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The j-ster had a dinner party thing last night and I ended up crashing over because the red wine river had flowed and it was pouring with rain. Also because she’d promised to cook me breakfast - an offer not to be refused. I’d ridden my bicycle over in the pouring rain which was actually quite a lot of fun and I only had to yell at a few idiots who were riding with umbrellas and nearly crashed into me.

This morning I went outside to have a ciggie and she was still in bed when she looked outside and said “what’s that thing you’re stepping on?” I looked down and between my feet was the largest spider I’ve ever seen in Japan! I jumped up and ran back inside. Yes I know how brave of me, but growing up in Australia you develop a real flight reaction to big spiders because so many of them are highly poisonous. I hadn’t actually stepped on it but it was sitting there very still and I thought maybe the smell of my feet had killed or stunned it (I’d worn an old pair of soggy sneakers over). Gingerly I reached out to touch it with a thong. It didn’t move. I tried again and it suddenly ran at me and with a shout of surprise I jumped back inside and shut the screen door. The j-ster - braver than me - picked up the thong and tried to scare it in the other direction. She managed to flick it into the garden. But I have the heebie jeebies now and anything that touches me makes me jump. Not good for someone with long hair to have the heebie jeebies when they are wearing a singlet.

My Mum brought me up to not kill spiders (except for redbacks or funnel webs) so I always try and put them outside when I find one. The j-ster used to kill them but I trained her to put them outside too. It’s funny the habits you pick up and keep from the people you live with.

Sorry there’s no picture because there was no way I was going to look for the spider in the grass.

It was really big though *shivers*.

Afterthought: Just in case you don’t know what a red back or funnel web spider looks like…

Red back spider

Funnel web spider

This fabulous pic and some other venomous critters can be found at California Academy of Science...

• The picture of the funnel web spider looks more like a scorpion.  Eeks, eeks, eeks!

  Squeamishly yours,
  03/06/15 05:58 AM

• Im pretty proud of our garden you know.  (I say “our” here cos you and i made it…)  I see it as a wildlife reserve.  Its only about two or three metres square, but there is so much life in it!  I cut the grass when im pushed, but i feel bad about stepping on it.  There are gekkos, beetles and worms living in it, butterflies, birds and cats that use it, and of course ants, spiders and mosquitos that plague us from it, and who knows what else living in there. How rare it it to have a little zoo outside your bedroom window (or glass door, as the case may be) in central Tokyo? 
  As for the gardening guys who come along every so often to trim the trees, get rid of the weeds etc. and who offer to poison it all back to bare earth like it was when we moved in, well, they really piss me off.  They dont seem to understand that people need green and animals and a bit of nature in their lives, even those that choose to live in the city.  As weird as i feel about a spider that big living next to me, I feel pretty good about my bit of nature.
  Actually, Jonathon asked me how much of the garden was my work and i was surprised that most of it was mine!  Not bad for a girl with black thumbs ne!
  Congratulations on turning me into a non-spider killer sweet!  Now you see the consequences!

  j-ster
  03/06/15 07:12 PM

• Have always encouraged wildlife to return to their natural habitat when they choose to visit mine..  My Japanese flatmates in Australia used to screem about the enormous flying cockroaches and would try to poison them with all sorts of pesticides, but then I showed them how easy it was to lift them on to some paper and usher them back outside.. very “wa”.

  GG
  03/06/15 10:49 PM

• Wow GG, you are a stronger, calmer woman than the rest of us (i happen to know that the gorgeous Yoshi wouldnt even be in the same room as a cockroach)!!!!  What happens when you get them onto the paper and then they start running sraight for you? 

  *When Insects Get Angry and Go For You* A Special Feature Presented by that Inescapable Crocodile Dude, Coming up next on Discovery Channel

  Seriously tho, they do that, they go for you!  The spider went for MJ! He had attitude!

  j-ster
  03/06/16 05:06 AM

• the academy of science in sf is definitely one of the city’s hidden gems…

  seth
  03/06/16 09:23 AM

• Contrary to popular belief, the cockroach is actually quite harmless and quite clean, albeit unsightly.  The blow-fly, on the other hand, is a filthy insect spreading disease and other filth.  Most people just work themselves into a fright over the cockroach as it is what everybody else does.  At least the cocky doesn’t bite like the Japanese millipede - those things are icky and need to go into your doco J-Ster as they attack!!  Spiders are scary but a long piece of paper does wonders for removal.

  GG
  03/06/16 09:59 PM