Spiders! Ridiculous trainers! And the difficulty of being a woman!

Yesterday afternoon my daughter took her three-year-old upstairs to use the bathroom. On their return to the living room they informed me that there was a hu-u-u-u-u-u-ge spider hiding in a corner where there is a small space between one bit of skirting board and the next. Well, in fact they had only seen a couple of long legs sticking out but they assumed the rest was also there. After all, it’s the time of year when spiders brave the indoors to find a safe, warm and hopefully quite place to mate. Unfortunately for them I often catch them and throw them out. But when I looked there was no sign of spidery stuff.

This morning, however, as I headed for the bathroom I spotted something dark on the landing carpet. Spider! I tiptoed past him (after all, I did not want to frighten him off) and went in search of a receptacle to catch him in. As I popped an inverted glass over him, it struck me the he seemed very still. Sliding a card under the glass confirmed my suspicions. This was a dead spider.

How had he ended up dead in the middle of the landing? Was he the same spider from yesterday. Was there another spider crawling around somewhere?

Too many questions!

Some people like to watch TV in their pyjamas, a habit I have never got into. Now, if you tire of binge-watching your box sets in your pjs, it seems that you should buy yourself lounge pants, a lounge suit, made up of lounge leggings and a lounge top or, for the truly elegant TV watcher, a lounge dress! I just saw them advertised by M&S! How amazing!

Here is something from the Daily Mirror. Can it be serious?

“A company has answered the question of 'what would Jesus wear?' by creating a pair of $3,000 (£2,451) holy shoes. Dubbed the 'Jesus Shoes', the Nike tick emblazoned sneakers have holy water in the soles.
When they hit the shelves on Tuesday morning they sold out in a matter of minutes.
It is not clear whether early buyers were willing to fork out an average month's salary because of the shoe's 100% frankincense wool make-up or the crucifix tied on to the shoe laces.
Possibly they were drawn in by the Matthew 14:25 quote on the jesus.shoes websites suggesting wearers would be able to walk on water.”

I am amazed at the nonsense that goes on.

Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian has written about serious nonsense. She was talking about AOCDS - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Derangement Syndrome - in other words, getting obsessively angry about trivial stuff, or indeed almost anything,  the congresswoman does. In this case it was having her hair done which upset the conservative critics. The Washington Times apparently ran a story about this, headlined “Self-declared socialist AOC splurges on high-dollar hairdo.”

Arwa Mahdawi tells us:

“In actual fact, as the internet swiftly pointed out, Ocasio-Cortez’s $80 cut and $180 coloring were not actually that “high-dollar”. Women’s haircuts are incredibly expensive. Being a woman is incredibly expensive. Dunno if you’ve heard of this little thing called the “pink tax”? What’s more, spending money on a haircut is not incompatible with being a socialist.

Conservatives seem to think that if you want to tax billionaires and make the world a more equitable place you ought to live in a dirt hut and refuse to participate in modern society. Last year, for example, a reporter for the Washington Examiner tried to insinuate that AOC was a hypocrite by posting a photo of her wearing a nice jacket and coat. The subtext being that you can’t call yourself a real socialist unless you dress in rags.”

The congresswoman can defend herself and tweeted back about the amount of public money republicans spend on unnecessary travel and the like.

Arwa  Mahdawi continued:
“The to-do about AOC’s ’do isn’t just yet another example of Republican hypocrisy, however. It’s also a depressing reminder that being a woman means being forced to walk an impossible tightrope everyday. You’re criticized if you don’t look good, but you’re also criticized if you look too good. You’re either a slut or a prude. You’re told to lean in and speak up at work, but you’re called a bossy bitch if you speak up too much. Women simply can’t win when they play by the patriarchy’s rules. Which is why we need to stop playing by the patriarchy’s rules and lean all the way out”

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman!