. When I return to the kitchen, the spider has vanished.

Tom and I roll the fridge out from the wall to see if it hid under there. Nope. We decide to clean out the pantry, just not right then. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Stuff has accumulated in there—the recycling bin, trash cans, various cleaning implements and supplies, food containers, and so on.

Later that evening, I’m at my Internet computer station relaxing with some social media online. Athena is perched on a little place she likes beneath the desk, hanging out with me. Suddenly she says something but doesn’t move.

I assume she’s hungry and stand up, move around the Internet station to go to the kitchen—and there it is! The BIG black spider is scrambling down the hall toward my office. SCREAM. (Note to casting directors—if you’re searching for someone who can give a full-lunged scream with feeling, have your people get in touch with my people.)

Tom comes running in with the bug jar and catches the thing. It’s not a black widow, but you can’t tell that until you can get a glimpse of its belly. Contrary to popular belief, the red hourglass is not on the spider’s back but on its belly. Tom took it outside and let it go.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate spiders. My first story in OMNI, “Arachne,” is about a woman haunted by the archetype of the spider.

I’ve republished “Arachne” in my recent short memoir about writing inspirations and an orb weaver who lived in my garden one summer entitled My Charlotte: Patty’s Story.

I expanded the short story into my first novel by the same name, which I’m reissuing as an ebook in a week or so.

From the author of Summer Of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo.
Summer of Love, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.

The Gilded Age, A Time Travel on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Gilded Age, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.

The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, “Fun and enjoyable urban fantasy,” on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Garden of Abracadabra is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.

Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) includes all four books. On Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo;
Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, five-star rated, “A fantastic collection,” on Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo.
Strange Ladies: 7 Stories is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.

Please visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, and blogs, adorable pet pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!

And on Lisa Mason’s Blog, on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, at Smashwords, at Apple, at Kobo, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

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