WordPress notified me that I’m on a three-day blogging streak. Is three days a streak? It seems more like a dash or a hyphen, but today’s blog makes four days, so that comes closer to a streak.
I’m also on a streak of spending time with people, joining them for community meals (which is playing havoc with my so far unstated challenge of eating more nutritious foods), but I suppose from a health standpoint, it could be argued that an unhealthy diet with people is as bad as eating good food alone — at least that’s what recent studies seem to indicate.
I’ve taken this opportunity of being among people to poll them about the tarantula migration. The local newspaper, as well as the newspapers in the big cities on the front range of the Rockies (Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo) have all printed near hysterical articles on the vast number of tarantulas that are supposed to be roaming the area.
And yet . . .
I haven’t seen any. I overheard a fellow in the grocery store lamenting that he took his grandsons out to see tartantulas, and didn’t see any. The reporter who wrote the article for the paper went out to get a photo, and he didn’t see a tarantula, either. My neighbor saw one lone creature crossing the highway in the early morning hours.
My informal poll elicited all sorts of information about the tarantulas, where to go to look for them, where they hang out, where people have seen them, (further questioning shows that their information comes from the newspapers, what people have said over the years, and what they themselves have seen in previous years.
But except for that neighbor, no one has seen any this year, and a single sighting of a single tarantula does not make a migration. So basically, the tarantula migration seems to be another case of fake news or of an attempt to induce hysteria in an unwary public. (Though truly, since few people see the creatures or care to see them, no one gets upset by the articles as they do with harder news.)
It’s possible, since the weather is still relatively warm, that these bird-eating spiders or Theraphosids are still cozy in their burrows and not ready to face what they might consider a human migration (from their point of view, the humans out looking for them might seem like some sort of annual people migration).
I suppose the bigger question here is whether it is better to eat alone, or to eat with others and ruin everyone’s appetite with spider stories, or is it better to eat alone and keeps one’s spider-induced questions to oneself.
So what does any of this have to do with anything?
Not a darn thing.
But it’s a blog, and I am on a streak.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.
Bertram's Blog 
September 28, 2019 at 4:43 am
You go girl. Lol
September 28, 2019 at 4:43 am
You go girl. Lol You gotta love a streak
September 28, 2019 at 7:18 am
My son had a pet tarantula when he was in Grammar School. So, did his neighborhood friends. They would walk
around with them on their shoulder.
September 28, 2019 at 9:28 am
WordPress tells me I’m on a streak too. I just roll my eyes and carry on with my day. Also, maybe you could follow a tarantula hawk. You saw one of those, right? They may lead you to a tarantula. Though then it’ll paralyze the tarantula, lay its eggs in the body, and then drag it back into the burrow so that the larvae can feed on the spider in peace…
You know what, maybe I should just send you that video I told you about. Or have my sister send me pictures of her pet tarantula. She has one named “Tony.”
September 28, 2019 at 10:24 am
I know what tarantulas look like. I saw one in a zoo when I was a kid (if I remember correctly) but that is not the same thing as seeing masses of the critters in the wild.
September 28, 2019 at 10:28 am
Well, I hope you find one. And if you do, take a few pictures.
September 28, 2019 at 11:41 am
Gee, I post every day and never get kudos like this.
September 28, 2019 at 12:22 pm
I think it’s like drugs, only the opposite. If you never take recreational drugs, no one cares that you’re drug-free,, but if you once took them and then stopped, every congratulates you on being drug-free.
September 28, 2019 at 12:31 pm
I’ve been wine-free for 10 minutes.
September 28, 2019 at 12:36 pm
Wow! Congratulations! Kudos and more kudos to you! (See how it works?)