Three years and a day. That is how long I've been keeping this journal. When I started, way back in October of 2001, I thought it would be temporary, something to fill the gap while I was busy learning computer animation and not having time to email everyone directly. The world was beginning to adjust to the "new normal" (I still hate that expression) after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. I was working at Heretic, which had, at the time, a storefront on Queen Street West. I was living with Justin in my favourite apartment on Manning Avenue (with crazy Adeleina my landlady just downstairs, "I tell you, no boys !"). Willi had been with me for under a year. Rick had been with me for a year and a half. Al and Carrie weren't married yet, my mother was still working, and I thought I was going to be a computer animator for film or games.

I still have Willi. I still have Rick. I've lost touch with Justin. We're only days from the US election. Al and Carrie have been married a year and a half. Tanya's next in line for matrimony. I'm fairly certain I'll never work in film or games and I'm MUCH happier with my life now. Happy Anniversary, Meanderings !

In other news:

I've spent forty minutes or so, earlier tonight, researching spiders with my mother. You see, it's not just at the ROM where I'm called upon to answer questions about things I know little about, it is from near family, too. Over Thanksgiving, our friend Jean (who is something of a surrogate grandma), gave me a spider she'd trapped some time earlier. Unfortunately, it had been starving in a pill bottle for a while and was quite shell shocked when she gave it to me, but the idea was that I should look at it and tell her what kind of spider it was. I, being arachnaphobic, handed it immediately to my mother and off we went with our little friend. I promised Jean that I'd either determine what it was for her (the internet is a wonderful thing) or take it to the ROM to an entymologist.

Now, there was NO WAY IN HELL that I was taking it in the car and then in on a bus to Toronto to have anyone look at it. Mom and I did some preliminary research back at our cottage that last night - she has books about everything up there - and came away with some possible species. The thing is, the book was some forty years old and most of the pictures were illustrations or black and white photos. I needed some colour happening for me. Also, not all of the illustrations showed the spiders from all angles, and that meant uncertainty. We released the poor thing the following day having, at the very least, determined that although it was a large variety of something, it was nothing to be frightened of.

A few days after having come back to the Petes, I did some internet research and narrowed my possibilities down to three, though I was leaning much more heavily to two of them. I decided it was probably some sort of orbweaver at the very least. Tonight, Mom asked me if I'd ever found out what kind of spider it was and I updated her. We came upstairs to check out some sites and my favourite one was down, http://www.whatsthatbug.com . Poop. The Internet is vast and far-reaching, but most of the links we called up came close, but no cigar. Then I had a brainwave. I have them sometimes. I recalled that a long while back, I'd had a dream about a spider and ended up looking for it on the 'net. I remembered that I'd posted a link in this very journal about it. And what do you know, but that very page provided me with an answer ! We found an a spider almost identical to the one at the cottage. It was an Araneas orb-weaver. This was one of the two possibilities I'd highlighted in my notes.

I am most proud of my Internet research skills. Really, I do rock. Good thing, too, since I have to make use of them over the following week. This reading week is NO slack week. Phew. I'll have as much work to do as if it were any other week, only no classes to get in the way.