Pointless cranky of the day:

It was 30C in my apartment when I left to go to work. That's after keeping the french doors open all night. It's supposed to be 33C outside today, so obviously the apartment won't be getting any cooler.

This all makes me cranky.

It makes me even crankier that I'm leading a walk this evening. Early evening, so it'll still be stupidly hot. The people who've signed up for the walk will be cranky because they're stupidly hot, and I'll be cranky because I'm already cranky that it's stupidly hot.

Gah.

You might take it that I don't care for heat.

And if anyone out there dares to say that at least it's a dry heat, you're looking at a smack upside the head. I promise you.

Hey, there's a spider. Just a sec.







Thin-legged wolf spider. Pardosa sp. They're pretty common around here. Cool anyway. They're not web builders, and they carry their egg sacs on their spinnerets rather than depositing them. I should have a drawing of that somewhere or other on this computer.

Erm...

Where was I?

Oh, complaining about the heat. Which, of course, changes nothing.

Let's end with that sketch instead, then. Pardosa with egg sac, from a photo I took of one on my father's pond liner. Done in Wolff's carbon pencils, which have to be one of the most sensuous inventions ever when it comes to art supplies. I mean it. Those things are like Callebaut, baby.

They probably don't taste nearly as good, though.

Oh, one more thing before I end this particular blather. I thought you should know that today's pointless photo (the photo, not the sketch) wasn't exactly pointless for a change. Did everybody get it?

If not, you can always click on the picture and look at the title. You know, if you're into the whole spell-it-out-for-me thing at all.