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“You’re old-fashioned and I’m going to have to bring you up to date,” my husband gently said to me about four months ago.

Fortunately, he was referring to The Suitcase Lady Blog and not the Suitcase Lady herself. He knew I was going to be shocked. I am, for the most part, always happy with what I have and where I am at the moment. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, resonates with me. So my instant reply to him was, “I like the way it looks and don’t want to change it. What’s wrong with it?”

“Can you think of anything about computers that lasts 15 years?”, he began by asking me. And then my technical guru gave me a long and patient explanation of how the Machiavellian forces in cyberspace, clouds and elsewhere that make everything function were not pleased with my blog’s archaic underpinnings. Rest assured, he told me, you can keep all the graphics and features you like.

He’s been toiling to rebuild my site in what appears to be computer hell and frustration for the last four months. Programming is diabolical. One omitted or misplaced period can destroy everything. However, he says the work has been fun, albeit challenging. You are looking at the results now, and I hope you will find it retains the best of the old and some new improvements.

Over the years, many readers have remarked on the difficulty of leaving comments on the blog. We think that problem has been resolved. And then there was a time when the archives decided to end in the middle of the alphabet, not “Z”. The archives should stay complete now from A to Z, Abandoned to Zucchini. (Handy, if you’re in need of a book). Sharing in a variety of ways should also be easy to accomplish. If you encounter any difficulties, please let us know. To my immense good fortune, my computer troubleshooter says he enjoys these challenges.

Many thanks go to my husband for this necessary update to both the blog and me. I needed to be dragged into the modern world. But I always will write every blog with pen on paper before I key it in. Some things just shouldn’t change.

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I never encountered the word “arthropod” until I was in my late twenties and visiting the Natural History Museum in Toronto with my husband and small children. The exhibition banner proclaimed “MEET THE ARTHROPODS” in huge letters. I had no idea who they were. The Canadians enlightened me.

To this day, I do not understand why we do not teach this enormous phylum of animals as a unit in our elementary schools. That would be so logical. Therefore, when I created my “Creepy, Crawly Creatures” program for children, I included all of the major groups of arthropods or “jointed foot” animals.

Since summer is ramping down and arthropod activity is ramping up, I thought a few words about these creatures would be timely. The numbers and biomass of the arthropods far exceed that of any other animal group on earth. We are surrounded by them wherever we go on land or water.

For starters, here’s what it takes to be an arthropod:

• Many pairs of jointed legs
• A hard outer shell called an exoskeleton
• A segmented, bilaterally symmetrical body

And here are the major groups:

• Crustaceans

We eat lots of these arthropods, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and prawns. Have you ever thought of a lobster as just a giant cousin to an insect? The largest animal on earth, the blue whale, consumes tons of a tiny crustacean, krill, every day.

• Centipedes and Millipedes

These guys get the prize for having the most legs. Centipedes, who have venom to catch their “meat”, have up to 177 pairs of legs. Millipedes are dedicated vegetarians who mostly live underground munching on rotten leaves. They have up to 200 pairs of legs.

• Arachnids

Spiders and their cousins including ticks, mites, scorpions and daddy long legs make up this group. Spiders with their eight legs, two body parts, fangs and venom are best known for the irrational fear they induce in many of the human species. The scientific facts are:
Spiders never chase or target people. We are not lunch. Every bite is an accident. This happens when we step on, sit on, roll over or accidentally grab one.

Of approximately 43,000 spider species worldwide, only 1/10 of 1% are a serious threat to humans

Spiders are in desperate need of public defenders.

• Insects

Instantly recognizable with their six legs and three body parts, insects are survivors. They can live anywhere, eat almost anything and make massive numbers of eggs. Is it any wonder that if we make the planet uninhabitable for us, they will still thrive?

One last thought…if you say, “bugs bug me”, consider the following beauties.

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The John Michael Kohler Art Center’s Art Preserve has recently opened in Sheboygan. It was built to store massive artist-built environments that could not remain on their original sites. The museum defines these environments as, “spaces and places that have been significantly transformed by an artist to embody and express aspects of their history, place and culture, their ideas and imagination.”

Both the stunning new building and the collections housed within are incredible. We consider ourselves lucky to have this unique and free resource so close by.

However, I feel compelled to mention another pleasurable aspect of living in the Manitowoc-Sheboygan area. Ironically, all the artist created environments are not contained within the walls of the internationally famous Art Preserve.

While taking a new route to our grocery store last week, we came across a humble home in Manitowoc worthy of being called an “artist-built environment”. We slowed down to get a better look and the owner was in her backyard. I hopped out of the car, told her how much I liked her creation and asked permission to take photos. She was totally gracious.

Her wildly imaginative assemblage is not the only home transformation in our area. I know of several other home sites where the owners’ imaginations have run wild.

These wonderful roadside attractions are never in the wealthiest parts of town. I seriously doubt if these places will ever be acquired by the Art Preserve or end up in glossy coffee table books. In fact, these homes would be zoned out of the neighborhoods of many donors to the Art Preserve. But, in my opinion, they qualify as delight-producing works of imagination.

All our homes are expressions of ourselves. My husband and I have an array of large sculptures in our yard, among them, a large bluebird holding up barbells, a running dinosaur, a speeding rabbit and a turquoise blue beastie. Before we built our house here, we checked to see if our sculpture collection could be legal residents. Happily, they were not zoned out.

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