RIP Pippi Longstocking

Hello Lovelies,

I woke up this morning and the Pipster had shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to the big web in the sky. Then, as if this day couldn’t get any worse, I got to work which looked like a crime scene so I spent the morning mopping up blood from in front of the shop. 

Pippi was a complicated Spiderbabe. She was feisty. She HATED to have her tank moved. Even if you were just moving it so you could open the lid to add food for her, she would glare at you (well, maybe not glare—despite having eight eyes, tarantulas are quite blind) but she would definitely show her displeasure. She was FLICKER. And by that, I mean anything she didn’t like she would use a back leg to flick off a cloud of hairs in protest. She did this so often her abdomen had a big ole bald spot. Yep, our baby had a bald bum.

Flicking hairs is a defence mechanism in the wild as the hairs are barbed and extremely irritating. Tarantulas will flick hairs at a predator to blind them and be able to escape. It is also worth knowing that itching power you used to be able to order for cheap from the back of comic books was probably ground tarantula hair. Because of this I always like to wear protective goggles and gloves when I dealt with her.

She was also lightning fast. There were many times that everyone else got fed but she had to wait because she was also a wall climber. She would climb up the sides of her tank and then sliiiiide down which really could have used a squeegee sound effect because it was hilarious. But because she was a potential escape artist if she was attempting to climb up, we daren’t take the lid off for fear she would do a runner. So, she often had to wait for her supper until she settled back on the ground like a sensible spider.

I thought she was gearing up for a moult. She did it last year about this time and she was showing many of the signs. She was sitting with her bum in the water dish (more than usual) and she was doing what Spiderman used to call “spider yoga” where they press their bodies into the corner of the tank and arch backwards to get their carapace ready to pop off when it was time. She was also eating less (normally she was a greedy gobbler) but that is also a sign of getting ready for a moult. I wasn’t too worried.

A few days ago, she went to her favourite place in the back of the tank. When she wasn’t climbing and sliding, she liked to scrunch herself up into the small gap between the wall of her tank and her hidey cup. She took after her mummy on this as I too like to see if I can fit in small places (and get stuck.)

On Friday I gave the tank a jostle and she flicked hard at me. Saturday I was loathe to disturb her but did a little tappity-tap on the wall beside her and she moved her leg as if to flick but very little hairs came off. I attributed this to the fact that she was a baldy-bum and there wasn’t much left to flick. Sunday night I did the tappity tap and she raised a leg in warning—like swatting you away or giving you the finger. Though with eight legs how do you know which is the middle finger one?

I looked in on her this morning at around seven and she didn’t move at all, with a tappity-tap or a quite severe jostle of the tank. Oh dear. Then I did the water test because she HATED to get water splashed on her (something that was difficult if you were trying to fill up her water dish while she was sitting in it. Still water=OK, but falling water was a big ole NOPE.) Nothing. So, sadly I knew she had passed on.

At that point it was raining, so I took her out and examined for signs of disease but there were none that I could find. Her abdomen was a little shrunken, but I took that as she hadn’t been eating as much in preparation for the moult. I wonder if what happened was this. Did she ask herself:

“Do I have enough energy to do a full moult at my age?”

“No, I don’t.”

The End.

She was between fourteen and fifteen years old (hard to place her age but we have looked after her for fourteen years and she was at least six months old when we brought her home) so that is a good old age to be, and it does become much harder to moult the older they get—they just don’t have the enormous energy it takes to complete this exhausting process.

It stopped raining about 8:30, so as the ground was soft, I decided to take her out and bury her in the front garden before work. She is out there with several of her spider sisters (and 2 brothers.)

So, this just leaves Christina Rossetti. She is the last Spiderbabe of the original eight. She is between nineteen and twenty years old (she was definitely an adult when we adopted her in 2008) and I thought she would go before Pippi or Frida (who died in January). Rossetti hasn’t moulted since 2017 and is so chilled out she is basically horizontal, so it is difficult to tell how much time she has left. It is hard because the death of every Spiderbabe severs a connection between me and my beloved Amazing Spiderman because our love of arachnids was one of the things that brought us together. But I will admit it has been very stressful trying to care for everyone on my own. You definitely needed a Captain to feed/water etc and a lookout to be sure they didn’t escape while you did it especially with Pippi.

