Creepy Crawlies

Just a continuation on my arachnid thoughts the other day...

I 'killed' a spider that was in my bra on Christmas day (before I put it on thank goodness)- the body broke in two and one half ran one way and the other half ran the other way... persistent little shits.

It's a white tailed spider, apparently they're one of the bad spiders.  I had been letting most of them live because well, they look cool and they are the MOST prevalent spiders in the house, clearly with so many around they can't be harmful...Guh.

 

Shall I show you the other common fella?  This one (below) we don't let live or kindly transport outside when we find. It's either a funnel web or a mouse spider - the webs are certainly funnel-ly and they are a kind of blue tone in their blackness.  My husband calls them the big ants - ants they are not.  I read they can bite through shoes and they are extremely poisonous (or maybe people are just trying to scare the outsiders with their writings). Luckily - these seem to like VERY high spaces.

We have one living in the skylight in our bathroom and another in an air conditioning vent in the living room right now (dropping their kill to the floor nightly).  The first time I saw the guy in the bathroom, I couldn't sleep the rest of the night.  We did not bring a ladder with us.  I am told they always have a partner nearby.  So I guess there are at least four in the house right now- yikes!  They also live in the outdoor shades - fascinating to watch - with a pane of glass between you.

 

Want to see the last guy?  This is an actual in the house photo.  I should have held a ruler up to her so you could really see the size, but I was squealing like a little girl and just in a hurry to get her to the garden and out of the house. I am told if they are HUGE they are not poisonous.  So, if they are big enough to take up the entire space of a dustpan, consider them your scary hairy friend. Blech.

Ok, I've completely creeped myself out now - time to ditch the spider stories and head to the next topic.  And to think, spiders fascinated me in Michigan....Of course you could probably say they still do?

What Do You Baste Your Turkey With?

 

We are watching TV, it’s the holiday time and a commercial comes on.  Not your normal holiday commercial peddling toys or electronics, this was something entirely different.

Everyone is at the dinner table having Christmas dinner and Aunt Edna pulls out a can of bug spray and starts spraying – at the table!  Which take this little Midwestern girl a back.  

  

They then say – don’t continue to fight flying bugs at the dinner table the old fashion way, use this – as advertised -  handy dandy wall mounted bug sprayer.

What the hell????

Then they show in a glimmer of light surrounding this wall mounted plastic thing – that looks like an air freshener – but is not an air freshener – randomly spraying bug spray elegantly into the air with accompanying music  – ABOVE THE DINNER TABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

You can buy, and install, a bug sprayer that will shoot poison into the air of your home and on your food at timed intervals, to keep the flies off your turkey dinner.  YUM!!!

Shall I buy one for all of you back home???

Again, I am so sick of the bugs here that I can see why something like this was invented – in 1970 perhaps.  When the DDT trucks sprayed toxic mists into the streets to kill the mosquitoes every spring and we all trailed along like it was the pied piper of the land, except that it was not playing a flute, it was emitting poison into the atmosphere and ridding the country of the dreaded children and aimed for mosquitoes – but that was another time – before people knew better.

So here’s an ad in the paper – one’s on sale – it work indoors AND outdoors.   Um…

I also looked online – seems there are at least three manufactures of the sprayer – pick your poison – hahaha.  Oh wait, not funny.

How Ya Going?

Well I’m doing fine.  No wait, you didn’t ask me how I was doing.  

Going? Good, I’m um good?  System all cleared out with that coffee this morning – certainly you don’t want to know that though- do you??

Actually – I am going to the grocery store later, I’m going to take Kororoit Creek Rd, should I go another route?  

Are you asking me how I’m going cause you know a better way to the market?  Oh - wait, you didn’t know I was going shopping until just now, so that’s not it either- I must be ok going the route intended, I think.  As long as I stay on the Left side of the road that is.

Um, yeah I’m going – thanks.

I have no idea how to answer this question.  

Everyone in Australia asks you how you are going?  Since I’m standing up and walking, my mobility is fine, so I’m going in the direction you see me going.  Seems to be working for me, except I don’t know where the hell I am.  This folks is not Detroit.  But I’m trying.  

I DO know how to get to the grocery store though- so to me, that is going well.  Food is a very important factor in my life, grocery store figured out; therefore life will continue pleasantly in our house with food available at any time for hungry souls. (My husband will confirm the importance of the care and feeding of the wife) 

So I guess the answer is great.   I’m going to Coles later, need anything while I’m there?  Because clearly, how things go is entirely related to food, don’t you think?  Smart question.

Welcome to Australia

Hello everyone!!! 

I know, I know it’s been ages, since the time that we last met.  WE MOVED – across the world – to Australia.  Ah, moving 10,000 miles across the ocean to the other side of the planet – not for the faint of heart.  Shout out to all those that have done anything like this before we did….in your 40’s.

Now – I’ve got tons of material from both sides of the Pacific – I better get a move on.

