I used to be in charge of killing spiders when I lived with the mathematician; he was afraid of them, hated them. (I was also in charge of getting the dead birds out of the back yard when they were killed and left there by the neighborhood cats.)

I've lived in houses with lots of bugs for half of my life, which has given me a very friendly disposition toward spiders: all those things they like to eat, I want them to eat.

And then, having started T'ai Chi just last January, I'm not too interested in killing anything that doesn't really have to be killed. I started this policy with the spiders in my house.

It hasn't been a high-water year for arachnids, not really: you can tell from going outside and seeing how many webs are on the patios. There aren't many. (Each species seems to have years that there are a lot of it—these are temporary imbalances that correct themselves as the ecosystem moves along: there have been squirrel years and spider years and one cottontail rabbit year, followed closely, if I recall, by an owl year.)

But there are spiders all over my house. I haven't yet perfected the art of "Quasi-Buddhist Humane Relocation," since they're hard to catch. There are two underneath the bathroom cabinets. There is one in at least one corner of every room. There are so many cobwebs it looks like the Haunted Mansion in here—without the weird mirrors.

I guess I must do something. Perhaps little traffic signs directing my eight-legged friends to the outdoors?

Must learn to catch them to release them outside. Let me know if you have any tricks or tips before we are completely overrun with cobwebs, and start to look like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.

Posted by: Attila at 02:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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