2003-12-16

this (I followed the link from Mimi), and you know what sucks? I’m such a freakin’ sap that all I had to do was read No, and to top it off you murdered Haley Joel Osment and made me cry for ten minutes. and I TEARED UP. I’m such a friggin’ sap now that all I need to do is see someone mentioning themselves or someone else crying about something, and I TEAR UP IN SYMPATHY. Fred thinks it’s the funniest damn thing that I get all teary-eyed if someone cries on TV, but I can’t help it! I don’t care if it’s a stupid, cheesy storyline, if I think it’s the most idiotic movie or show in the world, if someone on the screen cries, I’m ready to cry right along with them. No one cries alone when I’m around, I always say.

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So after a couple of people – I’m lookin’ at you, Mike and Jen – noted in my comments that it’s okay to go ahead and plant those daffodil and lily bulbs, and after I heard the weatherman on the radio saying that we might get flurries on Wednesday, I decided to get my butt in gear and go out to plant the damn things and be done with it. (Note: and I see from the year-ago entry (link at the bottom of the page) that exactly one year ago I was planting 30 daffodil bulbs. I should have just put that entry up in place of this one!) We have this nifty little tool that you attach to a drill and which digs holes just the right size and depth for bulbs. I got out the drill and attachment, then went around to the side of the house near the garage door, where a partial bag of potting soil was sitting. I thought I might need some extra soil to help me fill in the holes once I’d planted the bulbs (none of this digging up a bed and “amending” the soil and all that crap for me, nosir). I carried the bag around to the back yard, dropped it by the patio, plugged in the drill (it’s a cement drill and thus mighty powerful) and began drilling holes in the ground. The ground was pretty wet from the rain we’d gotten over the weekend, and I had dug about 15 holes, when I realized I needed to get something or do something – exactly what it was escapes me now. I walked back toward the house and glanced at the bag of potting soil as I passed it, and then I stopped in my tracks. There, climbing down the bag, obviously intent on crossing the patio and entering our house, was the biggest fucking black widow I’ve ever seen in my life. I swear, the body was about half the size of my thumb, and it was gleaming evilly and I just shuddered as I looked at it. Thinking only “Oh, Fred has GOT to see this!”, I went into the house, grabbed a tupperware container, dropped the container over the spider, slid the lid underneath, and sealed it. The spider, suffice it to say, was not happy at all. It skittered back and forth (shudder) and glared evilly at me. After sending Fred pictures of the spider (taken through the tupperware, because I was NOT going to open that thing back up. Black Widows aren’t known to jump straight up, but there’s always a first time!), I went back to planting my bulbs. After almost two hours – and 150 King Alfred daffodils , 48 assorted Asiatic lilies, and 20 Oriental lilies – I sat down to rest, at which point Fred called to see if I’d been bitten by the black widow and was in the process of dying. He’d been doing some online research on anesthesizing spiders, and told me I should put the container in the freezer. By this point the spider wasn’t moving around much – do spiders need oxygen? Why, yes they do – and with it being so late in the year it was probably hibernating – do spiders hibernate? I can’t seem to find an answer online – and although I’m all for letting spiders live and let live (I believe I’ve mentioned that as long as the spiders in the house keep their webs neat and clutter-free, I’ll leave them alone), I wasn’t about to let this one free so that it could eventually make its way into the house and bite us all, letting us in for some serious aches and pains for several days. So I put the container in the freezer, and the spider died pretty quickly. When Fred got home, he immediately went to the freezer to check out the spider. It was obviously dead, and so he took the cover off so that he could snap some pictures of it. As the cover came off, the beginnings of a web which connected the spider to the lid caused the spider to move. I’m not sure which is sadder: that Fred screamed like a little girl and danced sideways out of the room at a speed faster than any human has ever moved before, or that I, twelve feet away, responded to his scream and dance by screaming myself, jumping up off the couch and landing three feet further away by the fireplace, eyes wide and heart racing. Because no one screams alone when I’m around, either. After he’d taken his pictures, I took the spider, dumped it into the toilet and flushed it. Twice. Because that’s one big damn spider and I don’t want to see it coming back to life and skittering toward ME with blood in its eye.
Gah.
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Détente
(A story in far too many pictures)
Miz Poo: “Um, Mom? I was here FIRST.” Bean: “This is MY bed. MINE. MINE. MINE.” Miz Poo: “Get OUT of here, you little turd!” Bean: “MY BED.” Miz Poo: “I am NOT moving!” Bean: “I AM NOT MOVING EITHER. MY BED.” Bean: “Lord, how long must I suffer, laying here next to the cleaningest cat in the whole wide world? How long? In MY bed?” Miz Poo: LickLickLick Bean: “Zzzzzzzzzzz” Miz Poo: “I was unable to drive him away through my annoying 3-hour-long grooming session. WHAT am I going to do NOW?” Bean: “Zzzzzzzz” Bean: “I sense that she’s still there. But I won’t look at her. If I don’t look at her, she’s not really there. MY BED. MINE.” But sleep overcame them both. Will they become friends? Perhaps even lovers? Will they spend all their time grooming each other and telling secrets and giggling? Probably not – Miz Poo’s growling and hissing was a notch above her usual hysteria this morning, perhaps caused by the embarrassment of knowing that she had spent hours snuggling with the Bean, whom she’s claimed (perhaps a little too vociferously) to hate lo these past few months – but a mother can dream, can’t she?
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27 thoughts on “2003-12-16”

  2. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,snort,guffaw,hehehehehehehehehehe…..Sorry, to imagine that whole scene with the spider throws me into a fit O laughter!

