Squirrel Fakeout
8:01 p.m. - 2010-06-27


OK, that was pretty weird. Today the spouse was trimming some branches of the neighbor's tree that overhangs our property right next to the apple tree. We are trying to discourage those blankety blank squirrels from leaping into the apple tree to have some dinner and destruction. During dinner this evening, looking out back through the french doors,I saw a squirrel leap from the apple tree to the other tree. The branch he was expecting wasn't there, so he barely caught the end of a twiggy branch and swaying violently, clawed his way to the tree. Then he just stayed in one place, limp and draped over a branch, with his head and limbs hanging down loosely. I thought he was dead and wondered what you do about a dead squirrel 10 feet off the ground but in plain view. I watched him through the binoculars, and the spouse went outside to get a better view. Suddenly the squirrel leapt up and away into the neighbor's yard. What was all that??

This evening was a little different because the spouse told me that Melissa wasn't coming over for Sunday dinner, so I washed my hair and lazed around. Then she showed up. I had to come up with dinner in no seconds flat, and did a pretty good job of it. I steamed some tamales, made a sauce by heating some Dennison's chili beans, made an arugula salad with radishes and carrots and a honey vinaigrette, and it was good, too. After dinner and squirrel watching, the spouse and Melissa went to the Safeway, bought some ice cream, and brought it back for some dessert. It was too hot to go to the D@iry Qu33n because it was 104 degrees today.

Last week I called the sewing machine shop in Nut Creek and asked if my SU was ready. No it was not, and they had no record of it in their computer, the new girl said. This riled me, for obvious reasons, since it had been in the shop 7 weeks at least and I now suspected that they had lost it. They said they would hunt around and call me right back, but they did not call for twenty minutes, so I called them. A different lady said that yes, the machine was there on the fixer man's bench, so should be ready in about 2 weeks. I pointed out to her that that is what they told me a month ago. A while later, I got a call from the fixer man himself, telling me what was wrong with the machine, then another call some hours later telling me it was fixed. Now it is home again. It pays to be a squeaking wheel.