Stomp
I lay in the bed in the dark room, eyes closed. With one hand, I absently stroked Tom Cullen, who sprawled beside me with his belly exposed and one paw thrown up in the air as if he were filled with the Spirit in an evangelical church. Beyond him, little Miss Stinkerbelle sat grooming herself, purring like a motorboat.
It was maybe 4:30 this morning. I’d awakened some fifteen minutes earlier, peed, and gotten back into bed to lay there for another hour or so to shower and get ready for work. As was the case more and more these days, I just felt too tired — or lazy, disguised as tired — to get up and work out.
I’ve fallen into a routine of only working out Tuesday through Friday. My reasoning is that since I work outside pretty much nonstop all day Saturday and Sunday, I don’t need to work out those days. By Monday morning I’m pretty tired — yesterday, for example, I spent all afternoon wrestling 4×8 sheets of heavy subflooring around for my shed — and I take that day as my “official” no-workout day.
Despite the fact that I’ll go home and heft wood around for the shed for 2-3 hours this afternoon.
On days that I’m not working out, I still wake up at the same time, so often I’ll leave my bedroom door open after I pee, so the cats can come in for some bonding time. Most of the time, all the cats except Spot (and maybe Miz Poo) will make their way through.
As I lay there petting Tom I became aware of a faint sound. I turned my head so I could hear the noise better. Distant and tinkly, it sounded like one of those old radios people had on the mantel back in the 30’s. I thought I could even hear the tinny voice of someone singing, the voice all thin and sounding like it was coming out of a can.
My heart thrilled.
Maybe this is our haunting, I thought, rather excitedly. We’ll hear snatches of music from the ghostly radio that plays hits from the era when the house was built.
I lifted my head and strained hard to see if I could hear any more, to maybe even recognize the phantom tune.
That’s when Robyn flushed the toilet, and I realized what I’d been listening to.
I spent most of the weekend working on my shed, which is starting to look kind of like a building now. I finished hanging girts on Saturday, and got most of the flooring down yesterday. I’m mighty proud of it when I stand inside and look around. At roughly 23×12, it’s almost big enough to be a small guest house. At the rate I’m going, I should be finished by the time I’m 45 or so.
Seriously. I’m amazed and how long it takes me to build things. When you’re working alone it takes you about five times as long as it would with a partner to help. For example, to hang a girt (this is a girt), I have to first measure the span, which is a lot easier with someone to hold one end of the tape. Then, I have to mark each post at the right height so the girt will be level. Measure and cut the girt, which is a 2×8, and carry back to the shed. Because I can’t hold a girt up and screw it to the post at the same time, I have to screw small pieces of 2×6 to the posts first, so I can rest the girt on them. Once the girt is in place, I put 8-12 3-inch screws through it at each post. Finally, I remove the supports and the girt is hung.
That’s one girt, at the bottom level. It gets much harder and more time-consuming when you’re working on a ladder several feet off the ground, trying to do all those steps.
But, like I said, I finished the girts on Saturday. I wanted to go ahead and put the support beams in for the roof ridge, but after doing just one on Saturday and finding out what it was like trying to move the ladder around amongst all the joists, I decided to put the floor down first. That way, I’m not as far off the ground (the floor is about 10 inches above the ground) and I’d have a nice level surface to move the ladder around on.
Way back when I started the shed, I first tried to build it to rest on skids, but lacked the skills to get the damn thing level. That’s why it’s a pole building now. During that first attempt, I attached one 4×8 piece of flooring, and when I took the first attempt apart I laid that piece of flooring on the ground underneath one of our pecan trees.
When I lifted that piece of OSB (oriented strand board) yesterday, I found about five hundred crickets and one evil bitch.
To get those pictures, I called Robyn to bring the camera out. Once they were taken, Robyn dispatched the little lady to a better place (well, better for me, anyway) and went back inside.
Not five minutes later, when I picked up a piece of treated wood to use as a weight while cutting the original piece of flooring, I found:
This does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about getting wood out of the woodshed this winter.
I stomped the second one into jelly, and felt good about it.
Every time I look at that second-from-last picture above, I love our new camera just a little bit more. I absolutely love how the picture is so detailed you can see the reflection of the trees on the widow’s body.
Surely those pictures demonstrate how the black widow looks like pure evil, right?
This video has it all: ABBA, and hunky men in drag. What more could you need?
You may never look at Agent Smith the same way again.
Our black widows don’t have that red on their backs out here. They’re pretty unmistakeable though. I have so many around that I don’t do much more than give them a slight berth these days - they’re pretty shy, and you just about have to grab one to get bit. The webs are creepy though, and you know it when you walk into one. They seem much stronger than other spiderwebs, and it’s like walking through a net of small wires. And that’s doubly creepy, because when you do that, you know there’s a good chance of one being on you.
Good photography though!
Is it not enough that I had that damn song bouncing around in my head all day yesterday because you kept whistling it? Now it’s bouncing around my head AGAIN. Bastard.
Damn Fred! Can you post a warning or something before showing us up-close & personal spider pictures? Or at least offset them with a warm & fuzzy kitty picture?
Damn.
“The Adventures of Pricilla, Queen of the Desert” is one of my all-time favorite movies. Thanks for that clip, Fred! Now I’m going to get out my DVD and watch the whole thing again. If you haven’t seen it, you really MUST give it a try.
Great new camera, but I’d rather see close ups of the cats. Ewwww, spiders!
Argh! Unicorn chaser please! That’s one scary spider, and now I have the heebie jeebies, thanks.
That widow’s spots look more orange than red.
I’m not doubting it’s a widow, but the ones I’ve seen are very obviously bright red and in the shape of an hourglass!
Robin - those are southern black widows, and they were very young (not nearly as big as they look in the pictures) so their coloring wasn’t fully darkened. If you look in the second picture I flipped the first spider to expose the hourglass, which you can see in profile.
Even scarier than the black widows is the fact that there is lady I work w/who looks just like Guy Pearce in drag!
Hate spiders…those pics make the body look all shiney are too damed creepy…got bit by a brown recluse (sp) 2 years ago…bugged out by them ever since.
My gawd how I loved Abba. Think I have to rent “Muriel’s Wedding” again soon.
No Black Widow’s up here. Interesting to see one up close and personal though.
I love that movie, I saw the stage show in Sydney, Australia and it was brilliant. Thanks Fred for reminding me
Thanks for the clip from “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”!
One of my top favourite movies — great comedy — now I have
to see it again.
About the spiders-in-the-woodpile thing: isn’t there anything you could spray the wood with so the spiders won’t nest in it?
The idea of reaching in for firewood and finding … That … is just too horrible. Maybe keep a pair of leather gauntlets hanging on a nail in your back porch to slip in before going out for wood …?
You have a great camera! Wonderful close-up detail!
Ugh I so could not deal with seeing those as much as you have. I would die seriously.
Okay, so I’m one of those folks that think spiders are kinda cool, but seriously??? That camera does TOO good a job. I’m officially squicked out. Thanks for sharing.
I think ALL spiders are pure evil. But then again, I’m arachnophobic.
I’m just glad we don’t have black widows up here in Canada. I prefer it if my fear remains irrational.
Fred, if you are interested in bees and the care and keeping of them, please check out one of my favorite bloggers, Birdchick: http://www.birdchick.com/blog.html. She also has a book about disapproving rabbits coming out next month. However, she started 2 hives of bees this year and has documented it on her blog. She also has good info on where to get info and schooling in bee keeping. Check it out!