Love is in the air

It's May and it's raining. Love is in the air and everything is breeding, about to breed, or wanting to breed. The bluejay is back on our dogwood tree, singing his lungs out, dogs are tearing off of leashes. Revolting couples are cooeing everywhere around Harvard square, not minding the grumpy rest of us, literally asking to be mowed down with a Kalashnikov...but I digress...Love is in the air. Even where the air is damp and musty.
Like in our basement. That's right. Love is in the air in our basement. It lured all the centipedes out of the dark slimy crevices. They chase each other across our boxes and spare furniture. It gives me and Kris an extra thrill, since we are moving in two weeks. We imagine what's breeding, hatching and crawling in the boxes and call friends around, trying to get them come help us move 'just a few boxes' across the street. Especially since our new addition to the creepy crawly family. Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present:

The Hacklemesh Weaver:

Yay! He's a few inches long across the diameter. Fuzzy, brown, with menacing "palpal organs" (eek!). That's how we know our friend here is a guy. Strutting his stuff, looking for some of that luurving. If he found it, we'll have spiderlings soon. They hatch in May, of course.
I found some fascinating stuff on our spider. It all screams LOVE:

"Amaurobius ferox, a half-inch-long spider (up to 2 inches with legs) common in European woodlands, practices matriphagy. Within a week after the young hatch, according to entomologists Kil-Won Kim and Andre Horel, at Universite Henri Poincare in Nancy, France, the mother spider actively solicits them to kill and devour her. For three weeks in late spring and early summer, the mother spider sits in close contact with her egg sac until eighty to a hundred spiderlings emerge. She then lays a second batch of eggs, on which the young immediately feed. Three to four days later, the spiderlings molt. The next day, the mother increases her activity, drumming with her legs, jumping around, and pressing intermittently against the clustered brood. Within half an hour, they swarm over her body and begin to feed. Mothers never attempt to escape or fend off the fatal attacks. ("Matriphagy in the spider Amaurobius ferox: an example of mother-offspring interactions," Ethology 104, 1998)"

See? That's what you get back for all that love. I'd say close your windows, lock the door. Do not pick up the phone. May is dangerous. They're all out to get you. May May be cursed to the deepest hell!