I guess one of the things that makes it difficult when a person leaves your daily life—a breakup, a death, even a child’s leaving home—is having to go through things a first time without them.
This morning I had to go through my first spider without Lulu. If she’d been here she’d have appeared by my side with a camera in her hands and glee in her sadistic eyes. She seems to think it funny when I go face-first into a web. She’s happier still when I learn that the web is occupied.
But she wasn’t here this morning. I had only two choices, then: to put myself into physical and psychic danger by getting really, really close to the horrific creature just so I could take a picture for her, or to get to safety. I did what any sensible person would do.
As you can see when you look at the enlarged version of the picture, the spider—let’s call her Esther—could do with some electrolysis. She’s not unlike most other spiders of my acquaintance in that regard. But her coloring is a bit unusual: garish and unnatural, like the hair of an octogenarian who’s not quite ready to stop being a redhead. From behind, she looks demure and ladylike, four legs tucked under her as though at a tea party. It’s the front of Esther I don’t like. There’s a certain thrusting aggression in her comportment, no less fearsome when her many eyes, mandibles and fangs are hidden.
Let me show you one more picture, with an iPod Nano for scale:
Lulu: You want I should mail Esther to you?