Another benefit of working from my kitchen table most mornings is the things I can visually observe. So last week I mentioned that I heard the birds; this week, I'm watching the spiders. Now before you go getting all arachnophobic on me (I'm thinking of someone in particular here...), let me 'splain.
When I left Stockton, I was given the most adorable office/garden plant by my amazing coworkers. It's called a Dish Garden and contains what looks to be three different plants all cohabiting nicely in a little wooden bucket. (Incidentally, my coworkers must have known that I'm not so good with houseplants because it looks like they chose a relatively impossible-to-kill variety - the thing STILL doesn't need to be watered two weeks later!) Since the kitchen table is essentially my desk for the time being, I have the plant sitting right next to me so that when I'm trying to think of something productive, I can just look at it and meditate for a moment. It turns out I'm not the only one naturally attracted to the greenery. Spiders like it, too.
There is this one specific spider I've been watching all morning - he's just a little guy, eight legs and all that normal spider stuff, but boy is he acrobatic. I'm sure that whatever he's doing has some evolutionary/ecological purpose, but from this angle, it just looks like he's having fun. And why not?
I watched him crawl up the side of the pot and onto the leaves - I looked away for just a minute and when I looked back, there he was on top of the plant world! Right there on one of the highest leaves, looking down. And right before my eyes, he let out a piece of silk and descended back down to the table like one of those guys on Mission Impossible. It was pretty awesome to watch.
But the fun didn't stop there - I'm not quite sure how the mechanics of it work, but he just pulled himself right back up on that same silk strand. And I watched him do it back and forth a few times until finally, he decided to explore the table top a bit.
Now I should say that I'm not even a little bit afraid of spiders. I've definitely seen some that I didn't want to wake up to in the middle of the night - when I lived alone in my little Thoreau cabin, I learned more about spiders than I ever wanted to know. Like, for instance, apparently the Pine Barrens is home to a glow-in-the-dark variety of arachnid...and also a strange blue-purple one...and also ones that are the size of my fist. But we cohabited alright - our agreement was they could come in and hang out as long as they didn't bite me or my cat or wake me up in the middle of the night by crawling on my face.
And you know, our arrangement worked out quite well. I didn't kill them and they didn't bother me.
Anyway, so now I've got this little guy hanging out with me at the table - I was a little afraid I'd accidentally squish him, so I picked him up and put him back on the plant for awhile. I doubt he'll stay there, though - he's quite the international explorer.
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