Laundry and Spiders

Today was a midly uneventful day. It was miserable outside and I needed to do laundry, so I opted to stay inside and be a couch potato.

A repairman came over this morning to work on our hot water heater - we've been having troubles with the central heating. He said something about the circut board being fried - so he had to get the landlady's approval before he could work on it more. We've still got hot water, so its not a big deal if we get heating or not for the next little while.

In the meantime, since I didn't take any pictures today, and I'm still working on getting my new years eve videos uploaded to You Tube, I'll offer you this less festive photo:

This is a spider. And not just any spider. The spider that lives in the light underneath or porch, just to the left of the front door. And yes, he's big.

The light out front started flickering and I went outside to get a better look at it and here he was, just hanging out. He's probably about the size of a quarter or a dollar, I think - I didn't get that close to him!

I tried to identify him on several websites, but to no avail. The only picture that came close to this little guy was a picture of one called a Fake Widow Spider.

This was the picture that they provided:



His 'bum' looks too big to be the same spider, but its the only one with a stripe! Fortunately I read somewhere that while Britain has over 600 species of spiders, none of them are poisonous and most of them don't bite.

Either way - it looks like he/she is making a nest, which can only mean more little spiders, which is not what we agreed upon. So... eventually one of the boys will probably kill it. I don't care as long as it stays outside - he's got himself a nice little perch there, right outside the warm air exhaust of the house.

However, if I did want to cure my dislike/phobia/fear of spiders, I can always attend the London Zoo's Friendly Spider Program. This is what they say on their website:

Do you have a spider phobia? Then it's time you joined our Friendly Spider Programme where we will help you to overcome your fears.

There is no good reason to have a spider phobia, they're harmless and extremely beneficial invertebrates whose survival depends on avoiding such large, lumbering threats as ourselves. However, millions of perfectly rational people are terrified of spiders. No matter how much they try to calm themselves the response remains the same: sweating, nausea, panic, rapid, heartbeat and worse

The Friendly Spider Programme (FSP) is an afternoon course, carefully designed to ease or eliminate the condition of arachnophobia – fear of spiders. The programme is a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy and hypnotherapy. The course takes place in the Zoological Society of London's meeting rooms. No animals, photographs or illustrations are used until the end part of the course.

That's right, children, for only £110 ($240) of your hard-earned moolah, here's what you get:

The session begins with an explanation, by hypnotherapist John Clifford, of how hobias can become established, followed by a series of questions to the participants designed to comprehensively clarify just what it is about these animals they don't like. The Zoo's spider expert, Dave Clarke, then provides the facts on these animals (addressing all the comments raised in the earlier Q&A session) proving there really is nothing to be afraid of.

After refreshments, there is a group hypnosis session designed to remove any remaining negative subconscious feelings about the animals and support the newly-acquired positive feelings, imparted by Dave.

The session concludes with an optional visit to the invertebrate collection in the Zoo's BUGS! building. Here participants can, at their leisure, practice calmly catching British house spiders and even meet one of their cousins, our friendly Mexican red-knees. Great care is taken to ensure that the programme is as stress-free as possible.

And, in case you were curious, here's what a Mexian red-knee spider looks like:

So, who wants to sign up?!