The Bouncy Castle in Space

sissybaby

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wow, Heza. I have no smart phone. I have no tablet. I thought all laptops had a battery life of about an hour? I hope you enjoy it on a daily basis.

Jed - you crack me up. I never realized dragons have such fun personalities. Guess I should have known that, but it slipped right by. But I totally agree with you about anything that has more than four legs.
 

MsJudy

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Okay, so my first year as a teacher with a classroom of my own--second grade--I decided October would be Scary Things Month. And, as a good role model, I revealed that even I--a grown-up--could be scared of things. Namely, spiders.

For the rest of that freakin' year, every time I turned around, some kid was trying to hand me an 8-legged monster.

Good news is, aversion therapy does work. I am now able to calmly and maturely smash the little buggers and flush them down the toilet without any screaming whatsoever.
 

Smish

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I have the pleasure of sharing space with brown recluses and black widows. I'll take a black widow any day... except for the one I beat to death with a Swiffer last year. A spider kept buidling her web across my doorway. Every day, I'd knock it down. I never could find the spider. One day, I came home from work and saw the spider. Biggest black widow I've ever seen in my life. Her body was the size of a bouncy ball... and then those horrible dagger-like legs. She was so big that she no longer had an hourglass shape on her stomach; she had two blood-red triangles. That particular spider could have done serious damage, and here I was walking face-first into her web every day!

Brown recluse spiders are far more dangerous, in my opinion. I've only ever seen black widows outside. I find the brown recluse spiders inside. And they have that nasty flesh-eating venom. The scars they leave are terrible. *shudders*
 

Kitty Pryde

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Ew ew ew! I can only smush a spider if there are children around who need to be rescued. Otherwise I have to run away squealing. Any other type of mess or gross bug I can deal with.

Today when I got to work I found out the peanut butter I used to make my PB&J was recalled for salmonella. When I left work I discovered I had a flat tire on my bike. It seems like the best course of action is to go to bed.
 

jvc

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I forget sometimes that this country does have some good points. One of them being the lack of venemous spiders. The other being the lack of big spiders. However, there are still spiders here. Thankfully not the type which you guys have to deal with. I dunno how you cope.

(not that they scare me or anything)
 

sissybaby

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It really sends me into a frenzy when I walk into a spider web, and it happens way too often. A perk of living in the country and also an ancient house.

Once I threw a shoe at a huge spider I was afraid to even step on for fear it would run up my leg or something. The shoe finally hit the spider, but then about a gazillion baby spiders went scurrying off in a billion directions.

It was a shriek fest, I swear. I don't know if she was carrying them all on her back or if she was full of them and the squash freed them. But it was creeeeeppppyyyyy!

Let's talk about bunnies, now, okay?
 

SheilaJG

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I'm getting the shivers reading all these spider stories. Smish, I don't know how you managed to kill that black widow. Bouncy ball big? Ewwwwww. And I never knew how horrible brown recluse spiders were.

Here's a new topic - Spotted at the park on a beautiful Indian Summer weekend (seriously gorgeous weekend) - a kids' birthday party, complete with a giant "Games To You" truck - a truck where 10-15 kids can go inside and play video games.

At the park. On a sunny day.
 

sissybaby

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Oh, that's sad.

My son decided to have his 12th bdparty at the bowling alley. Talk about sad. But the kids had a great time throwing mostly gutter balls. The girls finally took pity on me and volunteered to take turns bowling for me. I used to be a fair bowler before the days of RA. Now I find I can't walk and swing the lightest ball at the same time.

And why don't they make those finger holes larger in the 8 pound balls?
 

jvc

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Sheesh, whatever happened to the traditional bouncy castle? But it's the sign of the times that kids just don't want to go outside and play, rather stay inside and mess around with a video game. The parents shouldn't have organised a video games truck, though. That's just wrong. Although perhaps they thought it'd be easier to look after all the kids with that, rather than anything else.
 

MJWare

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I'm getting the shivers reading all these spider stories. Smish, I don't know how you managed to kill that black widow. Bouncy ball big? Ewwwwww. And I never knew how horrible brown recluse spiders were.

Here's a new topic - Spotted at the park on a beautiful Indian Summer weekend (seriously gorgeous weekend) - a kids' birthday party, complete with a giant "Games To You" truck - a truck where 10-15 kids can go inside and play video games.

At the park. On a sunny day.
How cool. I sell video arcades and always wanted to build something just like that complete with 80's themed decor. But a little thing called money has always stood in the way.

There's lots of sunny days--how often does a video game truck come around?

I'm in the Black Widow camp, myself. They like to stay out of the way and bites are almost never fatal. But honestly, it's snakes that freak me out; I'm fine picking up a Garter snake from the lawn, but I have a reoccurring dream that the house gets overrun by rattle snakes. When I wake up, I know it was just a dream, but I always have to get out of bed and check my covers anyway.

Oh and my thoughts go out to everyone here dealing with sick or aged parents (Seems to be a lot of that going around lately). I had a fright with my mom a few weeks back (she's okay now), but it made for some long, stressful ER visits.
 

sissybaby

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MJ - oh dear, I read that wrong and thought you said you had a 'fight' with your mom that ended up in the ER. Sorry, but it sort of made me gasp.

But I have a very small happy bounce today! I have been thinking a lot about attempting this autism project, and I made an equiry (inquiry by email?) to a museum and they responded! And the email said they had sent it along to their librarian to help me further.

That's kind of exciting for me. I really suck at research, and I haven't found a lot on line, and then I drove to town earlier and the library was closed, so it was nice to come home and find something good in my inbox.
 

SheilaJG

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MJ - glad mom is okay. Hope she stays that way for a very long time.

Yay sissybaby! A new project is always fun.

