Anniversary gift ideas?

I wouldn’t dare write about spiders and my upcoming anniversary in the same blog entry, so I’ll post two entries tonight.  I need your help, Dear Reader.  I need your great gift ideas!  Next week is my wedding anniversary.  Last year’s anniversary gifts will be hard to beat, but I want to try.  It has to be something more than taking her out for dinner.  We talked about going for dinner at Seoul Tower overlooking the city, but I hear that the food isn’t so good.  (Is the food at observatory deck restaurants ever delicious?) 

 

Last year, in honor of our tenth anniversary, I took my wife to Chez François L’Auberge in Great Falls, Virginia, one of the finest French restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area.  I gave her a brand-new wedding ring, long-stemmed roses, and I wrote a small book for her.  Our anniversary book featured our love story, a collection of family words and phrases (you know, those cute pet sayings couples say to each other), and all the songs I used to sing to my son when he was younger.  I think I exhausted what was left of my creativity on those gfts.  I used to be good at coming up with gift giving ideas, but lately reality has dimmed my sense of creativity.  I need your help.  Please post some gift ideas for me!  Thanks, I appreciate it.  By the way, if you’re in the Washington, D.C. area, I highly recommend having dinner at Chez François L’Auberge.  The food is manifique, the service is exceptional, and the atmosphere is belle.  Très haute couture.

Beautiful and ingenious

We may not live in a part of the world where the critters are huge and exotic, but the orb weaver spiders living in our yard are very, very big.  The one in the photos I posted is exceptionally large.  I’ve never seen such large spiders before.  The circumference of the largest is about six inches, and her length is about 3 inches.  I don’t know their exact name, although they belong to the orb weaver family.  (If you happen to know the name of this spider, please let me know.)  I also don’t know how poisonous they are, although I assume by their colorful bodies and red markings that they could really leave a nasty bite.  The large, colorful ones are the females, while the brownish males are much, much smaller.  Four or five of them have spun webs in the pine tree next to our house.  They’re not nearly as large as the one in the photos. 

 

The spider pictured is a genious.  She spun a monstrous, five foot long web from our hedge to the power line overhead, right in the middle of a major insect flight path.  As you can tell from the photos, this orb weaver has been busy catching and gorging itself on insects unfortunate enough to become entangle in her web.  She is about twice as large as the other orb weavers, proving the old adage that location is everything.  She demonstrates that 1% innovation beats 99% perspiration.  When I was playing with my son in the yard, I noticed what I thought was a swarm of insects.  I walked over to see what it was, and I was stunned to find see such a large, beautiful, and ingenious creature.   I was initially concerned that my son could be bitten by one of them, but all of the spiders are well out of the way of the children’s play area in our front area.  I showed the spiders to a Korean friend , and they said they had never seen such a spider in Korea.  An Internet Web search (pun intended) revealed little information about indigenous Korean spiders.  Because the area where I live is very transient, and families move frequently, it’s quite possible that the spider is an import from another country.  If true, they adapted well to Korean life.

 

Blog Note:  A couple readers asked me about posting more photos of people, such as Daniel Henney.  I try not to post copyrighted material, such as Daniel Henney’s photos.  I usually add reference links to other web sites where related photos and articles are available.  These links are highlighted in green, and you can click on them to visit the referenced page.  I agree that it’s good to post more photos with people.  I’ll do my best.  When I get ahold of the photos of my coworkers with Daniel Henney, I’ll definitely post them.