2005-05-13 - 2:21 p.m.

>Up The Spout Again

Wow, two weeks and not a peep from your good friend Rufus. That is a record, I do believe. I could make long drawn-out excuses (ulnar nerve compression, trying to move to a new apartment, fatigue from all the constant nightmares keeping me awake at night), but I will keep it all on the parenthetical, dig it?

I drive along in my ENORMOUS sunglasses.

The move is coming along slowly. I am wishing it to be over and done with. We had a brief period of "oh no, tell me this isn't going to be a mistake" when our hot water at the new place stopped working after a scheduled "water shut-off for maintenance." An airlock in the pipes, which (with my amateur plumbing skillz) I made worse and then (eventually) better. Phew!

I don't know if you can see just how tiny this baby bunny is from this photo. I couldn't get any closer because of their utter skittishness, but there are crowds of these awwww-inspiring critters on the campus.

We bought a new love seat of green "microsuede". A reclining loveseat of the Lazy variety. Way too expensive, but way on sale. I have always wanted one of those, and it is so incredibly comfortable that it calls my name late at night. "Silly boy, that mattress does not conform to your body, it is not cushy nor adjustable! Come to meeeeee...."

I now have a pet. I noticed this spider on the curtain above my computer and was curdled by the enormous fangs. I captured it beneath a glass and tried to decide what to do. Do I release it nearby only to guarantee that it will climb into my bed at night and masticate me with its giant mandibles? Do I keep it under this glass until its spiracles can no longer extract enough oxygen from the air and it slips into a slow arachnid death? Squishing was always out of the question. But as it began to build a web inside that tall tumbler, clambering to and fro like some kind of a half-controlled marionette, I started to get just a little attached. How was this poor arachnid to know that no insectoid dinner fare was likely to end up in his sticky strands?

Here is my new friend. He is possibly a Callobius severus spider, a forest spider who sometimes takes the unoccupied niche of house spiders.

So I started capturing fruit flies. I bought bananas just to replenish the population. The trick is not so much in capturing them alive (which you must do, because he ignores carrion like it was, well, just so much dead insect matter), but in transferring the hip-hoppity little red-eye fly-guy from one glass to another. The first time, I kind of wounded the fly and just slipped the other glass over top of the little writhing prey. But that... just seemed kind of cruel. I mean, I am perfectly willing to crush a fruit fly if it is infesting my kitchen, but to torture and trap it in a tiny glass colosseum of death... Not my cup of tea.

So I came up with the fly-lock system. First, I have to explain the extended enclosure I put together for Vlad (Oh, that's the spider's name: Vlad, as in Vlad the Impaler, the 16th century inspiration for the legend of Dracula). There is a big peanut butter jar, with a hole punched through the middle of the lid and tiny air holes around the edge with the original drinking glass inverted on top and a chop stick as a ramp from one floor to the next. Bee and I collected some shells and rocks and driftwood from the beach to give him a lair at the bottom. So, when Vlad is hiding out in the lower section, I can remove the glass, change his water (a soaked bit of paper towel) and insert the caged fly. I now have the art of capturing the fruit flies down, so I can do it with a shot glass, then transfer the shot glass into the enclosure over the opening to the bottom. The fly eventually finds its way into the bottom part and I remove the shot glass.

This is the enclosure.

I actually went so far as to write to a spider expert and ask what Vlad will need and what species of spider he is. Apparently, Vlad (being a male - incidentally, those large "fangs" are sex organs) is more interested in sex than food. Well, who can blame him? Have you seen those slinky female spiders? Va-va-voom!

Okay, I must go finish packing. We should be completely moved in by Sunday. Wish me luck.