I knit. And I cook, write, take pictures. All for one low price.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

call me a brute

On August 6th, 2007, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee had a spiderinthebathtub kind of incident.
I refer you to this.

Evidently, when some knitters go away and stay at hotels, or lovely retreat centers, like myself last weekend, they are prone to spiders in the bathtub.

Here's the anti-slip mat in the tub. I'll have you know that I immediately thought about how I would knit this thing. Clear thread? Some kind of bubble pattern? I am convinced it can be done.





As I was getting ready for my shower, I saw something in there.
An itsy bitsy spider no bigger than my thumbnail from one end of her legs to the other.


I thought, Ha! This is blog material. What's good enough for the yarnharlot, is good enough for me.

Just picture me leaning over the rim of the tub in my bright red flannel pajamas with the little loping reindeer on it. I am spider chasing. This little thing was running all over the place trying to escape.




There are about 12 more pictures. I won't bore you. This next one was done with a flash, obviously.

I thanked the spider for being there and letting me take her picture, many times over.
I checked the pictures, put the camera away, putzed around a little, and finally got into the shower.
The water was hot. I had to adjust it.
I stepped into the shower.
I had COMPLETELY forgotten about the spider.
It was dead already, having been hit with the first blast of hot water.
Words cannot express how I felt. I was at a Buddhist retreat, for crying out loud, practicing contemplation, mindfulness, and compassion.
I had USED that spider for my own purposes, and immediately forgotten about it.
Call me a brute.




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not to sound too heartless, but it was a spider, after all. How long a lifespan could it have had anyway? Great photos!

Anonymous said...

You don't mind if I laugh, do you? Because, yeah, Karin, you're just the meanest, nastiest person around.

Not a whole lot of people would have had compassion on a spider. You're doing fine, hon.

AmyS said...

I hope you meant this to be funny, because I just had to laugh! At least YOUR spider was real. And you didn't "use" it, you immortalized it. No one in knitting blogland will ever forget that spider. Its memory will live on. And on...

dawnbrocco said...

I know how you feel, Karin - I scoop up spiders into containers and free them outside.

I've even raised baby mice left motherless in the cold basement, until they could go outside. And I still mourn the baby bird I accidentally killed as I was trying to feed it and all I should have done is kept it warm.

To balance the household out, hubby lays mouse traps to catch those mice!, and shot small vermin that made endless holes in the lawns.

I daresay your karma's still intact - as it wasn't intentional!