The Hadron Collider is On.

Did you notice the end of the world? Seems to be the same shit, different day over here. Apparently, now they're saying it will all go kerflooey in October. Can't say I'm worried. Seems like a good excuse to party though.

I'm slightly more worried about whether or not we'll be seeing house centipedes in these new digs. Every other house we've lived in has had them, and with all the spiders (their idea of a tasty lunch) here and the lovely wet basement (preferred digs) I can't imagine them skipping this shangri la. Don't know what a house centipede is? Aren't you lucky! Here is one for your screeching pleasure.
Now, imagine that two inches (just the body, not the legs and feelers and whatnot) long tearing across your floor and up your wall and under your bed. They are wicked fast. When they zoom along, they go with an amazing wave motion to their feathery legs, and when you smoosh one end the unsmooshed bits keep going. Bug websites say things like "Oh, they hunt bad bugs in your house! They nosh spiders! Isn't that great! You should love them! In Japan they keep them as pets!". All I have to say to that is that the people writing these articles have either never witnessed the terror, or they're bent.

The only thing that makes me hesitate when throwing shoes at them is the knowledge that they can live for years. If I swat a fly I don't feel bad because I couldn't have shortened its life span by more than a few weeks, but the thought that this might have lived for five years or more before I screamed at it does give me pause.

They always show up in the fall when their 30 tootsies get nippy outside. So I'll know soon. In the meantime I'll be happy watching the squirrels. There's a walnut tree right outside our window, and the dog and the babies just discovered the squirrel who likes to hang there.

Do you have a squirrel near your house? Does it quack? This one absolutely does. Sounds just like Donald Duck. It puts on quite the show for Lucy. Lucy stares with rigid determination. I am confident that she's trying to use telekinesis to bring the squirrel inside. This is much preferable to barking like a mad fool all day, which is what I'd thought she'd do when she noticed it.

We've also discovered a Big Bertha. A Big Bertha is the highly technical term for one of those barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus), the same kind of spider as the ever so famous Charlotte. Everywhere we've lived we've had one make her web (they're always a girl, doncha know) on or around our house. In every case, we've become sort of fond of her, and kept track of how she was doing. Every winter she goes away, but since we see one again the next late summer/fall, we tend to pretend it's the same one.

And on a note that has nothing whatsoever to do with creepy crawlies or atom smashers, Loon is still on track to take home a gorgeous baby girl tomorrow. It is, ummm, harrowing (?) to be in the no man's land between the birth of the baby and actual legal adoption of the baby. She's busy holding the baby today, and tomorrow she'll be busy bringing her home, but when she gets the time to post I'll to it.

Going to see if Betha's writing notes,
ephelba