My Blood is Good

I currently have no less than four bites of unknown origin on my ankles and feet. They're really itchy. They're also really tiny, clearly not spider bites. It's evident when a spider's paid me a visit: Spider-bite sites on my body swell to the size of the average fig.

Apparently certain sections of my home are also home to spider colonies. They get me when I'm either upstairs or in the backyard for eight minutes. I believe they've also established residence in our car, as I've ended up with figs on my legs after long trips to Long Island. My husband refuses to acknowledge the situation and its detriment on my well-being, willfully ignoring the SPIDER WEBS permanently affixed to the INSIDE of our windshield. "It's fine," he tells me. "Spiders are actually good." After such proclamations, I can generally be relied upon to respond something to the effect of: "I'm going to get a exterminator and you'll have nothing to say about it. Just try to stop me!" And then he reminds me that we refuse to have an exterminator anywhere near our property because we love our helpless, angelic cat and we're concerned about effects on the environment. I regularly conclude that bi-weekly spider bites (throughout the whole year) are part of my lot in life. They're actually part of my charm. Once I come to terms with this, I feel fine; I'm accepting. And then my husband can be counted on to downplay the size of my spider bites and the pain associated with them.

Incidentally the spider car is named "Bug II," the natural replacement to my first vehicle, "The Bug Mobile." The name *had* nothing to do with anything other than the fact my family's nickname for me is "Bug." Now, however, I've recognized this connection as a fate manufactured by the gods. It's one of my "cosmic jokes"--a phrase I believed I coined as a teen (and of which I was inordinately proud).

Evidence of such jokes? I seem to have gotten all the “bad” genes in the family; I'm the runt of the litter. I am literally allergic to daylight. Welts occur if ever the sun meets an uncovered piece of Judy-flesh for an extended period of time. Ann Marie and Robert? Tanned and gorgeous. Further, they're both math geniuses and I'm, um, the "creative" one. I'm also the least athletic of my siblings. And I'm the one in the family that gets all the bug bites. Neither Ann Marie nor Robert, to my knowledge, has ever complained about having 22--count 'em, 22!--insect bites on one leg. (One summer my father and I took to counting my bites. We stopped after counting that one leg.)

I remember telling Sister Anina (my grade school’s librarian and keeper of the supply closet) that I had “22 bug bites on my leg!” She remarked that it was because I had “sweet blood.” Hmmm. Sweet blood. I liked the sound of that. Perhaps it had something to do with my dad's mom? My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Bloodgood. She was of Native American lineage so we always assumed the exotic name derived from our Lenni Lenape heritage. Ann Marie has begun doing genealogy research and it appears that the name might be of Dutch origin, an interesting notion but not one to explore in this moment. Wherever the “Bloodgood” comes from (I trust Ann Marie's discipline to chart us back at least several hundred years), the name has a particular, poignant meaning for me.

My blood is good. At least to insects. All sorts of insects.