This was the farthest I’ve ever gone to avoid killing an insect. The insect in question looked more or less like the featured photo here. She or he was black, small, and a quick scuttler.
This time it was my kitchen sink. She or he was just sitting on the rounded porcelain surface in inert spider fashion. So we can presume she/he had somehow come up from the drain and made it to high ground. But the slope was too slick for actually getting out of the sink.
OK to make this tale easier to tell, I’ll have to assign a name. Let’s assign her female gender and let’s call her Fabulosa. “This time,” I told myself, “I won’t screw up.” Past screw ups haunt me – so many pitfalls – the phone rings and you come back and can’t find the spider again – you grab a plastic container and try to scoop the little victim up and brainlessly crush one of its legs – not this time. It’s a quarantine Saturday morning and time is endless – do it right for a change.
So I impulsively grab a plastic container and edge Fabulosa up the incline. She tries desperately to get some traction, but she can’t and keeps sliding back down. In Buddhist teachings, we learn about skillful vs. unskillful means in one’s efforts to be good. The container was unskillful and Fabulosa ends up on the tiny rim of metal around the gaping drain.
I deliberately take some time off to calm down and avoid unskillful repeated efforts. It’s imperative not to let her plunge down the drain. Luckily there is a plastic bottle cap about the right size to cover the drain, so I put it over the opening and chase Fabulosa around and around her little level space with a plastic spoon. She’s not having it. she scuttles just far enough ahead each time, so eventually I let her be.
Now we’re getting somewhere! I’m bolder with the spoon this time, nudging her around the cap. Can’t catch her; she disappears into the tiny gap under the bottle cap and she’s gone. There goes my karma. And hers.
OK. She got up the drain once without human unskillful interference. So on the desperate hope that she might do it again somehow, I make her a paper towel bridge so she can get traction.
With the elation and relief that come from innovation, I’m sure I’ve got it this time.I remove the cap so she can get out of the drain and back to her safety ridge. Then get her onto the bridge. One is shown here with the cap still in place; but I laid down four all around the cap. which I don’t have a photo of. Distracted myself for twenty minutes. She was back, not even breaking a sweat. Fabulosa! I should have just left her to her devices, but couldn’t resist showing her how wonderful the bridges were. Somehow I got her flipped onto one, about three inches away from the drain. Now we’re in business. But how can she ultimately get out of the sink? A big plus: this has taken up almost an hour of quarantine time. And she’s plunged down into the drain once since I started helping her.
Another inspiration: she needs a rescue towel to lift her up and out. I set it up and go away. When I get back about twenty minutes later, she’s gone. She left her cushy paper towel and fell down the drain again. Emotions take another roller coaster ride downhill. I take away the plug and give it up for the night.
In the morning, she’s on the towel! The Universe gave her three chances. I carefully transport her, towel and all, to the Christmas cactus where she’ll live the good life. Congratulate myself all morning.
So what have we learned? 1. As Winston Churchill said: Never, never, never give up. 2. Spiders can learn 3. Always have a towel
Reading through the posts on this website on my 41st day of self-imposed quarantine, I realize I don’t want to feature stories of outrage and injustice and animal cruelty, certainly not right now. This worldwide crisis wakes me up to see things in a new light. I don’t want to add to anybody’s daily dose of sadness or anger. And who better than a pet – current or former – to bring us into the present moment and try to make the best of it.
So I will be adding to this as I go along, starting with the two buddies in my socially distanced house right now:
June 7, 2020 Now it’s about 92 days in quarantine! It’s too comfortable; I dread re-entry. The best way to convey my pet stories, or indeed any story, is video. I’m just learning and finding out it’s easier than mastering this convoluted Word Press site! So the Petolog video is coming soon!
Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language; let’s stop for a second, and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about…
If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death.
Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.
It may look like she’s smiling. She’s not because she never smiled. It’s a yawn.
Sexy Sadie, what have you done You made a fool of everyone You made a fool of everyone Sexy Sadie, ooh, what have you done
Sexy Sadie, you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see
You laid it down for all to see
Sexy Sadie, ooh, you broke the rules . . .
Sexy Sadie, you’ll get yours yet
However big you think you are
However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie, ooh, you’ll get yours yet. . .
She made a fool of everyone
Sexy Sadie
However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie
Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul Mccartney
What makes us decide to set out one day and get a dog? Forces greater than ourselves of which we are only dimly aware. One day I decided Roger needed a pal. He needed somebody to body slam when he ran like a cannonball across the beach. I concocted a theory that he had a long-lost brother, not unlike Snoopy. Like most of my dogs, Roger was a behavior problem. Roger owned the world and everything in it. To jump on person or dog, to hump, to body slam — why isn’t everybody as happy as I am? Up and down the trail, hikers fought him off, sometimes threatening a good solid caning with a hiking pole. But more about him in a later blog, now on to Sadie.
Needs a partner in crime
The Wylie Animal Rescue Foundation (WARF) had some appealing photos, so I took Roger up to Kings Beach for a meet and greet. I didn’t know until now, all these years later, that WARF rescued animals from the euthanasia holding rooms of local shelters – death row inmates.
Connie Nowlin , who I believe was director at the time, arrived soon. We were to take walks with Roger leashed to me and the little ex-convict of the day leashed to Connie. The first two candidates were a total bust. I can’t distinctly remember one of them. The other had looked pretty good in his online photo which was a face shot which did not show his body. But in person he turned out to be a cringing, skinny, semi-Afghan type with long, thin, droopy hair. The type Roger would bully into a corner. A short walk with me almost falling to my face on the rock-lined hilly path, trying to hold Roger back, was a deal breaker. The underdog stayed close to Connie and there was no interaction with Roger.
This is not the dog from WARF. This is Lillian from Nevada Humane Society. Similar type.
Back to the shelter, we strolled down the line of cages and a black and white caught my eye – not because I saw any particular virtue in her, but because black and white does capture the eye. After the long drive up the mountain, I didn’t want the trip to be futile. I requested another walk.
Sadie years later. Mug shot at Animal Control
“That one?”Connie was aghast. Masking her incredulity, she leashed the animal and we went back outside. The minute we cleared the door, the two dogs turned on each other in snarling fury and a tangle of leashes. I know better than to intervene in a dogfight and I have the section of thigh enhanced with scars, to remind me not to stick a leg between two dogs in full combat mode.
I’ve been around for plenty of these introductory bouts. They happen when two dogs meet and the first order of business is to decide who is alpha. It’s usually over in a few minutes with no real injuries, and once is enough. If their people can’t stand by and let them work it out, and get agitated, the people will turn a formality into a worse fight.
Connie was visibly distressed. I was delighted. This dog had what it took. They stopped tangling after a while and the walk progressed. Turns out she was named Sadie and that was Sadie #4 because it’s such a common dog name. I only found out later she’d had at least four placements and the last had been death row.
We decided not to attempt driving home with both in the car, so I agreed to pick Sadie up the next day.
