Tarantulas, Computers, and Other Irrelevant Matters

Tarantulas, Computers and Other Irrelevant Matters

For those not from the California Central Coast, and for some who are newly here, we have these really hairy spiders that are pretty scary sometimes.  They can be anywhere from two to six inches in length, but generally around four inches.  Coastal tarantulas can make you sort of sick, but unless the human has some already pretty bad health issues, the tarantulas are not generally lethal.  The male spiders live somewhere (I’m not sure where), but emerge around the first of October and start wandering around.  They used to really upset me until I realized that what they were looking for was a female tarantula similarly inclined.  These females live in holes in the ground waiting for a male to wander by.  I once found a hole with a female living in it, and a wandering male one day, so I scooped up the male with a shovel and put him by the hole.  The speed with which he jumped toward the hole, and with which she emerged and they mated was truly remarkable.  I didn’t wait around for the rest of nature’s way, but I have been told that she then kills the male, drags him into her hole, lays her eggs in him, and when the eggs hatch the little ones chomp on good ol’ Dad until the little ones go their tarantula way.  After learning this, the wandering males just sort of make me feel sad.   

The legend here on the Coast is that when the tarantulas start to walk, it will rain within three weeks. 

My husband Bill, unlike me, wakes up at some ungodly hour of the morning, and when that occurs on a Saturday morning, he watches the farm station from the mid-west somewhere.  On this particular morning there was a world-wide weather report from some hot-shot computer in Europe that predicted no rain in California for the foreseeable future.  Since we are in an extreme drought situation this was not particularly good news.  Later in the day on that Saturday, he had been working outside, gotten sort of tired, and sat down to take a breather.  While there, two tarantulas came from opposite directions to a stop in front of him.  He said it was like watching some sort of very slow-motion dance, with one tarantula slowly raising one leg out of eight, then putting it down.  The other did the same thing a few moments later.  This went on for a few more minutes, with one tarantula raising a leg, then the other.  Suddenly they leapt to their back legs and hugged each other for a few moments, dropped back down to the ground and each wandered on in the general direction they had come from, still searching for a female. 

Ah, but that meant a contest between the tarantulas and the computer.  Which would be right?  Would it rain and prove the computer wrong, or would it not rain and prove the tarantulas wrong?  Last week a low-pressure system moved down the California coast well within the three week tarantula legend, and I was most happy.  But, it only drizzled!!  There was moisture in the air, however, but does that really count?  Only the Shadow knows.   

Why am I writing about tarantulas and computers?  Because if I write about what is going on in Washington right now, I would be using all sorts of language that should not be read in mixed company.  By this time next week we may have an answer to this god-awful mess we are in, and perhaps I will be less angry.  Or, I may just write about it and use lots of @#%$&^(*s.