spider season, pluots and volunteerism

it's spider season here in seattle! i imagine many of you outside of seattle are experiencing the same thing. i have to say, though, i don't recall so many spider webs growing up in denver. there were of course spiders, but those colorado species must be more careful about hiding their webs. here, you can't walk 3 feet without crashing into a web. it's actually kinda icky. they even create webs on our car. seriously, they are EVERYWHERE! (i tried to take a picture of a web, but no luck.)

i also wanted to post a picture of pluots. pluots are a cross between plums and apricots. it looks like we got the "flavor supreme variety. you can't tell from the picture, but they're actually green with streaks of red on the outside.) i'm not a fan of stone fruit, and the taste of this didn't surprise me any, but the color... isn't it fantastic? so beautiful! my favorite fruit hybrid is the grapple- pronounced grape-pull i can't get blogger to show the long a symbol). they were big for a season in denver, but i haven't seen them here at all. anyways, those things are GOOD!

i just saw that my favorite store in seattle (paper delights!) posted about a new book: 100 best volunteer vacations to enrich your life. if anyone is looking for a gift for me, this would be wonderful- along with plane tickets of course!