Spiders

I have some political blogposts on American Street (link in the column on the right) this Saturday as on most. But for those of you who would like to talk about something nonpolitical, at least for humans, I'd like to propose spiders.

I have never been able to build a buddy relationship with spiders and I have tried. They don't seem to be very social creatures, though a couple overwinter in my kitchen most years. This year I have a very large and fat spider there, and it has spun the most wonderful web outside the window over my sink (like the one in my embroidery on the left). An excellent excuse not to wash the window yet. When the sun hits the silver strands in the web it looks like the most wonderful embroidery ever. A fatal one, but so beautiful.

Spiders need names. Otherwise it's far too easy to swat them dead while dusting or vacuuming. I call the big fat one Moriarty. Moriarty's sex is not immediately evident to me, though what it eats is far too so. It is not one of those nervous spiders that run in circles carrying an egg sack with them. They seem like a wingnut's dream of a family-friendly spider, always on the job of guarding the eggs. Moriarty looks more like a metrosexual spider to me, but so far I haven't seen it being friendly to anything.

Are spiders cuddly to touch? We would need to much smaller to know that, because our fingers are too large to stroke a spider's fur. But I believe that they are cuddly.