Spider update

Mask

Image apropos of nothing in the post, except that if I have to spend an embarrassing 2 days trying to learn to load an image, it might as well be something that gives me deep joy. Now that I’ve figured it out (sort of—you can see that the title font is still quite unpleasant; I’m not sure my template, “Metrosexual” or “Chelsea” or whatever it is, allows me to choose, and I haven’t got time for that now), I can report definitively that there’s nothing wrong with the platform. Something’s definitely wrong with me.

And all this fussing only for an inconsequential little update…

Alas, I was overoptimistic. The spider Mae West turns out not to be a European garden spider, but an American (not European) house (not Garden) spider (well, duh—a very tenuous basis for my optimism). Also she is a cobweb weaver, not an orb weaver, also substandard (the helpful Western Exterminator Company site confirms that cobwebs lack symmetry). Finally, she is puny; she will grow/has grown to be only the size of a fat pea, not a grape. I checked, though—Mae West was no more than 5' tall, so the spider Mae West is not inaptly named. I fed her a moth larva yesterday, much to our mutual satisfaction.

There is also, at a judicious distance from this creature, a second spider, last observed taking her ease near a neat package that I fervently hope is an ex-earwig (except that would mean that an earwig got into the house). Even though she is equally humble in looks and abilities, I have decided to name her the spider Lady Florence Paget, after a Victorian bombshell who was known as the Pocket Venus. You make do with what you have.

PS—I have put a brave face on it, but... The helpful Western Exterminator Company site also notes that other cobweb weavers include the ogre-faced stick spider. I can’t help feeling a little regretful that, if I am to be denied European garden spiders and I must have cobwebs, I cannot have ogre-faced stick spiders.

Dope-slap

n. — dope-slap

On July 12, I sent out an email explaining why I wasn’t up to writing. To recap, in slightly edited form:

A week full of nervousness and mayhem. To wit, Nick has his first cataract surgery in Boston, Milo's boarder just cancelled (which means we—by which I mean “I”—have to drive home between surgery and follow-up to care for our special-needs parrot), and I have a 57-page article that is mostly source notes that have to be reconfigured. Business and dubious parenthood before pleasure of writing (or thinking about other things).

So to the present. Let me add here that in complaining about business and dubious parenthood, I neatly sidestepped the distracting issues of the surgery itself and the impending, crashing tidal wave that would be the release of years of repressed…well, whatever happens with putting off a terrifying operation while eyesight interferes with physical and emotional competence. Putting it off was, to say the least, understandable. But also maddening (yeah, yeah, all about me) and a source of increasing wound-tightness within this house. I kind of promised Nick I wouldn’t “I told you so,” so I will just let him tell it in his own words (I have, without copyright permission, lifted the following from two of his emails):

• First: “Just FYI, my cataract surgery yesterday seems to have gone well and my right eye, previously best described as "ummm*cough* do you see my finger? OK, hand?" is now about 20/20, which I count as an improvement. “
  

• Second: “Eye is GREAT. it's kind of cool to see things. And be able to walk around without having to listen for cars. Monica wants very badly to dope-slap me, but she knows she'd dislodge my lens. I fear three weeks from now.”

With relief/release comes rage. We’re coming up on two weeks. Only one to go.

But as the big day approaches, the idea of the dope-slap is less and less appealing. After rage comes release/relief. Eye is GREAT. Eye is GREAT. Eye is GREAT.

Word of the day: Scribs

I do think I may have discussed this word in the distant past, but hey-ho. No brain left to speak of (what with heat, decriptude, and the next post).

So, scribs:

n. — those disgusting things in orange juice. syn. — fish, pieces

Called “pulp” by advertisers, as if that is any more attractive.

Loathed by all normal children. Or by all children, since the ones who like this stuff are aliens. I’m embarrassed to say that I just called them “pieces.” So unimaginative, although anyone who hears the venom with which I pronounce it (yes, I still do) will realize that “pieces” is a very special, evil word indeed. The other two words are much more inventive, and “scribs” is genius. In fact, uttered without loathing, it’s quite useful; for instance, those little things that are left over when you tear pages out of a spiral-bound notebook. Those are scribs. There is no other word.

I’m going to have to qualify “all normal children.” I have grown up somewhat and find that I like fresh orange juice. But at age 8 or so, I naturally thought that other children were like me. If so, the “juice” they drank (or avoided drinking) was the reconstituted frozen (i.e., probably cooked first) stuff. Not only reconstituted, but store-brand reconstituted. And made by my mother—a cook so supernaturally bad that she could botch OJ. Of course I still have venom.

Hey—I interrupted scribbling…uh, oh—I really didn’t mean that, but the minute it was set down, there was no escaping the connection. Are scribs what I write? Just scribs? Am I going to have to change the name of my embryo blog to “Scribs”? So deflating.