 So, goodbye to our feisty redhead. Our beloved Pip.

 

Because I could not stop for Death

We are thrilled to share the newest addition to our art collection.

I came home from work one day last month and Spiderman was waiting impatiently for me.

"You HAVE to see this!"he cried and led me to our computer to look at the twitter page of artist Chris Mould. You might have seen some of Chris Mould's artwork in children's books. He is responsible for the illustrations in that gorgeous new version of Ted Hughes'The Iron Man. You can see his style of artwork here at his Etsy shop: ChrisMouldArtwork.

Anyway, I took one look and it took my breath away. It was so beautiful--something Victorian Gothic but full of symbolism.  Just the sort of things we love.  You might remember our DEATH AND THE MAIDEN that we bought from artist PJ Lynch.

Then Spiderman said "Look closely.  What Emily Dickinson poem is this?" I peered closer and started to hyperventilate and flap my hands. It was so obvious when you know Emily poems like I do.

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

Now, if you know me at all (especially from my Louisiana College days) you will know I once was in a one woman show about Emily Dickinson called The Belle of Amherst. I was directed by a great New York director named Bill Pomerantz and Spiderman was my stage manager. So Emily D is a HUGE part of me.

So are you ready for the reveal?

He kindly signed it to H and T and we had asked if he would not mind writing out the quote on something small so we could frame them together and he really outdid himself. He drew this amazing drawing to go with it for free. Isn't that stunning??

We are hanging it in the bedroom with the other Gothic skeletons because that's how we roll.

Happiness is being able to buy art from real artist especially ones that come from literature. Thank you so much to artist Chris Mould!

Look at your life

Hello lovelies! It's my birthday, hoorah!

I am fifty! Half a century! Wow...how did that happen?

Some people don't like birthdays. I am not one of those people.
                                           
Some people fear getting older. I am not one of those people.

Some people (particularly women) worry about the effects of ageing. I am not one of those women.

Some women fear a milestone birthday because it means they are coming to the end of their fertility and the start of the menopause. I am not one of those women.

I love my birthday because I am so happy to still be here. Every anniversary of my birth is another chance to do good in the world.

I love my birthday because I love getting older. Don't get me wrong, I do not like getting OLD. My joints and chronic pain issues are more and more affected by the cold and damp which is a bit tricky as we live in Wales where it is perpetually cold and damp. But I do love getting older. Every year I am alive is another year that I have been married to the Amazing Spiderman. When I was 27 years old I had to face the idea that I might become a widow as my beloved was not responding to his cancer treatments,but here we are celebrating our 28th Christmas as a married couple. Every year that we get older together is the happiest year of my life.  We are growing older together.

I do understand that it is much harder to be a woman than a man on the ageing front. I get that. A man turns into a silver fox where grey hair is sexy whereas a woman in her thirties is told she is too old to play his love interest in a film. Perhaps I don't fear this as I am lucky to be ageing very slowly. I look basically like I did thirty years ago. If you look closely, there are a few silver hairs and wrinkles at the corners of my eyes. I am not as thin as I was on our wedding day (I was 90 lbs soaking wet) but I am healthier.

We all move through stages of life--maiden, mother and crone. Many of my older friends have alluded to me about the wisdom of the changes that will be coming for me in the next few years. I have to laugh because I am already a crone. I had an emergency hysterectomy ten years ago and so the wisdom phase of my life has already begun.

Birthdays are always a time for reflection. What have I done in the last year that brought Light to the world? What can I do in the upcoming year to make the world better? How can I stand up more effectively for the people and animals who are abused and neglected?

How can I be kinder to myself and judge myself less harshly? How can I love myself as much as I love the world? How can I use my voice to ask for what I need?

None of us know how long we have on this planet. If life is a book, some people only get a few chapters whereas some get a weighty tome. Being fifty years old means that there are more chapters behind me than in front of me. The Cruxshadows' song Birthday says:

So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? 

Look at your life and what do you want to do.

So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? 

Look at your life, you haven't got forever.

May this year be one where I learn and grow and help and be wise and surrender what does not bring me peace. 

