Walking into spiderwebs

We got 11.9 cm of rain last night. It stormed all night long, the power went out, and I did not sleep well. I kept wondering, if it doesn’t not stop storming, am I still supposed to go out to the forest? What would Pablo do? What would Martin do? Luckily I didn’t have to answer that question because the rain settled to a drizzle about 6am and then stopped entirely by the time I left the Hacienda.

It took me a long time to find the monkeys; the sky was gray and heavy with clouds and there was no howling. I followed a hunch and made my way over to the trail I have decided to call “Spondias Lane.” (Why give them boring names, like A-trail, B-trail?!) Sure enough, they were there, having a lovely breakfast of Spondias mombin fruit. I got some really great juvenile data. So far, I’d only had data on adult feeding behavior of Spondias fruit, but today I’ve finally got some juvenile data to compare. I also saw some interesting behaviors. For example, a juvenile picked itself a fruit and was getting ready to eat it, when all of a sudden its mom came by, grabbed the fruit, and ate it. Hmm, I guess she’s not going to win any mother of the year awards.

At some point during the monkeys’ breakfast, I walked into a spiderweb. Now, I walk through numerous spiderwebs everyday in the forest, but this one was about eye-level and it got all over my face and left eye. I was busy watching the monkeys, so I didn’t think much of it until my left eye started burning—suspiciously like my eye episode last week. It occurred to me that maybe my eye troubles weren’t from a plant or from wearing my contacts too long—maybe it was from walking into a spiderweb. At any rate, this episode did not seem nearly as severe as last week’s. Moreover, the whole thing actually made me laugh because I started thinking of the "No Doubt" song called “Walking into a spiderweb” or something like that, and remembering how that song used to be on the radio every day Junior year when Derek gave me a ride home from school. Fond memories of the Dunlap years.

When I came home from the forest this evening, I put in some of the eye drops the doctor had given me for my last episode. The thing is, each time I get stung or bitten or whatever by something out there—the next time it happens its not nearly as bad. So this eye thing is not great, but it isn’t nearly as bad as last time. I’m going to sleep on it see how it feels in the morning. If its not cleared up, I may not go out to the forest. Afterall, I’ve got to make sure I’m good to go on Thursday—my big day out with Simeon to collect leaves. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted. Thanks for reading.