Topic of the Day: Spiders and Octopi (LONG)

Do you ever feel like you have several different (yet the same) YOUS? What I mean is that I wear different hats...now it is time for the blog hat.

Sometimes I
DO.

This isn't supposed to start out with a rhyme at all...but it is feeling a bit like
fall.

OK, everybody stop it now
I mean it.

(anybody want a peanut)?

I couldn't resist, quoting The Princess Bride is always appropriate! I'm tired and this is NOT good to be so unprofessional on such a professional blog. BA HA HAHAHAHAHHHAAAAA.

OK.

On to today's subjects.

Spiders.

I have a story to tell you...I want to try to help you FEEL the intense emotions I felt when this happened so I will attempt to explain. No, let me sum up. It was about 9am. My darling preschool age daughter was upset that this struggling daddy longlegs was stuck in the house. She said he ought to be outside where he can fly around. She insisted I get a cup and take him outside since the open window where he was fluttering had a screen over it. Being the obedient mother that I am (ha!) I got a glass and whisked him through the hall, into the entry, flung open the door and let him fly

out

of

the

cup


RIGHT INTO A HUNGRY WAITING SPIDER'S WEB.

Before I could breathe out, the vibration of the tangled daddy longlegs in the web awoke the spider who QUITE HASTILY started wrapping up the still alive insect. Before you could say, "whatcha-ma-bloostic" the spider had completely enveloped the prey...and my sweet young daughter saw the very thing I saw.

And burst into tears.

"The spider ate my frieeeeeeennnnnnnnnddddddddd! whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Then

I

burst into tears as well.

It was really quite distressing!

What you don't know yet is that this very week in the car (great place for deep conversations that last 23 seconds) I've been talking to the kids about spiders and how they have 8 legs and are not insects, but in fact, arachnids (which MY dad made sure I knew when I was young so I was passing along this wisdom) and that they, do in fact, suck the blood out of the insects who get caught in their webs. It is spider season here in the Pacific Northwest...August and September...they are everywhere. So we've had spiders on the brain.

So, my dear daughter KNEW EXACTLY WHAT WAS HAPPENING to her new (now deceased) friend the daddy longlegs. And so did I.

It was a life moment. Right there at the front door. An event I won't forget...ever.

I was talking to a friend about it and she said it was so emotional because it was "violent". I think she's right. It was really nature in action. The food chain at its' best. The survival of the fittest. The way it all works. That's life. (or rather death! in a beastly savage way!!)

So anyways, what about does this have to do with the octopus? Scientifically LOTS, but today it is merely a happy coincidence because...

Today's awesome ETSY FIND:

These little amigurumi octopi are from the Etsy shop of happywhosits - I could not hold in the gasps of cuteness!!! Don't you LOVE THESE? I'll try to think of them when the ugly reality of feeding spiders comes to mind! Hey, and they both have "8 legs" don't they!?!?

Have a happy Wednesday!