Okay, I've got one more spider thing, too. A German fellow built a small model of a glass-walled room, filmed two spiders running around it, then projected it into the windows of the actual room, so that it looked like the room was filled with giant spiders:

http://www.geekologie.com/2012/10/warning-giant-spider-video-man-records-s.php
 

Kitty Pryde

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*sneaks in*

one more spider story...

Heard about the brown widows taking over Southern California?

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/02/science/la-sci-sn-brown-widow-spider-california-20120702

Good news (such as it is)--they aren't as dangerous to humans, and they don't usually move inside houses.

Nooooooooo Judy whyyyyyyyyyyy????

So when I was bitten by a brown recluse in 3rd grade, it swelled up on my leg. I remember we were moving our chairs around the classroom to prepare for music class. When I bumped my chair against the side of my knee, the bite burst open and a ton of blood and pus poured out. I naturally freaked out and went up to the teacher blubbering incoherently. Although I was not much of a crier, the teacher was really no-nonsense and told me to sit down. Eventually I got her to look down at my leg and she ordered me to the nurse. Even the nurse was grossed out. When my mom took me to the doctor, she cried (my mom, not the doctor) when the doctor poked around in the bite. Once it was all cleaned up, the venom had left two holes deep enough for the sharpened end of a pencil :scared:
 

Smish

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Yeah, that's the problem with brown recluses -- the venom eats your flesh. I will confess that the reason I'm so freaked out by them is because I'm a little vain. Decaying flesh isn't pretty. And neither is the scar it leaves. I have a friend who is missing a huge chunk of one foot due to a brown recluse bite. Every time he wears sandals, I think, "God. What if one of those gets me in the face?!"

You don't have to worry much about brown widows. They're not terribly venomous. Much better than their black widow cousins. It'll hurt if one bites you, but it shouldn't send you to an ER.

I took a picture of lovely black and yellow garden spider on my house a couple weeks ago. I need to go find it for you guys. They're freaky looking -- and HUGE. But they're harmless to humans and they eat flying bugs (I hate flying bugs way more than I hate spiders. If spiders ever learn to fly... *shudders*).

Good luck with the research, sissy! :e2woo:
Mike, I hope your mom is okay. :Hug2:
Kitty, I hope your day is better tomorrow. :D
 

Britwriter

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I vote for discussing bunnies. Definitely.

My kids have four of them. They are very cute. And cuddly. And if they bite, it doesn't really hurt. Much.

:)
 

Smish

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I also have lots of rabbits around my house. When I get home after dark, they freeze in the beam of my headlights. And then they scatter. Fast little buggers. :D

And they are cute. But I bet it hurts if they bite.
 

Morrell

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But they do not have venom that eats your flesh. Besides, the only person I have ever heard of being attacked by a rabbit was Jimmy Carter. While canoeing. Anybody else remember that?
 

jvc

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MJ - glad mom is okay. Hope she stays that way for a very long time.
Me too. Hugs for Sheila and Mom. :Hug2:
Okay, I've got one more spider thing, too. A German fellow built a small model of a glass-walled room, filmed two spiders running around it, then projected it into the windows of the actual room, so that it looked like the room was filled with giant spiders:

http://www.geekologie.com/2012/10/warning-giant-spider-video-man-records-s.php
Why the freaking heck would anyone think that was a fun idea to do?

:gaah Evil spider lovers.
So when I was bitten by a brown recluse in 3rd grade, it swelled up on my leg. I remember we were moving our chairs around the classroom to prepare for music class. When I bumped my chair against the side of my knee, the bite burst open and a ton of blood and pus poured out. I naturally freaked out and went up to the teacher blubbering incoherently. Although I was not much of a crier, the teacher was really no-nonsense and told me to sit down. Eventually I got her to look down at my leg and she ordered me to the nurse. Even the nurse was grossed out. When my mom took me to the doctor, she cried (my mom, not the doctor) when the doctor poked around in the bite. Once it was all cleaned up, the venom had left two holes deep enough for the sharpened end of a pencil :scared:
That is nasty and scary. :scared:
But they're harmless to humans and they eat flying bugs (I hate flying bugs way more than I hate spiders. If spiders ever learn to fly... *shudders*).
:eek: That is not something I'd ever want to encounter.
I vote for discussing bunnies. Definitely.

My kids have four of them. They are very cute. And cuddly. And if they bite, it doesn't really hurt. Much.

:)
And they also make a nice stew. ;)
But they do not have venom that eats your flesh. Besides, the only person I have ever heard of being attacked by a rabbit was Jimmy Carter. While canoeing. Anybody else remember that?
No, I don't remember that. :gaah
 

sissybaby

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Oh, I actually like looking at those huge stripey garden spiders. Mine are black and yellow, I think. I don't get very close because they could maybe jump or something and I can't deal with that. But they are pretty to see from a distance.

Bunnies don't usually bite, but they sure can kick up a storm. I had bloody forearms once as a result of holding a 'cute little bunny rabbit.' At least spiders, by design, let you know you need to watch out.
 

heza

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Oh, I actually like looking at those huge stripey garden spiders. Mine are black and yellow, I think. I don't get very close because they could maybe jump or something and I can't deal with that. But they are pretty to see from a distance.

We used to get a garden spider every summer in this one corner of the house under the eave. It stayed put and it was pretty. To make us less afraid of it, Mom told us it was a "Charlotte" spider. We caught little bugs and threw them into the web to watch the spiders eat. By the end of the summer, they were big enough to handle the large grasshoppers. Freaky.

jvc said:
And they also make a nice stew. ;)

We raised rabbits for eatin' when I was a kid. My mom also tanned the skins. We were a regular frontier family. But my dad was so sensitive--and the tanning process was so gross--that we never owned rabbits again.