Category Archives: Observation

Dec5

Ruined Aromas

Posted on December 5, 2014 by heretherebespiders

I’m hoping this will be a comment-heavy post. I think we’ve all experienced what I want to talk about, but I can’t remember anyone discussing it before. So off we go!

‘Ruined aromas.’ By that, I mean when a favourite (or at least pleasant) scent has been destroyed in your heart/mind/nose forever by an association that you just can’t break.

My examples that made me write this:

Back in my mid-twenties, I used to really like a certain spray air freshener. Forget what it was, something totally artificial and weird. Cranberry-mulberry or some shit like that. Thankfully, nothing that is found in nature after what happened to ruin it forever for me. In any case, I liked it, and bought it for light use at home – to cover smoking stink, dirty cat litter wafts, and various and numerable dog-smells.

Until…. someone bought it for use in the bathrooms at work. Now, while our own poo doesn’t smell of roses (if it does, you should see your doctor or change your diet), the smell of a stranger’s shit is just plain disgusting. The smell of a stranger’s shit with half a can of air freshener sprayed on top is worse. Oh so very much worse when that spray is familiar and a scent you used to) like. I tried to enjoy it again at home, and the smell-memory just wouldn’t leave me. Tossed in the bin – and you all know I hate wasting anything.

More recently, we got some lemon-scented antibacterial cleaning spray. It smelled nice; a light lemon scent.

Then the dog shit all over the spare room for two days and our only cleaner had a nice, light lemon scent. Let me say that the two odours didn’t combine well, and now I can’t use the stuff at all anymore without imagining that I also smell dog diarrhoea. You can also thank me for not describing in detail the visuals I also recall on smelling this particular cleaning product.

My disgust seems to center around poo. Hmmm.

While I probably border on being a super-taster, and super-smeller, I am sure that this has happened to you, too. Let’s hear it, and remember you can tell me all the really gross stuff and it will be fabulous!

Nov16

The Man Who Talks to Cheese.

Posted on November 16, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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Hubby has been cooking this evening. He’s now making dinner, but earlier it was a low-carb pumpkin bake thingie.

After his earlier effort, he is now well into his habit of talking to things that aren’t able to answer.

Shall I type up some of the nonsense he is saying? Yes, yes I will:

O M G, W T F, B B Q! (Yes he said each letter)

Well, I’m talking to chicken now, brilliant! (This is because I was teasing him about being the Man Who Talks to Cheese)

Nothing for cats! (He’s cutting up raw chicken; we give the good bits to the cats and whatever is left to the dog)

Spotty, watch your little paw, fucking hell cat! Spotty! Fucking hell dog-cat-whatever-your-name-is.

Not much for kitties but I’m working on it.

Shhh, I’m coming (whispered to Lokii who also never shuts up) shhh, bits for kitties… Shhh

Oh it’s gonna be less than…oh (garbled) seven minutes…it’s okay. Shhh, coming. (I think this means he heard me light a smoke, which takes me 7 minutes to finish. It was oddly silent so he could hear the lighter spark)

Just wait, alright? Coming. (To Lokii, again) shhh.

Spotty watch your little paw, I’m cutting stuff. Heeeeeeeeee. (Very unmanly giggle)

Fuk fuckit.

That’s my fucking hand, you idiot! Sure didn’t the baby Jesus tell you not to bite the hand that feeds you? Sure no he didn’t.

More for cats, nearly gone…

Alright Spotty that’s it, I’m not going through all this goop. A little more. Oh, Spotty! You want more? That’s it, that’s it. (Calling for the dog) Neko! Oh Spotty you want more? There is no more! Here take that, for fuck’s sake cat! Here.

I’m not spending the evening cutting up human food for cats! Okay Mrs (me), any time you are ready! (Because I’m in charge of the sauce part)

Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into what it is like to live with a man who talks CONSTANTLY.

Love you anyway, iDJ!

Aug27

A Draining Morning

Posted on August 27, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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Do you ever have so much going on that you want to share that you shut down entirely and say nothing? That’s been me, lately. I don’t know where to start so I … haven’t started. But there’s one thing I want to talk about, and I’ve been holding off because I don’t want to accidentally offend anyone. I’ve been put in that position recently on the blog, and now I have to write with my tiptoes. As you can imagine, those contortions aren’t comfortable.

A not-funny thing happened, that led to something funny, that led to a not-funny thing. I feel a rant of sorts coming on…

There was a clog in our big outside drain pipe. It was my fault. So of course I should be the one to fix it.

