Well, what a day. Again. And it's only half over. I'm writing an entry early, even though the one written last night would surely please any stalkers for at least 24 hours. :-)
It's strange when a new or full moon crosses my astrological north node. Four years ago, Josh wrote to me when the new moon was transiting my north node in my first house. The past two days events are obviously what happens when it's a full moon (opposing the node) � okay I'll get off the astrology stuff, I just find it interesting and don't live by it.
Today I barely got any sleep (5 hours at most). I had to wake up at 7 am, but got up at 7:30 instead and just made it out the door at 8 am. We made it to my dentist's office at 8:30 and wandered around for 15 minutes. The mall, where the office is located, was closed except for people doing what we were doing: wandering the hallway.
After a bit, my mom was seen as was I. My mom's tooth problem may be a gum problem, and mine may need to be refilled with a guard to lessen the shock to the roots with such a big filling. But he ground down the tooth a lil and it does feel a tiny better.
When we got out, it was only 15 minutes later. Luckily JC Penney was open, and I decided to go looking for clearance stuff. I found a really cute brown vest that fits kind of like a corset :-), and a new cami. I wanted to go to Mervyns, but my mom didn't have her charge card.
My mom got what she needed, I got something I like, we had to go home.
When we got home, we decided we needed to go to the store down the street to buy water filters for our faucet filter thingy. So, we went to the garage to get my moms cart, as I also needed a cheap bookcase for a hall closet (everything has been piled on top of everything else in this closet forever.) When she opened the garage, I, being eternally paranoid of things dropping from the ceiling, crawling, moving, or sitting on webs anywhere in close proximity to myself, noticed a small spider, maybe 1 inch at most suspended on its web in a corner by the entrance of the garage. It looked very black, almost blue black. And it had a huge butt. I didn't like the look o f it all; it was creepy. I told my mom that there was a spider there, and as she went to sweep it away with a broom, I begged her to leave it for a sec. I stared at it some more. All of my body felt disgusted, which is rare with spiders, usually I feel grossed out some but not this severely. I said to her, "that kind of looks like a black widow." And she said, 'I don't think so, our garage is really clean and empty and usually they like dark, cramped unmoved spaces.' Me being me, I decided to try to look at its belly anyway and had to lean nearly to the ground to see it. I then saw it, feeing stupid levels of paranoia, and said, "um, I think it has red on its tummy." My mom went to look and said, " I don't see anything." So I looked again much closer, and said, "omg, no, really it does have a red or brown spot, and I think it may be a black widow. eew." My mom still thought me nuts as she still didn't see anything, but asked me what to do � as if I know. So I said, well, lets go to the store and I'll think of what to do on the way there.
When we arrived at the store she asked if we could get some spider spray too, something I am utterly opposed to normally, but my brain was having a definite 'oh shit' moment. We got what we needed and looked at sprays. There were roach sprays, odd considering there are no roaches in this town. Ant sprays, sprays that kill everything including mice, and then there was one can left of spray for spiders and scorpions. (perhaps a slight hint at a certain problem here?) My mom grabbed it and read the label. She told me it said it kills them instantly. I said, how instantly, if it can run which it will if we spray it, it's not instant enough. So we didn't get the spray. I suddenly felt bad, and was like, well, if we kill it, I want it to be fast, also if it is a widow, we kind of need to show the apartment manager and ask to spray the garages, or at least ours. My mom agreed, but still told me it wasn't a Widow, as I swore to her that it had red or brown on its tummy and most likely was. We debated this the whole way walking through the store and even on the way back to the garage.
As we went back downstairs, we were armed with the following:
Electric Bug vacuum � so useful as it sucks everything up still alive to be released later, especially good for moths and bees and spiders on the ceiling.
Flashlight
Mason jar with lid
Apartment keys
And a lot of courage.
With this we braved the garage and the little black beast. When we tried to vacuum it in the bug thing, but it got caught in its web remnants, luckily though after a minute or so, it got sucked in just enough to put the cap on. It was crouched by the cap, and we couldn't see the belly up close. So I said to my mom, okay (logic), "if it's not a black widow, we have nothing to fear, right?" even though I pretty much was convinced it was. So I said, "we can really quickly pull off the cap and drop the cylinder in the jar and try to dump it in the jar so we can see its belly, alright?" With my emotional support, my mom slowly tugged at the cap, watching to make sure it it didn't leap or move. The cap released after a few tries and we very quickly tapped the cylinder of the bug vacuum. It plopped in the bottom and ran around. Almost as soon as she got the jar lid on it figured out it could crawl up the side of the jar. As it did, my mom looked and so, "no I don't see anything" and then as it crawled up the side she said, "oh god, it has an hourglass on its stomach, it is a black widow." And I said, "see, I told you I saw red on it." She stared at it wiggling around in the jar equally as grossed out as I was, and decided to sweep the garage out then and there. My mom found an egg sac, though we're not fully certain if it was the Widow's or not. My mom informed me that now that we knew it was a Widow, she is going to suffocate and die in the jar for a month if it takes it because she, unlike me, feels no pity for anything that could kill her or make her sick. I need to gain that skill, because while I'm not about to release it, I'd prefer it be killed instantly. Oh well. I told my mom I was glad she listened to me about trying to catch it, because she was saying to leave it till Monday, and I protested saying 'not if it's deadly.' After we had caught it she thanked me for being so unfailingly paranoid and said she felt better knowing at least that one was dying in a jar. I ran back upstairs and got my camera and took ten photos. After I took the pics, I had to take a shower as that little creep made me feel itchy and yuck. These are two of the best ones. They're a little blurry because of the glass jar (click for an enormously large and gross close-up):
The little bitch was living rent free:
So there you go, pictures of the very first genuine Santa Fe black widow I've ever seen in person in my life. And yes, they look rather deadly.
~e