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The first two weeks we were in Australia we were welcomed by all kinds of things.  Notably Spiders.  I bet you didn’t know spiders were playful creatures?  So nice of them to be waiting to welcome us, in quantity, at our new home. 

And apparently they are very hygienic.  The photo above was not taken by me, I borrowed it, from someone who obviously knows to look before they brush. 

I – did not.

Some glassy eyed morning, in an unfamiliar dark bathroom, in an unfamiliar country, at an unfamiliar body clock time – I woke up.   Then I lumbered off into the bathroom for a face wash and a tooth scrub.  Put toothpaste on the brush, stuck it in my mouth and brushed away – all the while thinking, this feels odd.  It feels softer than normal or something?

Then I spit.

And what came out were all kinds of black spider legs and bits in the white foam of the toothpaste.  Ah yes, I just brushed my teeth with a spider, fantastic – Welcome to Australia!!

And do you know what else they do?  They hang.  Just hang.  Randomly from the ceiling.  On a single string.   To fuck with ya.  

Don’t sit up in bed before you look, because there is a dangler – right above your forehead.   And his ten buddies are hanging in the living room, so be prepared to do a little active brain wave – maze work before you head into the kitchen for coffee.  Keep those eyes focused – or they will be on your cheek, noggin, in your hair, eyeball, up your nose - Welcome to Australia!

And please – don’t take the dog out for her morning piddle before you investigate your bathrobe thoroughly.  What a lovely soft place for them to rest up.  Ah, ah, ah – don’t you dare put that shoe on.  Don’t do it.  Clack them together twice before you put them on.  I know the dog is singing the ‘I gotta pee song’ but diligence is key here -  Welcome to Australia. 

And when you take that morning shower, do not wrap yourself in that lovely big bath sheet immediately upon exit.  Stand there – wet and dripping – and shake that thing.  Shake it hard.  Watch em’ fall.  Then give it a quick glance before you wrap it on.  It’s whole new morning routine.  Takes a bit of getting used to -  Welcome to Australia.

They say, small is bad.  The poisonous ones here are small (they of course are not all poisonous, still figuring out which is which though).  So I guess the spider that was the size of a mouse in the dogs basket was a good thing then?  Not only was he the size of a mouse, but he moved like one also – the basket went flying out the balcony door – but I can’t say for sure if the spider was still in it- welcome to Australia! 

They might be a good thing, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to a spider that’s big enough to cook up on a grill.  We had another one in the house before the dog basket incident – we took her outside in a long handled dust pan, but not before my father in law offered to vacuum her off the ceiling for me.  If she is harmless, then she should go out in the world and eat some of those damn flies.  Stupid flies.  But that is a whole other story… Welcome to Australia!

Glad to be back and Merry Christmas!!!

Toilet Training

Hi folks, sorry I’ve been away – it’s nothing personal – I have just been very, very busy.  That’s probably not going to stop anytime soon (we are changing continents) but I am hoping to post once a week – I have such a backlog of photos to share with you!!!  So lets go…(pun not intended).

Oh, where do I start?  So the other day hubby and I were in an airport, we find ourselves flying over oceans quite often lately – Pacific, Atlantic, we aren’t picky.

Anyway, we bought day passes to an airport lounge, because it’s far more comfortable waiting out a 5 hour layover in a lounge with cushy chairs, food and drink, than in black airport chairs, with metal arms and food crumbs from the last three years collected in the seams.   Delightful – really.

I walk into the bathroom in the lounge and there is this sign facing the toilet.  So I study it, because whatever is being pictured doesn’t click with me when I glance at it.  Still doesn’t.  What I see here is a man standing on a toilet in the women’s bathroom.  Is this a problem?

Do a lot of men come into the women’s bathroom and stand on the toilets?  Especially in bathrooms that are singles.  This bathroom was a one seater with a door, not a group collection with stalls. 

I wipe the seat off every time I go into a bathroom and I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve seen foot prints on a toilet seat.  That does say something, I have seen shoeprints on a toilet seat, but I’ve used a lot of public bathrooms in my life and the odds seem really, really low that anyone is going to stand on a toilet seat on a regular basis, especially so much that it requires a sign.  In a lounge we paid to get into, no less.

But hey, thanks for the helpful pointers about how to sit and where the toilet paper goes, ummm, again – is a sign needed for this?

This brings me to the next sign we saw.

Here we have yet another man, throwing blocks into the toilet??   

I think they are blocks – I don’t really know what they are.  But there are three of them.  What is it that someone would carry around that there are three of that would get thrown into the toilet?  Sonny misbehaved and pops took the Lego’s away and pitched them in the toilet?

Again, I am lost on this.  Do people throw enough blocks into public toilets that it required a sign?  Are they blocks?  Is it something foreign we don’t have in America that gets thrown into toilets? I can’t think this would ever be a problem – ever!

But again, thanks – it certainly gave me something to ponder for the 16 hour flight home.