Moses and web insight

Just sayin’ that we had one cool morning recently which for me flashed lucid images in my brain of stacking firewood, and cool also triggered reflexes to chase around the closet not for cool as in fashion, but mainly for the comfort of knowing flannel shirts aren’t buried away someplace and are within easy reach cuz, most mornings —and especially at present as the days shorten—it’s dark at 6 a.m.

I run my hand over shirts in the closet for texture as if it’s pin-the-tail-on-the donkey day, but mainly just to feel the cloth like a suit salesperson does, and I do all of this rather than shock my system by turning on a light. You see, some people protect their early-to-rise sensitivities by not turning on lights as a way of allowing precious time for a body to remain in the sleep zone while easing into caffeine to gradually lever one’s Being into activity.

I have to admit that in my case this approach works some days better than others. And besides, I find it amazing how our primate neurons kick into survival mode, but more honestly, it’s all about human comfort that shifts with every degree of weather.

Come to think, it’s more likely that we’re not yet accustomed to living in a climate kin to the equator and our body wants to forgive all the winter cussing and run back to conditions like that of Winnipeg’s Portage and Main intersection, where the wind howls down from the Beaufort Sea, if you know what I mean. While this is beside the point, I’ve actually witnessed folks wearing jean jackets in February out there, so no wonder these singeing soggy summer days challenge our collective near-Arctic thermostat mind-set.

Incidentally, all of the above response to flannel shirts was prompted by someone mentioning fall fair and back to school and corn mazes and canning jars shortly before that odd coolish morning happened. Actually it was also that same morning that I realized my hot water tank was not working, because up to then I figured because it was so hot and humid out-of doors understandably my hot shower would feel tepid by comparison. The plumber and his patient apprentice daughter are rattling pipes in the basement as I write.

I also attribute soggy weather to a virus, but I never heard of passing on a computer virus through the medium of print so I guess you’re safe to read this because as soon as I am done I’ll stick my computer on the front seat of my truck and take it over to George my computer guy for an environmental assessment or whatever it is he does to make the thing better.

So, getting to the subject of Moses: On the list of my summer to-do’s is to paint the house and that one cool morning told me summer was moving on and better to get my ass in gear. But then I reasoned that since I’m less energetic than the last time I painted it, better to track down professional folks to take on the task. I used the excuse that I gave up ladder-climbing since I began wearing a kilt. It’s light cotton, incidentally, and I’m not a Scot, so there’s little explanation except that it’s easy summer wear.

So while the plumbing team clank in the basement, there is someone in painter’s white dress code prepping the outside of the window right over my head. That’s a lot going on before a second cup of coffee, so I’ll leave out the part about the Works Department road crew, simultaneously grading the stretch at my front door.

You see the thing about Moses is this. Incidentally, please forgive me for failing to mention that Moses in this case is a spider; therefore there are no stone tablets in this story. Moses is very friendly and diligent. Also with all the goings- on with doors wide open and bug screens off my house while they get painted, the joint has become a Mecca for those ornery house flies that seem to like to play a game of catch-me-if-you-can.

So I hatched a scheme that while I stick-handle my stretched-grip complete with leather slapper fly swatter built by a Hutterite man out west, Moses will play goalkeeper tending his web spun near the kitchen counter. The setup with Moses is to picture a SMART car parked in the centre of a newly ploughed fifty-acre field as seen from Google earth.

I consider my plan fair game; a hygienic, reliable and environmentally safe practice working with nature. Also, Moses is a most disciplined catcher of the fly which he/she considers gourmet. Moses also arrives with proven stalker credentials, witnessed by his harvest of fruit flies when a bowl of tired grapes remain on the counter. So our deal is this. Whatever flies evade my mega-swatter I will endeavour to chase them his/her way and I must say I can’t believe how animated a spider can get when a prey hits the web and lodges like a badminton bird into a net. I’d like to add that Moses is also humane, ensuring the prey doesn’t suffer for long as the spider is quick to the kill.

All of this does sound a little unhinged, I admit, and maybe why I wonder how some days are apt to evolve, but then again I have Plan B, which is to blame it on the weather, the catch-all topic for re-directing conversation and not having to explain anything. But the point is I can swear to the fact that Moses guided me through this crisis of flannel shirts, house painting, virus and road grading but most of all Moses thoughtfully got me in hot water again.