Kevin's Watch

Auleliel wrote:Last time I was in San Francisco, it was cold and wet. No thank you.

Last time I was in San Francisco, it was baking hot with occasional bouts of dramatic fog.

CovenantJr wrote:

Auleliel wrote:Last time I was in San Francisco, it was cold and wet. No thank you.

Last time I was in San Francisco, it was baking hot with occasional bouts of dramatic fog.

Surely you're not talking about when I was there? "Baking hot"? No way! That weather was mild!

I have just seen a rather peculiar thing.
I have a pet leopard gecko (named Ravi). I feed her mealworms, and often she doesn't eat all of them in one night. The ones that survive usually hide underneath her water dish, so every few nights I move her water dish around so she can find the rest of the mealworms. Tonight I went to her terrarium to move the water dish, and when I opened the lid, a mealworm was floating in midair! I looked closer and realized it was suspended by threads of spider silk, immediately below a small brown spider. The spider was attaching more threads and pulling the mealworm higher into the air by pulling the threads higher up and attaching them to the web above. I moved the water dish so Ravi could eat, and then closed the lid to watch the spider a bit more. (I would have knocked down the mealworm, but it obviously had already been bitten and immobilized by the spider, and I couldn't tell if it would be dangerous for Ravi to eat it. And Ravi never eats anything that isn't moving.) Ravi ate a worm or two, but mostly just stared at me staring at the spider. The spider kept pulling the mealworm higher and higher into the air. I didn't think spiders did that sort of thing, pulling food up into webs. I thought they just ate what got caught in the webs, or, for ground spiders, dragged things into holes. I guess life is full of surprises, eh? By the time I stopped watching, the mealworm was 7 or 8 inches off the ground. I took a few pics but I don't have the right card adapter for getting them off my phone right now.
I don't know what I should do about this spider. I rather like spiders, and don't want to squash it, but I don't know whether it is dangerous for my gecko (or for me, for that matter). Usually if I know it's safe I'll just carry the spider on a notecard to an outdoor place that is safe. I've never seen this sort of spider before, but it doesn't match the descriptions of the four majorly venomous spiders of my area. It's about an eighth of an inch long, not including the legs, and is coffee-brown with flecks of white. Any arachnologists here on the Watch?
I think I'll name it Charlie.

Seareach wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:

Auleliel wrote:Last time I was in San Francisco, it was cold and wet. No thank you.

Last time I was in San Francisco, it was baking hot with occasional bouts of dramatic fog.

Surely you're not talking about when I was there? "Baking hot"? No way! That weather was mild!

I live in Britain, where any time it's not pouring with rain and howling with wind, we get drought warnings.

So Son of Seareach has come down with a fever of 40 (I don't know what that is in f. but it's hot). I've popped him in my bed (probably not the best "contain the illness and don't infect other household members" move but stuff that, I'm his mum!). Damn I hate it when he gets sick and I'm helpless.

104ºF, according to the converter I use.
Damn straight that's hot.
Sending healing vibes his way, Sea.

That's go to the doctor hot, Sea. I hope he gets better quick.

I seem to have picked up a cough overnight. It woke me up a couple of times. I don't have a big day planned, so that's good.

Woke up at 3.30pm. Guess the late nights caught up with me. I'd been planning to go out today, too.

That sucks, Murrin. I hate it when I wake up very late on the weekends. While sleeping in is one of the nice things about weekends, I also want to be able to enjoy them fully awake.