Memento Mori

It has been a time for grieving. Last night we rescued a pigeon and tried to save its life, but it didn't make it and today we buried a dear friend. Both have caused me sadness.

It's been a difficult couple of days.


Our friend John was  ninety-one. That is an exceptionally good age. Someone remarked that he died of old age, which is practically unheard of these days. Everyone dies of disease. He and his partner Elizabeth were a delightful pair. Even in their advanced aged, both were (still are in Elizabeth's case) sharp as a tack. We shared many laughs over dinner and had many philosophical discussions. We were all pleased to discover a shared love of Archy and Mehitabel  by Don Marquis about a literate cockroach and his alley cat friend. John had what we would call a "cut glass accent." When you think of posh English voices who say things like "Dear boy" and "old chap" and "rah-ther" that was John. Despite being wealthy and posh, he was very down to earth with a silly sense of humour. We discovered at the funeral his middle name was Clive which tickled us all. He sure kept that quiet. But Clive is such a quintessentially British sounding name, it suited him.

  He will be missed.

This was my first British funeral. I had been to Quaker memorial services, but that is different. It is essentially Meeting for Worship with testimonies about the deceased's life. A time where friends could share memories of the deceased.

This was a Church of England funeral. It was held in Saint Martin's Church in Merthyr about 15 minutes from town. This was John's church, but being a small rural church it had a vicar who rotated between other small parish churches and so only met once a month. The other Sundays he went to St Peter's Church in town where so many of our friends attend.

The church was small and damp (the plaster on the walls bubbling slightly and rubbed off on the sleeve of our friend Gareth's jacket) but the service was warm. We sang some of John's favourite hymns--All Things Bright and Beautiful (which always reminds me of the Monty Python version All Things Dull and Ugly) and How Great Thou Art. The last hymn made me tear up quite a bit as it was the "party piece" my dear old dad and I used to harmonise on all those years ago. After the service, we retired next door for tea and sandwiches (I brought my own snacks.)

Now, this may sound like many a funeral you have attended if you are American, but here is where the funeral diverged from my own experience.

First off, very few people are cremated in Louisiana. When my dad was in 2000 (how can it be that long ago??) it was a rarity. Certain family members took it really badly. I remember seeing my father's body in a winding sheet in a cardboard coffin at the funeral home. That is the law in the US. If you are to be cremated, this is how they send you off. He was sent far away, to a destination unknown to us (but my hazy memory is Shreveport) and returned to us a few days later. We had a funeral with his ashes in an urn next to a photo of him in happier, healthier times. The next day the family buried the urn, though we kept some ashes for ourselves. My mother and I each kept some in a nice container and we saved some in a ziplock to throw off the side of his favourite mountain in North Carolina.

This is where the funeral became really interesting. After the funeral, we drove to the crematorium in Narberth. I will repeat that. We went to the crematorium. It was slightly like an assembly line with mourners coming out the right side as we were going in on the left. We walked in and the coffin was elevated behind what looked like a communion rail. The vicar said a few words and then as Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring was played a velvet curtain slowly, mechanically moved in front of the coffin to block it from view. Then I am told that the coffin rolled away on a conveyor belt to be burned. In the US, if you want a body for your funeral service, funeral homes will rent you a coffin with a cardboard interior that could be removed for cremation after. We had my dad cremated first and the urn displayed. In the UK the body is cremated with the coffin which is why by law all British coffins must be combustible. According to Wikipedia: The Code of Cremation Practice forbids the opening of the coffin once it has arrived at the crematorium, and rules stipulate that it must be cremated within 72 hours of the funeral service. They also told Elizabeth no jewellery or shoes as they wouldn't burn cleanly. 

Our friend Soong said that he once went to funeral that had a "spy hole" where you could look at the coffin as it burned. I feel slightly weird but morbidly curious about that. 

I wasn't sure how i would feel being so up close and personal with the cremation. Louisiana made it seem secretive and far away and mysterious. This was just another way to say goodbye. An honest way with nothing to hide. I was worried I would feel upset, but i didn't. 

When the coffin disappeared we were led outside to a walkway with a low table that ran the length of  the walkway. On it were the spray of flowers that had only moments before been on the top of the coffin along with a laminated paper saying John Clive. There were four other sets of flowers and names marking five people who were loved and lost that day. Then you were the ones coming out the right hand door while someone new filed in the left hand side. 

