I think he has an advantage over me…..
This morning was the home stretch for teaching the week-long course I’ve been putting on at a salmon hatchery on Vancouver Island. It’s always exhausting, and that hasn’t changed. I’m an introvert by nature, and doing a four and a half day course, where I am just always “on” and talking pretty much non-stop from 8am until 4-4:30pm is daunting….but worthwhile. I had a few brain farts and mental hiccups, but who wouldn’t when fielding a topic, which is made up of about 20 different sub-topic chapters, for that long. I’m totally knackered and definitely looking forward to getting home so I can have some downtime and recharge my over-socialized battery.
But it was a great class, with great people in it, and they had lots of fabulous questions, which generated great discussion. A fair amount of discussion deviated into topics and areas that belong more in a fish culture course, but we don’t have one of those and, between I and the individual helping me, there was a lot of relevant information that we could provide and so we were happy to take some side trips down that path.
Given the always high potential for conversation after things wrap up, or before….and a ferry schedule that isn’t as well laid out for me with the lack of a 5pm ferry, my options were a 3:20 or a 6:20 boat. I hate rushing, and I REALLY hate missing a ferry, so I opted for the later boat.
In retrospect, things did go longer than usual, because we ended up starting earlier in the day than I’d intended (their decision) and then there was more discussion. But we ended pretty much right at noon, and I had the car packed in less than 30 minutes. So I chatted with the trailer operator about a population genetics topic he’d bent my ear on yesterday, but which I had to walk away from because I needed to get back to my class. Then I stopped in at the main office on my way off site, chatted a bit with a couple of staff, and then took the slow road towards Nanaimo.
I pulled over and flipped a text to my academic big brother and, on a long shot, asked if he might be free for a pint on short notice.
He was! He just had to walk the dog first, and he’d meet me at the pub close to the ferry terminal.
I tried another academic sibling, also in Nanaimo, but he messaged back that, while he’d love to join us, he was currently in Fredricton. Another time.
It was SO good to hang out with JDM and talk everything from physiology, to pets, to retirement, to former labmates….and on and on.
Eventually it was time for me to head to the ferry line so that I didn’t lose my reservation.
And dammit!
Wouldn’t you know it. The ferry was running 90 minutes late due to some complications early in the day.
So I, and my eight-legged companion exploring the car’s dashboard, waited and had a staring match until he disappeared into a vent when I wasn’t looking.
So I guess I won in the end.
If you know me at all well, then you also know I am an arachnophobe.
So how did I manage to sit in a car for an hour and a half, having a staring match with a spider? Because it was about half the size of my pinkie fingernail. In other words, unless you looked closely, you might not even realize it was a spider. Fast little bugger tho’! And really spatially aware. When some people walked by the car it spun around and kept its eyes on them. I moved and it spun back around to pin those beady little black orbs back on me.
I guess when you’re that small everything is a pretty significant threat.
When spiders are that small, they also don’t give me the same degree of heebie-jeebies.
That said….I had my phone pretty close to it and so it appeared very large on the screen…when it bolted sideways I almost threw my camera it startled me so much because, although I KNEW how small it was….it wasn’t small on the screen 🤣
Brains are funny things.
