Thread 4 - TalkExiles: "The Planet Goes On Being Round"

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous lifeboat threads 1 & 2 & 3.

Gather here all ye refugees from the JTT Flat Earth Society, welcome to the reassuringly oblate spheroid of MN! Ye all already know the answers to the questions "How the heck do I format my post?" "Why can't I edit my typos?" "What do those acronyms mean?" and most importantly, "Where is everybody that I used to know?"

So really we're all here just to chat randomly.

(((Cats))) 😍

@MavisMcMinty That is an amazing photo of the spider (what a gorgeous creature) and its prey!

MavisMcMinty · Yesterday 19:50

Almost a cat with a mouse. Except a spider with a buzzy striped thing.

Is it a crab spider?

I can feel a bacon and onion rolypoly coming on. We haven't had one since early last year, so it seems like time to make one. Anyone else familiar with the Glorious Poly?

There's theory about treating arachnophobia by getting people to look at pictures of spiders. I have no idea whether that works.

otoh, I respect spiders and can live knowing that they are around the place, even admire them from a distance (I like those green ones) but am absolutely horrified and nauseated by pictures of them, unable to touch the pages the images are on (even the other, spider-free side) and am now eyeing my laptop screen with some suspicion after seeing that image on it yesterday . .

Sorry elderberry. I could never pick up a spider, and have to construct considerate toilet paper escape routes for them if they’re stuck in the bath, but apart from that I’m very pro-spider and would never deliberately kill one. At least here in the UK/Ireland they can’t kill you!

Yes, a crab spider, Sinner. Sometimes see them in yellow when they’re on yellow flowers, they’re amazeballs!

We may not have killer spiders in the UK but they can give you a damned painful bite. I got bitten on the finger a few years ago, while handling plants, and it really fucking hurt. Then my finger swelled up alarmingly and the bite went a bit oozy and I started having horrible thoughts about necrotising lesions. It was nasty.

I don't mind spiders, though. If I see one I say hello to it.

Back in the autumn I shared my late nights with those massive house spiders you only see in autumn. For weeks we co-existed (uneasily on my part), until one night I put my fly swat on the floor to head one off that was coming straight at me, and my dog lunged for it, shook it as though it were a rat and spat out the dead spider with - I swear - an expression of disgust on his face. He was protecting me, I think! Anyway he did the same thing the next night and the night after that, and that was the end of the massive house spiders, I felt very bad for them.

But where do they live for the rest of the year? Aren’t they the ones that die if you “helpfully” put them outdoors? I only see them for a few weeks every autumn, so where and how do they get so enormous?

SORRY ELDERBERRY

Tricyrtis2022

I can feel a bacon and onion rolypoly coming on. We haven't had one since early last year, so it seems like time to make one. Anyone else familiar with the Glorious Poly?

I remember them from the other place, but never got round to making one!

MavisMcMinty · Today 12:31

Yes, a crab spider, Sinner. Sometimes see them in yellow when they’re on yellow flowers, they’re amazeballs!

I'm not sure if they change colour, or if they just pick a matching flower. I've found a few on paths and carried them to a flower, so they don' get squashed. I once found a striking pink and green one, in the days before mobiles, so didn't get a picture.

The big house spiders patrolling your floors are males, looking for a mate. Apparently, the females can live for up to ten years, but the males rarely more than a year.

Are you tempted? I can share the recipe/method again if you want.

I made a few changes - now make a thicker dough and put in more bacon. I got some bacon/ham from Wild Game Meat which is very smokey and has a robust flavour. The idea was to try and make something that country people might have eaten in Victorian days, when they had a flitch of bacon hanging over the fire place. No idea what Victorians would make of it, but we like it.

They change colour. If you move them to a different flower they will change to match it.

I see hours of fun in the garden ahead of me...

(Not afraid of UK spiders, despite having been bitten occasionally. Not afraid of most Malaysian spiders either, in fact we used to collect "fighting spiders" in matchboxes - lovely colours).

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · Today 13:27

They change colour. If you move them to a different flower they will change to match it.

I thought that was the case, but wasn't 100% sure; thanks for confirming it!

I don't mind reading about spiders, and don't mind having them round the house. I rather miss the HUGE big hairy one that used to run along the top of the bedroom bookcases - deaf as I am, I could still hear its footsteps. I don't know what happened to it, but its disappearance happened after Rosy joined the family. I'm not even scared of them, though I think a spider bite is the likeliest explanation for the very painful bite on a knuckle I woke up with one morning last year. Nor real spiders are (fairly) fine.

Pictures of spiders are a whole other stomach-churning, cold-sweating story. It's okay for irrational fears to be irrational, surely.

@DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry - I am the same with snakes - even pictures or movie depictions. It's not totally irrational because I don't react the same way to a grass snake or even a python (if it's well fed and somebody else is holding it) but to anything that could be venomous, even in a movie, I have to not look. My husband thinks it might be because I was born in India and lived there until I was nearly five, so would have been strongly warned never to approach one.

It's weird isn't it? I'm fine with reptiles, pictured or real (not that we get any in Ireland except very very occasional tiny lizards).

I've stroked a python and a boa and had their tongues tickle my hand but on first seeing them -the ones I stroked - I was paralysed with fear. I learned that they are not as scary as I thought but any snake sliding along by itself, toward me. Fuck that shit. I still have the fear. I even fear slow worms. Actual lizards with legs are adorable though and I have no fear of spiders. Human fears are strange.

Snakes, spiders, centipedes etc.

I will never visit Australia.

I have risked a thread in AIBU, a dipped toe.

YANBU

Hmmm...I'm a bit conflicted because I'm a bit of a music curmudgeon and I don't think I could bear someone strumming away in a family room all the time. The obligation to not say "I don't care whether it's good because I wish it would stop" would be too much. But I leave any occasion if someone has brought their guitar.

I'm not a "strummer".

Cheek. :)