I have a plumbing snake, but it was too short to reach the clog. Being creative and not willing to either give up or pay someone, I electrical-taped an old shower hose to the snake, as an extension. It was still too short! So I electrical-taped a new shower hose to the old shower hose that was taped to the snake. Good thing I keep things like two unused shower hoses, eh? You just never know when random junk around the house might come in handy! Hoarder? Naw, just prepared for any eventuality. I choose to believe that. Nahnahnah I can’t hear you, Socks…

In any case, in the process of being shoulder deep in a big drain pipe, I got shit-water on me. I got it on my arms, on my hands (despite the gloves I changed about nine times in the course of my work), on my pants, on my shirt, and on my FACE. Yeppers: Poo-soup, on my face.

That’s funny, to me. I rather deserved poop all over me: I caused the problem. How, I will not detail. It was an attempt to save myself work that backfired badly. If it got in my eyes or mouth – maybe not so funny!

What really isn’t funny: someone saw me doing the work and asked about it. After I explained I was told, ‘That’s a man’s job. You tell your husband I said so!’

It wasn’t even physically challenging, unless you count kneeling on concrete for ages (ow). I didn’t explain why it was me doing the job beyond the simple answer that I’m plain-old-better at this sort of job. Hubby and I each have our talents, and this is one of mine, such as it is. I can deal with poop-soup on my face and clothes way better than he, and I deal with the frustrations of how long it takes to clear a big clog more calmly, too.

This is not to say that I don’t have a horrible temper that rockets off into incandescent rage for what seems like no reason (to anyone but me). Plumbing issues aren’t one of the things that piss me off – I don’t know why (or why not).

But this wasn’t a “man’s job”: it was a dirty, smelly, disgusting job. I have never believed that just because I don’t have a penis, I should be automatically exempted from doing dirty, smelly, disgusting work. I’m pretty sure every mom out there would back me up on that. Also: every female pet owner, every female carer for an elderly person, every female doctor or nurse – I could go on. How much excreta of various kinds and from various species do women deal with on a daily basis? I can’t imagine just because it was flushed it means it is less icky, can you? Hell, at least I knew who pooped the poop – a stranger’s poo would likely make me gag.

I’m not angry at the person who made the comment – he didn’t give me time to think about and explain why it was sexist. To be honest, I doubt I would have bothered, because I feel the comment was sexist toward men, too. I’m just as tired of hearing that men should be the ones to do all the physical work as I am at hearing that women shouldn’t do any of it.

Has anyone else had a moment like this? What did you do or say? I think next time it happens, I’ll say a lot more in response, myself.

Aug13

Coastline, Downpatrick

Posted on August 13, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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Part of what I love about the area around Downpatrick Head is that you can walk down to the shore and investigate all the tidal pools. It’s rock, so no sandy beach to play on, and I’d not swim there, either with the crashing waves.

Unfortunately I was there at a higher tide than last year, so I couldn’t walk out on the rocks half as far as I hoped. I was really worried I’d miss the sea-life I’d seen last time.

I still got a little bit. Sea grass flowing in the current.

The cracks in the rock surface were so very straight. I loved the miniature pools left in the hollows.

Seagulls riding the updraft above us.

I wonder what the broken bits are. Looks like fan coral, maybe? It was so pink compared to the stone and the blue of the mussels.

But this – this is what I was seeking! Tiny little sea-anemones. Aren’t they lovely?

I didn’t find a live starfish, or an empty urchin shell, like I did last year. But I was happy to see the anemones. They were only a tiny bit below the surface, and I have to admit I did tickle one to see what it felt like. Reminded me of the touch of a tarantula’s foot – sticky without leaving any goo behind on your finger. Like each waving arm grabbed on to me, and then decided I wasn’t food and let go.

I also learned a good lesson on photography – when taking pictures of something underwater, shadows are your friends! These would have been immensely clearer if I’d blocked the hazy sunshine with my body. I’m just so used to not doing that, I never even looked at the phone to see the results of my efforts. Next time!

Aug11

Downpatrick Head, Co Mayo

Posted on August 11, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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One of my favourite places on the planet.

This is the sea stack, known as Dun Briste. Photo taken by iDJ last summer, a much brighter day. It’s also my background on my iPad.

Two weeks ago.

It was warm, and not too windy, so I got closer to the edge than I ever did before. I think all the ladders at work have helped me get over my fear of heights.

All taken lying on my stomach, looking over. I felt pretty safe.

A man fishing over the edge! That takes talent. Even on a not-so-windy day, it has to be hard to cast out so far into the Atlantic from a huge cliff. We saw him reel up something that looked an awful lot like a shark, too. But hard to say from such a distance.

I was rather worried when I heard that the Council is ‘developing’ the site. It’s wild and natural and I didn’t like the idea of anyone screwing with it. They have started already.

Walking up: that wasn’t there before. They have raised an earthen rampart around the blowhole.

It has a viewing platform now. Do you see all the foam in the blowhole? That will be important later.

View of the overlook and blowhole from further up the hill.

