1288 Elmo's Cousin

Right before we left Lakeside, my husband came up from the basement and said, "I think Elmo's got a cousin." Elmo was the name we gave an extremely large spider about 10 years ago. I'd been doing laundry in the basement for the last 3 weeks and the only spiders I'd seen were dead ones--big, but dead. "Oh, leave him alone. He'll eat the bugs," I said. "What about Mark?" he said. "We just won't tell him," I said, knowing our son-in-law's fear of spiders, "No sense spoiling his vacation."

Last night our daughter called about 9 p.m. Apparently Mark had gone to the basement to throw in a load of laundry and saw Elmo's cousin. Our daughter heard him holler, as he ran up the steps. She had to finish the laundry because he won't go in the basement. "This one's different, Mom, he just stands in the middle of the floor and watches you. I can see his eyes move."

She called again this evening to tell us they'd been seated at the sushi bar in the Japanese Restaurant (you have to leave the grounds for this) with our neighbors John and Katie and she thought that was quite amazing. We talked a bit, and asked her what they planned to do this evening.

"We're going to the laundro-mat," she said firmly.