If the dew should rise in the web

This morning, I looked out at a sea of fog.

As I sat on the edge of my bed, and applied my face, I saw vague figures emerge from the mist, getting clearer and more distinct - although still shadowy - as they approached the chain-link fence that surrounds the middle school across the street.

Then, just as suddenly, they retreated in a raggedy line strung out across the school yard, running, chasing and racing like the edge of the ebbing tide. They vanished, one by one, into the off-white.

And I saw spiderwebs everywhere, edged in moisture.

There's a web-wreath in this picture!  Click to enlarge and see if you find it!

When I had dressed, and was heading down the street that faces my balcony, on the way to my morning coffee, I got a closer look at the wreaths and doilies, so retrieved my camera from my knapsack.

As I snapped, a woman called to me.

"Have you seen these?" she asked, and I joined her to gaze open-mouthed at a shrub festooned with dripping webs, rather like a Christmas tree draped with spooky lace.

"It's like an infestation," she said. "There hasn't been rain or wind to destroy them."
I pointed out that spiders are actually a pretty good weapon against far nastier infestations, and told her how all this put me in mind of my favourite play. (You can say such things to a stranger in Fernwood.)

In The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry, Jennet Jourdemayne, an accused witch facing the prospect of immolation at dawn, describes how approaching death has brought her into a sharp awareness of life and time:

I've only one small silver night to spend
So show me no luxuries.  It will be enough
If you spare me one spider, and when it spins I'll see
The six days of Creation in a web
And a fly caught on the seventh.  And if the dew
Should rise in the web, I may well die a Christian.

Yule be home for Christmas (and so will we)

On the first day of Christmas, my daughter gave to me --- a fabulous post-nasal drip. Gee, thanks, younger daughter.

Elder daughter appeared at the bedroom, as I dozed on and off, floating in a pleasant haze of cold medication, sat cross-legged on the bed and opened her stocking which included a humane spider catcher The problem is, the kit includes a plastic spider for practice and elder daughter is creeped out by it...

We'll have patience with her arachnophobia, however, because we learned yesterday that she had been awarded the George B Pickett Prize for "highest aggregate grade in First Year Journalism" at the University of King's College. An early Christmas present? More like a really late summer's present. She only found out that she had got this when she went to check her Christmas exam marks online and noticed that this had appeared on her page. Still, it's an encouraging sign that she's picked the right major. (Clearly, entomology would have been a bad move.)

Younger daughter waited until no one was looking, then quickly took her groaning stocking to her bedroom and shut the door. I could hear her reading aloud, no doubt deciphering the lengthy explanatory notes provided by her grandmother. Later, she appeared in the kitchen, clutching hazelnut spread and two bags of tealeaves: chocolate cream chai and egg nog. "Santa brought them," she informed me briskly. She had carefully sorted and put away her treasures, which is a bit of a pity, because I can't remember what they were...

As for me, I got Turkish Delight (the good stuff, not the dollar store perfumed kind) and enough chocolate to do minimal damage. And in the grand tradition of book-giving between Demeter and myself, a biography of Beatrix Potter which I have to give back. This time, Demeter has actually read it, but wants it for a friend of hers.

The Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter have trudged off to church amid the new-fallen snow (Good Ottawans rejoice) after a breakfast of home fries prepared by elder daughter. Presents this afternoon and for the very first time in Canada, new Doctor Who on Christmas Day itself! Just like in Britain! Only with commercials.

I hope your day is shaping up as well. (If not, God bless you.)

Leaving no quarter

In October, the wasps are dopey and cranky, and the spiders come in to get warm. When we lived in Victoria, the October visitor was usually a hobo spider. They're quite large and an unsettling and unwelcome sight crossing one's living room in the lamp light.

Although nineteen, elder daughter has somehow managed to never be in a house alone at night before (except for baby-sitting and that's not alone by definition). She spent her first year in university in residence, and when home, one of us is usually there. During a long distance chat, she breaks off in a panic: "Mu-u-um! There's a spider in the kitchen!"
"A spider?"
"It's HUGE! It's right by my foot!"
"Okay, grab a glass and put it over the spider, then you can slip a piece of paper underneath..."
"But it's HUGE, Mom! It's the size of a QUARTER."
"Now, calm down. It doesn't want to hurt you. Besides, remember the spiders in Victoria. They were much bigger..."
(They were, too, the accompanying photo notwithstanding.)
"Mu-u-u-u-um!!! I was eight; it wasn't my problem! And it's eleven o'clock at night and it's dark...."

I hand the phone to the Resident Fan Boy who talks her through the spider eviction.

This evening, as an enormous harvest moon fights its way free of the clouds on the eastern horizon, it occurs to me that she knows something important: when you're eight, it isn't your problem. When you're nineteen, it's becoming your problem although you may have parents to give you step-by-step instructions over the phone. Time enough to discover the depressing next stage. Yep, she's growing up, and I guess these will be cold nights for spiders.