Yeah, heavily fenced off. Well, the blowhole was fenced off before – just not as prettily. Still, I fail to see the point of fencing off a hole when there are miles of cliff-face all around with a raging Atlantic right there. I’m really hoping they don’t fence all that off, too: like they did with the Cliffs of Moher.

Me! That’s where I took most of my over-the-edge pics from. In no danger, unless a huge collapse happened.
Which, of course, it might. And then some lawyer-happy-jackoff will sue the County. But… will the leeches be more likely to sue before they put up fences or after? Right now the place is still wild – and you damn well know it. If you fall off, it’s your own damn fault. Once there are fences: well then, the government didn’t protect you enough so you deserve money for being stupid. You can see they are placing fence-posts there, well behind where I’m lying.
Sigh.

That’s also me. I scared my friend by walking there – but it was entirely stable and clearly the sheep fed there quite often. What’s that on my shoe? Awwww, dammit.

My view of the same area as above. See? Perfectly safe. Because it wasn’t windy and I’m not a goddamned idiot.

Ah, the foam! Even on such a calm day, the ocean coming in under the cliff and the way the tide was flowing meant there was a good amount of sea-foam being thrown into the air. I really wish I could have videoed it!

Jul5

Slimy… Check. Kinda cute? Check!

Posted on July 5, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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I have potatoes growing in a pot. First time I’ve tried it this way, but I’m sick to death of the taters I never planted coming up year after year in my small vegetable patch. Said patch is nothing but sage and oregano now – with the never-ending, never-able to fully dig out potatoes growing up amongst the uncountable stems and roots.

The ones in the pots were started from the eyes from store-bought spuds that I let get go to long before eating. I chopped those eyes out, left maybe a centimetre or quarter inch of potato ‘meat’ for sustenance, and put them on top of about an inch of compost. Once they started making leaves, I dumped in more compost. Repeat. The idea behind this is that potato plants will grow spuds all up their stem if the stems are buried as they grow taller. Supposedly. I’ll let you know in the autumn if it worked…

I rather slacked off on the ‘repeat’ part in the last two weeks, so this afternoon when I spotted the rounded side of a nice, fat, baby ‘tater emerging from the compost I figured it was past time for a dirt top-up. Then I looked again. It wasn’t a ‘tater!

A big snail had snuggled down into the dirt and under the shade of the leaves (probably to wait for darkness to start its evil plant-munching duties). I plucked it out of the dirt, meaning to toss it over the wall, safely away from my plants.

Something stopped my good right throwing arm; I held the snail, looking at the perfect camouflage sworls and swirls and zigzags on its shell. I removed the encrusted soil from its tightly-pulled-in foot. Then I set it on my hand, to see what would happen.

What happened is that I made a friend.

The damn thing seemed to have a personality!

It had no fear of me, or of cat, or of dog. Indeed, it seemed to be looking at me and saying “Hi!”

“Howr’ye?”

How odd that I want to spend a little more time with this invertebrate. It was really fascinating to watch, and the slime wasn’t a thing like what a slug leaves behind: it washed off right away. What is odder, perhaps, is that I’m pretty sure I would eat this critter. If I had a few dozen of its friends to make it worth my while. Maybe I’ll start an escargot farm! I only had escargot once, but I sure did love it. I like chewy, garlicky food.

Maybe I’ll just keep it around a bit longer, for more photo shoots, and try not to think about garlic butter sauce.

Jun6

My Slimy Nemesis!

Posted on June 6, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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I rarely dislike any critter. Be it vertebrate or invertebrate, warm- or cold-blooded, furred or scaled, no legs at all or a hundred legs.

However. Since I’ve lived in Ireland and discovered my love of plants, I now have an extreme dislike for a certain invertebrate.

The filthy nasty disgusting destroying slug!

Holes in my hostas, strawberries with caverns eaten into the lovely red pulp, seedlings arbitrarily chewed off at the base of the stem. Augh!!!

I have an Irish Wildlife book. It has exactly six pages of mammals for a total of 43, which includes whales (and the bastard American mink an ecological group released from a fur farm and now has overrun the country, due to well-meaning dammed idiots). Rather an astoundingly tiny number of mammals, but it is a small island after all.

The ‘Terrestrial molluscs’ section, on the other hand, has 21 types of slugs and snails. What the HELL, Ireland?!? I know it’s wet and green, but really?

I’m not squeamish when it comes to easily-squished things. I have been known to flail about like a Whirling Dervish when I’ve walked into a large spiderweb in the dark, but who wouldn’t? I have a dislike of ants when they surprise me, and maggots are just disgusting. I have stories to explain both the ants and the maggots. Not today. Today is when I admit to a shudder, a step back and maybe an involuntary sound of horror when a giant-ass-slug surprises me.

They do, they do. After nine years here I still can’t get used to seeing slugs the size of my thumb in my compost bin. Yeeuch! Even better, at the bottom of a pot I want to use. Which is where I found monsters.