Auleliel wrote:I have just seen a rather peculiar thing.
I have a pet leopard gecko (named Ravi). I feed her mealworms, and often she doesn't eat all of them in one night. The ones that survive usually hide underneath her water dish, so every few nights I move her water dish around so she can find the rest of the mealworms. Tonight I went to her terrarium to move the water dish, and when I opened the lid, a mealworm was floating in midair! I looked closer and realized it was suspended by threads of spider silk, immediately below a small brown spider. The spider was attaching more threads and pulling the mealworm higher into the air by pulling the threads higher up and attaching them to the web above. I moved the water dish so Ravi could eat, and then closed the lid to watch the spider a bit more. (I would have knocked down the mealworm, but it obviously had already been bitten and immobilized by the spider, and I couldn't tell if it would be dangerous for Ravi to eat it. And Ravi never eats anything that isn't moving.) Ravi ate a worm or two, but mostly just stared at me staring at the spider. The spider kept pulling the mealworm higher and higher into the air. I didn't think spiders did that sort of thing, pulling food up into webs. I thought they just ate what got caught in the webs, or, for ground spiders, dragged things into holes. I guess life is full of surprises, eh? By the time I stopped watching, the mealworm was 7 or 8 inches off the ground. I took a few pics but I don't have the right card adapter for getting them off my phone right now.
I don't know what I should do about this spider. I rather like spiders, and don't want to squash it, but I don't know whether it is dangerous for my gecko (or for me, for that matter). Usually if I know it's safe I'll just carry the spider on a notecard to an outdoor place that is safe. I've never seen this sort of spider before, but it doesn't match the descriptions of the four majorly venomous spiders of my area. It's about an eighth of an inch long, not including the legs, and is coffee-brown with flecks of white. Any arachnologists here on the Watch?
I think I'll name it Charlie.

I dont squash spiders. I catch them and take them outside. everyone laughs at me but I dont care ..I just dont like killing things. ok, ok, but I still like to eat chicken........and..i use roach spray. Roaches are sneaky and need to die, but not spiders. So I aint so moralistic as all that.

Spiders are good bugs -- they eat other bugs. Roaches are from the nether regions of hell and deserve to die.

Quiet day here. I've got the windows open and am not baking -- not bad for 5pm on the last day of May in DC! Doing laundry, making yogurt, marinating steak for fajitas tonight. Made corn & black bean salad earlier today. Probably ought to pay bills (urk).

Lucimay didn't feel social so I am on my own at the cafe whilst I do my laundry. I got a bunch of errands run to day so that feels good. I'm going to do some puttering around my place when I get home and get finished putting the laundry away and making the bed up with freshies.

Winding down, what with coming back to work from vacation tomorrow. I should do a small load of laundry, but I'm thinking I can put that off till tomorrow evening. I think a Sam Adams beer is calling me right now.

Wow I feel the same way you do my best man! Still recovering from San Fran and I didn't do much this weekend except 3 loads of laundry, spreading 5 50 lb bags of compost, mixing that in to a 24x8 raised garden, chopping down and pulling 100 different weeds and tree wannabees, mowing the lawn, 2 dishwashers full, 4 beds made, picking up after a 4 year old, walking 2 miles in the desert, scrubbing and mopping the office and kitchen floors, vacuuming and cleaning the car, fixing a car seat...hmm...there's a lot more I did too.

So now I'm mellowing out to The Last Days of the Fillmore on PBS drinking wine and watching vintage footage of Quicksilver, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Elvin Bishop, NRPS and more, still in that Frisco/Haight Asbury Summer Place of Love motif. It doesn't get any better than this! To John!

A great time was had by all last week. To you, Danlo, and Lady Tam!

I feel melancholy. It's been cold and dreary for weeks now and winter only officially started today.

variol son wrote:I feel melancholy. It's been cold and dreary for weeks now and winter only officially started today.

That sort of weather can be a bit disheartening can't it. I'm a fellow southern hemisphere resident, so yep, it's officially winter now!

And, it's Monday. Again. Argh.

The last few days have been one of those times that I assume we all have... A time when I kept looking at myself (in my mind) and thinking "I'm not a bad guy, I'm not terrible company, I try to keep faith with people, I try to be trustworthy, I sometimes make people laugh, I'm kind when I can be...why doesn't life work for me?" I've been feeling like life's a broken appliance, and all I can do is keep pressing the on switch and hoping for the best, knowing it's never going to do what it's meant to.

Where did this come from, you may wonder, if you're a curious person? Some people I trusted broke my trust; some people I thought cared for me revealed otherwise; then, just to make things all the more jolly, my ex-girlfriend began spreading unpleasant rumours about me (roughly, that it's not safe for my female friends to be alone with me) with no discernible reason, and then trying to make out that I was being unreasonable by being angry...

That's all just part of it though. Like everything is going down the pan at once.

I'm aware that this is an over-emotional reaction to normal life ordeals, and it'll all seem less dramatic in a few days, or a couple of weeks. After all, I'm not in imminent danger of losing my home, no-one I know is dying, my car's still on the road for now... But that doesn't change the feeling.

As for why I'm sharing all this... What else is there to do but share it?

Move to San Francisco, CovJr, that would make your life alot better.