In My Own Backyard . . . And Front . . . And Side, Part 2

I have squirrels, as you may have guessed. Not by choice. No. Choice is not operative here.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t write about squirrels. No doubt someone else already has. But I write because they are here. It’s not an infestation, quite, but they are plentiful. Not a day passes squirrel-less.

People keep telling me these are gray squirrels, but I think they’re fox squirrels. I went on google and took a good look at both the western gray and the western fox squirrel, and I’m voting for the fox. But gray, fox, whatever. I can feel exactly the same about either.

These squirrels that I have, they gallop across my roof several times every day, and sometimes they stop, and I can hear them fiddling with things while they're up there. I don't like it.

You’re probably thinking squirrels don’t gallop, they scamper, the cute little things, but you haven’t heard them on my roof. They might as well have hoofs; they sound like they have hoofs. (When I was young, wasn’t that supposed to be hooves?)

Anyway, their daily traipse over my roof is only one of their annoying habits. I can no longer have bird feeders, because the squirrels eat the food, even when I have used what were “certified” squirrel-proof feeders. They find a way. For instance, they actually took apart the feeder I used to have outside my writing room window. They unscrewed the thing. I had to admire that, but I didn’t, and don’t, have to like them.

So they’re smart, I’ll give them that, but I suppose all rodents are smart, and squirrels are rodents, remember.

People keep telling me they’re cute, these squirrels. I do not think so. Remember, a squirrel is a rodent, a rat with a bushy tail, and would these people who think they’re cute like rats running all over their yards? (I know. I keep repeating this squirrels are rodents part. I’m trying to make a point. The point being: squirrels are rodents.) And could squirrel droppings be good for our health? Squirrels are not choosy about where they defecate, and so on.

People say they’re harmless, these squirrels, but the squirrels in my yard have not been harmless. They have caused problems for my trees. They, the squirrels, go up there and scratch—or is it scrape or is it tear with their teeth?—at the bark and have stripped bark from several branches in my Rose Hill Ash. Bark is essential to a tree’s life and health. Squirrels are not.

They also dig in the flowers I plant. They eat the seeds or the bulbs. That is, they used to dig in the flowers I used to plant.

In My Own Backyard . . . And Front . . . And Side, Part 1

Mike Huckabee, former candidate for candidate for president of the United States—he didn’t make it, I mean, he didn’t achieve candidacy, only candidacy for the candidacy—claims he eats squirrel. Or at least he ate it in college. This he told during his 2008 campaign, that he and his roommates fried them up in their dorm room, using their popcorn popper. He did not tell the part about how they got the squirrels. To tell that might have been unwise. Shooting them out of the trees? on campus? I wonder.

Huckabee may or may not have eaten squirrel, even if he looks like someone who would. But looking like a squirrel eater was not enough. He had to come right out and say he was one so that certain folks, the folks who also eat squirrel, I guess, would believe he actually did eat squirrel. And vote for him because of it. Wow! Quite a clever campaign strategy, I must say, and look where it got him. Not that I care. I never did like him, never did trust him, always thought he was a coward, maybe even a rat.

But people do eat squirrel. It may even be a southern delicacy. No doubt some people also eat rat. What would be the difference?*

Squirrel meat is supposed to taste like chicken or rabbit. Well, no kidding. Like I’ll ever know that for myself. Might as well taste like rattle snake, which, I’ve heard, tastes like chicken. I’ve also heard chicken tastes like . . . you know, chicken.

But Wikipedia says squirrel tastes more gamey than chicken, duh, or rabbit (which we ate when I was growing up), and somebody has analyzed squirrel meat’s cholesterol content and found it to be too high for our health. By the way, when I googled squirrels, I found many sites for squirrel recipes, but I didn’t go there.

All of which leads me to ask, Where are the squirrel eaters in my town? Where are the squirrel eaters when I need them?

________________________

*A reference to the fact that squirrels are rodents, or, as I call them, rats with bushy tails.

Talk About Small Talk

What is worse than small talk? I will tell you. It's small talk from someone using that professional, I'm-a-nurse-and-I know-everything-and-besides-I'm-such-a-sweet-person voice who will not shut up while she's giving you a breast exam prior to your mammogram.

Do I look like I need that? Is it part of their training? Probably. Just SOP to distract the old women who come in for this hated annual check-up, but I must say it's a near-deadly combination. What you have to put up with is bad enough. I mean, breast exam, mammogram. Come on! Then you have to deal with small talk.

Actually, the nurse wasn't as bad as the technician who womanned the machine. I don't remember what she was saying, just stuff that was supposed to make me chuckle and feel loved, but if I hadn't looked up now and then, I would have thought Barney the purple dinosaur was running the machine. It's that fakey I'm-very-nice voice. Know what I mean? Is there someone in this world who actually appreciates that?