I had an olive tree that didn’t survive (not surprised) but I kept it as I could grow snow peas up its dead trunk. Well, I’ve not done that in a few years, so I moved the dead tree, soil and all, into another pot it didn’t quite fit into. It was a nice pot and I wanted it for a more permanent planting. Anyhoo, the tree has been in the temporary pot for a year, and I decided to move it. Picked it up by the trunk, and damn if it didn’t just pull right out of the pot, dirt and all.

And there were huge slugs in the gap at the bottom.

I put the tree back in the pot and moved the whole thing from the bottom, leaving it alone until I could face the slimy suckers.

That’s them. One big sumbitch and one younger version, both Limax flavus, or yellow slug. They look more green to me. It must be because of all the lovely tender plants I feed them! Just look. Nasty nasty nasty.

Me being me, I got over myself and knocked them onto cardboard so I could take pictures. I also wanted to know just how big they are, so I got out the tape measure.

That’s the smaller one – the juvenile. It woke up first and tried to get away as fast as slug-ly possible. I didn’t let it, of course.

While trying to get the older one to wake up and stretch out, I found something even more disgusting. Slugs have mites. My camera wasn’t good enough to get them, but both yellow slugs had tiny cream-coloured mites running over them. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww. They must be pretty specific to slugs, these mites, because how the hell didn’t they get stuck in the slime? I know more about slugs than I ever wanted to know.

Swift had it right:
“The vermin only teaze and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ’em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.”

I don’t feel that superior. These slugs are unstoppable!

I finally got the older one to unfurl, and it gave me a perfect measure.

An inch, Mr Swift? How about four? Gaaaah!

The book says that is maximum size for this species. But. There is another one that can get up to 25mm in length – almost ten inches long. The ashy-grey slug, Limax cinereoniger. At least this Limax doesn’t come into gardens, otherwise I might actually faint away if I am surprised by one of those.

Oh: I killed them all. With glee, and table salt.

Jun2

Local Irish Plants that Found Me

Posted on June 2, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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This might not be terribly interesting, but it cropped up in my mind-web as a blog idea and I want to run with it.

I have plants that I never planted. Some are still a mystery, like this one:

It’s a tree of some sort… Probably a big old weed tree like my grey willow; now well over 12 feet tall and beloved by the little birds. This one is growing in my planter of irises, and I’ve tried to kill it two years in a row by accident. It keeps coming back – maybe an ash tree?

I gained a fern last year out of nowhere, too.

This is either a ‘hay-scented fern’ or a ‘lady fern’. Tending toward the former, as it says primarily grows in western Ireland and likes west-facing land (ticks one box, as it faces south). I don’t mind one bit that it landed here.

I dug this up and planted it, a native flowering grass. I believe it is thrift, Armeria maritima.

And of course the yellow iris we dug up! I don’t know anyone else who has these in their garden on purpose. Iris pseudacorus

My newest arrival was a mystery for the whole six minutes it was in Facebook. I had a guess, and it was confirmed: native Irish common spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii. Did you know that Ireland has at least 14 native orchids?

It’s getting ready to bloom, too:

I love what I grew intentionally, but these are some lovely native species that I can’t kick out of the garden.

May16

Rockin’ the Looking and Actually Seeing

Posted on May 16, 2014 by heretherebespiders

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At work, we have a new parking lot. Less than a year old. It’s gravel, and had to be put in to keep us from parking where a big damn truck might hit our precious car. I park in it every damn day, because I’m the later shift and get there after everyone else.

I also sit out there for my lunch break, weather permitting. There is a raggedy chair that sits inside the back door. It seems to have no proper home in the, so I wheel it out and park it next to an air-conditioner that I use as a table. Classy! But private, for the most part, and I get the sunshine.

I see this stretch of gravel every day: sometimes four times a day, sometimes just twice. But definitely 10 times a week at the minimum.

Today when I went out for lunch, I saw something that caught my eye instantly. Can you see it?

Weeds – yes. Boring grey rocks – yes. Occasional cigarette butt – yes. There is something else there. Something amazing. Look again if you can’t spot it!

…

No, not my stupid damn finger in the shot! The one special rock. The one with a perfect fossil.

Would you look at that! The most beautiful things can be right in front of you. You only have to really see when you look around. This seems to me a theme with me lately! I’m getting quite visual of late, since I let my meds run out (a tale of complaint for another day). No matter: I’m glad I was the one, the only one of the many many people who have walked on, driven over, spread, transported, and quarried this load of gravel that spotted and now cherishes this bit of beauty that was there all along.

Okay, confession time – I licked it to make it shiny for the last pic. I’m disgusting like that. Do you feel I’ve let the post down by showing off my blurry finger and my spit?

Meh, it had been in my pocket for a few hours, sure it was clean enough…

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