Anyway, I interrupted to set up a contact page on this site, because I’m willing to bet other people have names for these repellent bits of flotsam. And it fascinates me.

the spider mae west

A little background for the uninitiated (and I’ve plagiarized freely from my previous writings to construct this history). Two years ago, we hosted a European garden spider in our kitchen. The spider Blanche Ingram, who started out perhaps the size of a lentil, soon achieved formidable proportions. Hence her name, which comes from the scene in Jane Eyre where Mr. Rochester attempts to make Jane jealous by pretending to court Lady Blanche Ingram. The lady is tall, dark, and handsome, with a "magnificent bust." Singing the praises of this formidable armful, Rochester tells the puny and delicate Jane, "She's a strapper!" As was the spider Blanche Ingram as she emerged, double in size, from her first molt. And that was only the beginning.

Blanche Ingram lived in an empty picture frame, snacking on (successively, as she grew) fruit flies, flour moth larvae, flour moths, and earwigs (hand fed with sadistic glee). Finally, we bought her mealworms as the weather grew cold and the wildlife disappeared. But any one who’s read Charlotte’s Web will know that a spider’s life ends with the coming of winter (or possibly too many mealworms), and one day, Blanche Ingram had discreetly crept off. So sad.

Fast-forward to the topic of this post. A few weeks ago, I noticed a tiny garden spider in one of my library windows. (Library. Lah-di-dah) Or rather, I noticed, on the window sill, the telltale signs of a spider who intends to stay put—little black dots, probably deliquesced fruit flies (possibly spider poo, but I don’t intend to investigate.) Sure enough, there was a tiny dot of garden spider in the window frame. And oh, yeah, there was a dead housefly. Given the relative sizes of the spider (sub-lentil) and the fly (fly), I am optimistic about her chances. Already I can spot her across the room (a tiny speck from that distance, but still enough to block light), and she has been christened The Spider Mae West. Another strapper. Next year, maybe Jane Russell.

Introductory Time Series with R

The latest book by by Andrew Metcalfe and Paul S.P. Cowpertwait

What the critics are saying:

“Gorgeously written…lapidary prose…”

“A work of stunning depth and intelligence…a deep dive into the human condition”

“Metcalfe and Cowpertwait join such literary giants as Franzen and Eggers…”

“A tour de force…”

Addendum: After confused responses from intelligent people. This is a JOKE, guys. “Introductory Time Series with R” is a book about introductory time series with R, not a towering work of literature with an ironic title. It is a towering work of statistical dullness with ironic reviews. Sheesh.

Word of the day: Sepulchre

n. — an oubliette

Ha! Fooled you! Well, come on, I can’t be using the same word over and over.

So here’s the latest definition:

4. oubliette: n. — the in-box

Or whatever pile substitutes for it. Duh. Of course. While they are supposedly simple instruments of procrastination, you know that’s a lie. And if you say you don’t have one, that’s a lie, too. I have many—I don’t even know where some of them are.

Anyway, I was looking through one neat little pile (neatness is the seal of forgetting) for info on a follow-up doctor’s appointment and found, among other things:

• Info on a follow-up doctor’s appointment (2019)

• A Jehovah’s Witness card (2015)

• A letter from my mother’s probate lawyer appointing me administrator of her estate (2015)

• A recipe for making a jello brain (2004? 2005? 2006?)

• An index card with a summary (written in my former tiny, neat, terrified handwriting) of Ortega y Gasset’s observations on Modern Fiction. Part of my study for orals exam for my (abandoned) PhD (1983)

• A stack of Copyeditor newsletters, which contain what might have been helpful when I was still starting out. Or not. How to name files—I ask you. (2004)

Well, that’s my whole life right there. Clearly, this stack of paper represents the (polygamous) miscegenation of several different in-boxes. I’m attracted to this list because of its historical breadth—can one have a sweeping in-box, like “a sweeping historical novel that traces three generations… “? (Aside: If the book jacket mentions a “sweeping novel that traces three generations…,” I hastily put it back before my fingers are burnt). And of course the absurd combination of brain-shaped jello molds with any of the other items. But some things I’d rather not be reminded of. On the whole, it does make a powerful argument for culling or filing as preferable to in-box oubliettes.

Again, I’m leaving further commentary on items therein for later, if ever. Individually, they’re meh. Brain jello excepted. And I’ll do the commentary on brain jello here. Not only does it inject a shining absurdity into this collection, but it’s a reminder that there is always absurdity—a (or is it the?) memento vivere. I’ve always got something to look forward to.

(OK, perhaps the Jehovah’s Witness card may eventually star in its own post.)

Bye. I promise this is the last oubliette. Promise promise.