This is NOT a drill

I love the Oxford Fire Department. I go to spin class with these guys on Thursday mornings, and they are such a cool, close-knit group. I love being in the middle of their good-natured ribbing with each other. Plus, they spend a good part of the year planning how to make the fire station super spooky for Halloween trick-or-treaters. My middle daughter Sallie is the only one who will brave their haunted house with me.

Yesterday, I walked with my kindergardener to her fire station field trip.

While we were there, we had a REAL fire alarm. The guys went from talking to a group of children about "stop, drop and roll" to jumping into their gear and taking off in the fire truck (an electric transformer was on fire). One of the parents timed them, and it was literally 60 seconds from the time of the alarm to them hopping onto the truck, fully dressed. A few more seconds and they were on the street with the sirens blaring.

As you can imagine, the children were mouth-gaping, awestruck, and many future firefighters were created that day.

Only about five of the firemen left to go on the call (they have different teams that handle different types of fires), leaving the rest of the group to show the kids how to dial 911 and talk to an operator. And, to meet Sparky, of course.

Then we walked to our house for popsicles because our house is located right between the school and the fire station. My new spider friend had created an especially lovely web for the kids and was perched just high enough to be out of reach.

It was quite a day. And, no. I didn't get any writing done.

sf

Gulf Shrimp and Spiders

My husband got an email from the "shrimp man" while he was in Atlanta for a continuing education conference (which does not sound like it's nearly as much fun as our writer conferences, poor guy)". The shrimp man was driving up to Oxford from the coast with fresh shrimp Saturday morning, and he'd start selling at 7:00 a.m. at the farmer's market. Hubby was getting home Saturday afternoon and thought fresh shrimp sounded pretty good. So, I sent my daughter bright and early with a pocket full of cash to the farmer's market, just a couple of blocks down our street.

Dinner tonight on our front porch:

Shrimp drowning in butter, garlic, worcestershire, cracked pepper and lemons . . .with a baguette to dunk into the mixture, of course.

And then, after dinner I looked over to my right and look what I saw:

Yes, Lisa and Laura, it is a gigantic wolf spider. Right there. Watching me eat dinner. I must admit that if I'd run into this creature in my bedroom or den, I'd run screaming. But, seeing her sitting in the middle of her gorgeously spun web, made me say ahhh. And, yes, I took that picture of her about 10 minutes ago.

Of course, I think she's paying us a visit because of this spider

which is hanging from a nearby tree in our front yard. My girls and I have spent the last couple of days blinging up our house for Halloween, and I think our friend the wolf spider found a place where she felt welcome.

sf