Santa, all I want for Christmas are spider eggs

When I got home from my week in Denver last night, the very first thing I did was rush off to the lab to check on the spiders. They were fine! Completely unperturbed by a week of neglect! They even produced egg cases for me! Well, one healthy egg case. Vera continues her habit of dumping dessicated dead eggs in ill-formed egg cases, which you may recall was something Gwyneth did before she died, too.

Oh, yeah, then we checked on the cat. She was fine, too.