For two years now, Tam has called the big, black-and-yellow spiders that spin large and stereotypical webs, finished off with a heavy-threaded scrawl that looks like a vertical cursive signature "Writing Spiders;" for two years now, I have been hearing it as "Riding Spiders." Look, they're pretty big but they're not quite large enough for saddles.
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Watching TV the other day, with commercial breaks in which calcium supplement ads are followed by B0neva ads, followed in turn by Ci@lis and V!agra ads, it struck me: gettin' old is allll about "bone loss." In one sense or another.
I guess that explains those ads where the Happy Couple are in side-by-side bathtubs, then?
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Alternate History: The Hapsburgs vs. the McCoys. Oh, you'd read it!
Sounds like my email inbox.
ReplyDeleteI know them as Garden spiders...my kids call them Bumble Bee spiders.
ReplyDeleteI believe they are part of the Orb Weavers family.
If you disturb them slightly they rock back and forth and cause the entire web to move.
Some years they are quite thick in these parts, some years pretty scarce.
My only issue with them is when they spin their webs across my carport entry and I find them when I ride in on the motorcycle...
"Alternate History: The Hapsburgs vs. the McCoys. Oh, you'd read it!"
ReplyDeleteI think I have read it -- isn't that approximately the plot of 1632? ;-)
How about the Hapsborgs vs. McCoy? Star Trek meets John Wayne. It could totally work.
ReplyDeleteJim
Oh, so you have my spiders this year. We haven't seen any of these spiders for a couple of years now, the last time that we had them, we had over 2 dozen webs around the house. Search around the web area, their web sac is about the size of a ping pong ball and is tan in color. They usually attach it in a corner close to the web, it usually appears over night.
ReplyDeleteI have enough trouble keeping tubwater warm indoors. Or are they sitting in cold water? That won't help.
ReplyDeleteI've got confess that I've never understood the side-by-side bathtubs on a hill-side thing. How do you get them there? How do you fill them? Why isn't the upper half of your body cold? How long can you sit there holding hands before the water is cold and there is considerable "shrinkage"? How do you get there? How do you get back? What do you do if, indeed, the "moment is right"? Where does the camera-man look? Is there anything less attractive than scooting down into a hot tub when your body isn't quite ready for that temp? Who refills your wine glass? Where do you set it? Is there music? Where does it come from? Why aren't there shoes next to the tub? Is there grass floating and a bit of sand in the water?
ReplyDeleteI just don't get it!
Ken: h'mm, excellent point.
ReplyDeleteReflectoscope: Oy. Oi!
Andy J: I should remove them, chill them slightly, pack in insulation and mail to you, so as to correct your shortfall? (Swap ya for praying mantis egg-cases!)
We have a lot of nice wolf spiders too, the kind that build funnel-like webs and are very, very shy. I could make you a combo deal....
Ed, I figure any couple whose idea of "romance" does not include sharing a properly-sized bathtub -- or even a small one -- probably won't even notice cold water; they're already dead from the neck down. The mental image I'm getting is the feller takes his Magic Rod-of-Solomon pill and when it hits him he jumps straight up in the air yippin' and lands, um, happy; his dutiful spouse just lays back and thinks of England, same as always. (Isn't that the way Hollywood presents Love Among The Over-30 most of the time anyhow?)
...But I'm a born romantic that way.
I grew up calling those garden spiders too, but my wife called them banana spiders. I haven't seen many of them around here, and none this year. Plenty of praying mantises though!
ReplyDeleteWe seem to be short on the preying mantises (or is it manti?) I have only seen 2 or 3 so far this year, and not one larger than 2 inches. Now your wolf spiders, I have 2 dozen webs on the creeping juniper bush next to the deck. Don't need any more of them.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to be light on spiders this year (we don't have Argiope, it seems to be Araneus territory instead), which is quite odd considering that the wet year has given us tons of insects.
ReplyDeleteYou may keep yours, however.
What, Labrat, no respect for the hard-workin' spider that helps keep down the flying pests?
ReplyDeleteGeesh, at least tell me you're kind to small bats as they flutter madly by?
(Growing up, my siblings and I were paid a bounty for mantis egg cases; we had a pair of ducks are were tasked with rescuing hapless toads from them. Outdoor spiders [in out of the way spots] and ladybugs were to be left alone. All of those critters were deemed helpful, since they ate annoying or harmful bugs. Outside cats were considered a positive, too.)
What about Hetfield versus McCoy?
ReplyDelete"Are you ready to ROCK?"
"Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a heavy metal musician!"
Run it by Tam if it doesn't ring any bells.
Jim