Funny, I heard the two of them whispering and laughing while I was getting dressed. They sounded normal. I could have used normal.

Home from Texas . . .

where it was hot, 100 degrees as we drove to the outdoor wedding. But sweat looks kind of healthy on some folks.

Here, in Boise, it is cool. And I must confess I have resurrected the white sweater Paul brought home from Korea 22 years ago, and I am wearing it at this moment as I set about to do a few chores in my house.

I vowed (I thought) to throw it away for sure this year (I've tried before) after the winter season ended. I did throw it into some kind of trash receptacle. Thrice. Truly I did. But here it is again, scarcely holding together, providing just enough cover to keep the chill away. Can't help it; I love the thing.

However, if it's still around when I die, don't bury me in it.

Speaking of Words Again

Today I was reading and came across the word stranger. It was one of those times when my brain flips a switch and makes me stop. So I stopped reading and looked at the word. I thought it interesting that if I changed the a for an o (stronger) the vowel sound would change but, more than that, so would the way we say the g.

I decided that one word, stranger, probably came from French and the other from German and came home to look it up.

Yes, strange (and stranger, of course) came to English from Old French and in the coming was aphetized. I had to look that up, too. It means that the original French word had an unaccented vowel at its beginning, in this case, e--estrange; estrangier--which was dropped. Hence strange, not estrange, when we use the word as an adjective. But English also kept estrange. It's a verb, as you know.

Now, strong. It does come to English from German and Old Norse and Middle Dutch and Middle Low German, Old Frisian, and Old High German--all Germanic languages. It appeared as strangr, strenge, strengi, etc., and is related to the word, string. When the word was strangr, which looks like strange only stranger (a little humor there), the a sounded like ah and eventually the vowel changed to o. The g was always pronounced back in the throat, as we say strong and stronger today.

Even I have to say that such a foray into a couple of words is strange--can't help it, I have to use it here. Either that or weird. But these kinds of things are among my "strong" (that was intentional) interests.

Ocean

Last week I spoke with a man, a friend of mine, who grew up in California. He talked about his dad's hour and a half commute to work, and I said they must have lived in the San Fernando Valley. Yes, he said, they did. He talked about the weather, how pleasant it always was. He said that people who never lived there told him California weather denied him knowing the seasons of the year. I have heard that claim more than once, and I say pish-tosh.

We shared a few California memories, then he said, "The thing I miss the most is . . . " and we said it together, "the ocean."

I knew it. It's what I miss.

I would guess that most people feel ownership over the place where they grew up. I do about California, about the ocean. I know it's not really mine, but I feel like it is. And if they've moved away, they go back when they can and when they can't go back, they like to remember it. I know I do.

I see my house in Santa Monica. I see the hills as Ashland Avenue ups and downs its six blocks or so to the beach. I loved the beach, the ocean. As a child, I wanted to go there much more often than I did go. As a teenager, I lived on the beach summers and drove along the coast at other seasons. Yes, we did have seasons. It was not perpetual summer. We had Spring, when everything bloomed, and Autumn, when leaves turned and fell, and even winter, but without its bitter cold and without its snow. (But, you know, if you want snow, you can always drive to where it is, even in California.)

In Santa Monica I could look from my house--from the 2^nd story deck off my sister's bedroom--and see the ocean. But other houses and poles and wires obstructed the view, and I always wanted to be closer or higher so the ocean would be all the picture.

Before we lived in Santa Monica, we would drive the few miles west to the beach, drive straight out Pico Boulevard. And each time we reached the edge of the hill above 11th Street in Santa Monica, I would call out that I could see the ocean. Even as a child I knew something of the soul healing the ocean offered.

Here, in an inland state, I have the ocean only in my mind. When I need to, like now, I can put myself in my Mom's '55 Ford and drive again up the Coast Highway. I can hear the pounding of the waves and let their steadiness comfort me. I can breathe deep and smell the sea. I can trace the lowering sun's path across the water.

But Wait, There's More

First go here

1. I believe this is Aaron's first year in band.

2. The other day, when his mom was tuning her guitar, Aaron told her (speaking of the E string), "I'm sorry, Mom, but that's an E-flat."

3. She, Michelle, says Aaron and his newly discovered ability are helpful to her when she is trying to learn a new song. Let's say she listens to it on a CD or something like, Aaron can tell her what the notes are and also the chord progressions.

Eat your hearts out. I'm eating mine.

Overheard

One
John: No won, lion. (Translation: I don't want it, Caroline.)

Two
Charlie: Dad, am I ever going to get a Bakugan?