Friday, July 28, 2000

28 July 2000

It was the smartest spider I've ever encountered. But, alas, it wasn't smart enough. The really smart spiders wouldn't mess with me at all.

Tuesday I came out to my car in the morning, ready to go to work, and there was a long anchor strand of spiderweb from the driver's side mirror to the window of the back seat. I looked carefully: no spider. So I unlocked the car door and opened it, being moderately creeped out once again by the sheer amount of stretch spiderweb can offer. Spandex? Who needs it?

Wednesday morning I came out to my car and the spider had learned not to anchor its web beyond the crack in the door, and there was a beautiful, complete web stretching from the mirror to the edge of the car door. Again, I looked carefully: no spider. So I lifted one foot, and with a sweeping move that would've done my old karate teacher proud, wiped the web away so I could safely unlock the car.

Yesterday morning, there was no web at all, and I thought perhaps the spider had learnt its lesson and gone away. But around 7 in the evening, Matt ran out of gas for the lawn mower and asked me to run out and get some while he weilded the weed whacker. And as I walked by my car, there was the spider itself, busily building a new web. I called Matt's attention to it. He considered. He didn't think he could get his foot up that high. I could, but I was wearing sandals, and I certainly wasn't going to put bare skin that close to a spider. I turned around, looking for a spare scrap of lumber or something with which to destroy the spider, and heard Matt curse. I turned around, and he shrugged. He'd tried to nab the spider, but it had quickly run back into its hiding place behind my mirror. Oh, well. I rid the car of web and moved on with the evening.

This morning, I approached the car from a wide angle, curious to see if the spider had given up. No, there was a new web this morning, and the spider was hanging out in a most spider-y way right in the middle. But this was the world's smartest spider. It saw us coming. As soon as Matt and I rounded the corner of the car, it hauled its little spider-y ass straight for the mirror.

It didn't go all the way behind the mirror, but just stopped right on the edge, where we could still see it. I'm not sure why. Maybe it wanted to see the way we destroyed the web in an effort to build a better one. Maybe it thought we had a can of Raid with us to spray behind the mirror. Maybe it was just tired of disaster after disaster and secretly wanted to die. I don't know. But my shoe was not going to be able to get to the spider on the corner of the mirror. Maybe it knew that.

But Matt looked at it carefully, then pulled out his keys. "I can get it," he said.

I looked at Matt carefully. "You can?"

He started fiddling with his monstrous Swiss Army Knife. "Yes!" he said excitedly, "For I have... scissors!"

He went to snip the spider in half. Clever spider, it evaded him by repelling from the mirror down to the ground and making a beeline for the dark space under the car. Spiders move fast. Very fast, when they want to. But not fast enough to evade Matt's shoes.

Matt grinned at me. "Stamp... and drag."


I finally got my new glasses. When I'd called Tuesday, they told me they were waiting on a piece they didn't have in stock, and it would probably be Thursday before I got them. Assuming they meant either the frames or one of the lenses, I sighed and resigned myself to wait until Thursday.

Yesterday morning I called to see if they'd be ready by lunchtime or if I'd have to wait until the end of the day. I was told the missing piece had just been delivered, and they were ready as soon as I wanted them. They explained that they'd been waiting for the clip-on sunglasses.

I was about ready to explode. I could've had the glasses on Tuesday, after all. If they'd just told me it was the clip, I'd've told them that I was willing to come back later to pick up the durn sunglasses! Sheesh.

But I like my new glasses. They're wire frames, so they're not as heavy or noticeable as my old glasses. The nosepads are slightly textured, so they don't slip down my nose (though from habit I keep trying to adjust them anyway). And these nosepads are on straight, so they don't make my eyebrows look crooked.

Oh, yeah, and I can see better. All in all, a big improvement.


Well, this is it. This weekend, Braz and Kris are coming to town so Braz can start his new job. They're staying in a hotel next week, because they can't move into their new place until next weekend, but they'll be here!

I'm excited. They're both good friends, and it'll be nice to have friends who actually live here in town. Of course, it means I'll have to start my diet back up, since I promised Kris I'd be her diet buddy, but maybe having a diet buddy will mean I'll actually be able to make some real progress.

I expect we'll be seeing a fair amount of them this week - hotel rooms just aren't exciting places to hang out, and anyway we promised Kris the use of our kitchen until they've moved into their new place.

Cool.


Matt and I take turns preparing meals. Matt pointed out yesterday that I'd got it easy this week - Monday is our "subs" night, Wednesday I just finished cooking the chicken cacciatore he'd started on Tuesday before the Hicks' came over, and "Liz never cooks on Friday!"

Last night, as we were snuggling down to go to sleep he asked, "So, have you decided where we're going out tomorrow?"

Indignant, I replied, "We could eat here!" I got a very dubious look for my trouble. I thought about cooking, shrugged, and said, "Well, we could order pizza, you know!"


Word of the Day: vulcanize - to treat rubber or rubberlike material chemically to give useful properties (as elasticity or strength)

I wonder whatever happened to Heph? (No really, there was a train of thought, there - "vulcanize" comes from the name for the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. Vulcan's Greek counterpart was Hephaestus, the lame god of fire. Our friend Heph - and I have to stop and think to remember his real name was Tom - took his handle from Hephaestus because he only has one leg. See? All perfectly logical. C'mon, you didn't think I was honestly going to find a way to work "vulcanize" into a paragraph or two about my life, did you?)

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