Bernie's Nemesis

This little fellow has been wandering around the kitchen ceiling for days.

I've always had a fondness for jumping spiders; they're feisty and independent, fast and furry. If you poke at them, they'll hop away, but if you're persistent with your pestering, they lose their tempers and will hop at you.

That's what had Bernie worried. When was this spider going to have enough of intruding humans in the house and go on a rampage?

Spider was exploring the kitchen island when I spotted it, just ambling along, checking to see if any slices of home-made pizza had been left out. I got my camera and had an interesting photo-shoot with the close-up focus ... but I couldn't get too close because Spider would get aggressive, throw front legs in the air, and jump on the camera.

It was fairly annoying to the bug, but what an expression when I used the flash:

The Morning Surprise

So I arise early, refreshed by the vitamin C I took last night to soothe my Springtime-assaulted sinuses. I trundle to the kitchen to put water on for a pint of tea (Red Rose is my current brand.) I carry my big glass of ice water to the studio, open my laptop, and turn it on. I return to the kitchen to complain about the high winds blowing all sorts of twigs and leaves and blossoms and trash around the neighborhood, though I have to admit the swooshing sound in the trees was ultra-soothing to sleep to all night.

Sipping my tea, I return to the studio, call up Firefox, and click on the BBC to see if North Korea has done anything stupid overnight. Margaret Thatcher has died, God rest her soul, and while looking at an article about sleep, I spot a visitor appearing from the black border of my screen, rapidly climbing into clear view.

Yes. I levitate upwards and backwards.

To my credit, I do not scream (you learn not to be loud if babies are quietly sleeping in the house) nor do I spill my tea (you learn to abandon beverages when threatened.) And I did know where to find my camera -- on my worktable, how clever of me to leave it there instead of putting it away.

Jumping spiders startle, but do not scare me. I admire their predation, and commend them for eating annoying insects when I have conversations with them. This jumping spider (after a bit of internet research) was identified as a Daring Jumping Spider, a juvenile at that.

I get a paper towel and shoo young Daring onto it, carrying her (him?) out to the woodstack, where numerous tasty bugs abound.

And vow that I will turn on the light over my worktable before I put fingers to keyboard from now on.

A Sun-Kissed Autumn Evening

Generous warmth from Old Man Sun
Showers down on everyone.
Glowing photons form the hugs
For people, plants and even bugs.

That's right, all those little dots dancing in the late evening sunset are gnats. Cool, aren't they? Glad they were across the street.

Annoying 1 + Annoying 1 = Coolness!

The white geranium that I planted late last summer has survived the winter. I'm still not sure that a white geranium will look "right" when all the other geraniums are variations of reds, but I'm willing to give it a chance to get four feet tall and six feet across like the old-timer magentas and reds.

Over the geraniums in this wonderfully unseasonally early spring, a cloud of gnats swirls and darts.

I'm not fond of gnats -- like my mother before me, if a gnat decides to have a taste of my skin, days of pain and itching and swelling ensue. And so, seeing the gnats out over the geraniums makes me squint my eyes and wonder where the birds are that are supposed to be eating these buggies.

From inside the house, where Lillian has discovered dancing to XBox360, comes thumping music.

She's enjoying dancing, and that's all to the good. I'd dance, too, if my knee wasn't so painful from the exertion of horsey exercises in the arena yesterday. (Ow, in many muscles as well.) Nevertheless, I'm a quiet old granny who prefers the sound of the wind in the trees or the calls of birds to recorded music, by and large.

We sat on the front porch this evening, watching the sun lower in the sky. Lillian and her friend Megan were dancing to the XBox, and the thumping beat and music filtered out to us. In the glow of the late afternoon sun, the gnats were illuminated in their jittery swarm.

In an astonishing meld of living creatures and electronic music, the annoyances were transformed into an utterly delightful show. The gnats truly looked like they were dancing to the music, and they were very good at it. I could watch gnats dance to those tunes all day.

Go gnats! I can always wear insect repellant.

Nine Ladies Dancing

More or less. The bee doesn't count, she's working, not dancing.

The ninth day of Christmas was okay, after the Piker Press was up and I was able to stop swearing at my laptop and its penchant for wacking out on me when I'm trying to edit articles.

It starts like this: Grumpy because I've left working on the Press until Monday morning (when I've vowed every Monday afternoon for years that I'm going to get everything ready to roll the Thursday prior to Monday's publishing), I immediately tackle the "difficult" articles first -- the ones that need close attention and editing. An article that has misspellings and punctuation gaffes can take an hour to edit and format, depending on how rough a draft I've been handed, and how many interruptions in the process.

Every link has to be checked, every book that's reviewed has to be available on Amazon (since those links are our only income, piss poor though it is). Every Peek of the Week has to be mined from galleries, examined closely to make sure there is no blur, and on Monday mornings I can barely remember how to button my shirt correctly let alone who all has given me permission to look through their galleries for potential photos.

Halfway through the process, I'm already stiff and itchy, and then the laptop mousepad gets over-sensitive and buggers up lines I've typed. I should know better, yes, it's true. The only thing to do is get up, walk away, and go watch the birds for a while, drink a glass of ice water, run a load of laundry. The madder I get, the more mistakes slow me up. Bleah.

But once the Press was done, the ninth day was fine. Laundry was a-cookin' in the machines, there were plenty of leftovers for lunch; I took a walk around the block, read an uplifting article about liturgical norms, tackled three small sewing projects, and with Bernie's help, sanded off the old finish on the paper towel holder from the kitchen.

I got to thinking about a picture of 'nine ladies dancing' -- and thought of photos of cherry blossoms. So beautiful, and on a day that dawned with thick gray Tule fog, cold and damp, I found myself longing for Spring already.

As I looked through the photos, I spotted something I had missed last Spring: a bug staggering through the photo shoot.

Merry Christmas Season, Bug! You're a star!