  5. eeeewww… groooooosssss. yucky spider!! It makes me extra glad to be canadian today where the Black Widow spider will NOT be climbing up my house, and just to let you know I actually had my own little screaming fit simply READING this story… cat pics are cool Robyn… Not creeeeepy spiders tho!!

  7. LMFAO…I have said this before…you absolutely crack me up and make my day! I can visualize Fred screaming like a girl and you responding in kind. My gut hurts from laughing and my tears are not for Haley Joel. I would’ve flushed the damn thing twice, too. Love the kitty pics.

  10. I don’t think the spider was killed by being in the freezer-nope,just in a deep,deep hibernation. The water in the sewer pipe will revive him and then he swim back up into the toilet and bite you on the arse!Bahahaha….just kidding,but you know you will THINK ABOUT IT when you use that particular toilet !
    I had to get you back for making me almost pee my pants from laughing so hard ! ;op

  11. I will await pictures of the beautiful flowers come February or early March when those bulbs bloom 🙂 Then all of the hassle will have been worth it.
    Mike

  13. I cry at the drop of a hat, especially if someone on the screen is crying. I am ashamed to admit I’ve even cried during sappy commercials! I try NOT to, but I just can’t stop myself.

  14. That is one scary ass spider! Holy shit!
    But, you made up for freaking me out with the adorable pictures of the Poo and the Bean. I think they are snuggling.
    (Does this remind anyone else of the time Joey and Ross fell asleep together on the couch and had the “best nap EVER”?)

  15. Oh, how I wish you had your video camera running when Fred opened up the container. I’ll bet it would have made a great movie of the week. Oh well, we can only imagine.

  17. that’s one big damn spider and I don’t want to see it coming back to life and skittering toward ME with blood in its eye.
    Hallo, Clarice.
    You know, you’ve totally ruined that film for me, don’t you? Cool spider pics. Cooler cat pics.

  18. Wish you had a movie of Fred’s screaming hysteria. I often try to envision these little episodes and they are probably not as good as the real things. Oh what a Christmas present to your readers that would be (wink)!! Sorry Fred.
    Yes those kitty pics are achingly cute!! The story was probably right on too!

  19. Woah! That spider pic made me scream like a girl too, oh wait, I am a girl. hee. Miz Poo and the Bean look so cute all swirled up on the cushion, almost makes me think a cat would be nice to have. 🙂

  20. ugh. I hate you for showing that black widow picture. I hate myself even more because I looked.

  21. Hahahaha. Oh man. I got the best mental image of the two of you screaming and dancing around the room. BEST EVER.
    I love the PooBean pictures. Reminds me of when my cats were kittens, they used to pile on top of each other in order to sit on my mom’s lap.

  22. I was laughing so loud my co-workers were staring at me 🙂 I can imagine the squirm you guys made when the spider moved. I would have done exactly the same thing even if i was just like you 12ft away from the screaming man 🙂 hehe funny fred lol
    hey off the topic have you seen this??
    http://safetycenter.navy.mil/photo/archive/photo74.htm
    legend goes that the owner, who had recently moved to Chicago from Oklahoma, took her kitty to a pet salon for a trim. What she wanted was a “line cut” … which is supposedly where you clip the long hair under the cat’s belly. Unfortunately there was slight language barrier. The owner had an accent and the cat barber thought she said she wanted a “lion cut”.

  23. The hilarity of the screaming ALMOST made up for the horror of those pictures. I surely would have had a heart attack. That is one freaky scary looking monster of a spider. EWWW! and ICK!!!
    The cute kitty pictures also helped to even things out.

  24. The pictures of the babes is hilarious and your commentary is great. Thanks for making my day.
    Karen 🙂

  25. Sorry Rosy but while that is a real cat and the lion cut is real, there is no such thing as a line cut and the story is fake. The picture is enough to crack anyone up without a fake story though! LOL
    What is funnier is someone REALLY wanted their cat cut that way!!

  27. Robyn- I was just telling Jeff what you’d done, and when I got to the part about the freezer, he said “Oh no! That just puts the spider DOWN, not OUT” and we both laughed when I got to the part about Fred screaming like a little girl. Hee.

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