It was a lovely day and I enjoyed hearing about John and things he had done in his life before we met him four years ago. I was glad to have been there in the little church with friends to celebrate his life. I know soon when Elizabeth is up to it we will all meet at Soong's restaurant Sai Wu and eat and laugh and remember our friend John Clive.

We will be thankful for his life and for our own. A funeral reminds that we too will one day die, but also reminds us greatly of what we have.

Magical Mystery Tour, part one

Day one Magical Mystery Tour

One dark night in the middle of the day (1)

Sleepy, but excited, we board the

 

(2)

I play the game of Goldilocks and the 3chairs

I am (not) my mother’s daughter (3)

The sun rises as we drive through Cardiff.

It’s Hwyl Cymru, Hello London. (4)

All for £10 each. (5)

(

Arriving at Victoria Coach Station, we leave our luggage and go seek breakfast

(we do not want a Hangry Heather on our hands) (6)

Cashew milk porridge with almond butter and berries  (7) at 

1) The Megabus leaves Carmarthen at 2:30 am. We had some debates as to whether this was late Thursday night or Early Friday morning.

(2)  The Megabus could be compared to riding a Greyhound bus for my American peeps. Although according to their website, Megabus has an American presence as well.

(3) I AM my mother’s daughter. Knowing we would be on the bus for 7 hours, I needed to find the most comfortable seat. The first was wonky somehow, the second was not as cushy as I thought it should be and the third was *just right*. However, Spiderman informs me that if I had made a fourth change he would have been contractually obliged to call me Becky as I would be violated the “I will not act excessively like my mother” part of marriage contract.

(4) Hwyl Cymru means Goodbye Wales in Welsh.

(5) £10 is an amazing deal. The train from Carmarthen to London would have cost us £100 each. It is worth leaving in the middle of the night to save £90. 

(6) I easily get “hangry” (hungry + angry). I can go from being pleasant and friendly to a furious grizzly bear in about 60 seconds when I need to eat.

(7)  Leon is great. They are “healthy fast food.” The food is cheap, but it is real food not processed gunk. We ate there many times (as you will see)

The heat begins to rise (8) as we wind our way to the

 

To see which one of them is Pink. (9)

Psychedelic music swirls around my head

Oh mother…tell me more (10)

Summoning our cosmic powers (and glowing slightly from our toes) (11) we tear down

   

(12)

(13)

 I know a room of musical tunes (14) where we bought The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets  (15) then back to 

 

 Okra! (16) then monkeys push the train to Hitchin (17) and I can see my house from here. (18)

     (8)This was our first inkling that a heatwave was on the way.

     (9) This was once asked of the band “which one of you is Pink?” because they thought the band must be named after someone was in the band. It wasn’t. It was actually named after two blues musicians Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

(10) A line from Matilda Mother from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

(11) A line adapted from Let There Be More Light from A Saucerful of Secrets.

(12) The Wall. Duh!

(13) A reference to the song Wish You Were Here. We’re just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl year after year.

(14) It’s called the gift shop. Also, it's a lyric from the song Bike from Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

(15) I had these on cassette back in the 80’s—thrilling to recoup them on CD.

(16) we had sweet potato and okra stew over brown rice for lunch. It was delicious.

(17) English trains make a OOOoooOOOooo sort of noise like a monkey. Welsh trains do not. They are powered by silent dragons.

(18) The hotel where we stayed was being built as we were moving 3 year ago and it actually overlooks our old flat.

Stay tuned for part two of the Magical Mystery Tour!

The lighthouse still stands, but the beacon has dimmed

My friends, it is with great sadness that I report the death of Dr Sarah Frances Anders.
                           

                                     
Those of you who went to LC, and those of my friends who are Baptist will know what contributions she made to this world.

She was an amazing mentor to me. It happened almost by accident. As part of LC's liberal arts education, we were required to take Introduction to Something. I had already taken Introduction to Psychology, but I saw that Introduction to Sociology was being offered and it sounded interesting, so I thought I would give it a go. This is how I approached my education. I knew as a theatre major I couldn't handle more than 12-15 hours a semester due to all those late night rehearsals, so I resigned myself to taking 5 years to get my degree. This meant I had plenty of room for "interesting" classes.

