huntsman spiders look like daddy long legs (and some folks use the names interchangeably). Itty bitty bodies.

eta: um, i was really wrong and thinking of harvestmen. A quick google search indicates that Australian huntsman spiders are very very large. not at all what i was imagining. DO NOT GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH

Power back after long outage. No internet or TV. Radio run seldom to conserve battery. Also snow was bad enough that there was no mail, paper delivery, or trash pickup. Which also meant driving my car, nicknamed by friends "the rollerskate" was not a good idea. Bad time to find out our wood stove was broken, so no heat. House was well enough insulated that first day without heat only dropped to 55, though by second day was down to 45. Reading by flashlight not really a lot of fun with bad eyes.

On the plus side, plenty of food. And while our gas oven does not light manually, the burners on top of the stove do. So we could cook. To keep food cold, I made "snow packs" by double bagging snow in garbage bags. Kept refrigerator and freezer cold enough that neither even cycled when the power came back on until I took the snow packs out. Now 40 and raining, so snow should wash away.

Just before the snowpocalypse hit, local rag (The Olympian) boasted of how ready for the storm local government was with a headline of "Bring it, Mother Nature". I winced even at the time. Apparently part of me is superstitious enough to believe that was asking for it. That bit of irrationality may have gotten a bit reinforced.

A quick google search indicates that Australian huntsman spiders are very very large. not at all what i was imagining. DO NOT GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH

See, that's what I thought. I have vivid memories of being traumatized by an issue of Vogue Australia that had an art director who thought that huntsman spiders were the perfect addition to a story on shoes and purses. I screamed and threw the magazine across the room. Pete had to go rip those pages out of it.

Dammit. Seamus has decided that all the stress of the last month means that he cannot pee in any of the three, cleaned daily litterboxes but must instead pee on the bed. Tonight? While I was asleep IN the bed. Sigh. He's done this multiple times since Byron died last month. He had this issue when he was much younger but has been fine for years. So...replacing the very expensive hypoallergenic fake down duvet and the duvet cover, emptying and scrubbing out the litter boxes, refilling the old Feliway emitters, and keeping all of the cats out of the bedroom for at least a week before another trial run. So not what we need right now, financially or emotionally.

Anyway.

Scrappy, as ND said, we adore the Pasadena humane society. If you don't get this pup, I'm so glad you're going to go back and try again. I'm pretty sure it's not their fault that they provided us an adorable kitten who pees on beds when he's stressed out.

Naughty Seamus! That is not the best way to express grief and/or anxiety :( It was exactly that behaviour (piddling on the bed while i was sleeping in it) that almost got Mal thrown out a third floor window. I feel your misery (nothing like the lost sleep of bolting awake in terror every time a cat paw scratches at the covers.) After trying all the usual options that you are clearly already doing, we had to resort to kitty prozac. It works a charm, and thankfully the kitty dose turns out to be 1/4 of the smallest available human doese which i can manage with a cheap pill splitter. And the generic is only $4 for 4 month supply. I felt like i was losing a battle by dosing him, but he's so much better adjusted now and i can even let him sleep on my bed at night.

Hoping, of course that's a behavioral thing and not a kitty UTI or some other physical issue. Booo. Bad kitty.

eta: um, i was really wrong and thinking of harvestmen.

Heh. Yes, very different. Harvestmen aren't spiders at all, strictly. Huntsmen are very spidery spiders. It's all show, they're not at all aggressive (when I was a kid I used to handle them occasionally) and their bite is not fun but not particularly dangerous; but they leave you in no doubt as to their spiderocity.

They actually make pretty good neighbours, because they'll hunt cockroaches and such like. I met one the other night; when I was taking the rubbish out, I found it sitting on our front doorstep. We also have a lot of daddy longlegs in our garage, which suits me fine because they will eat more dangerous spiders like redbacks (of which we also found one in our en suite once).

In conclusion, Jilli is never ever going to visit my house ever, and quite possibly not my entire city either.

It's 7 am. On a Saturday morning. On a Saturay morning that Em is gone and that I am alone in the house. And I've been awake for an hour and a half. I'm guessing this will make for a nice nap later. After laundry and house cleaning.

Oh, Seamus. Not on, kittyboy. Frankie's been having accidents in the house, and I'm not sure why. Back to the vet we go...

In conclusion, Jilli is never ever going to visit my house ever, and quite possibly not my entire city either.

Heh. My mom is terrified of your entire country, what with the crazy Jillifonts and the crocs and sharks and jellyfish and all that.

Purple Rain: look, I was a very sheltered child. Only way I would have seen it was at a friend's house, and that just never happened. Nora, I think this may mean MOVIE NIGHT.

Nora, I think this may mean MOVIE NIGHT.

You gotta dress 80s.