Hello Big Spider
Spider Relocation Program, activate!
ONE
Just now… as I cleaned some dishes in the sink after making some very tasty roasted veg bread and soft molasses cookies I heard a gentle “thud” and a massive black spider appeared in the sink before me. “Where did you come from?” I asked. If the spider had landed on me there may have been an expletive. Big. Scary. Spider. But instead she landed in the sink and was trying to walk out. Couldn’t. Stuck. Those walls are steep and slick.
Time for the famed Spider Relocation Program! Founded and named by Katie, btw. So I got an old blue cheese container and lid and gently prodded the thing until I got it successfully into the container… where it promptly curled up and acted dead. I calmly went to the balcony and tipped her over into the pot that supports the hummingbird cotton supply contraption. Instantly alive again and crawling around. Could have sworn I heard a tiny, “thanks!” The spider went down into this crack. It’s actually in the dark section - if you use your imagination it’s easy to see its eyes looking up at you.
TWO
One fish, two fish, one fish soon to be dead fish. Came home yesterday to a sideways swimming gold fish. It’s a bad sign. The end is near. Soon to be dead fish has now been quarantined. Given its own food supply. One fake plant. Sigh. I’ve been feeling like the food has smelled funny lately. I should get a new container even though they’re only a quarter of the way through the thing. Why is the smallest goldfish food container so friggin’ large? I mean… really… It would probably feed 100 fish for a month. I have 3.
THREE
Got stung my a wasp on my Saturday morning group run this morning. I was the only victim. MB was complimenting me on my substack when it happened. Damn substack - surely it’s your fault! Still hurts. Just above the right armpit on the front. It kind of radiates down my arm.
THREE point TWO
Yesterday was our third Cross Country Meet of the year. I believe there are 24 on the team this year. AND.. despite it being fall break and the kids not having school, 18 showed up for the meet. Pretty amazing… and so positive and happy and cheerful and glowing when they finish. and fast. They’re really fast this year. They’re pooping me out. One more meet in about 4 weeks. I’ll be sad and glad when it’s over.
FOUR
No school? Well, yeah, for the kids at least. I’ve been combating Microsoft this week. Windows 10 going away. I got everything updated or replaced where necessary but there were still some un-update-able devices hanging around I needed to clean up. What a pain. What a waste. Big chunks of electronic waste that were perfectly functional that Microsoft decided were no longer usable even though they weren’t even who I bought the devices from. Horrible waste. Stupid waste really. A step beyond planned obsolescence, this.
FIVE
Was also up in the attic at school replacing a cable that was causing a “degraded” signal to a key access point at school. Had a former student helper. I was really hoping I could avoid having to go up into the attic myself. Really. Hoping. He did everything I asked, but since I didn’t go up into the attic myself the first two days I didn’t realize I should be asking more questions, double checking more work. He did do an excellent job terminating the cable into the patch panel and connecting the CAT6 connector thing… Really. It’s working the way it should. Yesterday he had to go to another job and so I had to go up and do the finishing clean up touches. Tidy tidy tidy. I hate it when folks leave old cables that are not longer in use. 2 years later.. what’s this? Don’t know. Leave it just in case… and then it’s there forever - so I primarily wanted to clean that out. I started near the Access Point and things didn’t look too bad. I do a little minor clean up and start to remove the old cable. I cross the three rooms. I bump my head a bunch of times. I tidied up along the way and finally reached the space above the tech lab. In front of me I see the spider nest. The blob. A thing of fear and terror. Yes, a knot of cable that he had just left. Left probably because I was getting irritable at how long things were taking. Sigh. A giant mess of cable in the attic. In the dark. A mess of cable with both ends already terminated and connected with the cable hooked and stashed all along the 100’ path until here. Can’t fully unwind them… can’t string the end back through to un-knot it. Sigh.
Thankfully there’s a lower false ceiling over the closet in the tech lab and I was able to just sit there, in the dark attic, headlamp on, my legs dangling into the abyss and the cobweb of wires in my lap as I slowly worked to get it as tidy as possible. It’s so hard to not just pull and hope - so tempting… maybe it will just come clear clean?.?. don’t give in! 30 minutes later I had minimized the problem to a giant pretzel and wound it into two neat rolls that I could hang on a beam. Sigh. Easy to blame him but the true issue was me since I was so stubborn about not wanting to go in the attic. If I’d been there I would have insisted on tidying it up before moving on. I would have done the mentor thing and explained how it will be better in the long run to take care of tidying it up first. I would have realized we needed to hang things properly as we went along. Sigh. Even mentors need mentor training sometimes.
SIX
Politics? Yeah. That’s a big spider that the folks with the ability to do something didn’t do anything about when they could. (I’m speaking of the ones that could have changed their minds. Switched sides. Recognized the evil.) Feels like the spider is too big now. The spider relocation program is probably no longer enough. I can’t help but think it’s going to get ugly. I do plan to be out there on the 18th. Not something I would normally do but every body counts.
SIX POINT FIVE
BTW. Thank you security guard guy at BofA that I always thought looked scary and mean. Your black outfit and “I’ll kick your ass” attitude is still intimidating. Well done. You’re still there and haven’t joined ICE and you no longer have a face mask and I now think you must be a decent guy.
Hug someone. Maybe not the security guy.