I don't ordinarily kill spiders just because they're there. Live and let live, that's my philosophy. But the one I found today on the under side of the toilet seat really needed to be put out of its misery. It had only five legs left, for one thing, and it didn't seem to be able to use them effectively. In fact, it couldn't walk at all, and it just kept stretching out its randomly distributed appendages in various incompatible directions. So I mercifully used a piece of tissue to sweep the poor thing into the swirling waters below.

I couldn't help wondering what gruesome scenario had brought the creature to such a sorry state. More importantly, how long had it been wandering around down there, in close proximity to vulnerable body parts? Long enough to lose three legs, at least.

Somehow I've reached a truce with the bugs in this house. Since I moved to Green Acres, my home has hosted a variety of species, but most of them were spiders or stinkbugs. I usually either let them be or shoo them out the door. The only exception to my fundamental nonviolence is when I uncover an earwig. Those suckers got to die. And they crawl out from under the most unlikely places.

They definitely have no business in the bathtub, and I wasn't looking for one when I picked up the shampoo bottle the other morning. That's probably why I yelped and whimpered like a frightened puppy, then scampered into the cold air on the other side of the shower door in search of something to kill it with. Live and let live, sure, unless you're an earwig. Ugh!

My silent neighbors, the modern stone age family who moved out of the place across the lot last week, are still moving out. I think the landlord, who's trying to move in there, is getting impatient with them. The guy made several trips back and forth today, blithely leaving piles of hippie memorabilia and drug paraphernalia sitting in the driveway while he took half a carload at a time in his smoke-filled van to the new commune (or whatever). It couldn't be far because he was gone so briefly each time. This picture shows one in-between stage of today's move. Note the "Berkeley in the Sixties" poster. Kind of takes me back to my dorm room at Santa Barbara in, well, the sixties. The difference being that my posters actually said "peace" on them, and meant it, in all earnestness. There's something that seems either vaguely ironic or exploitative about a poster with a peace sign and the message, "Berkeley in the Sixties."

If the reason I don't have many visitors to my new home is that the water stinks, I can now expect to entertain in style. Or anyway, I can drink water without holding my nose, because my cooler was delivered this afternoon. I'm very pleased, even if I don't have any co-workers to chat with around the water cooler. I have a portable phone, so I can chat anywhere in the house. And so I do.

In fact, as I watched Big Brother tonight, my thinking was that this would be the last time I'd ever watch it, unless people started talking about it around the water cooler. It kind of gave me the creeps to see those people giving up every stitch of their privacy. I wouldn't mind seeing what happens to them, if I didn't have to watch them. It would help if they were a little more interesting, although every human with any kind of a life has a story to tell, and I suppose as much exposure as these people will get over the next three months will make them seem interesting, at least. I haven't totally given up on this show, but I'll probably give it just one more chance to grab me. Funny, that's the same thing I said last night. But if they start eating larvae, I'm right there.