I was blown away by Intro to Sociology because of Dr Anders. You know when people say in a sort of joking way, "they wrote the book about that"?

Well she did. She was one of the authors of the text book. She literally wrote the book.

She was such a dynamic teacher, I developed a huge girly crush on her and could not *wait* for her next lecture. She had a funny, dry sense of humour that really resonated with me and I was often laughing like a hyena while others blankly stared as they didn't see the joke. She was so knowledgeable and interesting. I remember practically leaping out of my seat several times during the lesson to ask a question that was burning in me.

She would smile and say, "I would love to discuss that more in depth with you later. Why don't you come by my office and we can discuss it after class?"

So I did. I spent many happy hours in her office discussing points that had interested me in more depth and eating her Werther's Originals.
                                                
After that semester, when the booklets with the projected classes came out, I quickly scanned the Sociology section to see what was on offer and decided on Religion and Society. Didn't that sound fascinating? So I signed up for it. Being slightly naive and not understanding that not everyone subscribed to the "that sounds interesting" theory of choosing their classes, i was shocked to discover this was meant to be a class for social work majors. I had a similar shock when I was the only non education major in child psychology.

Well, I *thoroughly* enjoyed that class which led to many more long after hours discussions in her office. You had to go to a religious service completely the opposite of the one you were used to and so i went to a evangelical Christian service with praise music and passing around huge buckets for money. It went on for so long I felt faint and we had to leave whereupon the minister loudly pointed us out and said something about being filled with Satan or some such because we were turning our backs on Jesus. It really skeeved me out. But in exchange, several members of the class came to the Unitarian Church with me, and the experience skeeved them out. I also did a really interesting paper on cults for that class.

One of the things I liked about her was that she ran a tight ship. She would call you on the carpet for doing less than your best, but she also extended grace. On a test day or a day you were due to give a presentation, if you didn't turn up she sent someone to phone you. This happened to me the day of  my presentation on cults. I overslept and was woken by the phone and was in such a state that I ran to the class and gave the presentation in my pyjamas.

At the end of the semester during one of our many "office talks" I asked what else she was teaching. She wisely said, "You already have six hours in sociology. All you need is fifteen hours to get a minor."  I replied, "But I already am getting a minor in English!" and she said, "Who says you can't have two?"

And so that is how I ended up with a minor in sociology.
                                                     
The more I got to know her, the more remarkable she seemed. Her book Woman Alone: Confident and Creative was a testament to the remarkable life she led. She chose the single life in a time where women were pretty much just destined for marriage and children. She chose the creative life and got a doctorate, wrote books, was a chaplain, taught university, ministered and promoted women's rights in the Southern Baptist Convention (not at easy thing to do!)

When we were at LC, Spiderman found a copy of her book in the basement of Richard W Norton Library. It was just sitting in a box, and so we asked if we could have it.

It turned out to have actually been *her* copy. We got it autographed and we still have it.

Sarah Frances Anders was a beacon to me. She made me hunger and thirst for knowledge and she fed me with ideas and Werther's Originals. I will miss her greatly.
                                     

All Those Years Ago

Today is pretty special for us. The day that started it all.

It was 1989.  John David was having a birthday. I knew him from high school. Spiderman knew him from RA camp where they had been counselors together and Lottie knew him because their dads were friends.

Lottie invited me to the party that was being held at Louisiana College, in the common room of English Village. Before you get too excited about the term "party," let me just remind you that this was a Baptist party. So if you are thinking loud music, dancing and drinking you can just wipe that image from your mind. It was more of a Scrabble and cake sort of party. More on the cake later.

So, I was feeling a bit bored by the whole party business because I love to dance and there wasn't gonna be any dancing here. When the Scrabble board arrived and was met with an enthusiastic cheer, I knew it was time to go home.

I do not play Scrabble.

But then, I heard it. A voice. A voice singing. A voice singing FRANK ZAPPA. Who in this Baptist college knows Frank Zappa besides me? I heard it again. Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch. It was not mistake. I looked frantically around to see who it was and it was Spiderman.

