Thursday, May 15, 2008

Dublin's Friend

Dublin came home with Libby today. Dublin is a green, stuffed bear who brings along the journal he needs to keep while he is in our home. Libby asked if we could take some pictures of Dublin doing her some of her favorite activities, one of which is lounging in the hot tub. Rather than get into the hot tub, we had her pose next to the hot tub with Dublin (more about that later). I grabbed a towel that was hanging over the deck railing, when much to my surprise...and girly screams...I found this.His size might not impress you much and I may get some shit from the folks in South Africa, but...in my defense, he was ENORMOUS and had the benefit element of an ambush. I nearly passed out.

And because Mom and Dad had recently hinted that perhaps the kids could use a little more respect for nature, I didn't let them kill it. Instead, Jack scooped him up in a plastic container and released him in the trees in the bottom of the yard.

Had I been alone, I would have stomped on him like my feet were on fire.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a spider to hunt down and exterminate.

9 comments:

Bird said...

OMG!!!! Is Vinnie okay??

Anonymous said...

I bet Kinny is having hysterics at your spider! Even by SA (or Swazi) standards, he is a good one...But of course he is a LITTLE good one!!

Martine said...

Brighid, we used Vinnie as bait for the spider. He is in a deep coma as I type, but that's okay. It means he's not crapping on the deck.

Winks, as God is my witness, I was thinking of you while I hid behind the hot tub and Jack wrangled the man eating spider. Mom used you specifically as an example of someone who save goggas from the house and releases them into the garden. As I said to her, bugs outweigh humans seven to one, and the sooner they learn to stay out of my house, the better. In the meantime, meet my vacuum.

Oh, and I don't think Kinny reads the blog, but when she does, tell her to come and squish the spider for me.

The Butterfly said...

Good for you. Remember in the next life you could come back as a spider and then you better hope to find yourself in Winky's house else "Hello vacuum cleaner" I do love those vegetarian eating vetenarians!!!

Anonymous said...

I'm right there with ya Mart. I would have screamed like a little girl. That spider is waaayyy to big to even stomp on. Ick! At my house, if Justin isn't around to rescue them for release, they're DROWNING in a puddle of bug spray. That's all I have to say about that!

Anonymous said...

Just this past Monday, as I was coming through the front door at work, sun barely up over the horizon, I spotted what I thought was a baby bird on the ground in the corner by the window. I bent down to either save or put out if its misery said baby bird. I recognized it as a tarantula within a fraction of a second of it lunging at me trying to tear off my leg. Once I recovered my senses and got over the willies, I promptly beat it to death with a telephone pole.

Anonymous said...

Back in 1998 I was doing jungle warfare training on the island of Okinawa, Japan. In summer. HOT! In 1 week everything cotton I wore rotted off. T-shirt, socks, underware, etc. One of the exercises ended up with me running through the jungle with my helmet, back pack, rifle, flack jacket etc, while being shot at by the "enemy". I was looking down for holes in the ground and ran into a spider web that was taller than me and spanned the entire path I was on. I was OK with being covered in spider web, but was NOT okay with the soup bowl sized spider that was caught between my face and the web. Was even unhappier when the spider ran up my face and onto my helmet. This is a bird eating spider by the way. BIG! Needless to say, I dropped my bundle, my rifle, my helmet and my back pack in the jungle and lost my mind for a while. Worst part was when my comanding officer threatened me with brig time if I did not go back into the jungle and find and return all of my gear. Did I mention the spider was the size of a soup bowl and ate birds? I am not so sure shooting the spider would have been enough to kill it.

Anonymous said...

I forgot just exactly how old I am. I was doing jungle warfare training in 1988, not 1998. Sheesh!

Martine said...

Justin, I'm fairly certain that I would have died instantly in the face of a spider the size of a soup bowl. My limit, should you ever need to save me, is a ramekin size spider, and even then you should probably carry a defibrillator to revive me.

Mom...no, I've decided to come back as one of the bird eating spiders...improve my odds of not being sucked up in a vacuum (do they make vacuums that big?).