Now, I had known Spiderman for a whole semester and we had gone on many group outings together, but not once had I ever heard him speak. He was always polite and did things like held the door open for me or brought me another glass of grape juice at lunch, but had I ever heard him speak aloud? No, I had not. He was very shy, you see.

(I asked him later why Frank Zappa? And all he could say was "I could tell you were about to go and I had to do something to make you stay.")

So, we walked away (far away) from the Scrabble game and sat by ourselves.

This is where the magic happened.

We talked. We talked and talked and laughed and laughed. We discussed the Romantic poets. He liked Keats and Shelley, I fancied Wordsworth, but we both could agree on Coleridge. We recited the entire dead parrot sketch from Monty Python and laughed until I fell off the sofa.

The air crackled. I could feel myself falling in love. Honestly, like all those cliched films where Cupid comes out and shoots someone in the heart and little cartoon hearts blip and twinkle above their heads. It was like that.

I suddenly had this idea that I really needed to make a good impression. The more excitable I get, the less dignified I am. I start to flap my hands like a insane goose trying to fly south for the winter. So, I thought of a solution.

Cake. I could have a slice of cake. If I was holding a plate and a fork, I could not flap like I was trying to fly to the moon. So I had a slice of cake.

It was all going so well. We talked about music and were going through the entire catalogue of Peter, Paul and Mary songs when someone said:

Where's the cake?

I realised, to my horror, that I had eaten the ENTIRE birthday cake. I had eaten it all myself. Eight slices. In front of him. 

I had tried to be dignified and instead had made an utter tit of myself. I burned with shame. 

In my defence, it was a German chocolate cake.
             
(I asked him later what did he think as he saw me go back for piece after piece of cake. he replied that he couldn't believe a 90lb waif could pack away that much food. It was apparently pretty impressive.)

I recovered my composure and hid my plate under the sofa. we continued to talk and I wondered if I had blown it. He could never love someone like me. It was many years later that I found out that he had already loved me. Ever since he saw me in the play Tartuffe in 1988. He had loved me for a whole year and been too shy to talk to me. That's why he didn't want me to leave. Hence the Frank Zappa.

At about 3am, it was time to go back to our respective dormitories.

He hugged Lottie goodbye.

He hugged her roommate Lisa goodbye, in what I judged to be longer than the hug he gave Lottie. (He says this wasn't so. He said he hardly knew Lisa.) I was mortified. What if all night he had been forced to talk to the mad cake eating woman who flapped her arms and threatened him with a fork if he dared leave the sofa?

I nearly started to cry. Because, you see, I loved him. I loved him already.

Then he hugged me. I was so ashamed that I tried to pull away and he wouldn't let me. He held me in those strong arms and I melted. The whole rest of the world faded away and we were actually in the night sky surrounded by stars. I know that sounds like a crap metaphor for love in a badly written romance novel, but it is true. Every word. We hugged for ages until someone went, "OooOooo," and everyone laughed. We broke apart and began to walk back to our dorms.

As we walked along the boardwalk, my feet didn't touch the ground. I know that is also a well worn cliche, but it is 100% true. I actually looked down and I was levitating slightly. Hand on heart, that really happened.

We got back to Cottingham, and we were all going to have a slumber party in one room. Everyone else was tired, but I was wide awake.It looked something like this:

Me: Wasn't he wonderful? he's so funny and clever. Do you think he likes me??
Everyone else: Shut up and go to sleep, it's almost 4 in the morning!!!

The next day, self doubt kept creeping in. I felt like he was my soul mate, but did he feel the same way? I was suddenly tongue-tied. Thankfully Lottie knew what to do.

Basically, she did the grown up equivalent of that eighth grade game:

Do you like Spidergrrl? 

Circle one

Yes       No

She phoned him up and asked him. I was in the TV room watching The Comic Strip Presents. It was the episode Consuela, or the new Mrs Saunders. Lisa came flying through the double doors and screamed, "he likes you! he says he likes you!" 

And that was it really. 

From that day in 1989 to the present, we have been inseparable. 

So thank you, John David for being born. Thank you for knowing Lottie who could invite me to your birthday party. Thank you  Lottie, for being brave enough to ask. And thank you to Spiderman, whose love transforms me. 

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

that then I scorn to change my state with kings.